Petaluma's coffers are so empty that the City has no money to maintain the ambulances. Yet, the City does have money to perpetuate the lawsuit against the proposed Asphalt plant because the location of said plant is on the other side of the Petaluma river from a river-dredge-spoils dumping site. [...]
Welcome to yet another bureaucracy unanswerable to the people it purports to serve. Remember this, all of you who invited this white elephant into your garden.
This is a different version of this week's cartoon than what appeared in the paper. John felt that I was belittling the hysteria about Global Warming, and he was right. Since he's the boss about what appears in print, I gladly revised the design. This being my blog, however... The [...]
So... Last time the turning basin was dredged was after the 2006 rains. However, the project NOT only dragged on for two years, it was NEVER completed, because some meddling bureaucrats complained that dumping the dredge spoils in the place SPECIFICALLY set aside FOR the dumping the Petaluma River dredge [...]
Yes, I know that in many parts of oh-so-Progressive Petaluma, the Christian practice of celebrating the birth of Jesus is politically incorrect, if not openly frowned upon. To which I say, Merry Christmas. As to whether a cultural construct such Santa will bring Petaluma solutions to it's perennial problems, I [...]
I just resigned from the Cinnabar School board after more than 12 years as a trustee. No, not from frustration - though there was plenty of that courtesy of the narrow-minded, self-serving, boneheads in Sacramento. The reason was that Colleen and I moved to Cotati and, as a result, I no longer reside in the district - a requirement for trusteeship. I grew up in Los Angeles during the salad days of California, when the Golden State lead the country in education, productivity and imagination. Today, thanks to decades of ever-increasing state-employee entitlements, a ferocious anti-business mindset, and pie-in-the-faith in liberal fantasies, California still leads the country...in population exodus, business relocations, and crushing debt. People get so exercised about the encroachment of Hispanic influence on our culture, when the real threat to California is that it's turning into Greece.
There are many great people who work for the City of Petaluma and labor mightily to serve its citizens. Unfortunately, there are others who seem to view Petaluma's inhabitants, aka the people who's taxes pay their salary, as the enemy to be foiled at every opportunity. Ellis Creek Water Project's new Master of the Universe appears to fall into that latter group.
The union of chronic protesters (Local #94952) - AKA Occupy Wall Street / Petaluma franchise - were assembled last Saturday at Penry Park. The Argus stated that there were 150 in attendance. From what I saw, that would have meant counting everyone at least twice. The most charming sight was a about 6 people marching in a tight circle carrying protest signs - a sight that was clearly visible to nobody but the six.
After seven years of wooing Petaluma, Lowes threw in the towel. I guess the additional and unnecessary EIR's required by the city in the hopes of forestalling the blackmail, I mean frivolous litigation, threatened by the anti-growth gang finally wore Lowes down. So, who do you think is publicly chortling that Lowe's departure gives us "time to rethink the project?" The same bunch who will obstruct the next iteration of the project, and the one after that. And in the process, these self-righteous bullies continue to cost the city sorely needed tax revenues, and the citizens jobs.
Of course, the ultimate goal of our friends at PETA is to make raising animals for food so difficult that we'll all become vegetarians (organic, of course). Or, failing that, confine us to scavenging the bodies animals who died naturally. And were that to happen, more groups would arise to protect the "rights" of buzzards. They would advocate a "carrion" tax, and the creation of protected buzzard sanctuaries. In the end, PETA is just one more group of people who are so arrogant and self-important that they feel they have a God-given - check that, they don't believe in God - right to tell others how to live.