The Odd of the Moment

L headed back to the mountains today so I was left to do real work and enjoy a beautiful day. It did indeed reach 45F - so I walked to the Post Office and then to the office of the new mayor (who also happens to be the treasurer of my campaign committee) and then to one of the local computer stores to look at some proposed equipment for the Humane Society. All in all a pleasant walk with just a light weight hoodie over my office wear.

Now that you have clicked away due to my boring meanderings, we can get to the interesting things. As I neared home, I saw a couple of city trucks and workers along with an old high school friend standing on the lawn of a house down the street from ours. Turns out Joe's (uncle of the high school friend) water lines to the house froze last night. It is one of those oddities that sometimes the subsurface frost shield can move as the surface warms and cause freezing in unexpected locations. They were all standing around after giving up on using the flame-thrower in the meter pit and were about to roll in the hot water jet machine to try thawing it out. Pretty incongruous to see workers in shirt-sleeves using the flame-thrower and the hot water jet to thaw out water lines under the street. I was just happy it wasn't my water line.

The whole episode brought to my mind the question of whether bad things happen in multiples or not. Just yesterday I remarked to L that Joe must have gotten a new pickup; then I realized that the new truck in his driveway was his friends and Joe's was nowhere to be spotted. That is unusual because Joe's truck is always out front. Turns out that Joe's truck had been destroyed in an accident Saturday. Now his water lines froze shut last night. Sure seems like Joe is off to a bad week. So do you think Joe should plan for yet more bad news?

Speaking of being a bit off, can you spot what is wrong with this piece of art work?

I just hope it isn't what we have on the side of our animal control trucks. After all, we are supposed to handle animals of the non-human variety, not party animals and others of the human variety. Someone dropped a rather critical e off Humane. I guess I'm going to have to take a look when I meet with the animal control officers later in the week. If you hear a large AARGH echoing through the land, you'll know what I found.

Too Much To Do Tuesday

Tonight will be a quick post since the pre-council meeting and then the council meeting with the water issue public hearing took up a lot of time. At least the public hearing went well. We had people from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) present to explain what happens if the issue doesn't pass on the ballot and the engineers present to detail all the options and treatment methods we considered and their estimated costs, etc. There were less than a half-dozen citizens that testified and asked questions, so I think the public informational meetings along the way really helped. But we did have a nearly full council chambers for only the third time in the last 6 years.

When I came home, it was really beginning to rain and the temperature was already down to 45. The higher altitudes to the east (up around and beyond Denver) were predicted to get snow tonight. I guess fall really is here. Of course when I got home, Molly was waiting and wanted to go out. So I let her out and went to grab a towel or two. There are few things less pleasant than an affectionate greeting from a soaking wet long haired dog, towels in hand or not.

Molly told me about her day as I fixed my late supper. Her discription consisted mostly of woofs and growls from what I could understand. There were also squeaks of the chew toy and a few low rider sprints through the house as well. Of course, as soon as I sat down at the table, she wanted to rest her wet head on my lap.  I'll leave it to you to imagine just how thrilling that is.

Finally, two readers have signed up to follow my twitter account in the last week. Proof positive that people have too much time on their hands. If you want to follow, I'll save you all the detective work of those two - I am djones666 on twitter. Just be forewarned that I twit (note that I called it a twit, not a tweet) very seldom and on very random topics. Someday I may even put a button over on the side to let people follow, but for right now you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Time to put together a couple of notes for the radio show in the morning and then hit the sack. Probably better get the names of the CDPHE people written down so I can attribute them correctly. {*grin*}

Fall Is Coming!

Today is definitely a harbinger of the fall to come. Saturday for the garage sale and yesterday for my booth duty at Sugar Beet Days, it was in the 80s and sunny. Later in the day yesterday it turned rainy and started cooling off. Today it drizzled most of the morning and reached a high of 54 degrees as the northern cold front settled in. Definitely fall weather. L reported that it was snowing in the mountains today. Fortunately, it is supposed to be back in the 70s by the weekend and not freeze yet down here, although it will be in 30s the next several nights. Guess we picked the ideal day for the garage sale!

In the aftermath of the garage sale, it's amazing how one finds odds and ends laying about the house that were intended to be in the garage sale but never quite got hauled out. Oh well, it gives one a start on the stuff for the next sale seven years hence. After a day of no more heavy lifting, my knees are returning to normal.

