Scot Free......

Things had gotten kinda quiet in our town lately, peace interrupted only by the sounds of heavy equipment carving out the roadbed for the unpopular Sierra View Extension. But it’s back - the public outrage, the seething anger at Lindsay’s city government - after news that Scot Townsend is getting off scot-free.  
Thursday’s Porterville Recorder, which announced that no criminal charges will be filed against our former city manager in a front-page, top-headline article, even received some of the bile.  “I’m so mad at the paper,” said the friend who brought the news to my checkstand Thursday night, wanting to shoot the messenger.  
And maybe she’s right.  The article intertwined the news with the upcoming budget and (silently) city manager Rich Wilkinson’s contract renewal. Quoting Mayor Ed, the article ended conclusively positive: “When you think of all the things going on a year ago and now it’s all behind us....We’ve come a long ways under Rich’s leadership and how he got things done.  Everybody’s working harder, working smarter.”
Written by editor Rick Elkins after the recent departure of reporter Alex Schultz, who helped break the news on the home and microenterprise loan fiascos revealed by the 2009-2010 audit, the article was a red flag. The press is actually the fourth arm of government, keeping the public informed enough of the real issues to actually participate in civic affairs. It was daunting to think the press might go back to its old habit of publishing whatever the city wants us to hear. Those of us who know another side will have to keep the papers aware of their responsibilities for the facts.
And what are the facts?  
That this city council approved, ignorantly or knowingly, every item Scot Townsend brought before them, as it currently approves whatever Rich and his staff bring before them (with the possible exception of last meeting’s proposal to remove the four-way stop from Tulare Road and Homassel Ave. But keep your eye on that one: staff is not above squirreling around their clear directive to leave it alone.)  
That several members of this city council personally have benefited from the City’s projects, despite clear wording in both the city’s charter and municipal code that councilmembers are to avoid anything that even appears like it might be a conflict of interest. 
That this council did not want to find anything that might result in criminal charges being filed against anybody in the city, much less Scot Townsend, whose projects were designed to make members of a certain religious affiliation rich. At the expense of no one more important than the city’s quiet taxpayers and anyone who loved to have big family parties at the park or to swing under the shady canopy of an oak tree. At the expense of democracy itself.
Sorry, Ed  et. al.  It’s not all behind you. The teaparty’s just begun.

Talking Yards....

“We’re talking YARDS” I said to my friend Richard Harriman on the phone the other day as we discussed the possible solutions to Lindsay’s - and the Valley’s - large constellation of problems.  
He thought promoting community gardens here might be one way to bring people together and reconnect them with land, the source of everything (provided you have water to irrigate with and drink.)  I like the idea of community gardens and have seen them work beautifully, especially with urban people who need to reconnect with both people and land more than they need to grow food.  
But when people are hungry, what they need more than anything is a little piece of land outside their backdoor to plant, water and harvest from, to share their surplus with neighbors and to guard from no-account garden rustlers with a polite little fence, their presence, and maybe a barking dog.  It’s the reason I’ve been afraid if we become a nation of apartment-dwellers.  He saw what I was talking about.
I was invited into just such a yard last week by the father of my friend Robert Diaz, who lives just down the street.  I learned the Spanish names for persimmons and pomegranates, smelled twigs from herbs for making menudo and calming an upset stomach, and noted the care and understanding he had for each individual plant.  The tiny strips of land he has to plant are dense with food-in-progress.  Afterward it came to me that there’s an inverse relation between care and land:  the less land you have, the more you care about it.  
One of our great national agrarians, Wendell Berry, has a name for that relationship he calls “eyes per acre.”  What he means is that there is an appropriate ratio between people and land, a proper number of people needed to care for an amount of land.  If the number of people drops or the amount of land increases beyond that ratio, everything suffers.  The industrial form and scale of agriculture here in the Tulare Lake Basin bears testimony to this idea.
Luckily for us, the readers of this paper, we have a pioneering voice for the importance of yards in Mo Montgomery, who most weeks puts together her column “Steadfast” come heck or high water like I do.  Mo has turned her passion for the lifestyle-change movement known as urban homesteading into a consciousness-raising effort that comes free with your subscription.  The words she’s putting out there are making ideas available from around the country that she’s kitchen-testing and yard-testing right here in our own climate.  Check out her website for even more exposure to this life-changing movement at www.blkcatcottage.com.
Our “Gardening Guru” column by UC Master Gardener Michelle Le Strange is also helpful with yards and their tending, frequently complementing Mo’s work to put us in touch with the truths of our lives.  
The work of  both women reminds me how important it is that we begin to realize - and soon - the tremendous value of the land we occupy and the water we claim:  that we inhabit a paradise that some would just as soon pave over to put up a parking lot.

