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March 29, 2006
The Battle of Bidwell Park
The title for this entry is a little catchy, maybe even provocative. But it has to do with a different battle. This one occurred a couple of years ago between the Teen Titans (young superheroes) and their nemesis Slade. On one of our many missions to Bidwell Park my son(5) and I staged this photo to capture the titanic struggle. The Titans won of course, they always do.
It was this kind of play in the park that led me to the world of commissions and boards. I had an interest (actually a few), and a desire to learn more. Not to mention I wanted to ensure park users like me had a voice.
A couple of years ago I started attending city meetings. It all started with the Park Master plan. At the first meeting somebody read a poem. I think it went something like this....
"We love the park,
the park is fine,
I feel the bark,
and warm sunshine,
the air is clear,
and very near,
the squirrels jump,
and the rabbits….well you get the picture.
And for the record that's not the actual poem. There was a poem however, and not a particularly good poem. Everyone clapped, and city staff ran out to make copies of the poem for attendees. Everyone appeared happy. As for me, I was just confused. My brother is a nationally known professional poet (seriously, he wrote a book “How to Make A Living as a Poet"). Had I known it was a “poetry slam� I would have come prepared.
Anyway, I stuck with it and attended virtually every Master Plan meeting. I think there were 500 or so, and each one was 6 hours long. Then came the Park Commission rehash of the Master Plan. There were 750 of those, each was 12 hours in length.
The point of this diatribe is essentially the point of this blog. I’ve attended a bunch of city meetings.
The most controversial events in these meetings eventually make the news. A lot of other interesting (and potentially controversial) information never leaks out of the city process. I want this blog to get that information out to the public. There’s always a little more to the story than what hits the paper.
I’ll be attending Council, Commission, and Board meetings in an effort to get just a little more information out to the public. Ask me questions, and I’ll see if I can find the answers. If the city doesn’t run well, or bad decisions are made, it’s partly because of a complacent populace. I hope covering issues the city is discussing will prod a few citizens into showing up downtown and saying their piece.
And lastly, not everything that happens at city meetings is grist for the “peeved� mill. The city staff and volunteer officials make Chico work. When I see some good tough work I want to make sure the appropriate people get credit.
Posted by Lon at March 29, 2006 09:55 PM
Comments
I've been hiking at North Table Mtn (DFG preserve above Oroville), and at Paynes Cr (BLM area of Special Concern above Red Bluff) over the last week studying wildflowers. At both locations cattle grazing is prescribed to help the native plants grow, as the herds of prongborn antelope and deer have moved out of these historic areas. The cattle make trails, mudholes, pock-mark the soils....and the flowers this week are just outstanding. Paynes Creek is very similar to Bidwell Park with thin soils over Tuscan mudflows, while Table Mtn is thin soil over Lovejoy Basalt (like at Bear Hole). The flowers predominate in the areas with thin soils, grasses predominate in thick soils. At the scoping period for the Bidwell Park Master Management Plan, I asked that the issue of how much tromping and grazing would be ideal for the native flowers, and whether in the absence of grazing if people tromping would help the flowers. The consultants need to consider this, that is whether limiting human use will harm the native flower by allowing the non-native grasses to overgrow.
They tried eliminating human and cattle use of Vina Plains preserve a few years back, but with in a few years there was a marked decrease in native flowers.
Posted by: Michael Jones at March 30, 2006 05:26 PM
But what about the squirrels?
Once upon a time, long ago, I got talked into running a mural project with an afterschool class full of kids on probation. Their "punishment" was to work on a huge painting project on the Discovery Shoppe wall downtown.
Of course they all had completely different ideas about what it should look like. After a lot of disagreement, things were going nowhere. I decided we should make a huge list of everyone's great ideas and write them on the chalkboard. Then we would combine them all together into one magnificently marvelous new composition ( I had already worked out) that included everybody! It worked great. As it started to shape up and they got some positve strokes from their friends, they put the word out that nobody better mess with it. No one ever did. They are all grown ups now.
I think this was Chico's first charrette. I had no idea that it was worth so much more than the mural itself. The mural took about six months. I made a couple thousand bucks.
I'm in the wrong business.
Posted by: Gregg Payne at March 30, 2006 06:28 PM