Restoring Hetch Hetchy

This is such a no-brainer as it will allow one of the most wonderful wilderness valleys in the world to be recovered—though it is worth mentioning that the current lake setting is also magnificent and will be lost—but the water now stored there is replaceable, as the Restore Hetch Hetchy website notes.

A recent article in the Sacramento Bee examines the coming election in San Francisco about restoring Hetch Hetchy .

An excerpt.

“Suddenly, the fight to restore Hetch Hetchy is getting interesting.

“U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren, a Republican, reopened the public discussion about draining the reservoir that supplies water for San Francisco by writing a letter to the Interior Department in December.

“Lungren has never much been associated with the environment, but he faces a well-funded Democratic challenger, Ami Bera, in a swing seat this year.

“On the question of Hetch Hetchy, he finds himself in cahoots with a lawyer who represents California Democrats, a former California Democratic Party executive director, and a longtime Democratic insider. They’re all determined to drain and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.

“Trying to remedy one of the worst environmental travesties in California knows no partisan bounds,” Lungren’s campaign aide, Rob Stutzman told me with a straight face, more or less.

“Lance Olson, the Democratic attorney, is a director of Restore Hetch Hetchy, as is Kathy Bowler, the party’s former executive director. Olson, Bowler and Democratic operative Dan Eaton are organizing a reception next Wednesday evening in downtown Sacramento to discuss “our considerable legal and political efforts – including a 2012 ballot initiative in San Francisco” to retore the valley.

“A Hetch Hetchy initiative headed for the local San Francisco ballot this November could be a donneybrook. Statewide fights over taxes and capital punishment could pale by comparison. If Lungren wants to join the effort, he no doubt could help sway the dozen or so Republicans who still live in San Francisco.

“We could use them all,” said Eaton, who was chief of staff to Fabian Núñez when Núñez was Assembly speaker, and is offering strategic advice to the coming campaign.”

High Speed Rail

It is a project of national importance that should be funded by the federal government, just as it funds large dams and other major infrastructure projects that impact the national ability to conduct business, transport its people and protect them from droughts and floods.

This article from the Los Angeles Times addresses the funding of high speed rail.

An excerpt.

“The Obama administration, which has been urging California to push through growing opposition to its high-speed rail project, asked Congress on Monday for nearly $35 billion in passenger rail funding over the next five years.

“The request in its fiscal 2013 budget includes $1 billion for next year and nearly $8 billion in 2018, a massive funding plan that faces difficult odds of getting through Congress. Last year, the Republican-controlled House and even the Democratic-led Senate slashed a similar request and left no new money for any high-speed rail project.

“The California project has about $3.3 billion in federal grants from prior years that it plans to use to start construction this year and another $9 billion in bond money approved by voters in 2008. But the project is short $86 billion, and Republicans are attempting to freeze any additional federal funding for it.

“Nonetheless, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came to California last week and urged state legislators to not back down from the ambitious $98.5-billion project, which would connect Southern California and the Bay Area with electric-powered trains running at up to 220 mph.

“In a closed-door session in Sacramento last week, LaHood told legislators that they could expect the administration to fight for significant additional funding in future years. And LaHood has talked to Gov. Jerry Brown six times in the last year, urging him to reject criticism of the project. Brown has strengthened his support for the bullet train and is planning to make his own state budget request this spring to start construction.

“The budget request unveiled Monday would not designate or set aside money specifically for the California project, but the state has managed to win a huge share of passenger rail project funding in prior years.

“We have made the largest investment in California of any state,” LaHood said at a news conference last week in downtownLos Angeles.”

Helping Parks

In this story from the Sacramento Bee about the grocery chain that has stepped up to keep public swimming pools open, is the larger realization that bringing the private sector—forprofit and nonprofit corporations—into the arena to help with public facilities that can no longer be adequately supported with taxes on an already over-burdened public, is smart public policy.

It is the strategy our organization—American River Parkway Preservation Society—has been advocating for the American River Parkway since our inception in 2003, and with the slowly decreasing ability of Sacramento County to provide even the basic services associated with public safety and facility maintenance, it is even more urgent that it become a reality sooner rather than later.

An excerpt from the Sacramento Bee article.