Water and Wages....

Two items on last week’s Lindsay city council agenda took me back to the beginning of our watchdog days:  the pending studies on our water system, and the performance evaluation of our city manager, whose contract is currently being negotiated. 

Two water studies are being proposed:  one on water rates, the other on our water system.  The impetus for the rate study was generated by the public outpouring over high water bills in September, 2010 after the Porterville Recorder released a series of articles about Tulare County’s highest paid public employees and Scot Townsend placed fourth, far above Porterville’s city manager.

In general, the city and the press both missed the message between water and wages that Lindsay’s people were bringing.  “We are mostly people with such low wages that we have trouble paying our water bills - that most essential utility of all - and you’re paying them WHAT????”  It was a justice issue as well as an economic one.

The city heard only the economic side. “We can’t charge less for water because the city charter requires that the water system pays for itself,” they replied.  Then they realized they had no recent evidence to prove that our water rates reflect the true costs of running the system, so they started talking about conducting a study.  Months later when the 2009-2010 audit was released, it revealed that non-water costs had been paid out of the water fund, notably portions of salaries for staff in other departments.  Oops.

The economic justice issue raises its ugly head in another arena:  paying non-prevailing wages on City construction projects.  Being a charter city permits it, although I don’t understand how.  Normal cities are required to pay prevailing wages on public works projects “when paid for in whole or in part out of public funds” according to the CA Dept. of Industrial Relations website.  Yet the contract with 99 Pipeline for building Sierra View Extension using USDA funds is exempt.  Those workers hired by 99 Pipeline (whose motto is “Get Laid”) are getting paid less than they would in Cutler-Orosi, which is not protected by charter status.  Meanwhile, our city manager is lining up for another year of salary well above the prevailing wage for towns our size.

One very interesting website, www.smartcitiesprevail.org, presents a strong case for the community development benefits of paying prevailing wages.  Other reasons include the quality and true cost of projects.  “Absent prevailing wages,” notes Sacramento City Councilperson Sandy Sheedy, “public projects become vulnerable to fly-by-night operators who underbid responsible contractors, pay substandard wages, and produce inferior projects...that can lead to enormous costs in the long run.”  The observations of Lindsay’s many sidewalk supervisors would support that position.

One of the most important findings of my research on small towns is that more even distribution of income results in greater economic vitality and stability.  The wider the gap between the highest paid and the lowest, the worse off the town’s businesses become.  I think it would serve our community well if our staff and council members visited that idea - and then took steps to lessen, rather than increase, that spread.

The Green Heron....

Last spring I heard a strange, new bird call from high in my Chinese elms.  It took an hour of straining my neck looking upward to finally locate the bird, then it flew away before I could really see its markings.  After repeating that process a few more mornings, though, I finally was able to identify it as a green heron.


Green herons are much smaller than their Great Blue cousins, only about the size of a big crow, but with longer, slimmer necks and legs.  Its call is sortof opposite a bluejay’s “weent?” that goes up at the end --  my Guide to North American Birds describes it as a “kew” that starts high and descends in pitch.  


The most important thing to know about green herons, however, is that they really don’t like to be seen, much less watched.  If one sees you looking at it, it will move instantly out of sight - which is why it takes so long to actually get a good look at the bird, with or without binoculars.


The bird (or birds) is/are back this year, and I’m thrilled.  When I heard the “kew” a few mornings ago, I went out to look, being very quiet.  One evening I heard a different sound, something more like a cat growling in pain, and discovered it was coming from a green heron.  “Maybe a mating call,” I thought, stretching my neck ‘way back to get a glimpse.  For a moment we were eye to eye, then it moved out of view.


