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Dredging Up the Truth

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 [...]

By | January 6th, 2012|0 Comments

Perhaps There Is A Target In Store for Petaluma

Despite all the foot-dragging, long-rolling, hand-wringing, buck-passing and frivolous litigation (to date, anyway), it looks as if Petaluma is one step closer to having it's own Target store. Despite the hysterical efforts of the anti-big-box, Keep Petaluma Egregious (erroneous, execrable...whatever) bunch, many who are forced to burn up fossil fuels and abrade their rubber tires driving out of town to shop at the nearest Target, may soon be able to stay in town and reduce their carbon footprint. And let's not forget that sales taxe revenue. Not that the city needs it, of course.

By | July 22nd, 2011|0 Comments

Deercreek Follies Explained

Petaluma's self-annointed Progressives elected the mayor to represent their heartfelt goals and achieve their most profound purposes. In short (no pun intended), the mayor is the living embodiment of a Petaluma Progressive - abusing subordinates, aiding a trespasser who interferes with legally-mandated activities, claiming ownership of projects that have survived despite his determined opposition. On one hand, you can say that he's no worse than most politicians, e.g., people who do whatever they have to do to get their own way, which (in my view) perfectly characterizes our local brand of "Progressive."

By | June 16th, 2011|0 Comments

Lowes Center Enters A Thicket of Trouble

The Regency Center (Target) is still being delayed after years of stalling, foot-dragging, and outright obfuscation on the part of the City abetted by a tiny (but vocal) cohort of NIMBY activists who cloak their selfishness in civic pride. Now the Deer Creek project (Lowes) is entering into that same ever-mutating cycle of abuse, e.g., the review and (dis)approval process. Why any business person would want to engage with a community that so-reviles commerce is beyond me. Maybe the City mothers and fathers could hire the Disney folks to run the City as an amusement park called NIMBYLAND. Think of the rides: The Road to Nowhere, Legal Limbo, The Incredible Expanding Fee...

By | March 19th, 2011|0 Comments

Runaway Train…Unfortunately, It’s a Local.

City Manager John Brown is yelling from the rooftops that the City has about a year before fiscal Armageddon. Is anyone listening? Last year, Mayor Glass-Half-Full promised that, "Revenues will come," without actually saying from where. Since then, when he's not intimidating City staff, his "revenue-generating-efforts seem to have focused on stalling the Deercreek shopping center, now that that the Regency Center is has been delayed yet another year, if not longer.

By | March 12th, 2011|0 Comments

No-Class Glass Harasses a Lass

Well folks, the cranky Hobbit-In-Chief has lashed out again - this time at a city employee, which makes him a work-place harasser. He's apologized (after a fashion) saying that "he was scared." Scar-Y is more like it, as Ms Padrovan can attest. I mean, who likes being attacked by a ferocious Chihuahua. And remember, this is the man who was elected to lead our troubled city through difficult negotiations with the very same municipal employees that he publicly yelled at. Time for an anger management class, or perhaps a recall?

By | March 5th, 2011|0 Comments

Petaluma Pedestrians Beware

Having lived in New York and Los Angeles, and spent time in places with famously congested traffic such as Tokyo, Paris, Bangkok and Manila, I find it difficult to get too exercised about the dangers to pedestrians in our fair burg. Still, nobody likes having his shoes polished by the tires on a Lexus with a preoccupied driver talking on her cell phone.

By | February 25th, 2011|0 Comments

America’s First Airmail Flight

Fred Wiseman sputtered aloft from Petaluma on February 18th, 1911 only to land with a busted magneto after just 4 miles. The next day he flew a second leg landing just a mile short of his goal of the Santa Rosa fairgrounds. Since he carried authorized US Mail, his became the first official air mail flight. A full-size replica of Wiseman's plane resides in the US Postal Museum in DC. Our own delightful historical museum has a scaled down replica on display as well. There'll be a program about the historic flight at the Petaluma Airport on Saturday beginning at 11am. Weather permitting, there will be some sort of reenactment.

By | February 17th, 2011|0 Comments

Trench Warfare

It's a deadlock, alright. Miss P. calls for a compromise, but the business-averse Progressives are so convinced that they're in the right, they've become deaf (excuse, hearing challenged) to any disagreement. And why shouldn't they believe this? Liberal pundits have been writing since the mid-60's that any point of view other than theirs is ignorant, illegal or insane. Whatever else they may believe, the the "so-called" pro-development bloc understands that new construction can be taxed, as can completed buildings, sales, employment and other forms of commerce...and that commerce (not just taxes) are the life blood of communities.

By | February 10th, 2011|0 Comments

Petaluma’s Fiscal Shipwreck

Thanks the foot-dragging, log-rolling, perma-stall tactics so popular among local Progressives, and abetted by the City Mothers and Fathers, the long-awaited target store is not likely to open before fall 2012. The mayor's prediction that "Revenues will come," apparently didn't mean, "any time soon." I think it's safe to say that the proposed Deer Creek development will be held back by the same tactics. The result is that local folks will continue to drive north and south to spend their household budgets for food, clothes and other necessities...for the foreseeable future.

By | February 5th, 2011|0 Comments