National recreation area: When the person behind the desk doesn't match the name on the door

A recent article in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune noted that backers of a national recreation area for the San Gabriel Watershed are trying to build support among area cities for a larger recreation area than the one proposed by the National Park Service in April.

Without getting into the merits of a national recreation area, large or small, for the area, the park service's plan leaves open the question: "Who will be in charge?" With the park service offering at most coordination services and planning assistance (per the agency's own documents), the public should be concerned.

The likeliest candidate appears to be the state's Rivers and Mountains Conservancy -- and this should raise alarms, both for the agency's own history of questionable financial practices and for the financial wrongdoing that appears widespread among agencies of its parent, the state Natural Resources Agency.

The RMC was taken to task in a 2009 state audit for the conflict of interest inherent in the fact that the same people staffed it, a grantor agency, and the Watershed Conservation Authority, the grantee. "This lack of arms-length separation compromises the state's oversight of bond funds," said the Department of Finance.

But such bad behavior isn't unique to the RMC. It appears endemic to the Natural Resources Agency, of which the conservancy is part.

In January, the Los Angeles Times reported that the state attorney general had determined that the California parks department had "deliberately stashed away" $20 million. According to the paper, the AG's report said officials made a "conscious and deliberate" decision not to reveal the existence of the extra money.

Later that same month, the newspaper reported that "the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection [Cal Fire] hid $3.6 million rather than depositing it into the state's cash-strapped general fund as required, interviews and documents reviewed by The Times show."

Another question that should be top of mind for residents and taxpayers: "Who will pay for the national recreation area -- and how?" Will the new boss turn to the lucrative method used in the Santa Monica Mountains by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority: stop-sign cameras?

In 2005, before the cameras went in, MRCA rangers wrote 315 tickets total. In 2008, after installation of the cameras, the authority issued 13,004 failure-to-stop violations -- a truly massive increase.

One anti-camera activist, speaking to the LA Weekly, described the executive director of the MRCA as being "like one of those Southern sheriffs who set up speed traps."

Again, this is not about the merits of a national recreation area. This is about governance and accountability -- and the fact that crucial questions are being deferred. And it all boils down to that question raised during the age of Rome: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Indeed: Who watches the watchmen?

It's not just about bicycle trails and horse paths -- it's about democracy and accountability too

A scoping meeting April 3 reintroduced Southern California's proposed Emerald Necklace project to communities near the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers. According to environmental reporter Steve Scauzillo, the proposal was greeted with some skepticism.

The project is a plan for "interconnected bike, running and equestrian paths along the two rivers, from Peck Road Water Conservation Park in Arcadia on the north end to Whittier Narrows Recreational Area on the south end," Scauzillo writes. 

Such greening of heavily industrialized areas it can be agreed is, in and of itself, a good thing. So, Scauzillo asks, "how can people be against connecting bike lanes to river trails? Or adding a small park near the San Gabriel River?" 

He wonders whether the resistance he observed was a matter of "people conditioned to being against everything in CEQA." 

We at the Friends have tremendous respect for Steve, his reporter's eye, and his great writing. But in this case we wonder if he missed the larger issue at play -- that of concerns about democracy, transparency and accountability to the people.

People have come to understand -- rightly, in our experience with the Discovery Center project and other environmental matters -- that the CEQA process and other such meetings are often little more that ways in which government serves the interest of the powerful while either taking advantage of communities or tossing them a few easy scraps.

The Emerald Necklace is a project of the Watershed Conservation Authority, one of four supposedly independent agencies all run by the same individual. The state's department of finance criticized such arrangements in 2009 in these same agencies but the situation hasn't changed. Except to show a lack of accountability and consequences.

But the WCA and its parent Rivers and Mountains Conservancy are only two examples of power getting farther and farther away from the people. As Kevin Uhrich, of the Pasadena Weekly pointed out regarding the powerful county MTA, it is "but one of many such boards that make monumental decisions, recommend spending lots of money and forward critical recommendations to other governing boards, yet are populated by nothing but already elected officials, who are paid stipends and other perks for their 'extra service.'"

More paths along these rivers is a good thing, but you could hardly do further damage to the rivers at this point, encased as they are in concrete for much of their courses.

Not so for natural stretches of the Santa Clara River in the north, which developers and their allies in government want to channelize so they can build more houses, make more profit, and exchange more campaign and lobbying dollars for access and influence.

The question isn't "Why are people opposed to bike trails?" The question is, as Uhrich wrote, "how to use the instruments of democracy that we have available to make our present system stronger, more inclusive and representative, and better.

We wish the Emerald Necklace project great success. And we wish the communities it is supposed to serve the representative and responsive government that is so often lacking.