I’ve discovered I actually love that part of this bird.  It’s helped me identify that tendency in myself and come to respect it.  I think a lot of us have a streak of green heron in us, which comes down to a desire to just live our lives and be left in peace to do so.  Many people I’ve asked if they’d consider running for city council or a hospital district seat have instantly ducked behind a branch, whispering “oh, no...” as they disappeared.  I feel the same.


I not only don’t particularly want to be watched, I also don’t really like asking hard questions.  I’m much happier asking soft ones, like “how do you feel about that” and “did you have a good day?” - questions that let the answerer chose what they want to tell me instead of what I have to know.  It’s more respectful of privacy in general and individuals in particular, and respect is something we like to generate more of, not less.


Respect for Lindsay’s residents, however, is where our city fathers and mothers have failed miserably and need remedial work.  Whether it’s the city council procedures, public records requests, or staff plans (everything from what to build to where to put a stop sign,) what the public wants and needs always takes a back seat.  


Gaining respect for the public’s needs and desires is what all this watchdog/rabble rousing effort has really been about.  If we’re going to have a small town where we can live our lives in peace, we’re going to have to stop ducking behind branches and start respectfully asking hard questions until we get answers that serve us all.

The Overburden of Proof.....

April 16, 2012, Visalia. They came into the District 1 courtroom with two handtrucks’ worth of City documents in bankers boxes: two attorneys and Maria Knutson, assistant to the city manager of Lindsay. Nancy Jenner of McCormick, Kabot, Jenner & Lew announced she was representing the City of Lindsay to Judge Melinda M. Reed.


On the other side was Paul Boylan from Davis, a pro bono lawyer who specializes in the law regarding public records, representing Steven Mecum in a lawsuit now more than a year old. The purpose of the suit is injunctive relief, not damages: to get the city to obey the law on public records as part of its remedial course in being accountable to the public. 


Boylan had rendered a long list of Mecum’s complaints into 4 points, to which the judge asked Jenner to respond. They were fine points that result in potentially huge obstructions to transparency, and any governing body that was really interested in becoming clear and clean would have resolved the dispute in the first month. But our fair City chose instead to fight, undoubtedly on the advice of their attorney who may have been at least partly responsible in the first place, and whose firm is now charging while “helping” out.


The boxes of documents were just props for the basket Jenner had put all her eggs into:  that they could see “little public purpose” in these requests that had become “burdensome” to the city, burdensome to the point of being “oppressive.”  That’s why they finally said no to Steven’s March 15, 2011 request. They’d had it.


Beautifully, the Judge Reed responded that “The Public Records act does not address purpose,” and went back to getting answers to the exact questions she asked each party. Later, Jenner attempted another grandstand speech about the burdensome nature of these public records requests, opening the banker boxes’ lids and gesticulating widely. The judge listened sympathetically (after instructing Jenner that she didn’t need to yell,) then basically gave both parties 30 days to do as she’d ruled on all four points and dismissed us.


As I listened to Jenner, I wished I could add my two cents to the pot. If the City thinks it’s been a burden on them having to provide all these public records (not to mention having to learn what the Public Records Act actually says for the first time,) think of us. We’ve had to learn the same in our free time, pay for copies out of our pockets, discover which records to request, trying to pull open a curtain they’re holding shut. After the revelations of the 2009-2010 audit, which gave only a sketch of all that really had been going on, the burden of proof is on them.

Thumper's Mother....

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” was early advice Thumper’s mother gave her young son as he and Bambi explored the new world they’d been born into.  It echoed through my head as I pondered what to say at last night’s city council meeting.


I think many of us were raised by Thumper’s mother, especially in my Boomer generation.  Daily I watch myself edit the thoughts in my head to match this cultural standard, and find myself appalled when other people speak without their words going through that filter.  Easter’s innocence, and the hope for resurrection of a better world, probably reminded me.  


Not saying anything at all is what brought us Viet Nam, however, and my generation rebelled not only against that war but also against Thumper’s mother’s advice.  We learned to use some very unnice words to describe what became a travesty against our own people as well as the Southeast Asians, mirrored in the civil rights struggle at home.  


Nice things were pretty much all Lindsay’s city council were used to hearing before September 2010.  The cloak of niceness was invisibly wrapped around the public’s podium, and when I first started approaching it, I felt it wrap around my head, smothering my words.  It was hard to get free of it, and even harder then to find civil words to describe why I was there.  It helped to remember the much-higher price paid by many civil rights workers and anti-war protesters for breaking the rule.


Niceness is a hallmark of small towns. In both, it often appears that the value of niceness overrides the value of truth.  A new book, Our Patchwork Nation,* describes twelve categories of American communities they call “the real America,” one of which is called “Mormon Outposts.”  In that chapter the mayor of a typical Mormon outpost community is quoted as saying “I think as long as you’re not doing something that’s offensive to the majority that you’ll be treated well and embraced.... But if you come in and you don’t - if you’re too radical in your look, behavior, or language...work ethic - there’s a long list of things that is expected for a person being a good community member.”  The authors then ask “And if someone wants to change any of those things or bring a new perspective?”  The town’s mayor replied “That’s not gonna happen.”


Citing Mormon society’s qualities, the authors note “Harmony, order, union, intelligent cooperation - not bad things to build a community around.  But they can be tricky in a democracy.”  One of the trickiest things is speaking against the hierarchical power that creates the order.  The book Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer exploring the roots of the conservative LDS societies in the mainstream church offers ample evidence of the dark side of holding your tongue. 


Thumper’s mother meant well, but we need to outgrow her initial caution, meant to preserve ourselves as well as the feelings of others, and learn to dialogue with each other under the banner of truth.  That’s the trickiest, but also most necessary, part of democracy.


-*By Dante Chinni & James Gimpel, Gotham Books, 2010, in collaboration with The Christian Science Monitor, PBS News and the Jefferson Institute.  

Looking for Leadership....

 “It’s not politics. This is ethics. This is humanity, this is community. This is trying to figure out a way to live.”   Mary Traver.

When Mary Traver spoke those words, she was being interviewed near the end of her life with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey about the meaning of their careers as folksingers. The music of Peter, Paul & Mary has spanned most of my adult life, and I turned back to it recently looking for a song. I found about 20 that I really need right now.

But her words struck me as applying not only to folk music, but also to the struggle for survival of small towns and rural places that’s the real root of Lindsay’s current conundrums. It’s what I was reaching for last week when I wrote what a better Lindsay would look like to me. Many told me they share that vision. The question is how to bring about a shift in the focus of our city government.

“Have you been over to see the pool?  It’s gone...” said a customer sadly at RN Market Saturday night. I confessed that I’d stopped my vigilant walks to the park, and she comforted me with “It’s hard.”  It’s hard also to watch the users of the Senior Center struggle with getting in and out, no provisions made for them during construction.

And it’s hard going to the city council meetings month after month, where the SOS continues that passes for governance. You don’t even have to speak English to detect the Council’s complete rejection of public input:  two or three meetings is all it takes to see the futility of trying to get them to change.

For some people, changing the faces on the Council is the answer. I am 100% behind that solution, because all five have shown themselves unwilling to question the actions or motives of the staff, much less their goals and objectives. It is the staff that has put us $36 million in debt and saddled us with wasteful, unsupportable projects while neglecting our real needs. A new council will not only have to figure out how to engage the public in determining our future, but also how to keep the staff from doing it. It’s a large order.

So it seems to me that something more is also needed besides new humans in the five seats:  some leadership in the community itself needs to start taking form, not a single person but groups of people starting to think together about what this town needs, about what we want for our children and elders and for ourselves as we remain in this good place. It could start in the churches and in the schools. Our service clubs could be involved. Perhaps neighborhood groups could form (like those the Dolores Huerta Foundation has been encouraging among the Spanish-speaking population, but extending also to the bilingual and English speakers) looking to identify issues in their immediate vicinities. It could start anywhere.

I’m looking for leadership for this community -  town and countryside together. Want to help?