Tomorrow is yet another public hearing on the water issue here in the city. This one will feature the engineering report on the technical details of the new treatment plant. Other meetings have have concentrated on the community impacts and and non-technical overviews. It will be interesting to see what the tenor of those who actually attend this meeting will be. Engineering reports tend to be a bit dry {*grin*}, but they also attract all the "but if you just did this illegal thing or that illegal thing it would be cheaper" crowds. Because of the size of this project, we had two separate engineering firms look at the plan and estimate the construction costs. They were in agreement to less than 1% on a $27 million dollar project. That tells me the numbers are right and have little wiggle room.

In any case, the engineers and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will be in town and so I'll be tied up in meetings before the council meeting and public hearing. Given the full agenda to follow the public hearing at the city council meeting, it may be a late evening. (Just in case you are wondering, CDPHE is the agency responsible for administering the EPA front line enforcement in Colorado. They have been a good organization to work with thus far - I often feel sorry for them and the EPA heat they have to take through no fault of their own).

It will be interesting to see if the young man who called me last night to inquire when we met for city council will be in attendance. He needed to attend a council meeting for one of his Boy Scout requirements. I got a laugh out of it since I sit on the committee for another troop and knew exactly what requirement he was working on. I still asked him to explain it to me and he did a very good job. That's why it will be interesting to meet the young man. I was reminded of his call since I was preparing a proclamation for another young man's Eagle Scout ceremony next week. (I issue proclamations for Boy and Girl Scouts who reach the highest rank - it's my personal abuse of the power of mayor if you will. Actually, the power of proclamation is one of the few unfettered powers a mayor has. My policy has always been that if it isn't illegal or immoral, I'll probably proclaim it.)

Time to resume cleaning up the aftermath of moving out the junk fine consumer goods for the sale. In other news, I got lucky enough to get a password into the second level of the Rockies ticket raffle for the playoffs. L and the Son both got the "Thanks, but you lose" emails. Maybe I am heading into a streak of good luck. Wish me luck!

A Contentious Evening

Tonight I was a speaker at a voter information meeting about the city water treatment plan and then the proposed county wide EMS Authority. The meeting was contentious and full of hot air from all sides. What really gets my goat is that we have been holding public meetings and talking to the press about the water issues for the last three years and yet none of the armchair idiots concerned citizens was willing to even attend a single engineering meeting, council meeting, meeting with the EPA, heck, even a meeting with me. Now that it is clear what the whole issue will do to water rates (raise them to a level similar to other communities in the area for a start), the people are up in arms.

What really bothers me is that they don't seem to grasp that this is a no win situation where trying to deny the issue just makes it worse and more costly. Some points are conceded by all sides:

1) The EPA standard is capricious and has no scientific basis.
2) Treating to handle 1) will obviate the need for home water softeners and reverse osmosis units.

After that, it is a toxic mix of coffee shop rumor and non-thinking knee jerk reactions. The plain facts are:

1) We are under EPA edict to do this. It is not an "if you want to", it is a "it will be done on this timeline" situation.
2) If we don't start construction by the end of the year, we can be declared non-conformant by the EPA.
3) If we are declared so, then a whole bunch of bad things happen and we still have to do it, but with no help and no time. That basically means a $29 million dollar effort will become an estimated $110 million dollar court ordered action with no ability to control costs.

So all the aforementioned armchair idiots concerned citizens get up and rant about how we should show those government people who we are and how we should get Obama $$$ to do this, etc. The last city who tried to show those EPA and government critters is 150 miles from here. It looks like people would have at least followed the news as that city's $18 million dollar water treatment plan became a $72 million dollar court supervised disaster that had to be built in 6 months (by court decree) which doubled the cost yet again. All because the voters were going to show those government people. Seems to me the government showed them - and left them paying for it for a long, long time.

The real stick (there is no carrot) in all this is not the fines ($2000 to $20,000 per day) if we don't get voter approval to do this. It is not that we are the only city in Colorado with a charter provision requiring us to get voter approval for revenue bonds (bonds issued against water plant revenues - in any other city it is already a done deal and construction has already started which reduces the costs appreciably to meet the EPA deadline). It is not even the fact that the mayor may be jailed for being in contempt of federal court for being the nominal leader of the non-compliance rebellion. (After all, I am term limited out in November, it won't be me! {*grin*}) No, the real issue is that if a town like ours is declared non-conformant, we become ineligible for *all* federal funds (like fire and security and 911 systems and ...) and FHA and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financing of real estate sales is prohibited. And property cannot be sold without going through a lot of hoops even if no bank financing is needed. And that in turn kills business financing since they can't use their property as collateral. So during the months while everything sorts itself out in court and the treatment plant is built under court supervision and time line, the town goes through throes that might kill it and the very livelihoods of those same people who are going to tell the government to take a hike.

