The article yesterday in the Sacramento Bee is an excellent overview of the public safety issues in the Parkway, though the issues predate any shortage of rangers or lack of county parks funding, as two articles from 2004, Trail of Fears and 2008, Hell's Half Acre in the Sacramento News & Review note.
An excerpt from the Bee article.
“Three years ago, before the economic meltdown, Sacramento County had 20 rangers assigned to patrol the sprawling American River Parkway and the 23-mile bicycle path that lures 5 million visitors to the area annually.
“Last week, there were eight rangers, and here is what one of them, Will Safford, encountered in just a short span Tuesday morning:
• A man in the woods near the Northgate area snapping a bullwhip at some brush.
• A paroled sex offender living in an illegal campsite near a Boy Scout camp.
• A man with a hunting bow – but no string – protruding from his backpack.
• A pregnant woman sleeping in a shopping cart being pushed down the bike trail by two men.
"This used to be a two-man unit, and you can see why," Safford said of the ranger patrol in the lower portion of the parkway. "There's a lot of characters out here. I'll leave it at that."
“The county's economic crisis and the cutbacks that have devastated its parks department have left many users of the parkway concerned about whether it is safe to fish, walk or cycle areas that are now patrolled by a skeleton staff of rangers.
"Most of the stuff we deal with is quality of life stuff," said Chief Ranger Stan Lumsden, who took over the job last month just as an arsonist was setting 15 fires in two separate sprees near River Bend Park.
“Car break-ins, vandalism or dogs running off leash are the norm, he said, "unless you get down to the last six miles of the parkway."
“There, in the area starting near Discovery Park, a growing homeless population continues to pose challenges for the rangers and the army of bicycle commuters who pass through that stretch each weekday.
"We're starting to see a lot more violent crime down there, assaults, anything you can imagine that the transient population does," Lumsden said.
“Most of the problems involve disputes among the homeless in the various illegal camps that sprout up constantly, rangers say, but there is growing unease among other trail users about the safety of the parkway as a whole.
“One cyclist was assaulted over the Labor Day weekend by someone who threw a bicycle at him. Another reported being jumped by a group of teens on the Guy West Bridge near Sacramento State in July and having his bike taken.
“Jan Cotter's husband had been riding to work regularly on the trail since 1977 until last November, when he was riding home near the Northgate area and encountered two young men on the trail who pushed him off his bike and attacked him in an apparent robbery attempt.
"He was beaten severely," Cotter said. "They pushed up his bike helmet and put a gun to his head, pistol-whipped him, kicked him in the upper torso and the head. Another cyclist came along and the guys left."
“Cotter said her 59-year-old husband, who did not want his name printed, was left with broken ribs and serious injuries and did not touch his bike for months. Even now, he will not ride the trail in the winter months, when it becomes dark early, she said.
"We initially thought this was just a family tragedy, but then as time went on, I found out about more incidents," she said. "In July of this year, someone one of our kids knew as a child was assaulted at mile 0.4 and we just decided this is not OK."
“Since then, she and other trail users have been meeting with city and county officials and sending letters to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson urging increased patrols and greater communication about incidents along the parkway.
“Sacramento police, as well as law enforcement agencies from surrounding areas, already lend a hand in responding to calls and patrolling areas along the parkway, and the county Board of Supervisors agreed last month to continue looking for ways to come up with improved funding for the parkway.
“Despite the cutbacks in staffing, rangers say there is no evidence of a widespread jump in crime overall. Last year, they recorded 24 violent crimes and 53 car burglaries, compared with seven violent crimes and 10 car burglaries so far this year, they said.
“Staffing will rise to 10 patrol rangers overall when Lumsden hires replacements for two who left for other jobs this month.
“But rangers acknowledge that some trail users report feeling intimidated by what appears to be a growing number of transients populating the lower segment of the parkway, where they have access to food from Loaves & Fishes or from church and other groups that bring food donations down to the area to dole out.”
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Natural World is Complicated
And though many of our efforts to improve it have been successful, the environmental movement’s efforts—since they accomplished cleaning up our water and air—have slowly become much more of a problem than a solution, as this article from the Sacramento Bee reveals.
An excerpt.
“It's a warm sunny day in early August and wildlife biologist Eric Forsman heads up to the Willamette National Forest in Oregon's Cascades mountains to climb trees. In this land of 200-foot Douglas firs, Forsman will hoist himself up in a harness to check the nests of red tree-voles, a staple of the northern spotted owl's diet.
“From the large tree cavities where spotted owls nest to the decaying logs where they hunt for prey, these birds depend on the lush, old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. They are among dozens of species in these ancient forests threatened with extinction, mostly as a result of habitat loss.
“But Forsman and his crew of wildlife researchers are reckoning with another threat to the spotted owl: A rival bird getting a critical claw-hold in nesting areas. The barred owl, a larger, brasher, faster-breeding transplant from the East Coast, has invaded the spotted owl's territory, which ranges from Northern California to Washington.
"If you asked me 30 or 40 years ago, I'd tell you that if we just did a good job of protecting old-growth forests, spotted owls would do just fine," Forsman says.
“Neglected for years, the northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species in 1990, after decades of clear-cut logging reduced 90 percent of its old-growth habitat. A landmark 1991 federal ruling forced cutbacks of timber harvests, and the charismatic spotted owl became an icon in a bitter fight between the logging industry and environmentalists.
“Lumber mills closed, and thousands of loggers lost jobs in the timber wars, as the Northwest Forest Plan cut harvests on federal lands by 80 percent.
“Just as the northern spotted owl seemed spared, it has faced competition from the barred owl, its closely-related cousin. As spotted owl populations have plummeted – by up to 50 percent in Washington in the last 15 years – the number of barred owls has boomed. In some places, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, barred owls may have doubled and tripled within 30 years or less.
"The barred owl is throwing a huge monkey wrench into everything – our research and our management of the forests," Forsman says.
“To tackle this threat, Robin Bown, a federal biologist with the Oregon office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is creating a plan to "remove" barred owls as part of the just-released "revised recovery plan for the northern spotted owl."
“The agency is proposing an experiment to selectively take out barred owls, by lethal and nonlethal means, to determine if this would give the spotted owl any advantage. But that's sticking in the craw of some conservationists, birding groups and animal-rights advocates because the experiment alone could mean killing hundreds, if not thousands, of these birds.
“Wildlife officials hold out the possibility of capturing and putting the birds in captivity, but admit there aren't enough zoos and refuges for them.”
An excerpt.
“It's a warm sunny day in early August and wildlife biologist Eric Forsman heads up to the Willamette National Forest in Oregon's Cascades mountains to climb trees. In this land of 200-foot Douglas firs, Forsman will hoist himself up in a harness to check the nests of red tree-voles, a staple of the northern spotted owl's diet.
“From the large tree cavities where spotted owls nest to the decaying logs where they hunt for prey, these birds depend on the lush, old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. They are among dozens of species in these ancient forests threatened with extinction, mostly as a result of habitat loss.
“But Forsman and his crew of wildlife researchers are reckoning with another threat to the spotted owl: A rival bird getting a critical claw-hold in nesting areas. The barred owl, a larger, brasher, faster-breeding transplant from the East Coast, has invaded the spotted owl's territory, which ranges from Northern California to Washington.
"If you asked me 30 or 40 years ago, I'd tell you that if we just did a good job of protecting old-growth forests, spotted owls would do just fine," Forsman says.
“Neglected for years, the northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species in 1990, after decades of clear-cut logging reduced 90 percent of its old-growth habitat. A landmark 1991 federal ruling forced cutbacks of timber harvests, and the charismatic spotted owl became an icon in a bitter fight between the logging industry and environmentalists.
“Lumber mills closed, and thousands of loggers lost jobs in the timber wars, as the Northwest Forest Plan cut harvests on federal lands by 80 percent.
“Just as the northern spotted owl seemed spared, it has faced competition from the barred owl, its closely-related cousin. As spotted owl populations have plummeted – by up to 50 percent in Washington in the last 15 years – the number of barred owls has boomed. In some places, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, barred owls may have doubled and tripled within 30 years or less.
"The barred owl is throwing a huge monkey wrench into everything – our research and our management of the forests," Forsman says.
“To tackle this threat, Robin Bown, a federal biologist with the Oregon office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is creating a plan to "remove" barred owls as part of the just-released "revised recovery plan for the northern spotted owl."
“The agency is proposing an experiment to selectively take out barred owls, by lethal and nonlethal means, to determine if this would give the spotted owl any advantage. But that's sticking in the craw of some conservationists, birding groups and animal-rights advocates because the experiment alone could mean killing hundreds, if not thousands, of these birds.
“Wildlife officials hold out the possibility of capturing and putting the birds in captivity, but admit there aren't enough zoos and refuges for them.”
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Suburban Dreams
Sacramento is a suburban region, whether from the older suburbs like the Fab Forties, Woodlake, & Oak Park to the newer like Sierra Oaks, Fair Oaks, Carmichael, Rancho Cordova, Gold River, & Citrus Heights, we are a suburban region, a large part of our desirability for families and retirees.