County DA looking into potential wrongdoing at Discovery Center Authority and parent agency

The Los Angeles County District Attorney is looking at allegations of wrongdoing by Rivers and Mountains Conservancy staff.

In January, the Friends sent a letter to the state attorney general, copied to the county DA and the state office of audits and evaluations, outlining the numerous likely illegal and unethical activities of RMC staff.

Last month, the Friends received a reply stating that the DA's Public Integrity Division is "reviewing the allegations and submitted documents to determine if further investigation is warranted."

In our January letter we outlined our concerns--and backed them up with numerous public, official documents produced by RMC and the Discovery Center Authority.

For example, we drew attention to the troubling likelihood that RMC and the Discovery Center Authority--one and the same, really--had spent $100,000 in state bond money on ineligible fundraising costs.

We also brought attention to the fact that the RMC/authority have been claiming to have 11 acres of federal land leased for the Discovery Center project--but the RMC director has known for at least a year that the responsible federal agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has not approved the project or the lease of land.

We'll be posting these letters to our website soon, so check back.

Even more troubling is that the questionable activities at the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy seem to fit and extend a growing pattern of wrongdoing under its parent, the state Natural Resources Agency.

The LA Times reported in January the state attorney general found that state parks officials had for years deliberately hidden $54 million from the state officials "until it was exposed by a new staff member who described a culture of secrecy and fear at the department."

And later that same month, the paper reported that its own investigation revealed that "the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection hid $3.6 million rather than depositing it into the state's cash-strapped general fund as required."

Given such a pattern, two conclusions can be drawn. First, it suggests that RMC activities have crossed a line--as they have at State Parks and Cal Fire. Second, it suggests that the problems being identified are not isolated occurrences. Instead, they might indicate a problematic and troubling culture within the larger agency.

That too might need some scrutiny by officials.

Critics of $22M Discovery Center water museum now include members of parent agency board

It's late fall and change is in the air, including for everyone's least favorite water museum project.

You may be familiar with the way support for the $22 million San Gabriel River Discovery Center project, planned for the Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary, has been crumbling in recent years.

For example, the state's rejection of the Discovery Center Authority's application for $7 million in bond money for nature education; the opposition of the Gabrieleno Indians, based on the location and the threat it poses to traditional native lands; and even the recent opposition to the project by a project board member.

Now, his voice has been joined by some on the board of the parent agency, the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy.

The RMC board met Nov. 23, and members Margaret Clarke, a Rosemead City Councilmember, and Dennis Bertone, a San Dimas City Councilmember, led the board's criticisms of the project.

Clarke said she'd never seen a project with so much opposition and was critical of the authority's approach to the matter, which she characterized as something like  "Ignore the public, build the project."

Bertone pointed out that the people closest to the project are objecting--and asked about the project's cost. Not the construction bill--the cost to run and maintain the facililty.

And that is a crucial question.

Along with opposition to the destruction of habitat and recreation land, and the cost to the public to build the project, the matters "How much will it cost to run?" and "Who will pay for it?" are big.

We should all learn from the experiences of Santa Barbara's troubled Watershed Resource Center, a similar but far smaller facility.

A nonprofit director close to the project said, "Everyone was excited to build it and there was a lot of enthusiasm at first," but the officials at the various agencies grew reluctant to devote the funds needed to keep it going.  (From the LA Weekly.)

Today, the WRC is open to the public one day a week for five hours.

'$84K salary just don't pay the bills,' says RMC, Discovery Center chief, announces plans to retire

The timing is suspicious, to say the least.

Three months after the state Department of Finance issues a report and audit (link below) declaring that the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy "has not exercised adequate fiduciary oversight of bond funds," the conservancy's executive director announces her retirement.

Faustinos, who earns $84,000 annually, told the Times that retirement is "something I’ve been thinking about for a while because of salary cuts for state employees -– the checkbook doesn’t balance any more at the end of the month.”

The Los Angeles Times' Louis Sahagun broke the story (link below) of Belinda Faustinos' decision to retire on the paper's Greenspace blog today.

Faustinos, who earns $84,000 annually, told the Times that retirement is "something I’ve been thinking about for a while because of salary cuts for state employees -– the checkbook doesn’t balance any more at the end of the month.”

Yep -- $84,000 a year just doesn't go as far as it used to.

It's important to note of the recent audit that many of the problems it identified were first brought to light in an earlier 2006 audit but went uncorrected.

It reminds naturalareafan a whole lot of the story outgoing drug czar Ralph Landry tells the incoming czar in the movie Traffic:

"You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor.

"He said, 'When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter.'

"Well, soon enough, this guy found himself in a tight place, so he opened the first letter, which said: 'Blame everything on me.' So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm.

"He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said: 'Sit down, and write two letters.'"

