Thursday, August 2, 2012

Obstructing quarry development is a 30 year "state of denial"


Time to  move on Peter, and allow a qualified developer to develop the quarry property with or without housing units.   Pacifica Tribune Letters-to-the-Editor, 8/1/12,  printed page 11A, not included in the electronic version.

Take the ride?  88 acres economic potential
"To Lie or not to Lie" by Gil Anda 

"The way I understood it, when Elaine Larsen called the promise of developing the quarry a lie, she was speaking metaphorically. She wasn’t calling anyone a liar, per se. Unfortunately this prompted the Nixon-like response (I am not a liar) from Peter Loeb. My feeling is that Peter Loeb is sincere in his beliefs, therefore not lying. However, the question now is, are his beliefs accurate?

It’s been three decades since and the promises made since are now proven empty. At this point I don’t think Peter Loeb is lying, however I think he is in denial. Contrary to what he stated in his letter, there have been a significant number of attempts to come up with ‘visitor-serving’ projects, some of these were ill conceived and destined never to get off the ground.  

What about our habitat?
The most promising and comprehensively planned visitor serving proposal was the project offered by Andres Duany and Don Peebles.  Ironically, Peter Loeb and his friends campaigned aggressively to defeat this proposal, which leaves us where we are today. In essence his argument was a chant, ‘355 houses’. However, if he doesn’t get that residential housing plays an important role in supporting commercial development, visitor serving or otherwise, he will continue to defeat the only viable solutions out of this mess. Provided that we have the good fortune to have any other proposal in our future.
And that’s the problem with making our critical decisions subject to a vote by ‘the people’. It sounds democratic, but the reality is that it is impractical. The founding fathers saw that if you made every decision subject to popular vote, the result would be a government subject to paralysis. That’s why we have a legislative, executive and judicial branch in our federal government. But I digress." 
Related articles - Fix Pacifica reprint, Pacifica Tribune letters-to-the-editor, 8/1/12:  "Quarry wars" by Connie Menefee, and "Big lie" by Peter Loeb.

Submitted by Gil Anda 

Posted by Kathy Meeh

16 comments:

todd bray said...

Gil, all due respect, Y'awl needs to lay off Peter. You know as well as I do we generate plenty of revenue in this town but pay our employees too much at the moment. Using the unfortunate economic events of the last 5 years to create scape goats is beneath you man.

Anonymous said...

Now Bray is shilling for Peter Loeb

The hippies deputized Bray with no pay to be the mouth piece of the hippie movement.
Pretty pathetic and desparate!

Anonymous said...

Bray has lost all creditability

I would say crazy from the heat but its been a cool Pacifica summer

Anonymous said...

Did you see Gil Anda get up at the Climate Action Committee Special Session and embarrass himself with his global warming skepticism? For him to try to make a judgment on someone else's beliefs hold no credibility anymore then a flat-earther has any standing at an astrophysics seminar. But style points for comic relief!

Anonymous said...

Skepticism is right at home in any scientific discussion. It drives discovery. Scientists welcome it. Why on earth would you be bothered by it? Rather doubt that Gil Anda embarrassed himself or anyone else. Not the man's style.

Kathy Meeh said...

Anon 8/2, 10:06pm, I didn't attend the Climate Action Committee Special Session, but I seriously doubt YOU, and not anything Gil Anda might say. Gil was part of the city Climate Action Committee, and he is a measured, thoughtful, studied man.

Anonymous 10:42pm has made the perfect reply to you.

Steve Sinai said...

I was at the meeting. Gil wasn't denying climate change. From what I could tell, he was trying to demonstrate that it still wasn't definitive as to how much of the increase in CO2 emissions was natural vs. man-made.

I happen to believe that the current problems with global warming are primarily human-caused, but there have been plenty of instances in the past where scientific beliefs that were widely accepted turned out to be wrong.

BTW - the climate change draft wasn't well received by the members of council, except for Sue. From the very start of the meeting, council members were questioning the high costs of the draft's recommendations.

Anonymous said...

How bout this theory:

More pavement more run off more sea level rise?

Anonymous said...

I believe in climate change.

Yesterday was foggy.

Today, wait....need to look out my window. Sun. I see sun.

Today is sunny.

Kathy Meeh said...

Theory: "More pavement more run off more sea level rise" Anonymous 8:13 AM

Do you mean dirt roads to your home, to your job from commerce all over the USA, airports. Then sea level won't rise? That some interesting theory.

How about better city drainage, recycled water for landscape, desalination, birth control, and whatever else makes sense. The Bay Area may grow by 1.7 million over the next 25 years. No paved roads, what a mess.

And climate change isn't an issue?

Hutch said...

Gil is a hell of a lot more credible than the NIMBY's shill Sue Digre talking about sea level rising as the reason she didn't vote on the highway 1 widening issue.

She is YOUR representative? Really credible.

Then there's Pete Loeb who cost our town 100's of thousands in lost money by frightening voters to oppose the Quarry Project.

@ Anon 813 How about this theory:
Narrow Highway = more congestion = more pollutants in the air, ground and water.

Hutch said...

Gil is correct, there is no definite proof of how much of climate change is caused by man and how much is the natural cycle of Earth.

The Earths climate has been changing CONSTANTLY for billions of years. The sea level rises and falls millions of times. The earth warms and cools and warms every few hundred years. We go from ice age to tropical and back every 10,000 years or so. 5000 years ago many islands like Bermuda were underwater and the earth was many degrees warmer. 5000 years earlier we were in an ice age.

Was this the cave men and the Egyptians fault?

Not to say man isn't causing increased CO2 and greenhouse gases. And we should drastically reduce these without putting an undue burden on people. But how much of this is man made and how much is natural is still not scientifically known.

Anonymous said...

Bump

Anonymous said...

Whoohoo! 30 years. Where's the cake and champagne? Somebody is celebrating.

Anonymous said...

"Somebody is celebrating."

The skunks are for sure.

Anonymous said...

Re: Anon 813 How about this theory:
Narrow Highway = more congestion = more pollutants in the air, ground and water......BETTER YET - how about a city council that listens to its constituents, and considers staggering the start times of the school's off Valle Mar, and changing the signal's ? We don't need a wider highway, it will destroy the charm of our little coastal town; we don't need a tacky orange wall along the road (vs the beautiful trees that are there now); nor do we need businesses forced closed, to widen such a small stretch of land; if you want to live in a place that has a bigger road - move!