“If Sacramento youngsters have pools to splash in this summer, they likely will have a grocery store chain to thank rather than their city government.

“Save Mart Supermarket officials are scheduled to announce today a fund-raising campaign to generate $1 million – enough to open half the city’s 12 swimming pools and all of its wading pools this summer.

“It’s the latest and largest example of businesses and neighborhood groups bailing out a cash-starved city unable to keep pools open, parks maintained and community centers operating.

“With Sacramento entering its sixth straight year of large budget deficits, officials are asking those groups to fund – and in some cases operate – amenities once taken for granted.

“Five years from now we may look back and say this was a temporary thing,” said Councilman Steve Cohn. “But I think we have to figure that for the foreseeable future, this is the new normal.”…

“Other partnerships have emerged in the city’s tough budget cycle.

“In east Sacramento, where the historic Clunie Community Center in McKinley Park serves 100,000 people each year, neighborhood activists raised $45,000 to keep the facility open for the next year. Neighbors are forming a nonprofit organization to run the facility after that.

“Most other community centers and clubhouses are fully or partially leased to nonprofit groups. And after the doors were nearly shut at centers during last year’s budget talks, city officials are working with other community organizations to take on the full operation of those facilities.

“If it wasn’t for volunteerism, our city would be completely untenable,” said resident Jeff Harris. He headed the River Park Neighborhood Association when it raised money in 2009 to keep the pool open in Glenn Hall Park.

“Sacramento County has entered into similar partnerships, turning over operation of several parks to nonprofit groups or other governments.

“Ceding control to the private sector isn’t always smooth. In some cases, private groups have changed the rules for public assets.

“A spat last month between the Sacramento United Soccer Club and the Sacramento Valley Rugby Foundation led to a massive rugby tournament abruptly being relocated to Rancho Cordova from Sacramento’s Granite Regional Park. Sacramento United now maintains and runs the playing fields for the city, and it said the rugby tournament left those fields a mess last year. The rugby tournament was denied access to Granite fields, leaving event organizers surprised that the city did not control its own park.

“Such hiccups aside, city officials seem convinced they have a new model for keeping their parks and pools open.

“Quite frankly, we’re going to need a lot more of this in the future because of our budget,” Cohn said. “I’d like to think it’s just temporary, but this may be something we’re looking at for the long term.”

Homelessness & Camp Pollock

As the Sacramento Bee reported yesterday, the people wanting to create a permanent tent/cottage city for the homeless in Sacramento have identified two parcels adjacent to the Parkway—one for future consideration being Camp Pollack and one close by they have already submitted a letter of intent about—which, if approved, will add another intolerable burden to the already existing burden borne by North Sacramento business and residents.

Using either one of these Parkway adjacent sites for housing for the homeless would legalize what so far has remained illegal and somewhat manageable, and be absolutely devastating to that area of the Parkway and the adjacent communities.

An excerpt.

“Camp Pollock, the historic Sacramento campground where generations of Northern California boys have practiced their Scouting skills, is soon to be on the sales block, officials have confirmed.

“One potential buyer? SafeGround, the nonprofit group that is seeking to establish a place in Sacramento where homeless people can live in small cottages with basic services.

“The executive board has made a decision to sell the camp,” said Paul Helman, president of the Golden Empire Council of the Boy Scouts of America….

“SafeGround’s executive director, Steve Watters, said the group has made inquiries about CampPollock. “We’d be interested, but we’re also looking at other options,” he said.

“Watters said he is uncertain whether a proposal for a homeless facility near the downtown River District, whose residents have complained about a concentration of such services in the area, would fly.

“It might be better to find something a little farther out and funnel people out of the river area,” Watters said. “We might win some allies that way.”

“Mark Merin, a local civil rights attorney who supports SafeGround, said the group may have identified a “perfect” site for a pilot project on 1.4 acres of empty land on Del Paso Boulevard near Highway 160.

“We have that piece of property tied up with a letter of intent so we can go to the city planning commission with it,” Merin said.

“Camp Pollock is much bigger, and I’m sure more expensive, and that’s a big undertaking. It might work for some time in the future when we are more established. But right now, we just want to take that first step, a pilot project.”