Then again, perhaps it is as easy to explain as annual salaries. One can imagine that, with the connections Faustinos has made, first at the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and now at the RMC, she has the potential to make far more money as a lobbiest than the $84,000 per year she's had to settle for as a government employee.

Links:

- Audit of San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy's Propositions 40 and 50 Bond Funds (PDF file)

- Conservancy official for L.A. and Orange Counties to retire (Los Angeles Times Greenspace blog)

RMC's 'edifice complex' siphoning millions of public dollars from conservation mission in SG Valley

Remember the movie Contact? Remember when, after the destruction of the first spaceship, billionaire S. R. Hadden reveals to scientist Eleanor Arroway that a second spaceship had been secretly built?

"First rule in government spending," Hadden says. "Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" But such spendthrift ways don't appear ambitious enough for the RMC.

"First rule in government spending," Hadden says. "Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

Well, it appears the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy saw Contact and decided even Hadden's spendthrift ways weren't ambitious enough: within only two or three miles of each other, the RMC wants built not one, not two, but three interpretive centers -- and all, one can assume, to be built with our tax dollars.

The Friends published a press release recently connecting the dots on the RMC's intentions. And although it might sound absurd, it's all true.

The RMC and its partners want the San Gabriel River Discovery Center at the Whittier Narrows Natural Area. They want the "Duck Farm on the San Gabriel River" less than three miles up the river from the natural area. And they want a Whittier Narrows "welcome center" on Rosemead Boulevard, again only a couple of miles from the site of the Discovery Center.

Friends board member Gloria Valladolid called the plan “indefensible and obscene” when placed in the context of the budget cuts that are eviscerating state, county and local services.

Spending $30 million on a "watershed education facility" (the Discovery Center) and who knows how much more on the Duck Farm and Whittier Narrows welcome center seems especially scandalous -- Can it get worse? you ask -- when you learn that the RMC simply gave itself $3 million for the Discovery Center without vetting the grant through its competitive grant process.

The RMC spends tens of thousands of dollars -- maybe into six figures -- developing its grant guidelines and then simply ignores those guidelines, doesn't even bother with a grant application, and writes itself a big, juicy check for what can only be considered a pet project.

It all reminds me of a line from another movie:

"It's good to be the king."

Agency ignores community, ok's unpopular project

Ignoring the growing chorus of opposition to the proposed Discovery Center, the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and its partners voted to bulldoze wildlife habitat and an existing nature center and replace them with a project few people actually want.

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.

Is Discovery Center to be capitol of RMC empire?

Throughout history, empires have announced and reinforced their power through architecture meant to dominate. Be it Rome or London or Madrid, or the capital of any other current or former power, these places announce the hegemony, past or present, of the men and women who built them.

The proposed San Gabriel River Discovery Center seems exactly this kind of announcement of empire, with the empire-builder this time being the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy.

The RMC building an empire? you ask incredulously. Come now, you can't be serious.

Well, how else to explain the fact that an agency created primarily to "provide open-space, low-impact recreational and educational uses, water conservation, watershed improvement, wildlife and habitat restoration and protection and watershed improvement within its territory" is focused so intently on putting up a building -- over the objections of so many -- that would harm many of those same values?

"They've placed themselves too high." -- Sally Havice on the RMC

How else to explain its use of the "joint powers authority" across the San Gabriel Valley and southeast Los Angeles County? Could it be the RMC's way of getting around the prohibition against its use of eminent domain and of cementing its influence in areas that were previously and largely the responsibility of local governments?

How else to explain the RMC inserting itself into the management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-owned Whittier Narrows Recreation Area? In 2008, one of these JPAs, the RMC-led Watershed Conservation Authority, launched a Whittier Narrows Master Plan development project that, to all appearances, was the real thing. But in late 2009, we learned that the project "is not a formal update to the existing USACE Whittier Narrows Master Plan. . . ."

What is it then? And how much is it costing the taxpayer?

On a recent Sunday afternoon, former state legislator Sally Havice visited with the Friends and other critics of the Discovery Center. Havice, co-author of the legislation that created the RMC more than a decade ago, said that, at the time, "there was no discussion about bricks and mortar and buildings," though there was to be start-up money for various projects. "But no empire building," she said.

The goal was, Havice said, "to preserve, enhance and create parks, green space and habitat."

But of the RMC today she said: "They've placed themselves too high. They're too far removed."

Somewhere along the road, the RMC lost its way. As it grows more powerful, cities and communities grow less so, and we all start to look more and more like petitioners, or, for the "lucky" few, like princes at court abasing themselves before the monarch.

Former state legislator, co-author of RMC-founding legislation to speak at Whittier Narrows on Sunday

Interested in learning how the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy--also known as the RMC--got its start? Join the Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area this Sunday for a presentation by former California Assemblymember and co-author of the founding legislation, Sally Havice.

