The lastest word on our Job-like-patience-beaver-campaign is that the final vote may not occur until September. The mind reels, and I am enormously surprised at the delay. But I will explain to you as it was explained to me. June is apparently already full of important non-beaver decisions. July will be the first official month of our new City Manager and nobody wants to give him trial by that particular fire right away. August the council usually take off and that leaves “back to school” month for beaver decisions.
Assuming they get to it then. I can’t help but think they won’t worry about the problem until the weather reminds them there might be a problem…
The window, she is broken And the rain is coming in If someone doesn’t fix it I’ll be soaking to my skin But if I wait a day or two The rain may go away And then, who needs a window on such a sunny day? Manana! Manana! Manana is good enough for me.Of course this means the beaver vote will creep closer on the calendar to the November Elections, which I can’t imagine the city is happy about. Beavers may not vote, but I’m willing to bet that beaver supporters will!
On a lighter note, yesterday’s farmers market was a sunny meet and greet that raised 92.00 dollars for our beavers. Noteworthy moments included the young boy who wanted to donate his entire 5 dollars to help the beavers, and then when Luigi asked him to put the money in the jar again for a photo he added another one and wanted us to keep it. Another delight came when Ted and Kathy Radke stopped by to offer their continued support. Ted is a director of Ward 7 (us!) for the East Bay Regional Parks District and sent me a card of support last July. I had contacted him when I was hunting info on the web and read that he had presented one of my videos at a board meeting. As fate would have it, Kathy opened to the very page where Ted’s card was displayed, and he was more than a little surprised to recognize his handwriting. (Of course he’s in the book. Everyone’s in the book) And his support was the first “official” interest I received so it meant alot. It was great to let him see that his words mattered.
Hmm…do you think the city is keeping a scrapbook?
Some didn’t stop by the table, but just looked over their shoulder as they passed by, saying “Are you Heidi? That was a great letter in the Gazette”. Nice. In case you missed it, here it is. My hope with the letter was to redefine the terms in which “Getting rid of the beavers” was equated with “Saving money” and “Keeping the beavers” was seen as “Spending Money”. I think its a false dichotomy, and wanted to challenge in particular the notion that the city spent 71,000 dollars on “keeping the beavers.”
Not One More Dime:
At the May 7th City Council meeting, respected Martinez leader Nancy Hobert presented a petition to the city demanding that no more money be spent on “the beaver project”. It was signed by some 200 residents, many of whom were prominently connected to AAUW. Well, this particular university woman couldn’t agree more. Not one more dime should be spent trying to figure out how to move the beavers, and not a penny should be spent trying to hire hydrologists and geologists to make a case for the potential damage they might cause. No promised contract should be directed to hiring an “expert” from Sacramento to rebut work done by a three month committee the city obtained for free. No hour of staff time should be reimbursed for removing parts of the dam during the rainy season and not one jot of police salary should be paid for having a security presence at the next beaver meeting. I appreciate Ms. Hobert’s clear thinking in this matter, as it elegantly highlights where the city of Martinez has spent its alleged 71,000 dollars.
With the exception of hiring Skip Lisle to install the flow device (which, given the fact that the dam appears to wash out when we have a high storm anyway, may have actually been an expensive pacifier) the money spent from August to April was spent trying to make a case to get rid of these beavers. And I agree, Nancy:
The city shouldn’t spend one more dime.
Keep an eye out for our new kits this week! They have been filmed as far down as the secondary dam. Moses generously donated more amazing and adorable footage so look for a new video Wednesday Evening (assuming life cooperates).
Heidi. P. Perryman, Ph.D.
