Sounding Off

Don McGee

The misuse of an ever-depleting resource seems to be at the crux of

several ongoing sagas here in Surf City.

Money is evaporating almost as quickly as water here in California.

The state is expecting a $24-billion shortfall in the future and thus

Huntington Beach will feel the fallout from this catastrophic occurrence.

Programs that have been financed in the past are suddenly being

considered for cutbacks or complete elimination.

Yet we seem to find funds ($45,000) for questionable projects such as

Surf Circle (“surfhenge”) and $18 million for a sports complex that was

supposed to cost a twelfth of this.

As art goes I find the new sculpture to be interesting, not for its

beauty, but because it does look like the sign for pi, the 16th letter of

the Greek alphabet and the symbol designating the ratio of the

circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Sitting at the shore, next to the horizon, it should serve as a subtle

reminder that the earth is not flat. This is important because there are

more than a few contingencies around that have a mind-set conducive to

the belief that it is indeed flat and that business can be conducted in

ways that allow little or no thought as to the sustainability of outmoded

and archaic methods that have been employed thus far in our history.

Such agencies are the Orange County Sanitation District and

Environmental Protection Agency, who would have us operate our sewage

treatment facility in accordance with the antiquated method that has not

served us well for many years now. Their archaic agenda allows for

continued pollution of our most precious resource -- the ocean -- in

spite of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Despite continued pressure from a

variety of concerned parties the district rapaciously grips to its waiver

like it is the holy grail and something to be surrendered only under the

threat of death or dismemberment.

Sustainability of the ocean is not a priority in the thought processes

of anyone who would continue such degradation and befoulment. The other

party to this abomination is the EPA, which sits in the back room, rubber

stamp at the ready, granting waiver after waiver, ad nauseum. Litigation

is the only mechanism that ever gets agencies such as these off the dime

and moving toward a new paradigm. Litigation, that the burdening cost of

is borne by the taxpayer, who they keep forgetting, as if they ever

recognized, are those they are supposedly serving.

As for the business with this antiquated mentality, there is AES and

developers, who operate on the contention that profits are the only

consideration and sustainability is just a dirty five syllable word.

AES and the devil-may-care, build-it-out-as-soon-as-possible,

full-speed-ahead developers seem to view sustainability as their ability

to sustain their modus operandi, with consequences being only the

aftermath when the truth is finally realized, which will be long after

they have reaped and ran.

These are the ones that have concocted the “fair” initiative that

would reduce the council to five members that they would not only control

the election of, but their votes once seated. The “fair” initiative would

be hilarious if I believed they also saw the humor in choice of misnomers

for this bit of flimflam.

*DON McGEE is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to Sounding

Off send an e-mail to o7 hbindy@latimes.comf7 or fax us at (714)

965-7174.