Living in the suburbs is at the heart of the American Dream, well documented in many books, such as Sprawl: A Compact History, by Robert Bruegmann, Don’t Call it Sprawl: Metropolitan Structures in the Twenty-First Century, by William T. Bogart, and War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life, by Wendell Cox, and, from a global perspective, The City: A Global History, by Joel Kotkin, and explored regularly on the New Geography blog.
Advocating for suburban living—suburbs surround the American River Parkway—is one of our guiding principles, noted in an August 8, 2011 Press Release.
That history essentially nullifies—by long-standing public choice on where and how to live—the position of this Sacramento Bee editorial.
An excerpt.
“Sacramento County supervisors will be at a crossroads today.
“Will they stand up for their constituents and move forward with growth guidelines that will lessen traffic and air pollution and protect taxpayers?
“Or will they kowtow to their developer benefactors and put the county on a path for more costly suburban sprawl?
“After seven years of intense debate, it's decision time on the growth management strategy that will be incorporated into the county's 2030 general plan.
“The staff recommendation is the least that supervisors should do:
• The county's urban growth boundaries would stay as is, except for adding a small area known as West of Watt.
“An early draft had called for extending the urban growth area to include 12,000 acres along Jackson Highway in the south and 8,000 acres along Grant Line Road near Rancho Cordova. Opening up that much land to development was plainly ridiculous with the housing crash, and it's to their credit that most involved recognized that.
• Developers could apply to expand the growth boundaries, but to win approval, their projects would have to follow "smart growth" criteria.
“The criteria are supposed to make sure that subdivisions and other projects can be efficiently served with infrastructure and municipal services, would balance jobs and housing and would help the county comply with state laws to lower carbon emissions (AB 32) and to encourage mass transit (SB 375).
“While it would be better to stick with the original staff recommendation that listed more detailed "smart growth" measures, county planners say the current proposed framework is a "reasonable compromise" – a "flexible but credible" approach that balances competing interests and that addresses most concerns raised by the public, environmentalists and developers.”
Living in the suburbs is at the heart of the American Dream, well documented in many books, such as Sprawl: A Compact History, by Robert Bruegmann, Don’t Call it Sprawl: Metropolitan Structures in the Twenty-First Century, by William T. Bogart, and War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life, by Wendell Cox, and, from a global perspective, The City: A Global History, by Joel Kotkin, and explored regularly on the New Geography blog.
Advocating for suburban living—suburbs surround the American River Parkway—is one of our guiding principles, noted in an August 8, 2011 Press Release.
That history essentially nullifies—by long-standing public choice on where and how to live—the position of this Sacramento Bee editorial.
An excerpt.
“Sacramento County supervisors will be at a crossroads today.
“Will they stand up for their constituents and move forward with growth guidelines that will lessen traffic and air pollution and protect taxpayers?
“Or will they kowtow to their developer benefactors and put the county on a path for more costly suburban sprawl?
“After seven years of intense debate, it's decision time on the growth management strategy that will be incorporated into the county's 2030 general plan.
“The staff recommendation is the least that supervisors should do:
• The county's urban growth boundaries would stay as is, except for adding a small area known as West of Watt.
“An early draft had called for extending the urban growth area to include 12,000 acres along Jackson Highway in the south and 8,000 acres along Grant Line Road near Rancho Cordova. Opening up that much land to development was plainly ridiculous with the housing crash, and it's to their credit that most involved recognized that.
• Developers could apply to expand the growth boundaries, but to win approval, their projects would have to follow "smart growth" criteria.
“The criteria are supposed to make sure that subdivisions and other projects can be efficiently served with infrastructure and municipal services, would balance jobs and housing and would help the county comply with state laws to lower carbon emissions (AB 32) and to encourage mass transit (SB 375).
“While it would be better to stick with the original staff recommendation that listed more detailed "smart growth" measures, county planners say the current proposed framework is a "reasonable compromise" – a "flexible but credible" approach that balances competing interests and that addresses most concerns raised by the public, environmentalists and developers.”
Monday, August 22, 2011
A Great Question!
It is asked—and answered well—in this article from American Thinker: Has Progressivism Ruined Environmental Science?.
An excerpt.
“In my thirty years of work in the science arena, as a government scientist, an industry consultant, and an academician, I have witnessed an increasingly adverse influence of progressivism on the practice of science. This influence has been especially visible in my specialty, environmental science (with a focus on air-pollution meteorology).
“From the start of the modern environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962 followed by The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich in 1968, the science of the environment became overly contentious. Certainly, diversity of opinion and positions in the scientific community is desirable and largely advantageous to the advancement of the discipline. But, what quickly developed was a progressive environmentalism that elevated nature back to the Gaian status of the ancients and established one viewpoint as dogma. Soon, conformance to this one holy vision (as opposed to the usual ad nauseam progressive mantra to "celebrate diversity") became the mandate. Anyone opposed the lofty goal imposed by progressive theology of protecting the Earth, at nearly any cost, was increasingly targeted in very unscientific ways with ad hominem attacks, public ridicule, eventual limitation of government funding, and even eco-terrorism.
“In addition, regardless of the extreme actions taken by progressives to defend their sacred environmental tenets, media outlets and the scientific community were rather tolerant.
“Climate-science practice is surely a good example of the current progressive-influenced "consensus" toward challengers of the humans-are-heating-the-planet storyline. And, the "Climategate" tempest is a specific instance.
“Normally, much ado would have been made by the mainstream media and mainstream science with the release of the Climategate e-mails. Instead, both seemed to work overtime to minimize the damage from those exposed files. The mainstream media often seemed to downplay the importance of the e-mail content and referred to the files as "stolen," implying that the leaker was a criminal. Indeed, the act may have been criminal; however, such indictment is typically not the tack taken by the same news organizations when damaging information is similarly aired which targets business or industry concerns or conservative leaders. In those cases, these "whistleblowers" are portrayed in a somewhat more heroic fashion -- even applauded for doing society a favor.”
An excerpt.
“In my thirty years of work in the science arena, as a government scientist, an industry consultant, and an academician, I have witnessed an increasingly adverse influence of progressivism on the practice of science. This influence has been especially visible in my specialty, environmental science (with a focus on air-pollution meteorology).
“From the start of the modern environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962 followed by The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich in 1968, the science of the environment became overly contentious. Certainly, diversity of opinion and positions in the scientific community is desirable and largely advantageous to the advancement of the discipline. But, what quickly developed was a progressive environmentalism that elevated nature back to the Gaian status of the ancients and established one viewpoint as dogma. Soon, conformance to this one holy vision (as opposed to the usual ad nauseam progressive mantra to "celebrate diversity") became the mandate. Anyone opposed the lofty goal imposed by progressive theology of protecting the Earth, at nearly any cost, was increasingly targeted in very unscientific ways with ad hominem attacks, public ridicule, eventual limitation of government funding, and even eco-terrorism.
“In addition, regardless of the extreme actions taken by progressives to defend their sacred environmental tenets, media outlets and the scientific community were rather tolerant.
“Climate-science practice is surely a good example of the current progressive-influenced "consensus" toward challengers of the humans-are-heating-the-planet storyline. And, the "Climategate" tempest is a specific instance.
“Normally, much ado would have been made by the mainstream media and mainstream science with the release of the Climategate e-mails. Instead, both seemed to work overtime to minimize the damage from those exposed files. The mainstream media often seemed to downplay the importance of the e-mail content and referred to the files as "stolen," implying that the leaker was a criminal. Indeed, the act may have been criminal; however, such indictment is typically not the tack taken by the same news organizations when damaging information is similarly aired which targets business or industry concerns or conservative leaders. In those cases, these "whistleblowers" are portrayed in a somewhat more heroic fashion -- even applauded for doing society a favor.”
Friday, August 19, 2011
Sky Is Falling, Not!
In a reminder that technological innovation has grown to match increasing population, versus the claim that increasing population is destroying civilization, note this article from the Los Angeles Times.
An excerpt.
“Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich write, "Unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial."
“We are in denial for a reason. For more than 40 years, climaxing around the first Earth Day, the public has been bombarded with apocalyptic tales of disaster regarding population growth. Paul Ehrlich, for example, a Stanford professor, prominent prophet of population doom and contributor to this op-ed article, predicted in his 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb" that millions of people would die of starvation during the 1970s because the Earth's inhabitants would multiply at a faster rate than the world's ability to supply food. Six years later, in "The End of Affluence," a book he co-authored with his wife, Anne Ehrlich, the death toll estimates increased to a billion dying from starvation by the mid-1980s. By 1985, Ehrlich predicted, the world would enter a genuine era of scarcity.
“Paul Ehrlich's predicted famines never materialized. While too many people remain hungry, agricultural advances have fought off massive famines. Even as the world's population doubled, per-capita food consumption in poor countries increased from 1,932 calories a day in 1961 to 2,650 in 1998, and malnutrition in those countries fell from 45% of the population in 1949 to about 18%. Furthermore, fertility rates dropped from about five children per woman in the 1960s to about 2.5 today.
“The authors also write that "the effects of overpopulation play a part in practically every daily report of mass human calamity." Floods, for example, "inundate more homes as populations expand into floodplains. Such extreme events are stoked by climate change, fueled by increasing carbon emissions from an expanding global population."
