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SECOND & FLUME by Melissa Daugherty melissad@newsreview.com
Déjà vu One of my new jobs as editor of the CN&R is compiling and editing letters to the editor. I love the letters section. I always have. It’s fascinating to read what people think about something, and there are times when certain issues just won’t die. This week, for example, I received yet another letter about the Chico Certified Farmers’ Market. I couldn’t fit it into the print paper, but it’s running online. We have had letters about the CCFM each week for the last month, ever since the City Council came to a stalemate vote on whether or not to extend the market’s lease of its home on a city parking lot. A majority of those letters have come from residents who say the market should stay at Second and Wall streets. The council doesn’t surprise me too often, but its recent decision caught me off guard. In fact, I’m still trying to figure it out. Extending the lease would have allowed the market to provide its customers and vendors with better restroom facilities. The only reasonable conclusion is that the three council members who voted nay want the market to move to another location. Two of the no voters, Mark Sorensen and freshman Councilman Sean Morgan, weren’t on the dais for the last major debate on the market back in 2009, but Mary Goloff, now in her second term and mayor, should be experiencing some major déjà vu. Back then it was the same old argument: A handful of downtown businesses said their customers avoid shopping on Saturday because the market takes up too much parking. Some presented anecdotal evidence to back up their claims. They did so again recently. The thing is, the council has already received quantifiable data showing that the market draws 3,000 to 3,500 people downtown each Saturday and that a majority of them (two-thirds) shopped or were planning to shop elsewhere downtown. Two-thirds said the market was their main reason for coming downtown. Moreover, 88 percent said they didn’t have a difficult time parking. Those stats from 2009 are out of the classrooms of Chico State professors LaDona Knigge and Richard Gitleson, whose students spent 90 hours conducting the survey. It was done for free, but that doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate. Back in 2008, Chico State students, under the direction of a professor, conducted an audit of the city’s greenhouse-gas emissions. It cost $30,000 and will aid the city in its state-mandated goal of reducing carbon emissions. Discussion on the market is on the council’s next agenda (see Downstroke, page 8). The council members should reacquaint themselves with the market survey and take it into consideration regarding any future action, especially as it relates to the economic viability of downtown. If the market’s lease isn’t renewed for its current location, CCFM vendors could decide to vacate the region entirely, and opt instead for, say, a parking lot at a private strip-mall on the other side of Chico. Based on the survey, that would be disastrous for downtown. Now is not the time to take that gamble.
Puppy talk Re “Through the looking glass,” (Cover story, by Ken Smith, June 6): I would like to say thank you to Ken Smith and the CN&R for his charming, wellwritten article on Chico community groups advertising on Craigslist.org. It was a pleasure to have him attend our French-bulldog meetup. The article portrayed the breed very well, but there was one point I want to clarify: The original English bulldog was bred for fighting, bull baiting. The French bulldog was bred from the English bulldog and other small breeds—depending on your source, the pug or a terrier—in England to be a small “lap dog” favored by the lace-makers who migrated to France during the Industrial Revolution. It was in France that the breed evolved further and became known as the Bouledogue Français, and today is known as the French bulldog. For more information about the breed and its history, visit the websites of the French Bulldog Club of America or the American Kennel Club of America. By the way, Paris seems fine now. The vet said it is not clear that she had a seizure, but may have experienced syncope, or a faint, from loss of oxygen to the brain from the excitement and possibly overheating at the sunny park, although we met there at 10 a.m. to avoid the heat.
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Divestment discussion Re “Pulling out of big oil” (Newslines, by Darwin BondGraham, June 6): First, all so-called renewable energy (except hydroelectric—the only really clean renewable, yet anathema to greens) is dirtier than fossil fuels. Wind turbines kill millions of birds including endangered California condors and whooping cranes, and the turbines and solar arrays despoil landscapes, destroy habitats and emit toxic chemicals. Intermittent and unreliable, to accommodate them more fossil fuel must be burned than would be if there were no wind or solar. Geothermal emits toxic heavy metals— arsenic, mercury, lead, chromates. These are attested physical facts. Second, pension-fund management is responsible to plan members, not to economically and scientifically illiterate enviro-fascists. Pension managers’ duty is to maximize members’ account values, by investing in consistently profitable companies and not taking venture-capital-type risks. Investing in a Solyndra or a Fisker [Automotive] would be a gross breach of their fiduciary obligation. Renewables other than hydroelectric survive only with heavy taxpayer subsidies LETTERS continued on page 6
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