“Merin said the group plans to erect a mockup of a potential SafeGround “and put it in a public place, where people can see it and it can be demystified” in advance of seeking permits for the project.”

Lighting the Parkway

Common sense indicates that well lighted parks are safer after dark, though the actual research points towards a fairly small statistical difference, but even increasing the sense of safety will increase usage, and that in itself will increase public safety.

This new report, Safer Parks After Dark: New Night-Lighting Methods Help Provide Answers for Dark-Sky Advocates, from the Trust for Public Land, is an excellent place to begin the discussion.

For the Parkway, the wider use of lighting, given the large scale illegal camping by the homeless in the Parkway, primarily from Discovery Park to Cal Expo, would greatly increase public safety in that area.

Building Dams in California

An article from the Stockton Record notes the yeoman’s work Congressman Tom McClintock is engaged in to bring some reason to the long delayed dam building need for our fair state, blessed with plenty of water but too few dams to store it.

An excerpt.

“SAN ANDREAS – Congressman Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, is calling for relaxation of “1970s-era” environmental laws that he says are blocking construction of much-needed dams in California and throughout the western United States.

“McClintock represents the 4th Congressional District that was redrawn last year to include Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties. He noted that most major dams in the region and in the Western U.S.were built more than 50 years ago.

“He is also chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power that held an oversight hearing Tuesday in Washington at which representatives of western farmers and some water agencies said they agree that easing environmental rules could get dams built.

“Others at the hearing, however, said coming up with money is a bigger hurdle than environmental rules, and appropriate and cost-effective water supply and storage projects still are being built in California.

“Jerry D. Brown, general manager of Contra Costa Water District, said his agency was able to comply with environmental regulations to build Los Vaqueros Reservoir in the late 1990s and do an expansion of Los Vaqueros, which is now in construction.

“And he noted that Contra Costa Water District is cooperating with East Bay Municipal Utility District to use Los Vaqueros as an alternative to a controversial expansion of Pardee Reservoir on the Mokelumne River.

“Fellow Water and Power Subcommittee members John Garamendi, D-Elk Grove, and Grace Napolitano, D-Norwalk, both said it is high cost that is the barrier to building dams in California.

“Four billion dollars and you can build some nice dams in California,” Garamendi said. “Do you have four billion dollars lying around?”

That prompted McClintock to respond just before he closed the hearing. “Regulatory excesses are actively blocking projects even when they are funded.”

Commuting by Car or Public Transit

The choice—if public actions are counted—is really no choice at all, as an overwhelming majority of travelers prefer cars.

This article looks at the oft repeated argument that low income people use public transit more, but that is wrong, as New Geography notes.

An excerpt, with graphs and charts at the jump.

“One of the most frequently recurring justifications for densification policies (smart growth, growth management, livability, etc.) lies with the assumption that the automobile-based mobility system (Note 1) disadvantages lower income citizens. Much of the solution, according to advocates of densification is to discourage driving and orient both urbanization and the urban transportation system toward transit as well as walking and cycling.

“Of course, there is no question but that lower income citizens are disadvantaged with respect to just about everything economic. However, there are few ways in which lower income citizens are more disadvantaged than in their practical access to work and to amenities by means of transit, walking and cycling. Indeed, the impression that lower income citizens rely on transit to a significantly greater degree than everyone else is just that – an impression.

“The Data: This is illustrated by a compilation of work trip data from the five-year American Community Survey for 2006 to 2010. In the nation’s 51 major metropolitan areas (more than 1,000,000 population), 76.3% of lower income employees use cars to get to work, three times that of all other modes combined (Figure 1).

“Admittedly, this is less than the 83.3% of all employees who use cars for the work trip, but a lot more than would be expected, especially among those who believe that transit is the principal means of mobility for low income citizens. Overall, 8 times as many lower income citizens commuted by car as by transit. In this analysis, lower income citizens are defined as employees who earn less than $15,000 per year, which is approximately one-half of the median earnings per employee of $29,701. .

“Perhaps most surprising is the fact that only 9.6% of lower income citizens used transit to get to work. This is not very much higher than the 7.9% of all workers in the metropolitan areas who use transit. (Table 1). “