“These modern day predictions are in stark contrast to claims of the same vein from the 1970s. In a popular 1970 speech at Swarthmore College, for example, well-known ecologist Kenneth Watt said, "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
“Time has not been gentle with such prophecies. Four decades later, the world hasn't come to an end. Most measures of human welfare show the Earth's population is better off today than at any other time in human history. Life expectancy is increasing, per-capita income is rising, and the air we breathe and the water we drink are cleaner. And concerns about climate change have shifted from cooling to warming since the 1970s.
“Given past trends, we are right to deny doom and gloom claims such as this one in Harte and Ehrlich’s op-ed article: "Perpetual growth is the creed of a cancer cell, not a sustainable human society."
“New ideas and technologies proliferate at a much faster rate than population. They depend on individuals who are free to pursue their own interests and innovate with few constraints. As Stanford economist Paul Romer put it, "Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do not add up; they multiply."
An excerpt.
“Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich write, "Unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial."
“We are in denial for a reason. For more than 40 years, climaxing around the first Earth Day, the public has been bombarded with apocalyptic tales of disaster regarding population growth. Paul Ehrlich, for example, a Stanford professor, prominent prophet of population doom and contributor to this op-ed article, predicted in his 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb" that millions of people would die of starvation during the 1970s because the Earth's inhabitants would multiply at a faster rate than the world's ability to supply food. Six years later, in "The End of Affluence," a book he co-authored with his wife, Anne Ehrlich, the death toll estimates increased to a billion dying from starvation by the mid-1980s. By 1985, Ehrlich predicted, the world would enter a genuine era of scarcity.
“Paul Ehrlich's predicted famines never materialized. While too many people remain hungry, agricultural advances have fought off massive famines. Even as the world's population doubled, per-capita food consumption in poor countries increased from 1,932 calories a day in 1961 to 2,650 in 1998, and malnutrition in those countries fell from 45% of the population in 1949 to about 18%. Furthermore, fertility rates dropped from about five children per woman in the 1960s to about 2.5 today.
“The authors also write that "the effects of overpopulation play a part in practically every daily report of mass human calamity." Floods, for example, "inundate more homes as populations expand into floodplains. Such extreme events are stoked by climate change, fueled by increasing carbon emissions from an expanding global population."
“These modern day predictions are in stark contrast to claims of the same vein from the 1970s. In a popular 1970 speech at Swarthmore College, for example, well-known ecologist Kenneth Watt said, "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
“Time has not been gentle with such prophecies. Four decades later, the world hasn't come to an end. Most measures of human welfare show the Earth's population is better off today than at any other time in human history. Life expectancy is increasing, per-capita income is rising, and the air we breathe and the water we drink are cleaner. And concerns about climate change have shifted from cooling to warming since the 1970s.
“Given past trends, we are right to deny doom and gloom claims such as this one in Harte and Ehrlich’s op-ed article: "Perpetual growth is the creed of a cancer cell, not a sustainable human society."
“New ideas and technologies proliferate at a much faster rate than population. They depend on individuals who are free to pursue their own interests and innovate with few constraints. As Stanford economist Paul Romer put it, "Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do not add up; they multiply."
Monday, August 08, 2011
ARPPS PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
August 8, 2011
Sacramento, California
AMERICAN RIVER PARKWAY PRESERVATION SOCIETY (ARPPS)
If you are living in suburban California, you are part of the Dream, the California Dream.
A central part of the birthing vision of the American Dream was the California Dream and all that America promised, as Kevin Starr notes: “In a very real sense, the California dream was the American dream undergoing one of its most significant variations.” Americans and the California Dream 1850-1915. (1973). New York: Oxford University Press. (p.443)
The American River Parkway is surrounded by suburbs, which is appropriate being that a central axis of the California Dream is suburban single home ownership, and the American River running through it was where gold was first discovered, leading to one of the greatest migrations in history.
The suburban single home ownership aspect of the California Dream is under attack, as Joel Kotkin notes in a recent article, California Wages War on Single Home Ownership: “In California, the assault on the house has gained official sanction. Once the heartland of the American dream, the Golden State has begun implementing new planning laws designed to combat global warming. These draconian measures could lead to a ban on the construction of private residences, particularly on the suburban fringe.”
To help protect that vision, which we all hope to sustain, we have defined a sixth critical issue, shaped our approach, and formulated our sixth guiding principle.
Critical Issue #6) Continuing encasement of open space, restricting suburban community development upon which a sustainable tax base funding necessary public works is built, is contrary to sound future planning.
Our Approach: Suburban communities are where the overwhelming majority of American families wish to live, and the opportunity in our region for those communities to be built for the families who hope to live in them, is a shared supportive responsibility for those of us who presently enjoy our life in the suburbs and for those who hope to enjoy the suburban family lifestyle in the future.
Our Guiding Principle: The suburban lifestyle—as surrounds the American River Parkway—which is imbued within the aspirational center of the California Dream and whose vision is woven into the heart of the American Dream, is a deeply loved way of life whose sustainability we all desire.
Organizational Leadership
American River Parkway Preservation Society
Sacramento, California
August 8, 2011
Contact Information
David H. Lukenbill, Senior Policy Director
American River Parkway Preservation Society
2267 University Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95825
P: 916-486-3856 E: Dlukenbill@man.com
W: www.arpps.org B: www.parkwayblog.blogspot.com
August 8, 2011
Sacramento, California
AMERICAN RIVER PARKWAY PRESERVATION SOCIETY (ARPPS)
If you are living in suburban California, you are part of the Dream, the California Dream.
A central part of the birthing vision of the American Dream was the California Dream and all that America promised, as Kevin Starr notes: “In a very real sense, the California dream was the American dream undergoing one of its most significant variations.” Americans and the California Dream 1850-1915. (1973). New York: Oxford University Press. (p.443)
The American River Parkway is surrounded by suburbs, which is appropriate being that a central axis of the California Dream is suburban single home ownership, and the American River running through it was where gold was first discovered, leading to one of the greatest migrations in history.
The suburban single home ownership aspect of the California Dream is under attack, as Joel Kotkin notes in a recent article, California Wages War on Single Home Ownership: “In California, the assault on the house has gained official sanction. Once the heartland of the American dream, the Golden State has begun implementing new planning laws designed to combat global warming. These draconian measures could lead to a ban on the construction of private residences, particularly on the suburban fringe.”
To help protect that vision, which we all hope to sustain, we have defined a sixth critical issue, shaped our approach, and formulated our sixth guiding principle.
Critical Issue #6) Continuing encasement of open space, restricting suburban community development upon which a sustainable tax base funding necessary public works is built, is contrary to sound future planning.
Our Approach: Suburban communities are where the overwhelming majority of American families wish to live, and the opportunity in our region for those communities to be built for the families who hope to live in them, is a shared supportive responsibility for those of us who presently enjoy our life in the suburbs and for those who hope to enjoy the suburban family lifestyle in the future.
Our Guiding Principle: The suburban lifestyle—as surrounds the American River Parkway—which is imbued within the aspirational center of the California Dream and whose vision is woven into the heart of the American Dream, is a deeply loved way of life whose sustainability we all desire.
Organizational Leadership
American River Parkway Preservation Society
Sacramento, California
August 8, 2011
Contact Information
David H. Lukenbill, Senior Policy Director
American River Parkway Preservation Society
2267 University Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95825
P: 916-486-3856 E: Dlukenbill@man.com
W: www.arpps.org B: www.parkwayblog.blogspot.com
Friday, July 29, 2011
Suburbs Rule
Urbanists continue to tout the narrative that the suburbs are dying, while reality continues to intrude, as this article from New Geography reports.
An excerpt.
“For well over a decade urban boosters have heralded the shift among young Americans from suburban living and toward dense cities. As one Wall Street Journal report suggests, young people will abandon their parents’ McMansions for urban settings, bringing about the high-density city revival so fervently prayed for by urban developers, architects and planners.
“Some demographers claim that “white flight” from the city is declining, replaced by a “bright flight” to the urban core from the suburbs. “Suburbs lose young whites to cities,” crowed one Associated Press headline last year.
“Yet evidence from the last Census show the opposite: a marked acceleration of movement not into cities but toward suburban and exurban locations. The simple, usually inexorable effects of maturation may be one reason for this surprising result. Simply put, when 20-somethings get older, they do things like marry, start businesses, settle down and maybe start having kids.
“An analysis of the past decade’s Census data by demographer Wendell Cox shows this. Cox looked at where 25- to 34-year-olds were living in 2000 and compared this to where they were living by 2010, now aged 35 to 44. The results were surprising: In the past 10 years, this cohort’s presence grew 12% in suburban areas while dropping 22.7% in the core cities. Overall, this demographic expanded by roughly 1.8 million in the suburbs while losing 1.3 million in the core cities.
“In many ways this group may be more influential than the much ballyhooed 20-something. Unlike younger adults, who are often footloose and unattached, people between the ages of 35 and 44 tend to be putting down roots. As a result, they constitute the essential social ballast for any community, city or suburb.
