Jim Wagner and Mark Stechbart | My Turn
Here we go again. City Council continues to stay mum on crucial details
regarding ocean rise and whose homes and property are in the flood
zone. Were you aware City Council is going to put a value on your home
in the flood zone? Got your attention? That got my attention!
City Council has not notified homeowners, nor all property owners of
commercial or private property, they are in or close to the flood zone. The
city website has a report with flood maps buried in a file labeled
“appendices” (why not label the file “homes in the flood zone”?). The
flood maps are so basic you cannot tell who is in or out.
City Council routinely notifies property owners by mail if a development
project within 500 feet of them is under consideration in their
neighborhood. Yet City Council has not notified anyone in the flood zone.
Why the secrecy? When, if ever, will City Council mail a notification?
Some artful dodging is at play to keep the addresses secret.
The City‘s coastal project schedule says that the Asset inventory
(Translation: Property in flood zone) was to be “deliverable” Nov. 17.
Pacifica didn’t post its Asset inventory until Jan. 2, almost two months
late. The report did not include an inventory, but only referenced “GIS
Files” (Geographic Information Systems, an imaging program).
That original Jan. 2 Asset inventory report also had a big oversight --— it
did not include houses, or businesses.
In order to find out if your home or business is in the flood zone, you need
the GIS files. To read the GIS files, you need to buy an expensive reader
which is private proprietary software. Then you need the expertise to
install and use the reader and a computer configured to handle the size
of the program.
City Council has also placed a value on all homes in the flood zone.
However, City Council has not asked the homeowners if the “value” is correct.
We are concerned this secret home
value will be used to make a finding that certain areas are not worth
defending through shoreline protection measures. We happen to think all
areas should be ”valued” worth saving. Proven shoreline protection
technology is available and Pacifica has state and federal elected officials
we can count on for assistance.
Couple all this with the first public hearing of the coastal planning citizens
group. No public testimony was allowed. The public was only allowed to
put post-it notes on wall maps after the meeting was over. Meeting
materials and a powerpoint presentation were not available before the
meeting and it was eventually posted on the city website a week later.
What homeowners don’t know right now because City Council has bottled
up the information could cost everyone dearly. All this is a run-up to the
Feb. 13 coastal plan public meeting where the public is actually allowed
to testify. We don’t know the details of the Feb. 13 meeting nor when an
agenda, even if incomplete, will be released. We do know the public is in
the dark. City Council, this is unacceptable.
Submitted by Jim Wagner
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21 comments:
Deirdre, Keener and Digre could care less about the important points you make.
The only thing that matters to them is, do their friends approve and whose money are they playing with. As long as it's your money and not theirs, these socialist enemies of Pacifica don't care. Bob Battallio is their bought and paid for (with your money) faux-scientist and he already knows who butters his bread. All he has to do is regurgitate his 10 year old personal opinion about which areas should be deemed flood zones and he gets to pocket $185,000 tax dollars. Then the insurance companies and distressed property buyers can help themselves to whatever's left. Such a deal. If you want to do something about this, dump these sanctimonious carpetbaggers and elect some adults with integrity on the council.
I don't think Pacifican's really understand the danger to the underlying value of their properties if the worst elements of what they are trying to accomplish take place and become part of our local coastal plan. Managed retreat has always been the mantra of Battalio, and be extension, ESA. I wouldn't doubt that most of their report is already written and just waiting for all the mandatory "outreach" to be done. They want to accomplish this before the end of the year and the elections. Digre is termed-out and Keener is up for re-election. Can't risk a rational council messing up Cynthia Kaufman's plan.
Battallio's death sentence for Pacifica has already been written. Ask Keener and Deirdre, they've already seen it. Why else do you think that these Kabuki characters shoved $185,000 of our money into his pocket. They've already read and approved of his phony science homework paper and now they want it to be the backbone of their NOTHING FOR PACIFICA agenda.
These carpetbaggers are the tools of NOBY's. Get it ????!!!!!!
Wake up Pacifica they're about to take everything from you and give it to their commie friends. Kaufman is doing the happy dance.
council did not notice the feb 13 mtg in the Tribune. The feb 13 mtg format will be a town hall mill around, listen to staff explain it all (nothing to see here) and maybe post-it notes. No testimony on the record. Cable TV 26 not covering. This Council, all 5, does not care.
sloppy sea level mapping. City puts pedro pt under water...Confident??
Why don't you crybabies leave running the City to City Council and City Hall.
You beer swirling Monday Morning QB's couldn't run a bake sale, next to a pot shop, let alone tell City Hall what to do.
talk about redlining millions in property value-- this coastal committee in last weeks Tribune said gas station at Linda Mar and Hwy 1 (Dave and Lou's, now Alliance) is adios. Wonder who pays the what $2M to shut it down and pay the owner for loss of biz?/ Does that mean all houses between gas station and community center gone too? Re-align Hwy 1?? Let's guess--- $60M bill?
The logic purported by the city council is simply unacceptable!
By their logic, rains and roof leaks are inevitable and therefore we should simply forget about living under a man-made roof and go find rock caves or deserts!
