The (Im)Possibilities of Planning

I just read all the responses to all my submitted comments, most of which were posted here on Amador Community News, to the General Plan Draft Environmental Impact Report. The planners are correct in saying that many of my comments don’t directly relate to “the adequacy of the General Plan”. My comments were critiques of the General Plan itself and its new restrictions on freedom. My primary intent was to inform County residents about ‘what is coming down’. With other of my comments they responded by citing wording that I had read as if I didn’t understand it. But I did and my thrust was lack of trust in how certain wordings of intent and rules would work in the real world along with the broader implications of over regulation. But most of my comments were relegated to their personal opinion category. It seems like what was once commonly called the American way of life is now personal opinion and no longer national consensus.

This entire costly process ignores the uncertain difficulty of knowing the future and committing resources to projections that aren’t yet realities.  I once attended a meeting of long range planners for the Grant Line Road corridor. This narrow rural road without safe shoulders and no turn pocket intersections had become an Elk Grove-Folsom rush hour nightmare. So based on a problem area that emerged almost a decade before, an expensive body of planners and engineers were assembled to design a solution 20 or more years into the future. This included an express bus system with origin and final destination shuttles on each trip end. They did not know what they were doing.  Americans only transfer once. People transfer far more when they don’t have other choices as in Third World countries. Is that what we are becoming as the “expert” class thrives and the road remains dangerous? While I don’t have hard figures handy, common sense would dictate fixing those intersections with frequent high speed collusions first, before the long range studies are financed. Our resources are being misappropriated, ironically creating a long range problem as the misappropriation mistakes cumulatively snowball. But the planning profession has been successful in convincing the politicians that they are the answer and the more the better.

In geology there is the concept of multiple working hypothesizes but in planning all too often the plans and projections take on a life of their own. About 25 years ago I redesigned the Modesto bus system, and as required, used the official plans. They included a significant residential development to the northeast. This happened and went bust in the housing crisis. But even if it hadn’t, there would be no transit potential until a teen age population emerged there in another 15 to 20 years.  However, the bus system’s form was altered to easily plug in a future service from the development area giving one transfer access to most of the city. As common sense awareness dictated no ridership demand has emerged from those developments and there is presently no bus service there. While I solved the problem I’d been given, I often wonder if those changes in the system had become just an inconvenience for most riders. So here the plan became the new reality, but only with a ghostly presence.

So the projections become plans and then morph into prescriptions. These then take on a life of their own and have entered the General Plan discussions here in Amador County. Some people imagine that an alleged exodus of software writers will choose Amador County out of a whole world of possibilities and make us the new beacon of prosperity. While believing in possibilities is basic and essential, it is now a prescription requiring adherence. The belief of these people is so strong that the survival of our railroad which is here and now could be sacrificed to an unlikely vision. A vision based on an activity cauldron that almost always occurs in big cities but in their way of thinking will preserve our rural way of life. This muddled mindset allows our General Plan to have adherents. But its far more than a strict prescription, it is an edict to goosestep into Agenda 21 and the new world order.

What will this new prescriptive planning produce? Many years ago in Amsterdam I took several of their light rail lines from Central Station to their far terminal and back.  When I saw the first few stations in new development areas they seemed like good planning. One got off their train at a plaza with dry cleaning, day care, retail food, etc right there. Americans often run their errands driving home from work and therefore find that a transit trip often necessitates an inefficient second auto trip. However my delight faded rapidly as all the new station areas looked alike. Finally I wanted to scream at the banality. But now these are emerging all across America, with financial backing from Obama, including Sacramento. I worked with those planners on TOD’s (Transit Oriented Developments) and asked this question: a new development at current costs would attract only, for example, a corporate chain dry cleaner over an owner/operator. The convenience would draw customers from the independent dry cleaner a few blocks away who would probably go out of business. Is this what you want? They never answered. But we all know that most unique businesses grow from a small business that is the vision of a single individual. Trader Joe’s, which many locals desired for the Pine Grove Dollar General site, started that way.

Are we talking about ignored factors, unintended consequences or a globalist/Agenda 21 plan? Ultimately it doesn’t matter since the outcome is the same and that outcome is the globalist/Agenda 21 plan. We now have prescription, not freedom. While the individual expressions may seem like clutter to those with overly compulsive desires, the hodge podge can develop its own distinct character. Built environments that succeed and delight are fine grained. This is vastly different that deciding between a rustic or alpine look for the Buckhorn Town Center. Is uniformity safer than freedom now?  Along with general planning morphing into prescriptive planning, the basic assumptions have changed.  Large public parks have always been considered land banks. This can provide a needed site without having to eminent domain someone out of their home or business. Gene Autry’s Museum of the American West endured a herculean struggle to occupy its site in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park in 1988. Just recently George Lucas’s Star Wars Museum got rejected for Chicago’s lakefront collection of public buildings because its site, a parking lot, was deemed critical open space. So we have moved completely from planning that provided for the future to one that contains it. When I got my master’s in planning it was essential to understand that the goal of planning was to create opportunity and zone enough land for affordable choice knowing that future demand will probably change. The context was freedom. That was a democratic attitude I endorsed. But planning has been usurped for very different outcomes.