“Losing this population represents a great, if rarely perceived, threat to many regions, particular older core cities. Rust Belt centers such as Cleveland and Detroit have lost over 30% of this age group over the decade.
“More intriguing, and perhaps counter-intuitive, “hip and cool” core cities like San Francisco, New York and Boston have also suffered double-digit percent losses among this generation. New York City, for example, saw its 25 to 34 population of 2000 drop by over 15% — a net loss of over 200,000 people — a decade later. San Francisco and Oakland, the core cities of the Bay Area, lost more than 20% of this cohort over the decade, and the city of Boston lost nearly 40%.”
An excerpt.
“For well over a decade urban boosters have heralded the shift among young Americans from suburban living and toward dense cities. As one Wall Street Journal report suggests, young people will abandon their parents’ McMansions for urban settings, bringing about the high-density city revival so fervently prayed for by urban developers, architects and planners.
“Some demographers claim that “white flight” from the city is declining, replaced by a “bright flight” to the urban core from the suburbs. “Suburbs lose young whites to cities,” crowed one Associated Press headline last year.
“Yet evidence from the last Census show the opposite: a marked acceleration of movement not into cities but toward suburban and exurban locations. The simple, usually inexorable effects of maturation may be one reason for this surprising result. Simply put, when 20-somethings get older, they do things like marry, start businesses, settle down and maybe start having kids.
“An analysis of the past decade’s Census data by demographer Wendell Cox shows this. Cox looked at where 25- to 34-year-olds were living in 2000 and compared this to where they were living by 2010, now aged 35 to 44. The results were surprising: In the past 10 years, this cohort’s presence grew 12% in suburban areas while dropping 22.7% in the core cities. Overall, this demographic expanded by roughly 1.8 million in the suburbs while losing 1.3 million in the core cities.
“In many ways this group may be more influential than the much ballyhooed 20-something. Unlike younger adults, who are often footloose and unattached, people between the ages of 35 and 44 tend to be putting down roots. As a result, they constitute the essential social ballast for any community, city or suburb.
“Losing this population represents a great, if rarely perceived, threat to many regions, particular older core cities. Rust Belt centers such as Cleveland and Detroit have lost over 30% of this age group over the decade.
“More intriguing, and perhaps counter-intuitive, “hip and cool” core cities like San Francisco, New York and Boston have also suffered double-digit percent losses among this generation. New York City, for example, saw its 25 to 34 population of 2000 drop by over 15% — a net loss of over 200,000 people — a decade later. San Francisco and Oakland, the core cities of the Bay Area, lost more than 20% of this cohort over the decade, and the city of Boston lost nearly 40%.”
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Sacramento Flooding
Sacramento is easily the most flood prone major river city in the country, but, had the initial plans to build Shasta Dam to its originally engineered height (as reported by the Los Angeles Times) and build Auburn Dam (which Congressman McClintock supports) that would no longer be the case, and the inevitability of major floods in the Valley would have been substantially reduced.
A recent article in the Sacramento Bee failed to note those two important facts.
An excerpt from the Los Angeles Times article.
“Raising Shasta Dam has been under on-again, off-again consideration for at least two decades. Some of the most detailed studies date back to the 1980s, when Don Hodel, who served as energy secretary and then Interior secretary under President Reagan, proposed the project as an alternative source of water for San Francisco if Hetch Hetchy Dam in Yosemite National Park were knocked down.
“From an engineering standpoint, it's a piece of cake. The dam, built between 1938 and 1945, was originally planned to be 200 feet taller. At 800 feet, it would have been the highest and biggest in the world.
“Sheri Harral, public affairs officer at the dam, said World War II and materials shortages associated with the war effort led to a decision to stop construction at 602 feet.
"The thinking was to come back and add on to it if ever there was a need to," Harral said. "They started looking at raising it in 1978."
“If Shasta Dam had been built up to its engineering limit in 1945, it is arguable that Northern and Central California would not be facing a critical water shortage now.
“According to a 1999 Bureau of Reclamation study, a dam 200 feet taller would be able to triple storage to 13.89 million acre-feet of water.
“Still, tripling the size of Shasta Lake, on paper at least, would store nine times the projected 2020 water deficit for the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Tulare Lake basins during normal water years.”
A recent article in the Sacramento Bee failed to note those two important facts.
An excerpt from the Los Angeles Times article.
“Raising Shasta Dam has been under on-again, off-again consideration for at least two decades. Some of the most detailed studies date back to the 1980s, when Don Hodel, who served as energy secretary and then Interior secretary under President Reagan, proposed the project as an alternative source of water for San Francisco if Hetch Hetchy Dam in Yosemite National Park were knocked down.
“From an engineering standpoint, it's a piece of cake. The dam, built between 1938 and 1945, was originally planned to be 200 feet taller. At 800 feet, it would have been the highest and biggest in the world.
“Sheri Harral, public affairs officer at the dam, said World War II and materials shortages associated with the war effort led to a decision to stop construction at 602 feet.
"The thinking was to come back and add on to it if ever there was a need to," Harral said. "They started looking at raising it in 1978."
“If Shasta Dam had been built up to its engineering limit in 1945, it is arguable that Northern and Central California would not be facing a critical water shortage now.
“According to a 1999 Bureau of Reclamation study, a dam 200 feet taller would be able to triple storage to 13.89 million acre-feet of water.
“Still, tripling the size of Shasta Lake, on paper at least, would store nine times the projected 2020 water deficit for the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Tulare Lake basins during normal water years.”
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Government Funding & Pension Fund Returns
Following up on yesterday’s post, a large part of the lack of government funding—especially at the local level—is the unrealistic rate of return on pension fund investments used to calculate set asides, as this article from the Sacramento Bee explains.
What leaps out as a solution, is legislation, limiting projected investment returns on pension funds to the historical rate of return (fourth graph down at the jump) which, from 1950-2009 is about 7%.
An excerpt from the Bee article.
“Recently I wrote that culpability for rising pension costs lies with pension fund officials and politicians, not public employees or Wall Street. That conclusion surprised some because conventional wisdom is that pension problems started only after pensions were increased and the stock market crashed in 2008.
“But pension costs started rising before 2008 and would have risen even without those increases.
“Here's why.
“For pensions to work right, enough money must be set aside when the promises are made so that the combination of those set-asides and investment earnings on those set-asides will yield enough money when the promises come due. The key is to set aside enough. If too little is set aside, there will be make-up payments.
“Establishing the level of set-asides is the responsibility of pension funds and politicians and is a function of how well they expect investments to perform over the extremely long period between promise and payment. The higher the expected return, the lower the set-aside. This is where the pension problem is created.
“In order to keep set-asides artificially low in the short term, pension funds have been basing set-asides on the assumption that equity markets in the 21st century will grow 40 percent faster than equity markets grew in the 20th century. That means pension funds are assuming that the stock market, which grew 175 times in a very successful 20th century, will grow more than 1,750 times in the 21st century, or 10 times as much. That's not a typo – that's the power of compounding.”
What leaps out as a solution, is legislation, limiting projected investment returns on pension funds to the historical rate of return (fourth graph down at the jump) which, from 1950-2009 is about 7%.
An excerpt from the Bee article.
“Recently I wrote that culpability for rising pension costs lies with pension fund officials and politicians, not public employees or Wall Street. That conclusion surprised some because conventional wisdom is that pension problems started only after pensions were increased and the stock market crashed in 2008.
“But pension costs started rising before 2008 and would have risen even without those increases.
“Here's why.
“For pensions to work right, enough money must be set aside when the promises are made so that the combination of those set-asides and investment earnings on those set-asides will yield enough money when the promises come due. The key is to set aside enough. If too little is set aside, there will be make-up payments.
“Establishing the level of set-asides is the responsibility of pension funds and politicians and is a function of how well they expect investments to perform over the extremely long period between promise and payment. The higher the expected return, the lower the set-aside. This is where the pension problem is created.
“In order to keep set-asides artificially low in the short term, pension funds have been basing set-asides on the assumption that equity markets in the 21st century will grow 40 percent faster than equity markets grew in the 20th century. That means pension funds are assuming that the stock market, which grew 175 times in a very successful 20th century, will grow more than 1,750 times in the 21st century, or 10 times as much. That's not a typo – that's the power of compounding.”
Thursday, June 09, 2011
California Competitive
Great article in the Wall Street Journal’s book review about the methods to increase competitiveness—and the economy—in California and America.
An excerpt.
“The prophets of American decline are on the march in numbers not seen since the days of Jimmy Carter and stagflation. Who knows, maybe this time they'll be right—a sclerotic political system, enterprise-stifling regulations, a foolish tax structure and shortsighted public policy may finally send the U.S. economy into the permanent tailspin long predicted by experts with a grim turn of mind.
“Henry Nothhaft is not one of these professional declinists. His first-hand experience with the way America does business nowadays has prompted him to raise an alarm with "Great Again"—and to propose several ways to restore American dynamism and creative vigor.
“Mr. Nothhart, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is the CEO of the technology-miniaturization company Tessera, chronicles how difficult it has become, particularly in California, to start capital-intensive enterprises. Excessive regulation and Washington policies, he argues, undermine initial public offerings and discourage the launch of businesses that provide jobs and drive productivity.
