While lost in a moment of introspection, I found myself pondering what I would say in this column and exactly how to express it, when I was struck by the parallels between my mental indecision and our situation here on Earth.
I think that collectively as a species we too seem to be waiting around and milling over our environmental responsibilities; anticipating the right time to arise when we will step forth and heroically take action. Perhaps we have been waiting for someone else to solve the problems or make the changes.
I realized I was never going to manifest more time to write, have more ideas or a greater literary ability.
And so that is how this column has come to be. Just in case you were wondering about the name, “Green Maven” is my super hero alter ego. My superpowers as Green Maven would allow me to peacefully transform unsustainable practices into holistically sustainable systems with my power ring. I would also have a really killer recycled costume and a sustainably built secret headquarters.
And as for the name, I found out after my selection that it is also the name of the Green search engine www.greenmaven.com so that ought to be easy for us to remember when the need to look up green information arises.
I hope you join me in on the adventure of becoming “green.” This is an adventure we are all collectively taking together here on our small planet whether we like it or not and whether we participate or not. This adventure is taking place both globally and more tangibly, locally.
SARSAS is an acronym for Save Auburn Ravine Salmon And Steelhead. The organization’s mission is to restore, protect, and improve the habitat and runs of salmon and steelhead in the Auburn Ravine by providing a navigable waterway from the Sacramento River to the city of Auburn.
SARSAS is a part of the Dry Creek Conservancy, a non-profit, non-governmental organization, and our goal is to modify the 10 man-made barriers on the Auburn Ravine and the six or more beaver dams, making them passable for fishes. This undertaking will have a lasting effect on the quality of all our lives. We have an opportunity to create something no other town in California has, which is an anadromous (migrating up rivers from the sea to breed in fresh waters) fish run with salmon spawning in the center of the Auburn. So doing this is not only “possible,” but highly “doable.”
Since I was born in Ophir and spent my childhood exploring the Auburn Ravine (AR), and Valerie and I lived in Ophir before moving to Auburn, we have an intimate knowledge of the AR. We first saw the incredible beauty of a city with salmon spawning in its center in Juneau, Alaska, and got the idea to reproduce that beauty in Auburn.
A Rocklin man pled no contest to charges that he flashed three underage girls while they were walking home from school last year.
James Demetrius Singh, 34, pled no contest in Placer County Superior Court on Monday to three misdemeanor counts of “annoying or molesting a child” and one count of “indecent exposure.”
Singh was arrested on Sept. 13 last year just two days after he exposed himself to the minors in Rocklin. Singh faces sentencing on May 14.
“The Rocklin Police Department is to be commended for their exemplary investigative work that they did on this case,” said Placer County Deputy District Attorney Matt Block. “It is our hope that the victims and their families can now begin to heal and move beyond these obviously traumatic experiences.”
Early Tuesday morning, 37-year-old Loomis resident Barry Knight was killed when he lost control of his vehicle.
At 1:24 a.m. on Tuesday, CHP officers responded to the reported rollover collision on Junewood Lane east of Auburn-Folsom Road.
Officers believe Knight failed to negotiate a curve in the roadway and struck his 1994 Bronco into a large rock. The vehicle overturned and Knight, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, was ejected from the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Cowpoke Productions presents Sourdough Slim April 19 at 7 p.m. at the Blue Goose Fruit Shed as a fundraiser for the shed renovation project.
A well traveled veteran of stages ranging from The National Cowboy Gathering in Elko, Nev. to the Lincoln Center in New York, Slim is a singer, musician and comedian. His show combines music on the accordion, guitar, harmonica and a generous helping of award-winning yodeling that won him the 2001 Will Rogers Award for Yodeler of the Year.
Born in Hollywood, Sourdough Slim spent much of his childhood on a family cattle ranch in the Sierra foothills.
Sharing the stage is John Kintz, a local singing cowboy with a small ranch in Loomis. He started playing the guitar at age 13. Kintz has performed the last several years at The Cowpoke Fall Gathering and was the opening act at Charlie Russell Yarns.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at Blue Goose Produce and Foothill Feed & Gifts in Loomis or by calling 916-652-8555. Proceeds from the event will be used for the continuing renovation of the Blue Goose Fruit Shed.
Kevin Hanley’s recent endorsement of Tom McClintock is another example of one’s political and intellectual blinders standing in the way of clear visions and judgment.
Hanley decries representatives who place their self-interest and re-election above the (public) interest. McClintock is a career politician from Southern California who has run for every high and low office imaginable. No longer acceptable there, he decides he wants to be the representative for the northernmost district in California. Now just whose interest is he representing?
Tom McClintock routinely stands toughly up to the “liberal” ACLU and other organizations that advocate for the powerless and for the environment – and he routinely rolls over for the Haliburtons and Blackwaters and the Abramoffs. Mr. Hanley considers this “courageous.” This new pretender votes to cut education and social programs and health care while approving many times those amounts for new prisons and a senseless war in Iraq. Kevin calls that “fiscal prudence.”
