Page 16 - Sonoma County Gazette 12-2019

Blank Days
PART 2 - Threat to our COAST
Please READ Part 1 in the November Gazette and ONLINE @ SonomaCountyGazette.com
By Richard Charter, Senior Fellow, The Ocean Foundation, Bodega Bay | LocalCoastalPlan.org
The Public and the LCP: The Sonoma Coast is an irreplaceable public asset and deserves the kind of respect and due process that it was accorded during the thorough public participation by which the first LCP was initially formulated and adopted. After a County-requested pause in the LCP update process following the 2017 Tubbs fire, Permit Sonoma is now pushing through an artificially-rushed public review of hundreds of pages of binding planning guidance and formal regulatory language in the aftermath of this year’s new fire season. How the updated LCP is to be reformulated at this time will determine, more than any other single County policy, the future fate of our coastal environment.
There is a lot at stake here right now. The inspiration our coast provides to each of us compels us to defend it. The health and well-being of our communities requires our participation at this critical time.
A Bizarre Helicopter Poisoning Proposal in the Midst of Our National Marine Sanctuary:
By MoMcElroy
I’m sitting under a redwood tree staring at the blank white page of the Word document, wondering what I’d like to share with you that might be worth your minutes. My life is now calculated by minutes, which is a new way to express the currency of my time left here on the planet.
For example, if I’m going to watch
a TV show, spend time with someone, complain, gossip, or eat a pint of
ice cream, there is is a moment of checking in with myself. “Is this how I want to spend my minutes?”
The answer is usually loud and clear and has been enormously helpful in spending time wisely or banking future minutes. On the flip side, not gauging the minute- spending can cause regret. “I can’t believe I spent so many minutes on that stupid (fill in the blank). I will never get those minutes back!”
Which brings me to Blank Days. This concept doesn’t come easy to me. Being a planner by nature and living by my calendar is a way of life and business. Truthfully, I have scheduled relaxation and then been bored upon arrival. Surrendering to each present moment is my secret ingredient for success.
This idea of Blank Days came to me when my girls were little. We saw school friends who were so over-scheduled with activities and sports they never had a free minute to just play, and I wanted my kids to have time to unwind.
Our family would all agree on the day in advance. “Saturday is a Blank Day.” And when we woke up, we could each do whatever we pleased at the moment: read a book, make chocolate chip cookies, watch 101 Dalmations, take a nap, play Monopoly or watch the river flow by.
Mel Robbins is one of my favorite authors and coaches who has inspired me so much this year. This just landed in my inbox from Mel:
“Think you don’t have time for self-care?
Think again. Taking care of yourself can require less
time than waiting in line for your iced latte.
And when you make time for self-care, you have more energy.
When you have more energy, you are more productive.
When you’re productive, your mood improves.
When your mood improves, your confidence grows.
When your confidence grows, your relationships are better.
When your relationships are better, you make more time for self-care. Rinse and repeat.”
Defending what we have already protected is a recurring theme at this time on our coast. Right in the middle of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary itself, President Trump’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to falsely claim that their agency can somehow help to mitigate the impacts of climate warming by using helicopters to spread 1.5 tons of second-generation rodenticide poison pellets into a National Wildlife Refuge on the Southeast Farallon Island, resulting in uncounted “bykill” of a host of non-target species.
Recently my home was rented, so I moved into the RV and had two Blank Days. One day my friend came to see me from out of town. This
is a very busy person who travels weekly, has a packed calendar, and a high- pressure job. We spent one Blank Day together, and it was terrific. From one moment to the next, we chose what we felt like doing.
Under this plan, the Fish and Wildlife Service claims it can thereby dissuade about eight burrowing owls from the Marin Headlands from undertaking their annual avian migration out to the island each fall to consume their share of an overpopulation of house mice derived from some escaped mice that were accidentally introduced there during the Gold Rush. These visiting burrowing owls, it is claimed, tend to stick around after the rapid collapse of the mouse population each year and then predate on the eggs and chicks of a small seabird called the Ashy Storm Petrel.
No amount of planning could have improved the magic of the day. In fact, the magic of Blank Days can only happen when zero is planned. We moved leisurely from eating hot biscuits with savory gravy at Big Bottom Market to a competitive four-leaf clover hunt in Armstrong Woods. Then to singing rap songs by Grand Master Flash in the RV to putt-putt and ice cream cones at Pee Wee Golf with a finale dinner at the Russian River Pub to check it off the Diner’s Drive-Ins and Dives list.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, when asked in a separate petition to list the Ashy Storm Petrel under the Endangered Species Act, asserted in response that the bird’s population has been increasing and the agency has thereby twice denied the request for any elevated protective listing.
Days like this where every minute is unplanned and beautifully spent inspires me to “schedule Blank Days” more often. It sounds like
an oxymoron as hilarious as jumbo shrimp, past history, amazingly awful, deafening silence, random order, or painfully beautiful.
On July 10, 2019, the California Coastal Commission, which must approve this “poison drop” proposal, asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff who were presenting this plan in a public hearing to answer some important questions for which they simply had no response. Lacking the ability to react coherently to key questions posed by the Coastal Commissioners, the Fish and Wildlife Service federal staffers then temporarily withdrew their poison plan from consideration, but this same scheme will be back to again seek approval at a future Coastal Commission meeting coming up soon.
Maybe “scheduling Blank Days” will make into the oxymoron dictionary alongside Bing Crosby’s famous saying, “We’re busy doing nothing.”
16 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 12/19
THREAT cont’d on page 17