One wonders why Pacifica is going broke, scrambling to extort new infrastructure repairs out of the public, and in the crosshairs of every radical enviro group in the state. Can you imagine if this biodiesel albatross had been hooked into our "State of the Art" waste water treatment plant!
Pacifica City Councilman Jim Vreeland is not up for re-election next year, but just thought I would remind people of just one of his failed projects that cost the City of Pacifica and its citizens. Satirical Video, 4:52 minutes. Pacifica Mayor Vreeland at the Coastal Commission. flaky, potentially dangerous project for our WWTP.
Coastal Commission approval article, Pacifica Tribune article/Jane Northrop, 7/16/08.
Posted by Kathy Meeh
40 comments:
Jim, while you were out Vreeland got re-elected last year. Just thought you should know.
Vreeland got re-elected last year. It's DeJarnatt who's up for re-election.
Now that's funny.
Steve, you're right. Oh well, don't vote for radical environmentalists. I'll change the wording slightly.
Has spoken!
"Can you imagine if this biodiesel albatross had been hooked into our "State of the Art" waste water treatment plant!"
I think what was in it for Vreeland, Hall and Whole Energy company was the CA State $640,000 grant, and any other "free money" and skim. Hired to do the job was Whole Energy, a company without adequate experience or capital.
Todd was knowledgeable, and was vocal against forging such an "experiment" with our WWTP. Many other Pacifica environmentalists did not join or were quiet.
Bray was for the bio diesel plant
Todd, while you were out the entertainment value of these blogs dropped.
We're the ones who got "hooked". Who knows how much this ego-trip cost the city and taxpayers. It's amusing that we were saved from further pillaging only because the chosen company, Whole Energy, was even less competent than Pacifica's Eco-Braintrust.
God protects.
The entertainment value actually dropped?
City put about $80K cash in bio diesel project. A biofuel rigged diesel generator is crated somewhere since the project collapsed and it's not being used.
The irony of all this is the City had no contract language to recover city costs should project sponsor Whole Energy disappear, which it did.
Maybe before any new city taxes next year, we get council, or vreeland, to get city costs back from WE, as a goodwill gesture? It will have to be goodwill because no one on council thought to legally protect the rights of the taxpayers shelling out $$ in a deal that may collapse.
I think we should consider ourselves lucky that Whole Energy failed so miserably and timely. We could have lost a lot more than $80,000. The whole thing was a monumental goat flip. Vree and Co. must have cried when their new career op slithered away.
can nancy hall write us a check for $80K???
Wasn't she the lead advocate?? Can she help us recover the $$?
Nancy, will write you a song
the Pacifica bio-diesel blues
I wonder how much money was wasted by the City chasing the Peebles ripoff?
"I wonder how much money was wasted by the City chasing the Peebles ripoff?"
Which part? Before Measure L or after the private equity firm foreclosed on Peebles?
"...the City chasing the Peebles ripoff..."
Put that in proper context (Anon 940), the city (city council 2002-2010) did what it could to block quarry and other significant economic development, in favor of leaving the city broken.
Wonder how many millions of dollars have been lost forever not developing the quarry, a simple solution to this city's ongoing structural economic problem.
Sure the anti-development "ripoff" is to the citizens of this city - jobs, services, city services. Existing solution: make-up the low-level, basic service difference by laying-off or downgrading employees; excusing infrastructure decay; passing service cost to residents, increasing taxes and imbedded or additional fees.
