Santa Barbara on fire – against board of trustees of botanic garden
Posted on | June 18, 2009 | No Comments
The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was developed to showcase native plants and the natural beauty of California. Source: SBBG
THE MAY fire that damaged an estimated two thirds of the 65-acre Santa Barbara Botanic Garden masks deeper damage being done by the garden’s Board of Trustrees, claimed an article in Saturday’s Santa Barbara Independent and responded to today by the garden’s Chairman of the Board, former Arizona Governor Fife Symington.
Every public garden has its politics, but the castigation came from one of the best known names in California horticulture, Owen Dell, Santa Barbara landscape architect* and author of Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies.
In the article, Dell claimed that the current board of trustees has squandered resources on costly land acquisition, constructed a controversial folly that divided the community, operated with a board missing seven of the legally required 15 trustees and concentrated spending on high salaries for an elite clutch of executives.
According to Dell, “the Garden’s top seven staff members took home 43 percent of the total compensation, and the top three claimed 24 percent.”
Outrage over the compensation for the top three staff members erupted in mid-April, after the board announced job cuts for a quarter of the garden’s staff, including the loss of Carol Bornstein, one of California’s pre-eminent experts in native horticulture. Core to the mission of the garden is advancement of understanding of native plants.
The firings were followed by a strike among volunteers, including “volunteer of the year,” and demands from a volunteer group for representation on the board and access to its records.
The garden trustees have responded by publishing the volunteers’ letters (linked here and here) along with responses from Chairman Symington.
After an overwhelming response to the Dell piece in the Independent among Santa Barbara bloggers, the former Arizona governor today published yet a further response in defense of his board and executives saying, “Under their leadership the Garden has substantially elevated its professional posture among peer institutions.”
It’s the volunteers and bloggers at the Santa Barbara Independent who can’t seem to see the success story. Nearly a week after Dell’s opinion piece appeared in the Independent, comments keep flowing into it supporting his contention that “the current top management team that has brought disgrace, financial ruin, community discord, and internal unrest to the institution they were hired to manage and protect must be dismissed and never again be allowed to take part in Garden affairs.”
This posting was edited on Friday, June 19, 2009.
*CORRECTION: A previous version called Owen Dell a landscape designer. He is a landscape architect.
UPDATE: A June 19, 2009 letter in the Santa Barbara Independent from Lanny Ebenstein, a former Santa Barbara School Board member and professor of economics at UCSB, calls for the sacking of Ed Schneider, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s President and CEO. Schneider along with the Garden’s Board of Trustees have been pursuing a costly “Vital Mission Plan” involving millions of dollars of construction. At the same time, the Garden has been firing key educational staff and, argues Ebenstein, forgetting that naturalism was at the center of the garden’s mission. “Before the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden [was established in the 1930s], the prevailing approach of botanic gardens was the display of plant species imported from around the world in artificial groupings. By way of contrast, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was intended to present native California plants in the most natural setting possible. Trails of the historic Santa Barbara Botanic Garden were earthen paths, railings and fences were made of natural tree branches, natural stones were used for steps, signs were made of carved wood, and buildings were diminutive and unobtrusive. Every single one of these elements would be compromised or eliminated through the vital mission plan. The natural devastation wrought by the Jesusita fire reflects the worldly devastation the Garden has experienced in recent years.”
This posting was updated on Sunday June 21, 2009.
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Native Gardening > Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
“Carving Up the Commons” explains the dark art of Western land deals
Posted on | June 18, 2009 | No Comments
To download this book for free, or to order a copy for $10 from the Western Lands Project, click on the cover art
IF YOU have ever driven the stunning reaches of the Mojave, Sonoran and Great Basin deserts and wondered who owns them, the answer is: You do. It is almost all public land.
But for how long and under what terms is by no means certain. Janine Blaeloch’s new book Carving Up the Commons: Congress & Our Public Lands explains the history of that land, the challenges we face in preserving it and the dark art of Congressional land deals that are steadily wheeling millions of acres and the region’s best resources into private hands.
Carving up the Commons is of especial interest to Westerners. While the fate of public land is decided in Washington DC, most of the land itself is in the West. The pressure to exploit it for housing, mining, timber and water is constant. No average Westerner could begin to follow the omnibus bills going through Congress in which a single paragraph can lay the groundwork for, say, draining the Great Basin Aquifer to benefit Las Vegas developers. Blaeloch wades through those bills and backroom deals for us.
Anyone who cares about the West should read Carving up the Commons, but not before donating to the publisher, the Western Lands Project, which is a registered 501 (c) 3.
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > US Department of Interior > Western Lands Project
California, Nevada, Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon and Texas Red on Drought Outlook
Posted on | June 18, 2009 | No Comments
Click on image for link to National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center
Weekly Drought Map
Posted on | June 18, 2009 | No Comments
Click on map for link to the National Drought Mitigation Center
Santa Fe Springs wins Guttersnipe Award
Posted on | June 17, 2009 | No Comments
Dry season run-off trickles to a storm drain outside of the Santa Fe Springs offices of the Greater Los Angeles Vector Control District. Photo: Emily Green
CONGRATULATIONS to the City of Santa Fe Springs and its water supplier, the Central Basin Municipal Water District. You are recipients of the first Chance of Rain Guttersnipe Award.
In fact, you inspired it.
This distinction goes exclusively to those who passively or aggressively promote dry-season run-off through the storm-drain system, pollution of the Pacific with said run-off, and the spread West Nile Virus by creating most excellent mosquito habitat in the sewer system.
While dry season run-off from sprinklers is so pervasive that most Southern Californian residences, city governments and water authorities are contenders, Santa Fe Springs and Central Basin win for sheer irony. The pictures right and below of a stream flowing through a Santa Fe Springs gutter were taken outside of the Greater Los Angeles Vector Control District office.
At the same time (about 1pm) inside the GLVCD offices, representatives from vector control offices across the state were meeting to discuss, among other things, how to curb dry season run-off to protect the public against mosquito-borne West Nile Virus.
Following the tide, its source appeared to be the sprinkler system of the immaculately groomed lawn of the District’s next-door-neighbor, Imperial Paving Co.
It should be stressed that if Imperial was the source of the run-off, it was still doing nothing illegal, other than looking pretty. Unlike in Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Monica, conservation is elective in Santa Fe Springs. Rather than vote in strict conservation ordinances, it has opted for a “Shut your Tap” day promotion and “point, click” conservation tips on Central Basin’s website.
Judge for yourself how well point three “Make sure your sprinkler is placed so it only waters the lawn, not the pavement” is working.
Tags: chance of rain > dry season runoff > Emily Green > guttersnipe awards
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