Menlo Park's Once-ler

The Menlo Park City Council voted 3-2 last night to let a developer cut down one of the biggest redwoods in the city so she could extract the most possible profit from her investment.

In tree vs. cash, cash wins.

This developer, Kim Lemieux, referred to for the rest of this post as The Once-ler*, bought a house on University Avenue in 2007 with the intention of tearing it down and building a bigger, "better" house to then sell for a huge profit. She has done this about a dozen times before in Menlo Park. Because of her experience she knew about Menlo Park's Heritage Tree Ordinance, which says that you have to get permission from the city to chop down any tree bigger than 12 inches in diameter. From the beginning it was her intention to chop down the tree, and she assumed her request would be rubber-stamped. (She has not said this publicly, but it's pretty obvious to anyone who has followed this saga.)

As is their right, the next-door neighbors (my new colleague on the Environmental Quality Commission, Christina Smolke, and her husband) filed an appeal after the planning commission approved her house design, with the tree removal included. The Once-ler said she couldn't possibly build a viable house on that lot with the tree in place, right in the middle of the deep, narrow lot. We on the EQC said we didn't believe her. In October the city council listened to her sob story about how she just had to bigger her house in order to bigger her money. They decided they couldn't possibly make a decision about this without paying some experts $7,500 to tell them if a house could be built with the tree there.

These experts said it could. The Once-ler said it would be too expensive, and no one would want to buy the house under the redwood tree anyway, because it would make the house oh so sad and dreary. The council (or at least three of the five present) bought it and said, "OK, Once-ler, it's only one tree."

I hope the city is working on a new logo this morning.

*The Once-ler is the villain in the great Dr Seuss book, The Lorax. In it, the Once-ler discovers the beautiful Truffula trees, and uses them to knit Thneeds until they are all gone and he and all the animals who lived in the Truffula forest are ruined.

Indecent Propositions

If you're a perennial absentee voter in California, you've already received your ballot and maybe you've even voted. Hopefully you voted Yes on 19 and No on 23.

Let's start with 23. It's pretty much a no-brainer. Unless you're a global-warming denier (I actually heard a news clip in which someone said global warming is probably a scheme to make money for the solar panel companies, cause apparently *those* are the energy companies with huge lobbying budgets and scientists in their back pockets because they have bottomless pits of money). So basically you need to vote no on this so that California can continue leading the way in reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Prop 19 is the pot legalization prop. Not *quite* so much of a no-brainer, but the arguments against it are pretty weak. Here are the pros:
-we stop wasting money on busting pot smokers
-we get money from taxing the pot, like with liquor or cigarettes
-we avoid having people go to drug dealers to get pot, which makes it no longer a "gateway drug," if it ever actually was
-we greatly reduce the amount of gangsterism, which happens to be destroying Mexico, in case you didn't notice

Fwiw, I don't smoke pot, or even eat it in brownies, but there's no good reason not to let any adult who wants to do it.

There are lots of other propositions, some good, some bad. Someone asked me the other day if I was in favor of Prop 21, the state parks tax on vehicles. It has its problems but the parks need the money so bad I have to vote for it.

On another election -related topic, I really wish I had started saving all of the fliers I've been getting in the mail related to this election. The Menlo Park City Council race alone could fill a large box, I'm sure. I would really enjoy weighing said box and taking it to a city council meeting and waggling my finger righteously at those knuckleheads for sending x-number of pounds of dead trees to every single household in town. Next time.

Manic Monday!

Yes, I'm attempting to blog again.

I can not WAIT for the new recycling regime to start Jan 1. I don't know which I'm more excited about: the weekly pick-up, or the yard waste containers that will take COMPOST! No more throwing the food scraps into a pile in the side yard and waiting for it to disintegrate.

Prop 19 is ahead in the polls! Is it possible?? Common sense prevailing in the polling booth?

I am sick. I'm going to bed.

We are so far behind

Mmm, some local politicians are endorsing water recycling. Good work! How long have we been living in this near-desert?

Have I mentioned how insane it is that we don't have any kind of water use regulations around here? I'm pretty sure I have. But I'll mention it again. Why are Californians so incredibly delusional when it comes to water???

"I'll start believing environmentalists when..."

This column by a Central Valley farmer makes some good points, particularly on#10!!

Hopefully I'm not the kind of environmentalist he complains about; I do my best with my solar panels, bike trailers and organic local produce...

#10: I’ll start believing San Francisco environmentalists when they stop taking their drinking water from a national park.

#9: I’ll start believing the French on energy and environmental issues when they turn off their nuclear reactors. Nuclear power cannot be good in France and bad in the U.S.

#8: I’ll start believing Europeans about organic farming when they stop chain smoking.

So. Many. Toys.

These boys of ours got a ton of presents. The tree was surrounded by gifts, many of which generated an obscene number of twist ties. Arthur's big present (the only thing actually purchased for him by his parents) was a big, realistic fire truck made by a company called Bruder. I bought it at Talbots Toyland, the greatest toy store ever and one of the local businesses you should definitely support: free gift wrapping; free storage of the gift until it's time to give, in case you have spying eyes to worry about; and their prices are equal to or better than Toys R Us or Amazon. And they have all kinds of high-quality products NOT made in China.

Those Germans know how to make a toy fire truck, lemme tellya. And NO twist ties! Just slid right out of the box. I'm assuming this is because the Chinese toys would bust apart on the boat ride if they weren't lashed to their boxes. Not the German toys. Beer, birks, Beamers and toys. Good stuff.

There's Tricky Dick, and then there's regular dick

Regan tore down Carter's solar panels.

Packages you won't need a saw to open

The NYT has an article about the "frustration-free" packaging, which I am excited about...

“I shouldn’t have to start each Christmas morning with a needle nose pliers and wire cutters,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, the father of four young children and founder of Amazon.com. “But that is what I do, I arm myself, and it still takes me 10 minutes to open each package.”

Frustration-free packaging!

This is just about the greatest idea ever. Those clam shells totally suck, and they are horrible for the environment. Yay Amazon!!!

Another reason lawns are bad

From the Economist:

Lawnmowers
It all adds up

As spring turns to summer, across America millions of small engines are coming to life, cranking out power and puffing out smoke as they mow America's lawns, whack its weeds and trim its borders. Each engine by itself has little effect on the atmosphere, and most are operated only for short spells. But together they contribute a lot of air pollution, a matter on which the federal government and the states are starting to focus.

Small engines--those under 25-horsepower--are much cleaner than they were 20 years ago. But unlike cars and lorries, they are largely uncontrolled; and their carbon-dioxide emissions, combined with escaping fuel vapours and leaking oil, make them remarkably dirty machines for their size. For example, regulators in California estimate that using a chain-saw for two hours produces as much pollution as ten cars each driving 250 miles--though the outdoor-power-equipment lobby, of course, vigorously disagrees.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is the only state that can set its own regulations, although other states may adopt them. California has been phasing in regulations for small engines since 1990. For years Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, determined to protect jobs at two factories in his state, blocked an effort to apply those standards nationally. But recently a compromise, allowing the federal Environmental Protection Agency to proceed with proposed new regulations, was reached. The small-engine lobby concedes that stricter regulations were inevitable, and that a national standard would make sense.

Other tactics are being tried as well. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which covers Los Angeles and Orange County, is offering residents a $399 electric-powered lawnmower for $100 if they trade in an old petrol-burning lawnmower.

Alternatively, America could always give up lawnmowing altogether. Las Vegas residents are encouraged to abandon the unnatural practice of growing grass in a desert and let native plants re-establish themselves. And some have done what so many sweat-drenched people pushing a lawnmower in a Midwestern heatwave long to do; they have paved over their lawns and painted the concrete green.

Don't eat Chilean sea bass

As (Chilean sea bass) became the top-selling fish at restaurants across America, fleets of industrialized fishing vessels – many of them pirates – set out to meet the burgeoning demand...

The Green Mall?

I'm not a big Bill Maher fan, but he's dead on with this recent comment:

There's no such thing as a "green" shopping mall. Developers in Chicago are building the first "environmentally sensitive" mall. Yes, nothing says "I care about the planet" quite like a vast, air-conditioned temple to disposable consumerism. Surrounded by 300 acres of concrete. "Look, honey, the Wetzel's Pretzel has organic salt!" Some things are just never going to be easy on the environment.