Winona LaDuke

This morning I had the pleasure of seeing Winona LaDuke. Cal Poly invited her. She spoke to issues of sustainability, of culture and religion, and of land. Sacred places is a central aspect of Native American spirituality, and this collides with the modern American ethic of land use.

LaDuke described the dominant American cultural narrative as the frontier, of "the West," a limitless place to be conquered. This narrative is the opposite of sustainability. We must replace the frontier story if we are to survive.

She spoke of responsibility, how this is more important than rights. She acknowledged the complexities of these issues. At the same time, she argues intensely for her values and positions.

She spoke of examples, stories of struggles over sacred lands threatened with being turned into a golf course, or a coal mine. She spoke of naming places, and how "naming big mountains after little men" can frame our relationship with the land. The Arctic Wildlife Refuge is called "the place where life begins" by the people who live there. Amherst, a town in Massachusetts, is named after the British military commander, Baron Jeffrey Amherst, the first advocate of biological warfare: he ordered the distribution of smallpox-contaminated blankets to the native peoples. (Winona LaDuke went to Harvard, which is near Amherst.)

I know her from her campaign as Green Party candidate for Vice President, with the Ralph Nader for President campaigns of 1996 and 2000. I asked her if she is active as a Green. She said she is still a Green, but is active in other arenas, specific land-use issues, and renewable energy in particular. She is optimistic about those kinds of actions, and named many success stories.

PS. After her talk, I bought her new book "Recovering the Sacred - The Power of Naming and Claiming." When I asked her to sign it, she asked what my name means. (As in Spanish, it is associated with gold. "Orval" is the French spelling of "Orville" and can mean "gold town." )

+Orval Osborne

Fix Proposition 13

Preface: My letter to the Editor of the local paper, the Tribune, followed a story about a redevelopment agency that is trying to prevent the payment of property tax revenue to the school district. I have found that letters commenting on a paper's story are much likelier to be printed. For those outside of CA, our infamous "Proposition 13" was a voter initiative passed in 1978 that limited property reassessments to a 1% annual increase, unless the property is sold.

+Orval Osborne, delegate from sunny California

Fix Proposition 13

Pismo Beach should allow the school district to get its share of property tax revenue because that was the pact they made 20 years ago.

But this points out our huge sleeper issue: The tax system is dysfunctional. How should the schools, local, state and federal governments get their tax revenues? Let's begin with property tax.

Proposition 13 was a necessary step for people, individual homeowners, who were facing unaffordable property tax increases 30 years ago. But an unintended consequence of Proposition 13 has been to shift the tax burden from corporations onto the people. Properties are reassessed at the time of sale. Corporations hold onto their properties much longer than people do. People move every 5 years on average. Corporations can live forever and profit off property that has not been reappraised since 1978.

Proposition 13 was intended for homeowners, especially elderly people, and not for corporations. Therefore, Proposition 13 benefits should be restricted to homeowners. Updating business property assessments would generate more tax revenue from corporations, bring fairness to the property tax and raise much needed revenues for Pismo Beach and Lucia Mar. Let's fix this broken property tax deal.

Orval Osborne

San Luis Obispo

Step It Up 2007

I just learned about Step It Up 2007 last week when Bill McKibben was on Democracy Now. As a scientist, I am very concerned about global warming, and have been for many years. In recent years it has started to become a mainstream issue. So I was delighted to find that, not only was there a nationwide movement in Step It Up 2007, but someone else started one in my town!

Thank you, Dawn, for starting this event! The weather cooperated: 88 is unusually warm for November. The turnout of 20-30 people was better than I expected. (I brought many of them there through the Green Party network.) She got a good group of speakers, too. Christine Mulholland, SLO City Council Member (and a Green Party member) gave a wonderful talk. Rosemary Wilvert gave out Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs), a simple way to reduce your energy consumption. Lisa Quinn talked about Rideshare, our County's program matching people for carpools. Liz Apfelberg promoted both Green Party issues in general, and spoke against nuclear power, as it does generate a lot of greenhouse gases in mining and refining ore into fuel, plus decommissioning a nuke plant requires huge amounts of fossil fuel energy.

Council Member Mulholland noted the City has many good policies, but they don't implement themselves. It takes an advocate, sometimes a persistent advocate willing to push people out of their comfort zones of “this is how we always do things”(business as usual).

Her most important example, in my opinion, concerns the upcoming remodeling of City Hall. When I was on the Planning Commission, the staff's first draft update of the Conservation and Energy Element of the General Plan was totally inadequate, as if we hadn't just gone through an electricity crisis in this state. I used all my political capital to fight for much more ambitious policies. Thanks to the support of many on the Commission, in the community and on the City Council, I am proud of the resulting policies the City adopted. But, as Christine reminds, policies on the books aren't enough. So she is pushing for the building to incorporate as many energy-saving design elements as possible. (See the Architecture 2030 Challenge http://www.architecture2030.org/ below).

Christine ended her short speech with an observation that really rings true for me: she would be tempted to slump into despair over our many overwhelming problems, were it not for the contagious enthusiasm of other people touting solutions to those problems.

Later in the program, I grabbed the mike briefly to echo the importance of designing buildings for energy efficiency, which is what the Architecture 2030 Challenge is all about. * This is the most important thing we as a society can do to fight global warming. * Seventy-six percent (76%) of the energy produced by the new coal plants planned will go to operate buildings. We can now design buildings to consume HALF of the energy of the average building. Let's do it!

SLO City Council pleases

I love San Luis Obispo! While I don't expect to always agree with the City Council, or anyone, I agreed with them last night when they rejected a proposal to build a bunch of millionaire homes way up on the steep hillsides overlooking Johnson Avenue. So here's a big, sloppy kiss to all the City Council members, who voted 5-0 against the projects. Thank you!

The Council must have known there was going to be a big public turnout. They moved from the City Council chambers to the Vet's Hall. Good thing! 300 people turned out. Everyone was opposed to the project, except the landowners and the people they hired to promote it. Congratulations to Deborah Cleere, for a great job in organizing the opposition. Deborah, for you I got my butt out to the meeting.

Sure, those houses would have had killer views. But that would have come at the expense of everyone else who had to look at the roads gashing the hillsides. Plus the folks living downhill would suffer more mudslides. Fire danger was very much on the minds of the public. (As I write this, half a million people, an historic event, have been evacuated due to fires ravaging the entire coast south of here.) Neighbors recounted stories of fires they lived through, sometimes barely.

Another aspect of the City Council meeting was the small-town, personal side. Council member Paul Brown reacted angrily to threats of taking development to the County with "This is a really bad time to threaten me." His back story includes an ongoing messy divorce, replete with ugly accusations from the ex, which have been splashed across the front pages of the local newspaper.

Council member Christine Mulholland predictably blasted the project. She provided fireworks as she really spoke her mind. She recalled her history fighting past "really stupid projects." The whole time people were split between embarrassment at her harsh criticism of the people wanting to build on their property, who were present in the audience, and lustily cheering her condemnation of the evildoers.

I waited towards the end before I took my turn to speak at the meeting. When I spoke, against the project on general planning principles, I accidentally said I was on the City Council, when I was on the Planning Commission. In my attempt at recovering my narrative, I said, well, I tried for the Council (in 2004, when I started this blog.)

Council member Andrew Carter picked up on that in his comments explaining his vote, saying if I kept trying I could have got on the Council. I am grateful to Council member Carter for the kind words he spoke of my accomplishments on the Planning Commission. I will say that the people who most wanted to get elected to the City Council, did. Congratulations to Andrew Carter for persevering, and ultimately winning. In his explanation of his vote, he started with naming people in the audience who he knew through PTA or some other adult support circle for kid things. He was in his element, and he was shining.

Professor Allen Settle was true to form, running through all his reasons for voting no. He reminded us of his history, certainly including his term as Mayor. Right you are, Allen.

Mayor Dave Romero surprised me with his no vote. As a politician he had to recognize the fact that 300 people turned out, and no one spoke in favor of the project. He did admit his inclination was as an engineer who wanted to rise to an engineering challenge: how to build a really difficult project. Yes, it could be done, but the cost would be high; even he had to admit that.

So we had a great conclusion: 5-0 against a "stupid" project. Too bad the public's energies once again had to be mobilized in a defensive action. How can we mobilize people FOR something? The challenges facing us are so great. Surely we will find those moments in our future.

SLO-town Chinatown

I salute the Copelands for downsizing their planned Chinatown development. They surely knew they could get a majority vote on the City Council, but they would alienate a large portion of the community with their original, very tall plans. By revising their plans to a substantially reduced height, they have satisfied one of the major objections to their plans. This demonstrates wisdom and political acumen.

The Copelands have done a lot of good for the City of San Luis Obispo. I remember when the City had a (literal) gaping hole in its center. The Copelands stepped forward and offered a plan to fill this hole. I wish they had a greater vision then, in particular they should have gone to two stories instead of a single floor. But this is quibbling. Their contribution was fantastic.

I was on the Planning Commission when they submitted plans for the Court Street project. I wished they added housing, but I voted in support anyway. In retrospect, I would say the City should have built the parking garage on Palm Street before they demolished the parking on Court Street.

Transit Funds

Gasoline prices are higher and only going higher still in the future. When gas costs $5 and then $8 a gallon, we'll have to change our practices. California has spent trillions on car-oriented, low density suburbs. We will have to spend much to rebuild cities that allow for people to get around without a car.

One thing we can do now is use available funds for mass transit: the TDA money is routinely raided for car expenses by every jurisdiction in this county except SLO and Morro Bay. The State Transit Assistance (STA) fund can be used for either capital or operating needs. The governor is proposing to raid 1.3 billion from the STA, funding for transit operations not subject to the rigorous findings of the "unmet needs process" in which the "reasonable to meet" criteria disqualify many crying needs based on speculation that required farebox ratios will not be met.

Regional Sunday service would cease to exist if support from the STA were gone. On Route 9 we would lose 3 daily weekday round trips currently STA funded. How would drivers feel if the Cuesta Grade were shut down all day Sunday and from 5:33 pm until the next morning every day?

Summer Solstice

peak of the circle in length of day that annual cycle that gives us seasons another pattern of time wrapped in a circular rhythm
I stopped in at my friend's house to return her binder she invites me to stay for dinner her husband is a wonderful cook especially with baking bread this family is a model of the good life intentionally lived educated methodically discussed what was important made a family moved to San Luis Obispo because it ranked high on all their parameters so when I drop off her binder and he says want to stay? I stayed.
I went to Men's Group a little late last night in the Fellowship homeless volunteers said they went somewhere else I found them at my first choice Cabo San Luis next Men's Group we'll meet somewhere else no more Fellowship at 232 Foothill Boulevard i am really feeling tghe sad boodbye I have all those memories of experiences in this building its a fetish to associate the experience of community in a physical structure but thats the way we think.