“Another disincentive to start a business in the United States: corporate taxes. As Mr. Nothhaft notes: "America now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world," with the exception of Japan—and if state taxes are figured in, we beat the Japanese too. The federal 39.2% corporate rate is higher by half than the 25.2% average among the nations, most of them European, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“Mr. Nothhaft profiles Conrad Burke, a 44-year-old, Irish-born physicist and technology entrepreneur who heads Innovalight, a Silicon Valley company that has succeeded in producing liquid silicon semiconductor material, which may prove vital to the solar-power industry. "It's probably harder for a start-up to raise money than it's ever been." Mr. Burke says. "Especially for any sort of manufacturing. Yes, Silicon Valley is still innovating. But it's mostly the Twitters and Diggs and other software start-ups that don't need much capital."
]
“Money for companies that require capital to produce tangible products is much harder to come by. Why? Mr. Burke recites the environmental, safety and other bureaucratic regulations that raise costs and slow creative ferment. He also highlights the tax burden beyond the corporate rates. When his company paid $10 million for German manufacturing equipment, California levied a "use" tax—Innovalight was using equipment purchased outside the state—of nearly a million dollars. "That's not a tax on our income," Mr. Burke says, "it's a tax on growing our business."
“It might be tempting to dismiss these gripes as the usual complaints of the business class, but consider the consequences of such a tax and regulatory environment. Venture capitalist David Ladd's bluntness is startling: "We would not fund a company that was building hardware or semiconductors, nor any of the tough physical sciences," he tells Mr. Nothhaft. "We'll invest in China instead and let them do it."
An excerpt.
“The prophets of American decline are on the march in numbers not seen since the days of Jimmy Carter and stagflation. Who knows, maybe this time they'll be right—a sclerotic political system, enterprise-stifling regulations, a foolish tax structure and shortsighted public policy may finally send the U.S. economy into the permanent tailspin long predicted by experts with a grim turn of mind.
“Henry Nothhaft is not one of these professional declinists. His first-hand experience with the way America does business nowadays has prompted him to raise an alarm with "Great Again"—and to propose several ways to restore American dynamism and creative vigor.
“Mr. Nothhart, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is the CEO of the technology-miniaturization company Tessera, chronicles how difficult it has become, particularly in California, to start capital-intensive enterprises. Excessive regulation and Washington policies, he argues, undermine initial public offerings and discourage the launch of businesses that provide jobs and drive productivity.
“Another disincentive to start a business in the United States: corporate taxes. As Mr. Nothhaft notes: "America now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world," with the exception of Japan—and if state taxes are figured in, we beat the Japanese too. The federal 39.2% corporate rate is higher by half than the 25.2% average among the nations, most of them European, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“Mr. Nothhaft profiles Conrad Burke, a 44-year-old, Irish-born physicist and technology entrepreneur who heads Innovalight, a Silicon Valley company that has succeeded in producing liquid silicon semiconductor material, which may prove vital to the solar-power industry. "It's probably harder for a start-up to raise money than it's ever been." Mr. Burke says. "Especially for any sort of manufacturing. Yes, Silicon Valley is still innovating. But it's mostly the Twitters and Diggs and other software start-ups that don't need much capital."
]
“Money for companies that require capital to produce tangible products is much harder to come by. Why? Mr. Burke recites the environmental, safety and other bureaucratic regulations that raise costs and slow creative ferment. He also highlights the tax burden beyond the corporate rates. When his company paid $10 million for German manufacturing equipment, California levied a "use" tax—Innovalight was using equipment purchased outside the state—of nearly a million dollars. "That's not a tax on our income," Mr. Burke says, "it's a tax on growing our business."
“It might be tempting to dismiss these gripes as the usual complaints of the business class, but consider the consequences of such a tax and regulatory environment. Venture capitalist David Ladd's bluntness is startling: "We would not fund a company that was building hardware or semiconductors, nor any of the tough physical sciences," he tells Mr. Nothhaft. "We'll invest in China instead and let them do it."
Monday, May 23, 2011
K Street Drama, Act ???
Well, here we go again, the latest in K Street Dream On’s are reported in the Sacramento Press, and everyone who has followed this issue over the past several years, knows that the inability of the city to provide basic public safety/order in the downtown area, lies at the heart of the continued failure to reawaken K Street.
That being said, we hope that this latest effort is joined with a vigorous public safety/order component, and leads to eventual success.
An excerpt.
“Redevelopment projects for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street cleared a final hurdle on their way to the Sacramento City Council when the city's Preservation Commission approved both Thursday night.
“The commission called a special meeting to consider the final major design components after both projects were approved by the Planning Commission last week. A City Council vote of approval, which will be set for sometime in June, would mean groundbreaking could finally begin on two key blocks of K Street Mall that have long been eyesores.
“The projects will add 337 mixed-income apartments in the downtown core, rehab the landmark Bel-Vue Apartments and restore all but one of the building façades on the south side of the 700 block of K Street. The projects were both approved unanimously by the five commissioners present.
“Activists in the city's preservation and housing communities have worked long and hard for housing and historic preservation there. The community raised an outcry over a previous project that proposed tearing down the Bel-Vue, recalled Preservation Commission Chair Karen Jacques.
"Finally, we are going to see some really nice development on both the 700 and the 800 blocks of K Street. That's a huge boost for this city," she said. "Those two blocks have been a disaster for so long. With these projects, the historic buildings are getting saved."
“The special meeting was held Thursday, rather than waiting for the commission's next scheduled meeting in June, to get the projects to the council as soon as possible. The projects may qualify for redevelopment funding that is at risk of being lost if Gov. Jerry Brown abolishes redevelopment agencies to help solve the state's budget woes.
“No one is certain when that might happen. Some officials and developers fear it could be as soon as June 30.”
That being said, we hope that this latest effort is joined with a vigorous public safety/order component, and leads to eventual success.
An excerpt.
“Redevelopment projects for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street cleared a final hurdle on their way to the Sacramento City Council when the city's Preservation Commission approved both Thursday night.
“The commission called a special meeting to consider the final major design components after both projects were approved by the Planning Commission last week. A City Council vote of approval, which will be set for sometime in June, would mean groundbreaking could finally begin on two key blocks of K Street Mall that have long been eyesores.
“The projects will add 337 mixed-income apartments in the downtown core, rehab the landmark Bel-Vue Apartments and restore all but one of the building façades on the south side of the 700 block of K Street. The projects were both approved unanimously by the five commissioners present.
“Activists in the city's preservation and housing communities have worked long and hard for housing and historic preservation there. The community raised an outcry over a previous project that proposed tearing down the Bel-Vue, recalled Preservation Commission Chair Karen Jacques.
"Finally, we are going to see some really nice development on both the 700 and the 800 blocks of K Street. That's a huge boost for this city," she said. "Those two blocks have been a disaster for so long. With these projects, the historic buildings are getting saved."
“The special meeting was held Thursday, rather than waiting for the commission's next scheduled meeting in June, to get the projects to the council as soon as possible. The projects may qualify for redevelopment funding that is at risk of being lost if Gov. Jerry Brown abolishes redevelopment agencies to help solve the state's budget woes.
“No one is certain when that might happen. Some officials and developers fear it could be as soon as June 30.”
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Auburn Dam, Correcting the Misinformation
Which is exactly what this superb letter in the Chico News & Review does.
In its entirety.
“Safe flood protection
“Re “Too dammed expensive” (Editorial, April 14):
“Your editorial contends a water-storage Auburn Dam would cost too much and sit astride an earthquake fault. Neither contention is accurate.
“In 1988 the Bureau of Reclamation asked the Army Corps of Engineers to design a flood-control Auburn Dam. All involved agreed flood protection was more important than water storage.
“Sacramento’s flood protection is aimed at the 200-year storm, lower than any major city in the United States. All involved agree the best protection would be a flood-control dam providing 500-year protection. Protected would be more than 250,000 people and billions in real and personal property. The dam could also provide water and clean electric power.
“Contention the dam is unsafe due to a fault is refuted by state and federal officials. Established were worst-case conditions in the dam’s new design. The bureau’s report, “Seismic Safety and Auburn Dam,” points out fault and seismic studies involved the bureau, the U.S. Geological Survey, and internationally known consultants. Further, California’s Division of Mines and Geology and Department of Water Resources Division of Dam Safety also published findings.
“Reclamation Commissioner Keith Higgenson noted there was “more seismic information about the Auburn dam site than a dam site anywhere else in the world.” Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus announced: “A safe dam could be constructed on the American River.”
“The new “gravity” dam would be located at the site originally selected, oriented straight across the canyon. The COE reported the dam’s alignment is outside the trace of the fault.
Joe Sullivan
Sacramento County”
In its entirety.
“Safe flood protection
“Re “Too dammed expensive” (Editorial, April 14):
“Your editorial contends a water-storage Auburn Dam would cost too much and sit astride an earthquake fault. Neither contention is accurate.
“In 1988 the Bureau of Reclamation asked the Army Corps of Engineers to design a flood-control Auburn Dam. All involved agreed flood protection was more important than water storage.