Tom McClintock promises to continue the vicious partisanship and politics of attack that have so characterized the Doolittles, Karl Rove and Tom “The Hammer” Delay. Kevin calls this “integrity.”
Both Kevin and McClintock would have government abdicate some of its most basic responsibilities, that of regulation and control of abuses and protecting the public from more scandals. He puts “big labor” on a par with big business, while anyone with any knowledge of our government knows that the amount of money contributed by labor truly pales in comparison to the obscene amounts raised and contributed by the bloated oil companies and defense contractors, the mighty health and insurance firms, the mega developers and the media and entertainment conglomerates, etc. These are at the heart of what Kevin castigates as the “iron triangle” – not honest working people and their unions.
Kevin Hanley fancies himself a bright man. Indeed, he works hard and brings a lot to our city council. Hopefully, he will confine his ministrations to that realm and stop trying to select our national representatives for us.
The
public will get a chance to tour the new $24 million Lincoln
City Hall and Western Placer
Unified School
District offices on Saturday, March 29 at 10 a.m.
For more information, call 916-434-2448.
No layoffs predicted, but city keeping some positions vacant
Lincoln has been listed as one of the fastest growing cities in the state and that growth is largely responsible for keeping the town’s finances in the black while other cities struggle with declining revenues.
Sales tax receipts for Placer County slipped 6.9 percent in the third quarter 2007 compared to the same time in 2006, according to a financial report released by The HdL Companies. Lincoln saw a slight gain of 4.3 percent, but the number is skewed, according to the report, because a “temporary use tax allocation” artificially boosted the bottom line.
As fourth quarter sales tax figures come out over the next few weeks, cities across the county are bracing for bad news, but according to Lincoln City Manager Gerald Johnson, the city is on track.
As reported in previous editions of the Sentinel, cities across the county are facing tough choices. Auburn is slashing up to seven positions and offering early retirement to an eighth employee. Rocklin doesn’t have a true “hiring freeze” in place, but according to City Manager Carlos Uruttia, they are in no hurry to fill ten vacant positions. Colfax, which lost 19 percent of its sales tax receipts in the third quarter of last year, is in the black due to some fiscally prudent measures taken by the City Council in September 2007. But, according to Colfax Mayor Jim Albright, the city is facing tough economic choices for next year’s budget. Loomis, the hardest hit with a 22 percent drop, weathered the storm because other tax monies were up overall. In his weekly radio address, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described 2008 as “Another down year, a famine year.”
Despite the dire predictions, Lincoln has no layoff plans for city workers and, according to Johnson, the city fared well financially if the latest sales tax figures are any indication.
More than 900 acres have been preserved in rural Lincoln thanks to the efforts of Placer Land Trust. The Garden Bar Preserve, situated along the Bear River northeast of Garden Bar Road, is the largest conservation project completed by the nonprofit organization.
The organization purchased a conservation easement at “below market value,” according to a press release, from the landowner to “permanently protect” the property.
“In addition to protecting water and air quality, this conservation easement guarantees that one of the largest remaining wilderness areas in western Placer County will be preserved for future generations,” said Placer Land Trust Executive Director Jeff Darlington.
Garden Bar Preserve is not accessible by public road. It is located at the northern end of the county’s largest unfragmented expanse of oak woodlands. The easement will protect the property’s natural and agricultural resources, including two miles of Bear River frontage, rolling oak woodlands, and rangeland.
A mere 13 persons were in the audience for Monday night’s marathon three-hour Auburn City Council meeting and most of those were city staff members and soon to be ex-city employees.
The last item on the city council’s agenda was the citywide reorganization that is supposed to save up to $700,000 annually over the next three years. This shuffling of duties includes the layoffs, or position eliminations, of more than 11 percent of the city’s workforce.
Hardest hit in the cuts is the Public Works Department where three positions are getting the ax. The entire custodial crew, including the contractor who currently cleans the Old Town public restroom and the Robert F. Conheim Multimodal Station, is going to be replaced by an independent cleaning service.
Lincoln Arts sees red ink, not red-clay sponsors
It’s a troubling sign of the times. After 21 years, the region’s biggest arts event is in peril of being canceled next year if more corporate sponsors don’t step forward this year – and soon.
The Lincoln Arts and Culture Foundation’s highly respected and internationally known Feats of Clay ceramic art competition and exhibition – now in its 21st year – announced it is seeing lackluster support from local businesses due to the economic downturn and a more cautious business environment. The not-for-profit organization, which sponsors a range of arts programs in Lincoln, is funded almost entirely by community donations and member contributions.
“We are running behind in our corporate sponsorships this year,” said
Claudia Renati, executive director for Lincoln Arts in a press
announcement released Feb. 28. “We realize businesses may not have as
much to give in these financially difficult times, but they should look
at (the Feats of Clay) sponsorship not only as helping their local arts
organization, but also as a good investment.”