Certainly, it is common sense to plan for the future. Big problems and bad decisions can be avoided.  Underneath the skyscrapers of downtown Buffalo, NY lies what was judged in the 1960’s as the world’s largest deposit of high grade construction gravel. Apparently the founding French fur traders of the 1750’s didn’t file their EIR. That won’t happen today. But we have situations like Galt allowing new homes too close to our only rail link and inhibiting or constraining current and future use. Not surprisingly the planning establishment’s answer to this is more planners and more regional planning powers. The regional agencies are run by “experts” who know what’s best for us and governed by appointed officials not elected for their specific posts. This is often a new tyranny and the implementation means of the new world order/Agenda 21. These are the people that see our future changing the bed linen of Bay Area tourists and living in service worker ghettos. More regional planning is obviously not the answer. It most likely would not preserve our railroad’s future, but rather endorse its destruction as part of their utopian deindustrialization. The ideological beliefs of the participants are paramount, whatever form the decision making process takes.

The beliefs enshrined in our General Plan and its prescriptions to achieve them are simply people removal. That means you and I. Not all at once, because that would engender public protest, but one by one we will be picked off. Wait until your septic fails or some similar circumstance. Yet some in our community are alarmed over the handful of unmitigatable impacts. Preventing any change, essential if we are to prosper, for a future that is unknown (excepting unforeseen events) reveals a belief in stasis. But that doesn’t exist and only leads to stagnation. Planning should not, and in reality can’t, proscribe a future. But it should, and can, prepare for the future. That is why the General Plan is called general.

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett

Elections and Other Thoughts

Not long after I moved into Amador County I discovered that local politics was the biggest intramural sport here. This year is no exception. A candidate question and answer was in last Friday’s Ledger Dispatch. Amber Hoiska stated that “my desire (is) to restore a sense of altruism, civility and democracy to Amador County.” When did it ever leave? Or does she mean that if Amador doesn’t meet her preconceived point of view than it lacks altruism and is uncivil and undemocratic? She continues with: “We need to better use our transportation taxes.” But she has provided no formation to substantiate this assertion. She appears to be trying to sell an excuse while at the same time opposing tax revenue generators such as Newman Ridge which she feels is “unnecessary”. That statement also assumes that some authority other than the marketplace should decide what is necessary.

Regarding the General Plan Ms. Hoiska states: “We have to make some compromises.” Who compromises what with whom? We already have an anti rural living Agenda 21 style draft General Plan rather expensively written by a consulting firm selected by a stacked process. The situation in Calaveras County is sensible with room for compromise, but ours is not since our basic way of life and freedoms are being threatened. But she somehow sees herself as: “I uniquely understand the needs of working families and young families.” And while I have no reason to doubt her understanding, I fail to see what uniqueness she possesses. In my both professional and citizen experience, I have seen people in positions of decision making run the gauntlet from real understanding to utter disdain for those they were supposed to serve.

The invented election issue of Pine Grove being in three supervisorial districts was clarified by incumbent Richard Forster when he discussed the related issue of Pine Grove incorporation by saying: “I have not heard a massive outcry from voters for change.” However, Frank Axe stated: “I support forming a citizen redistricting commission to start work on this problem so we’re ready for the next census.” What is the point of projecting numbers and testing hypothesizes which will only waste people’s time and some public resources before the official figures? It’s hardly a secret that developments in Plymouth and Ione will shift population eastward and most likely solve this perceived problem.

Mr. Axe went on to cite: “…excessive county supervisor compensation.” Considering what they put up with, I consider the supervisors underpaid. Did Mr. Axe consider his salary in prior positions to be excessive? He goes on to say: “I support adding policies to the county general plan to conserve viewsheds, provided the county also develops ways to pay landowners for easements.” Based on this statement, he either hasn’t read the draft General Plan or doesn’t understand it. Scenic viewsheds, in the plan, have governing authority over other decisions. Paying to preserve them means either more public expenditure (taxes) and/or a developer fee that makes housing more expensive. This entails, just like his proposal about a pre-census commission did, more government involvement and expense.