Havice, a professor of English at Cerritos College, will give her presentation at 2 p.m. during the Friends monthly meeting in the picnic area of the Whittier Narrows Nature Center, 1000 N. Durfee Ave., South El Monte, 91733. The meeting begins at 1 p.m.

This should be a truly illuminating talk. The RMC is, in my opinion, the man behind the curtain you're not supposed to notice. But this state agency is the driving force behind the unpopular San Gabriel River Discovery Center project, attempts to take 30 - 40 more acres at the natural area for "future potential development," and a potentially anti-water conservation proposal that would alter a canal (and the land around it) that runs across the entire wildlife sanctuary.

I'm interested to learn what was the original vision behind the RMC back in the late 1990s.

The Los Angeles Times did a good job chronicling the process that led to the birth of the RMC. Here are links to Times and other coverage:

- A conservancy for an urban river, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 16, 1999
- Changing a river's course, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3, 1999
- Ideas flow for a river conservancy, Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1999
- Conservancy coalition idea in the works, LA Weekly, Dec. 28, 1998

That process seems to give credence to Otto von Bismarck's view that "Laws are like sausages--it is better not to see them being made."

I have no doubt that Havice and co-author Hilda Solis had the best of intentions when they set out to create a state conservancy for the San Gabriel River. My hope is that Sunday's conversation will help shed some light on how we went from a focus on conservation a decade ago to the RMC's bulldozers-and-buildings approach today.

RMC's Lario Creek project 'could hurt water conservation': Water Replenishent District

Yet another Rivers and Mountains Conservancy project proposed for the Whittier Narrows Natural Area could set back the cause of resource conservation said a senior Water Replenishment District official on Wednesday.

The district's senior hydrologist, Nancy Matsumoto, said that the Lario Creek project, a proposal to dramatically alter a channel used to move water from the San Gabriel River to the Rio Hondo spreading grounds, could hurt water conservation efforts.

Under the RMC-backed proposal, the channel, known as Zone 1 Ditch, would be replaced with a man-made creek planted with wetland-type vegetation, according to a story in the Whittier Daily News on a planned revision to the Whittier Narrows Master Plan.

"Wetland plants would need water and where would it get it?" asked Matsumoto.

Matsumoto also focused her criticisms on the meandering design of the project. Journalist Mike Sprague writes that Matsumoto said such a design "would take longer for water to move through, possibly increasing evaporation."

At a time of drought and increasing water rates, any project that increases water usage should be greeted with skepticism. I won't call the project a greenwash exactly, but the potential environmental costs certainly do appear to be greater than the meager benefits.

The proposed Discovery Center, on the other hand, is the epitome of greenwashing.

Not only would it replace wildlife habitat with parking stalls and replace dozens of mature, majestic trees with meeting space for water district officials and bureaucrats, but it also would cause an explosion in resource use (e.g., five times more water used than the current nature center) and in greenhouse gas emissions.

And all or most of it paid for by our tax dollars and from our water bills.

When a $3-million grant is not a grant

I'd been unable to understand, until a few days ago, how the San Gabriel River Discovery Center, a project that would destroy 10 or 11 acres of habitat within the only wildlife sanctuary on the San Gabriel River, qualified for $3-million grant from a state conservation agency. The answer, it appears, is that it didn't qualify, but the agency gave the money anyway.

As the California Public Resources Code states, the San Gabriel & Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy was created to, among other goals, "provide open-space, low-impact recreational and educational uses, water conservation, watershed improvement, wildlife and habitat restoration and protection, and watershed improvement within the territory." The Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, or RMC, even established a grant program to award state bond money to projects that meet these goals.

Clearly a project that replaces the current Whittier Narrows nature center with a building 15 times bigger, that nearly quadruples the size of the current parking lot, and that destroys some of the most accessible areas of a 70-year-old wildlife sanctuary would never be approved in the normal RMC grant process.

Perhaps that's why the discovery center didn't go through the normal RMC grant process.

As Belinda Faustinos, RMC executive officer, wrote in a letter accompanying documents that make up the discovery center grant (documents obtained through a request to the RMC):

"Please note that the San Gabriel River Discovery Center project was not included in the regular competitive grant process, so the grant guidelines . . . do not apply to this particular project."

Previously, I had wanted to think there was some better explanation for the apparent shenanigans behind RMC funding for the discovery center. But now I have to agree with the Claremont Insider:

"Voters thinking that they are protecting nature and open space approve billions of dollars in bonds to generate the funds the RMC uses for its grants, and then the money leaks out in dribs and drabs under false pretenses to the pet projects of Southern California's elected and non-elected officials. And they do it all with stunningly little accountability to the voters."