Amador Gets Stiffed Temporarily?

On 2/17/17 I posted Amador Gets Stiffed https://markbennett1.blogspot.com/2017/02/amador-gets-stiffed.html regarding the possible multi modal terminal adjacent to Sacramento Valley Station/Amtrak that would connect with Amador Transit, buses from five or so other counties surrounding Sacramento, Greyhound and others. This present lack of inter-connectability caused Amador County to spend $68K for a study to seek remedies and prompted my writing of Amador Gets Stiffed. That article was caustic, based upon my disgust with the missed opportunity of the terminal’s inclusion into the then generous Obama stimulus for the station renovation. I attributed this to the attitudes and desires of those involved based upon my participation when a planner in Sacramento.

An opportunity for an update arose on 6/14/17 when I attended the Riverfront Renaissance Community Event as an alternate for Amador Transit. One Sacramento planner remembered me from my prior involvements. I spoke with him, other planners, news reporters and politicians. Former Sacramento mayor Heather Fargo told me that Greyhound was purposely so located to be on city property because the city can terminate their lease and force a move. I was also assured that all buses would be available in a future intermodal facility to be built north of the Sac Valley Depot in the Railyards development. This was also new, since I knew that plan well having designed its transit system

And while I don’t doubt the sincerity of those I spoke with, the Railyards Specific Plan is an adopted, but unfunded, plan. When this will happen, and in what final form, is unknown. So presently, the best approach appears to be remaining vigilant. Therefore, I began the official process of making sure Amador County was considered in the facility’s planning. At the TAC it was decided that SSTAC (Social Services Transportation Advisory Council), of which I am a member, should formally ask the ACTC (Amador County Transportation Commission). On 8/3/17 they were asked to: “… (to) appoint a Sacramento Multimodal Facility Planning Representative to facilitate inclusion in future intermodal plans along with our neighboring counties…This endeavor would require the Amador County Transportation Commissioners’ approval of staff time to assert Amador County’s desire to be part of this proposed facility, to maintain contact with the project planners and stakeholders, to provide commenting when necessary and time to carry out any other tasks relating to representation.”

During the ensuing discussion Commissioner (and County Supervisor) Brian Oneto wisely asked if this would cost us anything. This is important consideration, and I answered that I didn’t know. I also stated that using the terminal would shorten the present route’s mileage thereby reducing operating costs along with likely increased farebox revenue. It would also avoid the far more costly route extension to Greyhound suggested in the recent Inter City consultant study.

The commission passed a draft resolution for approval at their next meeting which stated: “…to appoint Ms. Platt as a representative to attend, at her discretion, Sacramento Multimodal Facility Planning meetings and for the ACTC Executive Director to appoint April Miller from Amador Transit or other designee at this discretion to serve as alternate.” While this is certainly a step in the right direction, there are many unanswered questions. What are, if anything, the other counties and carriers doing to assert their interest? What is the status of this project within Sacramento politics? Since there doesn’t appear to be a functioning stake holder’s group, who will instigate this?
 

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

 

 

Pensions and the County Budget

At the July 10^th Upcountry Community Council meeting, Chuck Iley, Amador County’s CAO/Chief Administrative Officer, gave an excellent presentation about our county budget. It is now difficult to budget for our county worker’s pension contributions, because whatever cash CalPERS demands, the county must surrender. I asked about the informal discussions from a few years ago, about leaving CalPERS and possibly joining with Calaveras County in an independent pension fund. He responded by saying that it’s impossible now because we would have to donate about $50 million to their unfunded liability.

We can debate endlessly about CalPERS' good and bad deals, but the simple fact remains that they are just too big. Unless the law of large numbers is magically repealed, they can never do better than the market as a whole. Although leaving CalPERS is now impossible, it was even a difficult decision back then. The rate of return could be much higher. But with overhead costs rising the actual bottom line could be unpredictable.