Mr. Axe also wants the General Plan to make sure the plan reflects what the citizens said they wanted which includes keep development in towns. Looking at the way people now live in Amador County it’s blatantly obvious that people want to live on or near the land. However, environmental activists with voices louder than their numbers appear to have his ear. The draft General Plan is an Agenda 21 cookie cutter plan that slowly forces us formerly free Americans off the land, except for the affluent few, into strategic hamlets. I can only support a candidate that supports our traditional rights to live where we want to live.

Mr. Axe continues with: “I will listen to and work with everyone, regardless of … how long they’ve been here.” Apparently, he is referring to his own experience and attitude and those of his like minded associates with their limited Utopian and primarily tourist vision for Amador County. I moved here a total stranger and had no problem being listened to, nor did anyone else I know. He believes we need: “…a countywide, long term economic plan.” This must assume that government and committees are the answer (because that has worked so well elsewhere?), rather than individual initiative. Certainly an economic plan can create an infrastructure that enables individual initiative, but we already have that. We also have a climate here where something as simple as a chain store proposal or a new quarry in a quarrying area becomes open warfare.

In sharp contrast, Louis Boitano was a breath of fresh air and common sense. He said: “I think we should relax the sign ordinance to help promote businesses in these challenging times (and) Our local long-term economic plan needs to include natural resources.” Regarding the complaints of some about the delayed General Plan he said: “We are working…to carefully address the 1,840 comments…Most of those comments are from the same environmental group.”

That issue of the endless comments was rebuffed, in that same issue of the Ledger, by the Foothill Conservancy’s executive director Cecily Smith. She felt that all those comments were necessary because the plan was “…vague, weak, legally inadequate…” What that remark tells us is that the draft General Plan does not meet the desires of the Foothill Conservancy and little else of value or truth. That Ledger also had a letter to our planning director about the General Plan and fire safety from Edith Hannigan, a board consultant to the State Responsibility Area. She states that we are in danger: “…given the growth pressure faced by Amador County.” Considering that we are losing population along with a declining economy, there is no substance to her fear inducing tactic.

This election season, both locally and nationally, reminds me of that common paraphrase of a Winston Churchill remark: “…democracy is the worst possible way to make decisions, except that it is better than any other way.”

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett

Who Is Racist?

The Presidential election is heating up, and some are maligning Donald Trump as a racist. At the same time, those on the far left are leveling charges of racism that seem rather far out to most people. It seems appropriate to now critically examine who is racist.

New York’s far left mayor, Bill de Blasio, charged that Congress hasn’t bailed out Puerto Rico because Puerto Ricans are people of color. There is, of course, no proof of this. My 11/9/15 post, Free Puerto Rico!, documents how Puerto Rico which could have been the Hong Kong or Singapore of the Caribbean got into its current mess. It was chosen by the Roosevelt’s New Deal as a socialist experiment. Was it chosen because Puerto Ricans are “people of color” and the New Dealers figured they could get away with this experiment there, rather than the white mainland? If that were the case, then the white liberals were the racists, not the current, anti-bail out Republicans, who want the Puerto Rican dependency to stand on its own two feet, just like any parent would teach their children.

Recently “Mickey Fearn, the National Park Service Deputy Director for Communications and Community Assistance, made headlines when he claimed that black people don’t visit national parks because they associate them with slaves being lynched by their masters…Carolyn Finney…a diversity advisor to the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board. .. claims that oppression and violence against black people in forests and other green spaces can translate into contemporary understandings that constrain African-American environmental understandings’…the tree is a racist symbol to black people.” While this seems like a nonsensical extreme position to most people, Ms. Finney goes on to say: “Theodore Roosevelt’s vision of preserving beautiful natural landscapes was rooted in ‘privilege’. This contains some truth, as I have previously implied that the conservation movement started as an elitist movement of upper class white Anglo-Saxon Protestants against the then new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (i.e., Catholics and Jews). It also attacked poor whites, as I documented in a post a few years ago about Roosevelt’s Civil Conservation Corp goons burning down the homes of people in the Shenandoah Mountains, who stood in the way of a park for Washington’s liberal environmental elite. So while what Ms. Finney said was not untrue, it was not white versus black, but clearly we the people against upper class environmental liberalism.

For more years than I can remember, I have read white liberal writers extol the success of a black person making the assumption that they rose from poverty. This is a racist assumption. While relatively small on a percent basis, large numbers of black people come from well-to-do families that sometimes go back to Reconstruction. Many white farmers divided their land among their former slaves. Miles Davis was the son of a dentist whose family were also large landowners. Chuck Berry grew up in a comfortable, suburban single family home. And, of course, we have affirmative action that insults black people by saying that they aren’t capable of competing on their own merits. So again, we have the liberals apparently both expressing and repressing their own racism by calling everyone else a racist when, in fact, they are the racists.