So we have less than $100K squandered on bio-diesel and of course we continue to fantasize about all that money coming from the quarry. Sure, why not. These are entertaining distractions when compared to the actual millions siphoned off from the sewer fund for years for pet projects. Millions. Totally legal until the Big Horn decision stopped CA cities from looting their enterprise funds. Legal but certainly not ethical when council and the city knew exactly where that money was supposed to go. And knew how desperately the repairs needed to be made. Think what that money could have done if responsibly used to repair and maintain our leaky laterals and delicate sewer plant. Think about it long and hard when you write a check for $14,000 to repair your lateral, your sewer tax goes up again, and when your home resale value takes another hit because real estate in this town is seen as bogged down in red tape and the future of city services is precarious. And it's all for nothing because the fix passed by council, strategically at the last minute, is not a fix. The spills and the leaky laterals and the fines will continue. The irony is that these professed stewards of the environment and protectors of our community have done more damage to it than anyone else in town. Perhaps even more than anyone they've kept out of town. Bio-diesel, the quarry...IMHO they pale by comparison to the misuse of the sewer funds.
show us the cease and desist letter that Peebles had to send you Bray.
Post the letter
I triple dog dare you
anon@404, Peebles again. Good lord who cares at this point about Peebles or some letter he did or didn't write to Bray? Over and done with just like the rest of the dinosaurs. This town needs to focus on the here and now to survive and perhaps even grow. You sound like Blanche DuBois mooning over some long lost suitor.
"...done with just like the rest of the dinosaurs."
Anon (448) is that like "done with", as in the large pile of discouraged, dismissed, bankrupt, and dead dinosaur developers with qualified projects who dared to improve this city? History lesson: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," (George Santayana). Otherwise, its groundhog day. (video, 3 minutes).
Hey Jim,
Don't forget the new city fee structure. That's a way in which revenue can be grabbed from residents and business owners to fund the failing city.
I got a call from a friend who owns a small business. The city sent him a bill for $150 for a fire inspection. This is the first time they've ever charged for this service. It consists of a fire official walking from the front to the back of the business, and walking back again. Trouble was, according to my friend, the inspection never happened!
Better record-keeping is the answer.
Oh the poor old dinosaurs. Now there was a job for Wild Equity and CBD.
Oh no, see in Pacifica the businesses actually pay $150 for the official fire inspector to stay away. It's actually cheaper for the business that way.
Deja Vu, yes, the days of the dinos are over. 4 leggers and 2 leggers, all gone.
And the business gets to write the check to Daly City! They got rid of the inspector so now an engine has to come out with 3 firefighters to do the inspection. Now that's cost effective....for Daly City. Hope you don't need a re-inspection. Yep, another $150.
I guess the message is clear The fire department is being run by shake down artists.
A Lesbian Liberal Democrat is taking the charge to inform people in the bay area about Agenda 21. Please click on the article and read what the UN has in store for us. Do your own research.
http://gulagbound.com/17441/agenda-21-%E2%80%93-ending-liberty-in-america/
Even a right-wing corporate thief knows that with climate change and population growth, scientific adaptation must occur to accommodate both. Here's the direct United Nations, Agenda 21 text, rather than wasting your brain on radicalized you-tube propaganda. Begin with reading the solid, reasonable introduction.
Note: 1 billion+ people on this planet are currently starving, and 3 billion people live in very poor conditions on less than $2.50 per day. See Global Issues. World population is 7 billion.
"Sustainable development" is about human and planet survival, but more than that its a core broad-based concept plan for economic, civic, social and ecological conditions improvement for ALL in the present and the future. Try this fact from water.org: "884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people." Think that's reasonable on this planet in the 21st century?
Good thing Mr Bigmouth has no business for the fire dept to inspect.
Mr Bigmouth keeps digging his self deeper and deeper
I recommend researching the thrive movement. It debunks all of what Meeh says. We need to get rid the UN, get them out of the United States. Do your own research. It is in your best interest. When people like Meeh and others use attack words, you know something is not right. It is the communists best way of chasing away the truth.
I fail to understand your logic, Anonymous (1045). The ideological conspiracy thrive movement website seems a bit confused, and not in step with the major Tea Party billionaire funding. That's curious!
Then, throwing-out that "communist" world without solutions is about as meaningless as supporting capitalism without accountability to human and planet life.