“Sacramento’s flood protection is aimed at the 200-year storm, lower than any major city in the United States. All involved agree the best protection would be a flood-control dam providing 500-year protection. Protected would be more than 250,000 people and billions in real and personal property. The dam could also provide water and clean electric power.
“Contention the dam is unsafe due to a fault is refuted by state and federal officials. Established were worst-case conditions in the dam’s new design. The bureau’s report, “Seismic Safety and Auburn Dam,” points out fault and seismic studies involved the bureau, the U.S. Geological Survey, and internationally known consultants. Further, California’s Division of Mines and Geology and Department of Water Resources Division of Dam Safety also published findings.
“Reclamation Commissioner Keith Higgenson noted there was “more seismic information about the Auburn dam site than a dam site anywhere else in the world.” Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus announced: “A safe dam could be constructed on the American River.”
“The new “gravity” dam would be located at the site originally selected, oriented straight across the canyon. The COE reported the dam’s alignment is outside the trace of the fault.
Joe Sullivan
Sacramento County”
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Unraveling Environmental Movement, II
And it continues, as this article from the Acton Institute notes.
An excerpt.
“At a World Council of Churches conference last year on the French-Swiss border, much was made of the “likelihood of mass population displacement” driven by climate change and the mass migration of people fleeing zones inundated by rising seas. While the WCC acknowledged that “there are no solid estimates” about the likely numbers of what it called climate refugees, that didn’t stop assembled experts from throwing out some guesses: 20 million, hundreds of millions, or 1 billion people.
“The WCC bemoaned the fact that international bodies looking at the impending climate refugee crisis were not taking it seriously and, despite its own admission that the numbers of refugees were impossible to predict, called on these same international bodies to “put forward a credible alternative.”
“The WCC did a thought experiment on the problem: ‘What kind of adaptation is relevant to migration? Sea walls? Cities on stilts? New canal systems? We need to start now to construct this future world. But we also need to imagine what it will mean if we fail. Indeed, it seems increasingly short-sighted to assume we will avoid sea-level rise or manage adaptive measures, given the tortuously slow progress of negotiations to date. We need to imagine that millions will, one day not too far away, be on the move, and we need to start thinking now about the appropriate way to manage this eventuality.’
“The main problem with this sort of thinking from religious groups on climate issues is not the lack of scientific credibility, which is bad enough, but their own credulousness. They have been all too willing to embrace any and all dire forecasts of environmental destruction, so long as it fits into their apocalyptic narrative. Maybe it’s their taste for catastrophe of biblical proportions.
“Remember when, in 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) declared that 50 million people could become environmental refugees by 2010, as they fled the effects of climate change? They’d rather you didn’t. It turns out that the climate refugee problem is only the latest disaster-movie myth to be shattered. AsianCorrespondent.com reported earlier this month that “a very cursory look at the first available evidence seems to show that the places identified by the UNEP as most at risk of having climate refugees are not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest growing regions in the world.”
“The fraudulent scare based on nonexistent climate refugees has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, what may cause the warming, or what we should do about it. It speaks rather to too many religious groups’ gullibility for theories that line up with their anti-market economics, which undergird their blind faith in environmental doom. This is the “eco-justice” school of thought, which sees the market as “asserting the supremacy of economy over nature.” When people are factored in to this ideology, they are always helpless victims, not creators of economic wealth that has the potential of wide benefits.
“Because of these shrill and unfounded warnings of ecological collapse, religious leaders and those who look to them for guidance are increasingly tuning out on the climate change scare. A new survey of Protestant pastors shows that 41 percent strongly disagree with the statement that global warming is real and manmade, down from 48 percent two years ago. These results are in line with an October 2010 Pew Research Center poll which showed that belief in human-caused global warming had declined to 59 percent, down from 79 percent in 2006. Cry wolf often enough and you’ll find yourself alone at the next climate refugee conference.”
An excerpt.
“At a World Council of Churches conference last year on the French-Swiss border, much was made of the “likelihood of mass population displacement” driven by climate change and the mass migration of people fleeing zones inundated by rising seas. While the WCC acknowledged that “there are no solid estimates” about the likely numbers of what it called climate refugees, that didn’t stop assembled experts from throwing out some guesses: 20 million, hundreds of millions, or 1 billion people.
“The WCC bemoaned the fact that international bodies looking at the impending climate refugee crisis were not taking it seriously and, despite its own admission that the numbers of refugees were impossible to predict, called on these same international bodies to “put forward a credible alternative.”
“The WCC did a thought experiment on the problem: ‘What kind of adaptation is relevant to migration? Sea walls? Cities on stilts? New canal systems? We need to start now to construct this future world. But we also need to imagine what it will mean if we fail. Indeed, it seems increasingly short-sighted to assume we will avoid sea-level rise or manage adaptive measures, given the tortuously slow progress of negotiations to date. We need to imagine that millions will, one day not too far away, be on the move, and we need to start thinking now about the appropriate way to manage this eventuality.’
“The main problem with this sort of thinking from religious groups on climate issues is not the lack of scientific credibility, which is bad enough, but their own credulousness. They have been all too willing to embrace any and all dire forecasts of environmental destruction, so long as it fits into their apocalyptic narrative. Maybe it’s their taste for catastrophe of biblical proportions.
“Remember when, in 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) declared that 50 million people could become environmental refugees by 2010, as they fled the effects of climate change? They’d rather you didn’t. It turns out that the climate refugee problem is only the latest disaster-movie myth to be shattered. AsianCorrespondent.com reported earlier this month that “a very cursory look at the first available evidence seems to show that the places identified by the UNEP as most at risk of having climate refugees are not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest growing regions in the world.”
“The fraudulent scare based on nonexistent climate refugees has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, what may cause the warming, or what we should do about it. It speaks rather to too many religious groups’ gullibility for theories that line up with their anti-market economics, which undergird their blind faith in environmental doom. This is the “eco-justice” school of thought, which sees the market as “asserting the supremacy of economy over nature.” When people are factored in to this ideology, they are always helpless victims, not creators of economic wealth that has the potential of wide benefits.
“Because of these shrill and unfounded warnings of ecological collapse, religious leaders and those who look to them for guidance are increasingly tuning out on the climate change scare. A new survey of Protestant pastors shows that 41 percent strongly disagree with the statement that global warming is real and manmade, down from 48 percent two years ago. These results are in line with an October 2010 Pew Research Center poll which showed that belief in human-caused global warming had declined to 59 percent, down from 79 percent in 2006. Cry wolf often enough and you’ll find yourself alone at the next climate refugee conference.”
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Unraveling Environmental Movement
As this article from the Guardian notes, it continues.
An excerpt.
“Over the last fortnight I've made a deeply troubling discovery. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged, and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice.
“I began to see the extent of the problem after a debate last week with Helen Caldicott. Dr Caldicott is the world's foremost anti-nuclear campaigner. She has received 21 honorary degrees and scores of awards, and was nominated for a Nobel peace prize. Like other greens, I was in awe of her. In the debate she made some striking statements about the dangers of radiation. So I did what anyone faced with questionable scientific claims should do: I asked for the sources. Caldicott's response has profoundly shaken me.
“First she sent me nine documents: newspaper articles, press releases and an advertisement. None were scientific publications; none contained sources for the claims she had made. But one of the press releases referred to a report by the US National Academy of Sciences, which she urged me to read. I have now done so – all 423 pages. It supports none of the statements I questioned; in fact it strongly contradicts her claims about the health effects of radiation.
“I pressed her further and she gave me a series of answers that made my heart sink – in most cases they referred to publications which had little or no scientific standing, which did not support her claims or which contradicted them. (I have posted our correspondence, and my sources, on my website.) I have just read her book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. The scarcity of references to scientific papers and the abundance of unsourced claims it contains amaze me.”
An excerpt.
“Over the last fortnight I've made a deeply troubling discovery. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged, and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice.
“I began to see the extent of the problem after a debate last week with Helen Caldicott. Dr Caldicott is the world's foremost anti-nuclear campaigner. She has received 21 honorary degrees and scores of awards, and was nominated for a Nobel peace prize. Like other greens, I was in awe of her. In the debate she made some striking statements about the dangers of radiation. So I did what anyone faced with questionable scientific claims should do: I asked for the sources. Caldicott's response has profoundly shaken me.
“First she sent me nine documents: newspaper articles, press releases and an advertisement. None were scientific publications; none contained sources for the claims she had made. But one of the press releases referred to a report by the US National Academy of Sciences, which she urged me to read. I have now done so – all 423 pages. It supports none of the statements I questioned; in fact it strongly contradicts her claims about the health effects of radiation.
“I pressed her further and she gave me a series of answers that made my heart sink – in most cases they referred to publications which had little or no scientific standing, which did not support her claims or which contradicted them. (I have posted our correspondence, and my sources, on my website.) I have just read her book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. The scarcity of references to scientific papers and the abundance of unsourced claims it contains amaze me.”