Currently, we have many in politics, and especially in the Hillary Clinton campaign, dividing and subdividing the American people into demographic slices to manipulate them into voting a certain way, often by exploiting racial differences. But reality shows - and Donald Trump knows - that an unemployed black steel worker is more likely to vote the same way as an unemployed white steel worker, rather than on the basis of some hyped-up media driven, racial divide. While this strategy may help liberal Democrats win elections, it is not good for our nation as a whole, as it breeds racism instead of diminishing those sick attitudes.

When the Rodney King riots broke out in Los Angeles, the state legislator, and now Congresswomen Maxine Waters, grabbed the microphone and repeated tired talking points about racism. What she refused to acknowledge was that her headquarters - along with businesses-owned by wealthy blacks - were also burned down. The Rodney King riots were also class riots. I have seen that which holds black people down is the same as that which holds white people down: too much regulation. Often, the first thing one notices in black neighborhoods is the amount of entrepreneurial activity. Unfortunately, much of it is illegal: selling stolen merchandise, drugs, pimping, etc. But street kids often make good business people, and this can be channeled productively. When I suggested this in a local online discussion a few years ago, I was put down by a left winger for not being an “expert”.

A case study tells the story of a black man on the south side of Chicago who dropped out of high school at the age of 16, and started painting houses. He discovered a talent for this, and after a few years, had thousands of happy customers and about 100 employees. But he conducted his business in cash from his pockets, not being the type to have a MBA in finance. Fortunately, conservative economists - affiliated with Milton Friedman - found him, and properly reorganized his enterprise. Otherwise, the liberal Democrats running Chicago would have treated him as a criminal to fine, or worse. If someone is skilled, hard working, honest and providing a needed, legitimate service or product...by what right does society have to expect much more of them?  I have witnessed black and other so-called minority people driven out of business in Central Los Angeles through down-zoning. This was brought about by left-wing Leninists wanting to create a housing shortage to bring about government control of housing (heightening the contradictions in their terms). They didn’t care about black people, or anyone else; just achieving their perverted, Utopian totalitarian dream.  

Many leaders in the black community have urged getting off the liberal Democrat plantation of fatherless homes, welfare dependency and victimization. When you have decided in advance to fail, it becomes hard to succeed. It wasn’t always that way. In my former business life, my lead carpenter was a black man who had grown up in dire poverty in rural Indiana. His healthcare was a folk healer/herb doctor who lived hidden away in the woods. Because his folks couldn’t afford to feed him at 14 years of age, he was given to a white family. That enabled him to finish high school followed by several army years in Europe during and after World War Two. He believed in the American Dream, and that, if you did the right thing, you would get ahead. So he began employment at McDonnell Douglas in Los Angeles, bought a suburban home (although the area was still pretty segregated back then), regularly attended and was active in his church, maintained a stable marriage and raised two wonderful children. While his youngest son was attending UC Santa Cruz, the older sister married into one of the wealthiest black families in America, and was interviewed on 60 Minutes. When he spoke about that, his face lit up like a portrait of a Medieval saint. It was a long way from that “witch woman” in the woods.

His retirement was now looming ahead. He understood that his years of freelance work had created a sound business with established clients, an intimate knowledge of sourcing materials in the complex LA market and his own skill. Since his own children did not need or want the business, he decided to give it to a deserving young black man. One day, he arrived at my door with such a person, introduced us and asked if I would hire him in the future. I said, "Absolutely." We all shook hands. About a year later I asked what had happened. He said that the man worked a few weeks, spent his pay on drugs, disappeared into the streets, and that two more similar prospects had done the same. He wanted to give away his business, but all the candidates had decided that victimhood beat responsibility. His face was despairing and vacant at the same time. I have seen that look only once before, and that was on holocaust survivors.

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett

Multiculturalism Kills, But What Is Left?

The British have officially celebrated St George’s Day since 1222. Their flag, the Union Jack, is the cross of St George and the cross of St Andrew which represents Scotland. But this holiday is now in suspended animation due to multiculturalism. This is very different than the diversity common in America where we all assimilate into the dominant culture but also preserve and honor our respective heritages. In fact, we even celebrate them, as a nation, in observations such as St Patrick’s Day or Columbus Day.