I was a pension board trustee for about eight years for a government agency that had left CalPERS. I watched Federal encroachment increase and regulatory expenditures expand. While the Constitutionality seemed questionable, the power grab wasn’t. One of those new regulations was for accounting and actuarial assumptions. While absolutely nothing changed with the assets or internals of a pension fund, the publicly announced calculation of unfunded liabilities soared. Some could argue that this was better disclosure, while others assert that it was an unnecessary pressing of the panic button. But the intent, or pre-programmed outcome, worked to serve its purpose.

Was more Federal control of state and local pensions now shown to be necessary? Would this reduce local control as the freezing of independence from CalPERS just indicated? Would further regulation govern possible investment choices and therefore affect capital flows? Certainly a transition to Federal control is the next step toward global control. Is this what is really going on? Is Amador County being colonized, or did we get the royal screw just by coincidence?

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Where Has My Country Gone?

That phrase became common along with the rise of the Tea Parties. It was misinterpreted as racist, sexist and often aligned with issues as this headline illustrates: “Outrage over gay group banned from St. Patrick's parade.” Social issues are often emotionally consuming. And some, such as transgender bathrooms, are threatening. But ultimately, economic issues rule. Disappearing factories and the shrinking middle class turned the election to Trump. Related issues such as the rise in opiate addiction fill headiness, but the connections that breed hopelessness run deeper.

My January 2017 posting “Economic Collapse?” detailed the internal deterioration of our economy. Part of that was our diminishing labor force which foreshadows an uncertain future. As of 2012, 8% of our farmers were under 35 years old with the average farmer at 58 years old. A leading economic commentator recently stated: “The big infrastructure problem in the U.S. is not in physical capital, it’s in human capital.”  Foreign-born students earned 40 percent of U.S. doctoral degrees in science and engineering in 2003.

Part of this is what former Muslim Isik Abla called educational jihad. “…wealthy fanatical Muslims are sending jihadist students to America and other Western countries to infiltrate the world’s top universities as part of their group’s ultimate objective to Islam-ise the West…Harvard, Princeton and Yale…(to put Jihadists) in high places (of) power to dictate what needs to happen…to Islam-ise the Western world.” Hassan Abbasi, former advisor to Ahmadinejad who now runs security policy for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, boasted that there are over two million Iranians in the US with over 7,000 having PhD’s. These are leading a clandestine army of potential martyrs in the US. We don’t need nuclear weapons. We plan to use subversive means to destabilize the US from within. While Abbasi’s statements are part plan and part his wishful thinking, they don’t mask the fact that 25% of our doctors are foreign born. (We debate and establish plans to pay for health care, increasing demand while irresponsibly ignoring the supply of health care providers.) 

Immigrants have enriched American society and created the diverse mix we enjoy daily as normal. Aside from the no borders globalists everyone wants a sensible immigration policy. One could cynically say that poaching the talent of other nations is in our national interest. But there is a difference between adding to American life, and filling a void our insolence has created. Why have the upcoming generations not prepared themselves for our unfolding future? Is it because they were led into their degree programs by faculty whose goal was not our future but their ideological desires? As their graduates were to assume professional positions, their goal was not improvement, but disruption. They were trained to be agents of social change while encumbered with debt slavery.

“(He) surrounded himself with official publications, and works of history and economics. He made no effort to inform himself directly of the views and conditions of the masses. The notion of canvassing an electorate on their doorstep was anathema to him: “unscientific”.  He never visited a factory or set foot on a farm. He had no interest in the way wealth was created. He was never to be seen in the working class quarters of any town in which he resided. His entire life was spent among members of his own sub-class, the bourgeois intelligentsia, which he saw as a uniquely privileged priesthood, endowed with a special gnosis and chosen by History for a decisive role.” Does this sound like the swamp creatures of Sacramento and Washington that know what’s best for us? Or some outspoken local folks?

The above quote is a description of Vladimir Lenin from page 52 of Paul Johnson’s book “Modern Times”. I noted the Leninism prevalent today in my March 2016 posting “What is Leninism?” Dogma has replaced reality for too many of the people currently in charge.  Assuming that Trump sends them packing, I wonder what they will do. They know how to regulate and to over-regulate into oblivion, but can they create? Is the American spirit, that turned a frontier into the most free and powerful nation in the world, dead? Our Amador General Plan, and many others like it, are documents of fear and defeatism.