It is ludicrous!
The city should NOT fund biased studies and most definitely should not pass judgments or convey a certain course of action based on bias.
This is both civic disregard and fiduciary malfeasance. A real and blatant failing of service to the citizens.
Lib
Say Hi to John Keener!
Spewing bullshit is so much easier than competently running a city. The Krazy Kaufman echo chamber is what keeps these election stealing nut-jobs in office.
I'm curious as what type of Netherlands system could keep Pacifica from being affected by sea level rise. Here's an awesome video on how the Netherlands does it but our geography doesn't support that level of defense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6DRRHXt-PA
@9:16
Look up Fudai Seawall in Japan. Also, see link below:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43018489/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/how-one-japanese-village-defied-tsunami/#.WoMv7OaIapQ
Building a seawall is going to require substantial amounts of money. This is also why I proposed up zoning the areas that are liable to be flooded to attract serious capital.
For instance, if the city removes height restrictions, the vertical density may justify the costs towards seawall.
This is a very serious issue for Pacifica. Simply allowing the ocean to flood in would put HWY1 at risk. And once HWY1 is at risk, how much more do we give up?
Should we give up living in Linda Mar, Valle Mar, Rockaway and Pedro Point because the ocean will eventually flood HWY1?
The city council must act responsibly and with long term interests in this regard.
200 people at last nites sea level mtg. Not happy. Folks raised their hands to ask a question and they were ignored.
10:46 ... The current illegitimate 3-2 council is incapable of acting responsibly for the general good of all Pacificans. They are owned by the Kaufman Progressive Alliance cult. Their only interest is in satisfying their puppet masters who don't want anything built anywhere and easily accept the inundation of large coastal neighborhoods and pervasive destruction of affordable housing with a mere shrug of their shoulders.
Pacifica is in grave existential danger with these lunatics in charge.
They've got theirs, tax and screw everyone else!
What could have been a defining and uniting moment to gain trust for the council majority of 3, was foolishly squandered when they awarded the CCC SLR Grant to ESA (AKA Bob "Managed retreat" Battalio), rather than give the bid to Revell Coastal, offering technical real proven scientific alternatives to Coastal community protection, against SLR. While ESA is all about protecting the coast and not the neighborhoods, business,most of our hotels, restaurants, public infrastructure and outdoor activities on the COAST. The ESA presentation looks and reads like a compilation of general charts, graphs and maps, without much scientific data. Speculative at best. Now, they have all their eggs in the Managed retreat basket. There's no plan B folks. That ship has sailed. Now they are looking at over a billion dollars of property the owners are not going to walk away from and are expecting the city to find ways to protect. To think anything different, is very far removed from realities of people's lives.
There is a definite vibe surrounding all this that is more "What do we want to write off?" rather than "How can we best protect ourselves?"
Because the motives of the three councilmembers were questionable from the very beginning, there's no way anyone can have any trust in there being an unbiased result after all is said and done.
At the end of the day, sea level rise is the type of large crisis that requires county/state/Federal resources to be brought to bear. Pacifica can't even pave its own streets or come up with a roadmap to fiscal solvency, but sea-level rise? Oh yeah, we got this one! Give me a break.
What I'm saying is this is a colossal waste of time and money and our community will be worse for it. So...par for the course with this council.
Easy Solution. Pacifica will build a great retaining wall around the city. City Saved.
You are all Morons!!
Hey Murray, put some pants on! If one to peruse the current CAFR one would find all kinds of mayhem on the horizon. This city has 60+ million dollars of potential bond liability for just the poop factory. Process that. That doesn't count the rest of the indebtedness hanging out there. They have use the WWTP as an ATM since it was built. They even borrowed 2.1 million to pay off some of their ongoing pension liability debt. That's on top of the 20M they borrowed by way of bond on the WWTP. Whooooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooo! We'll never run out of money!
@9:15
If they want to go the way of "retreat" then we might as well dis-incorporate the city.
What are they going to do when the Ocean floods HWY1 at Fairway Park and Rockaway Beach (both low-lying areas) ?
Build two bridges to connect three parts of a broken city? And who would pay for that?
And what will they do when those frogs and snakes get salt pounded? Or do they not care about them anymore?
The frogs and snakes have outlived their usefulness. The faux-enviros have moved on to sea level rise fairy tales. They've given $185,000 tax dollars to Bob Battallio, their phony scientist, to create the narrative and the Cynthia Kaufman troops are practicing their maneuvers to once and for all kill Pacifica for all but their comrades.
Bye Bye Pacifica, you could have been a very beautiful little city to live in.
I was going to let this go, but no can do. Murray Goldberg, the retaining wall around your brain is obviously doing the job. You are the clueless moron. Hundreds, if not thousands of Pacificans are trying to save their lives biggest investment and you are making a joke of it and calling them names. My guess is you have no stake on the COAST. If you want to discuss this face to face, I would be happy to meet up with you. Please do not belittle folks trying to save their properties and livelyhood! Thanks!
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