Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Saga Continues  … The Oceanside City Plaza Pools are Iconic, thus they must remain empty and wait for the rains...

APRIL 22 ,2015
In the presentation of Jason Dafforn our Water Utilities Director last night he went into the latest mandates from the State of California from our Governor Jerry Brown to have the 20 % cut from all users. He considers this necessary to conserve our precious water resources. However, the Pecan Tree growers are exempt. By now it is well documented that these growers use more water for their cash crop than all of the home users combined. This makes me mad as hell that we are being docked for the People of China’s eating pleasures of “Pecan Treats”. Californians should wake up and realize that the bottom line of certain people are dictating our water resources, where they are being used and who is getting rich from this incredible misdirection of our water..

Mr. Dafforn finished his report about the Fountains saying that he envisions the pools to be left empty with a decorative wrought iron fence surrounding it. This fence will be installed into the cement around the Fountain circumference and will someday be removed when the rains come once more. After spending more than 350,000. dollars refurbishing the surface of the pool and replacing the tiles this will be for the foreseeable future the Center Piece of our Civic Plaza. A huge “Iconic” hole with Palms in their planters and a place for Seagulls to be the only users of our Fountains which will entrance visitors with our lack of vision.

In speaking to the Council last night, I stated that as of today, NOAA predicts that California will run out of water in 2016. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/sdo_summary.htmlNASA

says much the same as does National Geographic. I put forth the request that the Council use this opportunity of consideration to put forth a call for Landscape Architects, Architects, and Artists to share a vision of the new awareness of our plight in the coming years of drought. A use of native plants and artworks could be a new kind of Icon. Think the Getty Museum in LA. This is our new normal. The rains will not come and if they do, they will not replenish what we have been wasting for the past decades. 

At this point you might ask; what has all of this to do with Artist Alley? My answer is simple. Everything. Artist Alley is across the street from the City Plaza. The Alley is a bright new spot in our Downtown Arts District which the civic leaders are supporting with new landscaping and upgrades of signage. Lighting is to follow. Looking across the street to the plaza, you will in the future see a giant vacant  beautifully finished “Iconic” concrete hole with a fence around it. This is not the way to give our Community the best use of a space which could be a Community Interactive space, but instead be a question of …”When will the rains come”?    
 
FOR THE FUTURE WE WAIT FOR THE RAINS...