Staying Tuned

It is becoming increasingly difficult for residents to keep fully informed as to what is happening in the community, and we do our best to keep up with it. I am personally delighted to discover that our readers are responding to our articles and, more often than not, provide another look at whatever the topic might be.

Such is the case with the letter last week from the applicant for the wine-processing facility in Happy Canyon. While I almost always will support the landowner with having the sense and courtesy to respect the lives of the neighbors in their plans, I am concerned that we have some issues in this case which must be clarified in order to make this project workable for the entire neighborhood. If the project were on the outskirts of the area where travel did not require the use of several windy, narrow roads, I would have nothing to say about it except to ask that sensible parameters be used.

 

What does bother me, and many of the neighbors, about this project is not the project itself, but rather the duplicity being foisted on the public by county staff and the petitioner. Contrary to claims, this project is not the lowest level the county allows. It was proposed to the applicant to apply for the lowest level and that suggestion and the proposer were rejected. I am absolutely supportive of the agricultural production that this family has done on their land and with adequate preparation even the winemaking facility would not be a problem. But to characterize the process as one of happy neighbors now is simply not the case.

 

Granted, one cannot make everyone happy all of the time; let’s be honest here about where we are. The petition that was signed by 140 people against public wine tasting in their neighborhood was instituted specifically because of the Barrack proposal and others that were sure to come in to the county. Many of us were never even notified about this project, even though we would be impacted by the type and volume of potential vehicular traffic being proposed.

It is interesting to note that, since this project began its journey through county planners, two more vineyard projects have been proposed in the same neighborhood. It would not be out of the realm of possibilities that other similar projects will be proposed for the same area. One should also be aware that many, although not all, of those who were in favor of the project are either employed by the applicant, are the applicant’s own parcels or did not realize some of the potential ramifications of the project.

 

It is also bothersome that county staff still insist that all of the roads leading to this project are more than adequate to handle anything that might be forthcoming.

Although the official report states that the road is 40 feet wide with only one turn, everybody, including staff, knows that is not true (the zoning administrator having been driven around all of the routes), yet they refuse to change their position on that issue.

Furthermore, the tier that is being applied for allows for eight “events” per year of 150 or so people, and the applicant has agreed to only four. This is very commendable, and I am sure that the neighbors are appreciating the effort to work with the neighborhood. What really remains is what parameters exist around the concept of “public,” because numerous local wineries have gotten around that issue by establishing “private” wine clubs and therefore can claim not to have anything public.

 

Additionally, the “average of 26 daily trips” being added to the neighborhood cannot be equated to household trips, as most people don’t drive large trucks every day on these roads. Only a traffic study with the potential impacts of all of the proposed projects being serviced by the same roads will show whether the roads are adequate or not.

As usual, it will take many more injuries and deaths before staff will consider it important to look at. This is why the California Environmental Quality Act was put in place, to study cumulative effects of projects so that piecemeal planning does not occur. I would suggest that this is what is happening here to the detriment of all.

 

 

Earth Day

We have made it successfully through another Earth Day celebration, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why we don’t all celebrate an earth day every day. Why would one day be more important than another? Who exactly is being affected by this annual celebration? Are we patting ourselves on the back for what we have accomplished?

Are we blaming others for not following our lead in reducing our carbon footprint, for example? Do we care to educate those who clearly don’t care as they continue to throw their trash out the window on our streets and highways? Do we try to understand just who is taking care of those vistas we all treasure so much? Or is it just a good time to gather with our friends and feel superior to everyone else?

I ask these questions not as a criticism of those who genuinely have concerns for how we treat the planet, but because I believe that the entire environmental movement (now referred to as the conservation movement) has been hijacked by clever people who have figured out how to use your tax dollars without your consent.

 

You may or may not be aware that billions, yes, billions of dollars are spent in a very secretive way by public agencies and local non-taxpaying special interest groups, all “dedicated” to spending more and more of your tax dollars on projects which you might not think are very important. Some of them clearly are ludicrous, and volumes have been written about them. What I think we all should consider carefully, however, is just how these decisions are made and who is involved in making them.

Why are we spending millions of dollars, lots of it in salaries, to send water, which is becoming scarcer every day, down a river to the ocean for fish that we don’t and can’t even identify as existing there except on an occasional wet year?

Why, on a national level, are we trying so hard to give hard-earned tax money as incentives to folks to grow more corn for ethanol when we know that (1) it’s not as efficient as gas, (2) requires fuel to produce and (3) uses more water than it’s worth? I went to a shopping center in San Luis Obispo last week and was surprised to see special parking spaces for electric cars. I had often wondered where one was supposed to “fuel up” if one had an electric car and how would one go about finding out?

 

Well, there were a number of places available at that shopping center, in the best spots — I guess to reward those who had gone for the hype about electric cars being the future of transportation — but where were all those cars? Every space was empty. Perhaps they heard about the problem with the batteries and how expensive and time-consuming it was to replace them approximately every three years. There’s also the problem of battery disposal.

Did you hear the announcement by People For Ethical Treatment of Animals, a radical environmental group, who are offering one million dollars to anyone who can create meat in a laboratory?

These are the same people who are opposed to genetically altered food, referring to it as “Franken food.” I guess they’re having a tough time convincing people to become vegetarians, which is their ultimate goal. Are we looking at the Soylent Green future here? I guess they don’t care that there are amino acids in meat that are found nowhere else, or that scientists believe that these substances are what made mankind rise up from being a “four-legged” to a “two-legged” creature.

Pretty important development, I would say, and for myself I would not be interested in going backwards. Furthermore, these people clearly have never seen “The Secret Life of Plants”, a book written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, or seen the documentary movie created in 1978 by Stevie Wonder and Walon Green.

Both are fascinating studies on whether plants can interact with other species and whether they have “feelings.”

 

The music by Stevie Wonder in the movie is delightful, and I have to admit that I no longer felt comfortable walking on grass or pouring hot water down the kitchen sink for quite a while. It is some thought provoking information if you are interested.

My point here is that our level of knowledge is so very limited about most things in the outside world that to make sweeping policy changes that are so radical as the ethanol effort, or setting aside large tracts of land to languish unattended in hopes of “saving” it, are very misguided at best.

Fads are never very useful, and when they impact mankind in such negative ways, why should we follow along like sheep? I know that our political leaders are supposed to listen to the scientific community to get guidance about which directions we need to face to solve our problems, but it has become apparent in recent years that many scientists have become more political than scientific and push agendas that are designed to get them more grants as opposed to solving world-wide problems.

 

While we have made some good changes with regard to the environment, we also have made some horrible, destructive mistakes as well.

We could do a better job if we put a lot more common sense in the mix, although that seems to be a disappearing quality in our society today.

We need to spend more of our own time looking behind the mirror to see who is really pulling the strings, don’t you think?