Many years ago I attended a lecture at Occidental College in Los Angeles (known for its former students Jack Kemp and Barack Obama). It started at 8:05 because in prior years a nearby railroad made too much noise at 8 pm. But when that train ended they decided to keep the 8:05 time because they felt that tradition has value in and of itself. I’ve spent years thinking about that statement as I have observed America deteriorate and feel strongly that they were right. Tradition has value in and of itself, and it binds us together and to our history.

Note: During a trip to the UK and due to its historical importance I went and stood on the spot where according to tradition St George slew the dragon. While most historians believe the dead dragon wasn’t literal but rather symbolic of the ending of Britain’s pagan past, the traditional story holds meaning and provides unity.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/663922/Anger-as-council-officials-say-UK-city-is-too-multicultural-to-celebrate-St-George-s-Day

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett

Earth Day is Lenin’s Birthday

Today is Lenin’s birthday aka Earth Day. This is not a coincidence. Vaclav Klaus, former president of the Czech Republic, states it very clearly: “I see the current danger in environmentalism and especially in its strongest version, climate alarmism. My deep frustration has been exponentially growing in recent years by witnessing the fact that almost everything has already been said, that all rational arguments have been used, and that global-warming alarmism is still marching on…The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st   century is no longer socialism…It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism.”

“In the past 150 years(at least since Marx), the socialists have been very effectively destroying human freedom under humane and compassionate slogans, such as caring for man, ensuring social equity, and fostering social welfare. The environmentalists are doing the same under equally noble-minded slogans, expressing concern about nature more than people. In both cases, the slogans have been (and still are) just a smokescreen. In both cases, the movements were (and are) completely about power, about the hegemony of the ‘chosen ones’ (as they see themselves) over the rest of us, about the imposition of the only correct worldview (their own), about the remodeling of the world.”

You need to understand your enemy to defeat them. Happy Lenin’s birthday!

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett

Dead Trees Equal Exportable Wood Pellets

Wood pellets can be made from dead trees, limbs and sawdust. Wood pelleting machines come in all shapes and sizes including even portable ones for home use.

Global wood pellet production has grown from 2 million tonnes in 2000 to 25 million tonnes in 2014. Two million tonnes of that goes to Korea and Japan alone. Post Fukushima demand has soared, with South Korean demand planned to go from 0% of their power mix in 2012 to 10% by 2024. The Asian demand has prompted vast pellet production investments in British Columbia including even the conversion of a particle board factory into more profitable pellet production.

There’s no need to repeat our near daily conversations about the dying trees and those felled and lying on the ground for forest fire fuel. So I am asking everyone in our community to consider pellet production and get a process moving to make it happen. While I don’t want to sound vain I suggested this in my 11/16/15 Residential Waste Burning and in my 11/13/13 A Pioneer Biomass Plant. I believe that it’s an idea whose time has come.

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett

Whose Economic Plan?

With the closure of the Buena Vista Biomass Plant coinciding with the supervisorial election, economic development is now a hotter topic than usual. Some in our community have gone as far as to blame the protracted General Plan approval process and implicating some our County Supervisors for the delay. At a recent candidate’s forum reported in the 4/15/16 Ledger Dispatch, Amber Rose Hoiska stated: “…there is no analysis of job creation…We need jobs… (and to attract) the right kind of businesses…” Frank Axe stated: “The current supervisors have a very narrow view of what is beneficial to the county…The big concern is for jobs…there is no long-term economic development plan…there is a…lack of planning.”

Either the article’s author, Marilyn Nutter, failed to mention or the candidates did not discuss the importance of keeping our freight railroad for which the Newman Ridge project or some other is essential. And while both candidates noted the need for more employment, they both had the attitude that economic development is like choosing between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. But Amador County already has timber, gold and other mineral resources. We have been blessed by a power higher than the economic development experts. Starting with what you have, rather than what you don’t have, contains common sense that this discussion seemed to lack. Try to explain to a starving Bangladeshi that we ignore our available resources and then decide to spend limited tax money (Frank Axe noted government grants) on economic development studies.

We all depend upon resources and products from elsewhere. And despite the sophistication of our economy we still basically trade for those goods with what we produce. But Amador isn’t producing, and that’s reflected in the anticipated one million dollar county budget shortfall. What if Texas turned its oil fields and refineries into bird sanctuaries, or Minnesota turned its iron ore mines into conservation easements? There’s an unwritten social contract here that shouldn’t be ignored.

As in all human endeavors, trend and fashion rule. I know of people in damp London, England who installed ceramic tile floors because that’s what the beautiful people in Los Angeles were doing. And I know of people in Los Angeles with new lathe and plaster walls because that has more prestige than drywall that doesn’t crack with every earthquake. So I ask: What does the term natural living really mean beside its politically expeditious usage?

Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett