By Linda Sutter – March 23, 2016 –
Rewind. May 12, 2015, item number 10 on the agenda, Supervisor Chair Dave Finigan approved, authorized and adopted a Resolution allocating funds to partner with United States Congressmen Jared Huffman for an opportunity for Del Norte County to participate and benefit from the regionally significant and high priority Last Chance Grade project as requested by the County Administrative Officer, Jay Sarino. This was to the tune of $5,000 dollars. However, secret meetings were held with the “Stakeholders” of the Last Chance Grade (LCG), with no transparency whatsoever, and probably in violation of the Brown act. Can someone tell me what the $5,000 was used for?
After several months of the “stakeholders” nonpublic meetings, CALTRANS decides to open up to the public for a special town hall meeting regarding LCG held at the Fairgrounds for alleged transparency. The evening of March 23, 2016; 100 people attended the meeting hoping to hear some questions and answers as a group but that is not what took place
What took place at this public meeting was a fiasco. Mr. Sebastian Cohen, Project Manager of LCG for CalTrans gave his facts of why it is taking so long to get the LCG under control, and then a word from our “John Driscol,” Rep. Huffman’s aid, who sounded similar to a Charlie Brown school teacher. Wa wa wa wa wa. Blah Blah Blah. At the end of all of that we were told if we had any questions there would be representatives at each little station this group had set up on separate sides of the room . Oh yeah, now they wanted to divide and conquer. Great contention tactic.
We the people were not allowed to stay seated and in one group to ask pertinent questions and get real answers. Oh no, we were all treated disrespectfully, handed some cockamamie bull, given a sandwich and sent on our way. No questions were asked out loud and nobody got any real pertinent information. Is this the new contention tactic to control people?
These people running this hot mess treated us like a herd of sheep. In my opinion this was an intentional act demonstrating a dog and pony show to continue on in their quest to be nontransparent. This is not alright folks.
As Sup. 1st District, Roger Gitlin, put it, “Tonight was NOT a Town Hall; Tonight was a lecture.”
I attended two other “lectures” about “Last Chance Grade” held at the waste water treatment plant, which turned out to be the perfect place to unload the predetermined responses from Ms. Leighton, Mr. Cal Trans speaker, supervisors, their staff. I was proud of the public’s assertive questions and suggestions. This was one of the first meetings I have attended where the public kept an even pace with follow up questions to the questionable responses from the non government speakers. The public’s responses were focused on transportation priorities and had little concern where a cross walk might be placed at some point in the future. Martha McClure tried to redirect the citizen’s questions to transportation needs of the county the citizen’s would not accept “Last Chance Grade” not even at the beginning of the needed procedures to qualify for repair or replacement.
My question is “WHY IS THAT?” To much grant money to pass up for repair?
How are you going to repair it when it is in the ocean?
There are a few points I want to emphasize about these meetings:
*They were conducted by non government representatives to benefit stakeholders not the public
* The responses to the public’s concerns provided no satisfactory solutions
* The elected government was available (hiding in the audience) to assist the speakers.
* How many years have the “elected” officials and their chosen staff had to find a solution for “Last Chance Grade” and the best they can come up with is to create a situation to allow over-sized trucks on HWY 199, making it as vulnerable as HWY 101.
* This speaks volumes as to why you should never drink fluoridated water, much less dump a neuro toxin into a communities water supply or elect people to public office who’s IQ has been diminished from ingesting fluoride.
* Vote for a candidate that will represent you