PS: Despite my extensive research I could not find the answer to perhaps the most salient question. Did Vladimir Lenin bring his own bags to the grocery store?

PPS: I don’t mean to be alarmist. I’m sure that the Gender Studies graduates will do a fine job welding the Keystone Pipeline.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Dead Harvest

Some Facebook friends posted this video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5A3r_z4KA&feature=share

Everyone should view this exposition of the poverty, abandoned investment and threat to our food supply caused by environmental extremism.  The moral and legal balance of equities concept is drown by lawsuits and legislative maneuvers seemingly more numerous that the delta smelt they claim to protect.

My first thoughts were of mass starvation during Stalin’s land collectivization in the Ukraine. But then I realized that this was also another manifestation of our ahistorical times and the distorted reasoning it creates. Constructing both flood control and irrigation channels gave the ancient Mesopotamians the desire for an activist government. This six thousand year old tradition has been carried through Roman aqueducts to our present Western Civilization.

In a pointless prior Facebook discussion, it was asserted than government-funded roads for projects such as Newman Ridge were socialist and that certain individuals were phony conservatives. But collective public works goes back at least 10,000 years in the archaeological record. Long before the money economy during the hunting or farming off seasons, whole communities of people would build their roads, houses of worship and other facilities. When one dismisses our shared history and makes policy decisions based only in their rationalizing minds, anything can come out. Vladimir Lenin had that quality.

Concepts like gender fluidity can grow only in an isolated consciousness that feeds only upon itself.  That style of awareness can also justify the hardships of the Central Valley for their idiosyncratic ideal of justice. But as difficult as it is for the victims to endure, or others of us just to watch, I am hearted and optimistic. With decisions as daft as this - and many others, including dam maintenance - too many people can’t be fooled for too much longer. The time is ripe for a populist leader to emerge and overthrow California’s ancien régime.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Coastal City Flotsam Invades the Mokelumne

This Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting included: “Assembly Bill 975: Discussion and possible action relative to the subject legislation as it relates to wild and scenic rivers.” I made the following statement:

“I urge this body to oppose both the present efforts to designate part of the Mokelumne River as Wild & Scenic and the proposed legislation in Sacramento to extend the Wild & Scenic definition. While there is much I could say, I will limit myself to two points.

Most of the discussion about the Mokelumne definition has been framed as an isolated discussion. But if you add up all the wild and scenic rivers, land trusts, conservation easements, carbon capture forests and other schemes and place them on map, America now looks like the land tenure system of aristocratic medieval Europe. I find this very ironic since, if you look around this room, probably everyone here is descended from people who voted with their feet to leave that behind. Much of the founding population of our nation were people who lost their grazing rights under the Enclosure Acts and understood the relationship between land ownership and freedom. I would add to that affordable land ownership. The American Dream should not die on our watch.

I also find these designations to be arrogant and selfish. By what right do we have to imprison the decisions of future generations? The only thing being preserved here is privilege.”

Amador Gets Stiffed

Interconnectability is a key ingredient in successful public transportation. Obviously, it gets people where they want to go. But it also increases ridership system wide. For example, someone from Jackson going to Sacramento first takes a bus from Jackson to the Sutter Hill Transit Center to depart for Sacramento. This incremental increase in ridership adds revenue and reduces subsidy. Our service to Sacramento connects to Sacramento’s light rail and buses, Amtrak and Capital Corridor trains and Yolo Bus to the airport. While the transfers necessary to reach the airport seem like a big hassle, they also are a bargain compared to long term parking fees at the airport. Since this attracts riders in addition to the regular riders, it’s something to encourage. Calaveras County is now connecting in Stockton to the Ace Express train over the Altamonte Pass to San Jose. This new service is being closely watched.

Amadorians have asked about service to Placerville and other locations, but especially to Greyhound in Sacramento. The powers that be in Sacramento didn’t want the Greyhound passenger-types mingling with the environmental generation commuters from Auburn. The lower income folks are now stranded up on Richards Blvd. Their Green Line light rail service ends at 7:30 pm along with some spotty bus service that ends at 9 pm. These connections to Amador Transit are cumbersome at best. For all these reasons, $68,000 of our transit and road funds are now going to a sadly, so but essential, consultant study.