What you support and propose is very confusing. If its anarchy and tribalism, that is a symptom not a solution to the current world capitalistic rule. It seems you should be less obsessed with pure communism (not so far removed from Christianity teachings), and more concerned with the fallout affect of central corporate capitalism policy.
Trying to engage the nut-jobs in a serious debate only gives them credibility they don't deserve.
Steve "don't feed the trolls" is just a slogan unless the policy of this blog is to control (hence eliminate) such comments which include irresponsible links. 5th rule of propaganda (on a simplified list) The rule of orchestration," "endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations".
The alternative to confront the nonsense is to challenge it in view of reason. That's what this blog has been doing with city myths as well.
Who's the nut job?
No one likes Kathy Meeh. She has no thought of her own, and all of her statements are from the. communist manifesto. If you do not believe me visit the Communist Party USA website. I think you will even see her picture posted as Comrade of the Year.
Yeah, I'm a middle-of-the-road Democrat with a great education, and you're even dumber than I thought, Anon (1012).
Anon, Comrade of the Year? I bet you think Rocky and Bullwinkle is a documentary and Natasha and Boris are historical party figures. By any chance are you underground with lots of canned goods and toilet paper? Duck and cover, baby.
Agenda 21 and the Threat in Your Backyard
Ready to trade in your car for a bike, or maybe a subway instead? Interested in fewer choices for your home, paying more for housing, and being crammed into a denser neighborhood? You can have all this and more if radical environmentalists and "smart growth" advocates have their way and local, state, and the federal government impose the policies set forth in the United Nations' Agenda 21.
You might have heard of this nefarious-sounding policy in a recent Republican presidential debate, but even if you haven't, here's some background information: Agenda 21 is a voluntary plan adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. It calls on governments to intervene and regulate nearly every potential impact that human activity could have on the environment. The end goal? Getting governments to "rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet."
As adopted, Agenda 21 was described as "a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment." That includes hundreds of specific goals and strategies that national and local governments are encouraged to adopt. And that translates into restrictive zoning policies that are aimed at deterring suburban growth. Ultimately, they suppress housing supply and drive up home prices, in turn imposing unnecessary costs, especially on middle- and lower-income households. These policies contributed to and aggravate the real estate bubble by putting inflationary pressures on housing prices.
But here's the catch: Nothing about Agenda 21 is binding, and it's not a threat in and of itself. Instead, the threat Americans need to be concerned about is the one that lies in their own backyard. In a new paper, "Focus on Agenda 21 Should Not Divert Attention from Homegrown Anti-Growth Policies," Wendell Cox, Ronald Utt, Brett Schaefer explain:
Opponents of Agenda 21 should not be distracted from the more tangible manifestation of the smart-growth principles outlined in that document. If they focus excessively on Agenda 21, it is much more likely that homegrown smart-growth policies that date to the early 1970s and undermine the quality of life, personal choice, and property rights in American communities will be implemented by local, state, and federal authorities at the behest of environmental groups and other vested interests.
In the United States, smart-growth policies started in California and Oregon but then spread around the country to "deter suburban growth for all but the well-to-do," as Cox, Utt, and Schaefer explain. They also write that those policies were not without detrimental impact:
As they became more prevalent and restrictive, their impact on housing prices and construction likewise expanded. An explosion of exclusionary zoning throughout the U.S. encouraged many communities to adopt zoning policies to ensure that they maintained a certain demographic 'profile.' Such zoning limited real estate development to higher-cost homes in order to 'price out' moderate-income households, which included a disproportionate share of minorities.
Where do these home-grown smart-growth policies stand today? The Obama Administration has embraced them while also increasing environmental regulations and restrictions on the use of natural resources. But the White House isn't the only one behind the smart-growth movement. Local and state officials, along with interest groups, are promoting the policies at all levels of government.
And that's where smart growth must also be thwarted. It's not just a matter of standing against the implementation of Agenda 21 at the national level; it's also about protecting our own backyards against the home-grown threat.
No smart growth in my backyard.
NSGIMBY?
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