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Water, Sacramento History & Auburn Dam Debate
The most comprehensive history of the water issue in our community—including an outstanding collection of photographs of all the great floods that have struck Sacramento as well as an excellent debate about Auburn Dam—is contained in the Sacramento County Historical Society’s Sacramento History Journal (2006, Volume VI No. 1, 2, 3, & 4) Water: Our History & Our Future, which is available online.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Didion and Water
Sacramento native Joan Didion loves water and the technology surrounding it.
In the essay Holy Water, from her marvelous 1979 book I just re-purchased, having given away or lost my original copy years ago, The White Album, she writes about moving water around California.
An excerpt.
“In practice this requires prodigious coordination, precision, and the best efforts of several human minds and that of a Univac 418. In practice it might be necessary to hold large flows of water for power production, or to flush out encroaching salinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the most ecologically sensitive point on the system. In practice a sudden rain might obviate the need for a delivery when that delivery is already on its way...It takes perhaps another six days to move this same water down the California Aqueduct from the Delta to the Tehachapi and put it over the hill to Southern California. “Putting some over the hill” is what they say around the Project Operations Control Center when they want to indicate that they are pumping Aqueduct water from the floor of the San Joaquin Valley up and over the Tehachapi Mountains. “Pulling it down” is what they say when they want to indicate that they are lowering a water level somewhere in the system...”LET’S START DRAINING QUAIL AT 12:00” was the 10:51 A. M. entry on the electronically recorded communications log the day I visited the Operations Control Center. “Quail” is a reservoir in Los Angeles County with a gross capacity of 1,636,018,000 gallons. “OK” was the response recorded in the log. I knew at that moment that I had missed the only vocation for which I had any instinctive affinity: I wanted to drain Quail myself. (pp. 61-62)
In the essay Holy Water, from her marvelous 1979 book I just re-purchased, having given away or lost my original copy years ago, The White Album, she writes about moving water around California.
An excerpt.
“In practice this requires prodigious coordination, precision, and the best efforts of several human minds and that of a Univac 418. In practice it might be necessary to hold large flows of water for power production, or to flush out encroaching salinity in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the most ecologically sensitive point on the system. In practice a sudden rain might obviate the need for a delivery when that delivery is already on its way...It takes perhaps another six days to move this same water down the California Aqueduct from the Delta to the Tehachapi and put it over the hill to Southern California. “Putting some over the hill” is what they say around the Project Operations Control Center when they want to indicate that they are pumping Aqueduct water from the floor of the San Joaquin Valley up and over the Tehachapi Mountains. “Pulling it down” is what they say when they want to indicate that they are lowering a water level somewhere in the system...”LET’S START DRAINING QUAIL AT 12:00” was the 10:51 A. M. entry on the electronically recorded communications log the day I visited the Operations Control Center. “Quail” is a reservoir in Los Angeles County with a gross capacity of 1,636,018,000 gallons. “OK” was the response recorded in the log. I knew at that moment that I had missed the only vocation for which I had any instinctive affinity: I wanted to drain Quail myself. (pp. 61-62)
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Property & Environment Research Center
I have been reading their articles, and posting them on our blog, for several years now, and this article is a look back over their many years working with enviropreneurs—great word, great concept—and this article notes some history.
An excerpt.
“Ten years ago, PERC embarked on a journey that would indelibly impact the lives of many environmentalists, as well as the face and direction of our organization. The idea was borne out of PERC’s passion to bring management principles, economics, property rights, and markets to the environmental movement. PERC’s Enviropreneur™ Institute, formerly known as the Kinship Conservation Institute, is the embodiment of that vision and is now entering its eleventh year. The breadth of interests and organizations represented in the ten incantations of the Institute show a dedication and purpose to environmental conservation and liberty not likely equaled anywhere else in the world. Indeed, the sun never sets on the Enviropreneur Empire!
“As the retiring director of the Institute, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the past and future of this highenergy, hands-on, and often life-changing program. But first thing's first: What exactly is an enviropreneur? It is an entrepreneur who makes environmental assets out of environmental problems. An enviropreneur sees an opportunity where others see waste. An enviropreneur sees a chance to do well while doing good. But how does this all come about?
“WELCOME TO MONTANA
“So you have spent the past 15 years working a somewhat, but not completely, satisfying job for an environmental organization, when suddenly, you find yourself in Bozeman, Montana, with some group called PERC. Here you greet your fellow enviropreneurs, and before you know it, you’re in a van heading toward the Gallatin Mountains. You are stunned by the simple beauty of the green landscape and the stark contrast of snow-capped peaks in all directions. “Is this real?” you ask yourself, as if the 5,000 foot elevation has you seeing things.
“You head into a canyon that looks like a movie set from A River Runs Through It. You cross the Gallatin River and veer off onto a dirt road—your second thoughts turning to thirds and fourths. You crest a hill to find hundreds of bison roaming on a field of green that runs for miles until it hits the sky. You are now on Ted Turner’s 114,000-acre Flying D Ranch.
“It is here, at a place called Cow Camp, where you spend the next four days with 15 other enviropreneurs, many of whom you develop relationships with that will last your entire career. You rise early to scope for elk, participate in one-on-one discussions with other environmental entrepreneurs, listen to lectures from an array of environmental scholars and business leaders, and take part in honest discussion with your peers on how to make environmental entrepreneurship a reality. As night falls, you crash in your bed as the coyotes howl nearby.”
An excerpt.
“Ten years ago, PERC embarked on a journey that would indelibly impact the lives of many environmentalists, as well as the face and direction of our organization. The idea was borne out of PERC’s passion to bring management principles, economics, property rights, and markets to the environmental movement. PERC’s Enviropreneur™ Institute, formerly known as the Kinship Conservation Institute, is the embodiment of that vision and is now entering its eleventh year. The breadth of interests and organizations represented in the ten incantations of the Institute show a dedication and purpose to environmental conservation and liberty not likely equaled anywhere else in the world. Indeed, the sun never sets on the Enviropreneur Empire!
“As the retiring director of the Institute, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the past and future of this highenergy, hands-on, and often life-changing program. But first thing's first: What exactly is an enviropreneur? It is an entrepreneur who makes environmental assets out of environmental problems. An enviropreneur sees an opportunity where others see waste. An enviropreneur sees a chance to do well while doing good. But how does this all come about?
“WELCOME TO MONTANA
“So you have spent the past 15 years working a somewhat, but not completely, satisfying job for an environmental organization, when suddenly, you find yourself in Bozeman, Montana, with some group called PERC. Here you greet your fellow enviropreneurs, and before you know it, you’re in a van heading toward the Gallatin Mountains. You are stunned by the simple beauty of the green landscape and the stark contrast of snow-capped peaks in all directions. “Is this real?” you ask yourself, as if the 5,000 foot elevation has you seeing things.
“You head into a canyon that looks like a movie set from A River Runs Through It. You cross the Gallatin River and veer off onto a dirt road—your second thoughts turning to thirds and fourths. You crest a hill to find hundreds of bison roaming on a field of green that runs for miles until it hits the sky. You are now on Ted Turner’s 114,000-acre Flying D Ranch.
“It is here, at a place called Cow Camp, where you spend the next four days with 15 other enviropreneurs, many of whom you develop relationships with that will last your entire career. You rise early to scope for elk, participate in one-on-one discussions with other environmental entrepreneurs, listen to lectures from an array of environmental scholars and business leaders, and take part in honest discussion with your peers on how to make environmental entrepreneurship a reality. As night falls, you crash in your bed as the coyotes howl nearby.”
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Homelessness & the Parkway
This is an excellent, balanced, and appropriate article in the Sacramento Bee today by a member of the County Board of Supervisors, the agency with ultimate responsibility for managing the American River Parkway.
It should bring a measure of hope to the long suffering communities adjacent to the Lower Reach—Discovery Park to Cal Expo—who have been unable to safely access their part of the Parkway for many years.
An excerpt.
“Much has been reported in recent days regarding the situation along the lower reach of the American River Parkway. Unfortunately, there's been a predictable attempt by some to hijack public attention to narrowly advocate their cause instead of acknowledging the complexities of the situation.
“Dealing with those complexities and seeking solutions is the responsibility of your local elected officials. As one of them, I've made every effort during the past three weeks to thoughtfully and compassionately address the issue of illegal camping, public safety, environmental impact and homelessness. Admittedly, it is not an easy thing to do 50 days into the job.
“Parkway users deserve a safe, clean environment free from harassment or other personal threat. They should not feel compelled to avoid the parkway for fear of their own safety, which is what a number of constituents have conveyed to my office in recent weeks. They deserve better; we all deserve better.
“The American River Parkway offers one of the best recreational opportunities anywhere in the country, but it will be enjoyed only if it is safe. To that end, local law enforcement, including Sacramento County park rangers, have established added presence along the lower reach of the parkway to enhance public safety and to encourage parkway users to return.
“Let's also remember that the parkway itself is a "constituent" here. Illegal camping has produced tons of trash and debris, some of which is hazardous biological waste. Illegal campgrounds, large and small, "self-governed" or not, contribute to this problem. Along the American River Parkway, refuse has collected in makeshift dumps, and what doesn't remain in these derelict collection sites oftentimes is spread by the wind, is scavenged by animals or ends up pooled along the riverbanks.
“And at the risk of making readers cringe, we should not forget that human beings produce waste that without appropriate sanitation facilities can spread disease and even end up in our river system – the same system used for swimming, boating, fishing and drinking water.”
It should bring a measure of hope to the long suffering communities adjacent to the Lower Reach—Discovery Park to Cal Expo—who have been unable to safely access their part of the Parkway for many years.
An excerpt.
“Much has been reported in recent days regarding the situation along the lower reach of the American River Parkway. Unfortunately, there's been a predictable attempt by some to hijack public attention to narrowly advocate their cause instead of acknowledging the complexities of the situation.
“Dealing with those complexities and seeking solutions is the responsibility of your local elected officials. As one of them, I've made every effort during the past three weeks to thoughtfully and compassionately address the issue of illegal camping, public safety, environmental impact and homelessness. Admittedly, it is not an easy thing to do 50 days into the job.
“Parkway users deserve a safe, clean environment free from harassment or other personal threat. They should not feel compelled to avoid the parkway for fear of their own safety, which is what a number of constituents have conveyed to my office in recent weeks. They deserve better; we all deserve better.
“The American River Parkway offers one of the best recreational opportunities anywhere in the country, but it will be enjoyed only if it is safe. To that end, local law enforcement, including Sacramento County park rangers, have established added presence along the lower reach of the parkway to enhance public safety and to encourage parkway users to return.
“Let's also remember that the parkway itself is a "constituent" here. Illegal camping has produced tons of trash and debris, some of which is hazardous biological waste. Illegal campgrounds, large and small, "self-governed" or not, contribute to this problem. Along the American River Parkway, refuse has collected in makeshift dumps, and what doesn't remain in these derelict collection sites oftentimes is spread by the wind, is scavenged by animals or ends up pooled along the riverbanks.
“And at the risk of making readers cringe, we should not forget that human beings produce waste that without appropriate sanitation facilities can spread disease and even end up in our river system – the same system used for swimming, boating, fishing and drinking water.”
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
California Greening
There is a great article by George Gilder in The American Spectator, about California’s green woes, and a whole lot more.
An excerpt.
“CALIFORNIA'S TREASURER BILL LOCKYER has a bridge he wants to sell you. No, he is not putting the Golden Gate on the market. That would actually find buyers. He is trying to foist a "bridge loan" on the country that in effect would require us to buy the entire state.
“Shuffling off the streets of Sacramento into the bond market a few weeks ago seeking to raise some $14 billion in so-called "revenue anticipation notes," Lockyer is offering notes that can be repaid only by future revenue anticipation notes, in a delusional statewide recycling binge of bonds on bonds.
“Since the state at the same time officially projected $20 billion annual deficits for the next six years (Governor elect Jerry Brown says $28 billion in 2011), the end of this road is another of those bridges to nowhere that politicians believe stimulate an economy but ordinary people prefer not to drive on or off. So now Lockyer is following up with a drive to get the federal government to guarantee California's debt against default, which means the taxpayers will have to be the ulti-mate buyers.
“Before we close the deal to purchase the state, however, ordinary financial due diligence would require Congress to make California rescind a "poison pill" provision in its state laws. This poison pill is not medical marijuana. But it renders any bridge loan or "revenue anticipation note" utterly hallucinogenic.
“Unrecognized by most media, conservatives lost miserably in what may have been the most consequential election on November 2. This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act. Passed in 2006, AB 32 ordained that the state economy be ratcheted back to 1990 levels of so-called greenhouse gases by 2020, a 30 percent drop, and mandated an 80 percent drop by 2050. Together with an unsustainable $500 billion public pension overhang and $28 billion current budgetary shortfall, the effort to cap all energy production dooms the state to bankruptcy.
“Although conservative pundits have lavished disdain on this California political potlatch, California is the nation's most important state, dominant in the innovation, manufacturing, and enterprise that make the U.S. economically and militarily supreme in the world. Perhaps two-thirds of the nation's new technology originates in the state or is financed by its venture capitalists. California cannot go down the drain without inflicting serious damage on the rest of the country.
“THE IRONY IS THAT the general trend of advance in conventional "non-renewable" energy for a century -- from wood to coal to oil to natural gas and nuclear -- has already wrought at least a 60 percent drop in carbon emissions per watt. In the words of natural gas pioneer Robert Hefner, "As man travels down the energy path from solid wood and coal to liquid gasoline and to gaseous natural gas and hydrogen, the progression is one of carbon heavy to carbon light; from complex chemical structure to simple; from toxic particulate emissions to no particulate emissions; and finally, from high CO2 emissions to no CO2 emissions." Thus the long-term California targets might well be achieved globally in the normal course of technology advance. Unlike the existing bonfires of ingenuity and money, moreover, an organic advance of energy efficiencies can readily propagate around the world without mandates and subsidies.”
An excerpt.
“CALIFORNIA'S TREASURER BILL LOCKYER has a bridge he wants to sell you. No, he is not putting the Golden Gate on the market. That would actually find buyers. He is trying to foist a "bridge loan" on the country that in effect would require us to buy the entire state.
“Shuffling off the streets of Sacramento into the bond market a few weeks ago seeking to raise some $14 billion in so-called "revenue anticipation notes," Lockyer is offering notes that can be repaid only by future revenue anticipation notes, in a delusional statewide recycling binge of bonds on bonds.
“Since the state at the same time officially projected $20 billion annual deficits for the next six years (Governor elect Jerry Brown says $28 billion in 2011), the end of this road is another of those bridges to nowhere that politicians believe stimulate an economy but ordinary people prefer not to drive on or off. So now Lockyer is following up with a drive to get the federal government to guarantee California's debt against default, which means the taxpayers will have to be the ulti-mate buyers.
“Before we close the deal to purchase the state, however, ordinary financial due diligence would require Congress to make California rescind a "poison pill" provision in its state laws. This poison pill is not medical marijuana. But it renders any bridge loan or "revenue anticipation note" utterly hallucinogenic.
“Unrecognized by most media, conservatives lost miserably in what may have been the most consequential election on November 2. This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act. Passed in 2006, AB 32 ordained that the state economy be ratcheted back to 1990 levels of so-called greenhouse gases by 2020, a 30 percent drop, and mandated an 80 percent drop by 2050. Together with an unsustainable $500 billion public pension overhang and $28 billion current budgetary shortfall, the effort to cap all energy production dooms the state to bankruptcy.
“Although conservative pundits have lavished disdain on this California political potlatch, California is the nation's most important state, dominant in the innovation, manufacturing, and enterprise that make the U.S. economically and militarily supreme in the world. Perhaps two-thirds of the nation's new technology originates in the state or is financed by its venture capitalists. California cannot go down the drain without inflicting serious damage on the rest of the country.
“THE IRONY IS THAT the general trend of advance in conventional "non-renewable" energy for a century -- from wood to coal to oil to natural gas and nuclear -- has already wrought at least a 60 percent drop in carbon emissions per watt. In the words of natural gas pioneer Robert Hefner, "As man travels down the energy path from solid wood and coal to liquid gasoline and to gaseous natural gas and hydrogen, the progression is one of carbon heavy to carbon light; from complex chemical structure to simple; from toxic particulate emissions to no particulate emissions; and finally, from high CO2 emissions to no CO2 emissions." Thus the long-term California targets might well be achieved globally in the normal course of technology advance. Unlike the existing bonfires of ingenuity and money, moreover, an organic advance of energy efficiencies can readily propagate around the world without mandates and subsidies.”
Friday, February 11, 2011
K Street Drama, Act 6000
Though in a recent post it appeared things were looking up—and time will tell on the mermaid/merman infusion—this new plan, as reported by Sacramento Press, appears to be another act in the ongoing drama.
An excerpt.
“D & S Development, Inc., and CFY Development Inc. – led by David Miry and his son, Bay Miry, and Cyrus Youssefi and his son, Ali Youssefi – are currently working with the city on plans to redevelop the south side of the 700 block of K Street.
“The developers propose a mix of adaptive reuse and new construction that would include a music club, four restaurants with bars and other retail, second-floor apartments, sidewalk patio seating, rooftop decks for dining and residential use, and a six-story apartment building on the alley.
“The developers also plan to restore historic brick and wood storefronts facing K Street.
“City staffers expect to bring the project back before the Preservation and Planning commissions and the City Council for final action in May and June. The developers hope to start construction in the fourth quarter of 2011 and open the completed development two and a half years from now.”
An excerpt.
“D & S Development, Inc., and CFY Development Inc. – led by David Miry and his son, Bay Miry, and Cyrus Youssefi and his son, Ali Youssefi – are currently working with the city on plans to redevelop the south side of the 700 block of K Street.
“The developers propose a mix of adaptive reuse and new construction that would include a music club, four restaurants with bars and other retail, second-floor apartments, sidewalk patio seating, rooftop decks for dining and residential use, and a six-story apartment building on the alley.
“The developers also plan to restore historic brick and wood storefronts facing K Street.
“City staffers expect to bring the project back before the Preservation and Planning commissions and the City Council for final action in May and June. The developers hope to start construction in the fourth quarter of 2011 and open the completed development two and a half years from now.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)