This would not have been necessary if the Sacramento Valley/Amtrak Station project, a rushed through Obama stimulus project, had achieved its potential. Amador is one of about six counties that operate bus service into downtown Sacramento. They all follow different routes with inconvenient transferring, often on streets where watching the drunks stagger is the primary amusement. What if they all connected at the Sac Valley Station? Passengers would have a safe, indoor place to wait with restroom and food facilities. There could have been convenient one transfer access, often at nominal fares, to dozens of cities and other locations around Sacramento. But this didn’t happen.

I was on the station stakeholder’s committee and advocated the best I could, constrained by my position of representing Sacramento Regional Transit. My contributions to the pedestrian track access design were well received. But the committee had its own attitudes. While there were many black members, which wouldn’t have occurred a half century ago, it was OK for everyone there to make fun of the Sikh cabdrivers (does anything ever really change?). Casino buses serving primarily the Chinese community parked nearby. They weren’t welcome, either.

Further complicating the bus access situation is the lack of spaces for Sacramento buses. Many possible patrons were lost because of the excessive walking required between the commuter trains and the bus to their final destination. Next to the Sac Valley Station sits the federal courthouse. The esteemed judges did not want public buses stopping there. This was appealed and won, but Regional Transit’s leadership style was keep the peace and don’t ruffle feathers, so nothing changed. Personally, I would have written both Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. I can just imagine Feinstein’s conversation chewing out those judges. And while those feasible additional bus stops would help, they wouldn’t compensate for the lost potential of this project. Nevertheless, the station renovation serves the desires of its favored constituents “…as a civic gathering point with offices, retail areas, a cafe and possibly even a rooftop cocktail lounge.”

Amador County, along with much of rural Northern California and also Sacramento urban area residents, are now stiffed for a half century or more. Where were the Greens? Many were tagging allegedly endangered frogs in some dangerously unrestored meadow in the high Sierra. Those in Central Sacramento were lobbying for bike lanes on congested streets. The Greens are often the first to lobby for transit subsidy, and seemingly the last to understand how to use those funds wisely.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett  

People Get Ready

I’ve chosen this title from Curtis Mayfield’s 1965 gospel style hit song because we need to get ready for an attack on what I consider the soul of our beloved Amador County. The already painfully apparent and still ongoing storm damage to our roads is a perverted blessing for those wanting to raise the sales tax. I have discussed how this is the Caltrans corruption tax at length in my Ledger article “Roads, Buses and Bikes”. Anyone can probably read on the internet the bipartisan reports from the State Auditor and the Legislature Analyst’s Office along with Caltrans' testimony before the state legislature to verify my conclusions. Based upon my involvement with local transit the increased sales tax people are working behind the scenes. Sometime this year and most likely as the spring budget deliberations begin, a road show of manipulative public meetings may begin. Will the present Board of Supervisors and the Amador County Transportation Commission vote to support a “self help” tax? Will a public vote turn into class warfare between the more affluent (and recently arrived), and those of us who simply can’t afford it?

The compromise and/or sell out study for the Wild & Scenic designation for part of the Mokelumne River will probably be finished during the tenure of the present BOS.  Will selfishness rule the day and prevent future generations from freely making their necessary decisions about local resources?  Or are those behind these two schemes waiting until they can try to unseat Brian Oneto in two years? Could we have a rubber stamp board that could lock us into higher taxes and diminished resource freedom for decades to come?

Another straightjacket, although of a possible shorter duration, is Amador County rejoining insidious ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability). Our prior BOS cancelled our membership. But I would be shocked if certain forces in and around our county weren’t plotting to reinstate our membership in and assumed agreement with ICLEI. This would mean subservience to their restrictive globalist land use designs.

“People Get Ready, There’s A Train A Coming.” But this one is going in the opposite direction of Curtis Mayfield’s train.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett