But the project still needs county board of supervisors approval and -- the real challenge -- to scrape together $30 million for construction.
The project has about $10 million committed to it, and authority board member Sam Pedroza said at last week's meeting that fundraising difficulties could derail the project. Of course, he said the same thing to the Los Angeles Times a year and a half ago when the authority had raised only -- $10 million.
"Was the center planned to be built 'regardless' of what the actual citizens in the region want? Was the request for public comment simply (and cynically) an effort to make people believe they actually have a say-so about such things?"If you're interested in a recap of the meeting at which this took place, please see the Pasadena Star-News story, "Officials OK new river center at Whittier Narrows site."
The story gives a good sense of the opposition that was expressed at the Jan. 21 meeting, but it doesn't place it into the context of the opposition that's been building for some time. (Have a look at the reader comments for an idea of the growing anger over the waste of the public's money.)
If you take last week's meeting and the public hearings on the project's draft environmental impact report last summer, this is who you see lining up against the project:
- Numerous residents of the local communities that are the ostensible beneficiaries of the project
- Local members of environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and Aububon Society
- Latinos ranging from high school and college students to professionals and retirees
- Numerous educators, including a past vice-president of Rio Hondo College
But who supports the project? you ask. A very small, very narrow slice of society, to judge from the handful of voices speaking in favor of the project at the same hearings and meeting. And few, if any, of these drawn from the communities of the Whittier Narrows area.
But none of this seems to matter to the RMC and the water districts that apparently can't wait to take advantage of the marketing and meeting-space opportunities the outsized building promises.
It makes one wonder if the environmental review process was undertaken in good faith, or as one observer of this matter asked: "Was the center planned to be built 'regardless' of what the actual citizens in the region want? Was the request for public comment simply (and cynically) an effort to make people believe they actually have a say-so about such things?"
The project must be serving someone's interests. But whoever that someone is, it's clearly not the community.
What concerns me the most about the proposal to create educational facilities like this one along the entire watershed (as proposed as an option when the National Parks Service came to Glendora to discuss such proposals on 14/Sep/2009 (see http://www.crystallake.name/nps/nps.htm )) is the very possible "privitization" of our potable drinking water infrastructure, these education centers turning in to basically corporate advertizing centers, not ecological information centers.
ReplyDeleteMuniciple water collection and distribution is being "privatized" throughout the United States by corrupt politicians who get the usual graft, kickbacks, and "after service" jobs (basically bribes paid after they leave office) et al.
Potable drinking water is more expensive than gasoline in some places, and increasingly water is the new "blue gold" that nations will fight for as global climate changes and populations grow. California has been in that fight since its earliest of days (just ask Owens Valley residents of 150 years ago or ask Colorado, Arizona, and people living along the Rio Grande today.)
It seems to me that this one proposed education center is just one of the several that the National Parks Service proposed for the San Gabriel Watershed. Given the way that politicians are handing our water over to private corporations under the guise of "management" across the country, this ed center concerns me that such education centers as proposed are more likely than not going to be tailored toward propagandizing the "need" to hand our water over to corporations "for our children's futures," not tailored toward ecology and any effort to get kids off their game boxes and Internet and get them out in to the great outdoors.
This center was slated to be built and no amount of opposition could or would derail the effort. Lack of funds has stalled the proposal however there's *plenty* of corporate money who would just love to provide the funds -- if they get a piece of the cold water pie, of course.
To be fair, the actual goals, aims, and financial shenanigans of the politicians and government agencies which push this education center can not be divulged apriori. It's anybody's guess what the politicians actually expect to achieve financially from such a Center.
One thing you can be certain of: It's *not* to benefit the actual citizens.
My opinions only and only my opinions.