All I have to say is that I sure hope the sane voters who understand what the consequences are come out to vote. Actually, I hope they put marker to paper in timely manner since the county wide vote this year is by mail-in ballot only.

In any case, another 3 hours of my life wasted and I get to do it again tomorrow afternoon. And all for $500/month whether I like it or not. Just declare me insane now and send out the men with the big butterfly nets! I'll be waiting.

Tomato Tahmahtoe Schlomo ....

Into the breach once more dear friends ....

I often think of that line. It's from an album by The Firesign Theater brilliantly titled "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers." This album may be before your time since it was popular when I was a collegian. But I have to agree with the Rolling Stone review more than a decade after it's release that called it "the greatest comedy album ever made."

I like that line more because it is, like most Firesign material, at least a double entendre. In this case, referring to the famous lines in William Shakespeare's Henry V, III, i, 1 "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..." The play on into versus unto is great.

In case you haven't guessed, I am a big fan of double and triple entendres and puns. Unfortunately, telling puns is usually grounds for immediate execution by howling hordes of unhappy listeners. So I restrict my pun telling and most of my shaggy dog stories to close relatives and those who are unlikely to catch me as I head for the hills at the end of the experience. 

What brought the phrase to mind tonight was the discussion at a city council work session about setting water rates. If you set the rates and add a step structure to the rates to encourage conservation, people might actually conserve too much and so you would have to raise the rates again to cover the operational costs of the water treatment plant. On the other hand, if you set the base rate to cover the operational overhead and keep the per gallon charges down, you hurt those on low and fixed incomes disproportionately. And no matter what you do, people are going to be unhappy and think it was the wrong decision. I sometimes think that people fail to realize that council members pay the same rates as anyone else, so we understand the fiscal pain involved. 

Anyway, another two and a half hours of my life gone in a futile attempt to come up with some plan that doesn't gore anyone unfairly. I could have been doing so many other things during that time. Oh well, I only have until mid November and I am term limited out of office. I haven't decided if I am going to call my successor and critique every action of the new council and mayor yet. It might supply some deep winter amusement. {*grin*}  Maybe warm the cockles of my heart during the nights of frozen tundra?

Writer's Wednesday

The Mama Kat Writer's Challenge is upon me once more. The challenge for this week offered the following choices:

1.) Tell us about a lie you told that you later regretted.

2.) Choose a task you'd like someone to complete and write a poem asking them to do it.

3.) Describe a talent you have.

4.) Write a list of ten things on your mind this week.

I decided to do the poems of request for my challenge this week. To make it really challenging for the wordy person that I am, I decided to do them in variant Haiku style. (I disclaim all responsibility for anyone who dies reading this!)

On the subject of getting the train whistles to calm down:

Sorrowfully wailing

Noisy train near

No whistling here

On the federally mandated water treatment:

Sparkling water clear

Federally mandated

You pay for it

-or-

Eight million years OK

One senate session not

Idiots abound

Now it is up to you to do your own challenge.

Wacky Wednesday

This morning was the normal weekly radio show. I didn't have a lot to say since the main topic for the week has been water rights. The EPA forced treatment of our water under the new standards will force us to waste (not use in any constructive way) at least 15% of the water we pump from the ground. That means that although we thought we had sufficient water rights to cover the projected growth in usage for the next 35 years, we now need to begin looking for more water to buy to cover our depletions much sooner. I know that people who don't live in the water short American West don't have a clue what I'm moaning about. Those who do are going "yup, been there and been burned by stupidity of easterner's laws before too."

One of the nice things about doing the radio show is that things here in "small town" have been pretty calm, so I don't get the raving lunatics calling in. It's more the attack of the rabidly apathetic - you can't get them to call for any reason. That means I get to blither on about topics of my own choosing. Sort of like rambling to your self on a blog - you don't know until later who was listening/reading and only then when they comment on it. For small market radio, the rule of thumb is that if you have 100 listeners, you will get around one comment in the next week. I wonder if there is a similar rule of thumb for comments on blogs. Have you heard of one?

Time to get on with cleaning up the kitchen. I left the dishes after supper and now have to do them before bed. I find that when I'm batching it, I have a tendency not to do things like the laundry and dishes if I don't do them right away. On the other hand, I'm enough of a neatnik that I can't stand having the mess sitting around. So I have this internal dialog going on in my head between the angel of neatness and the imp of sloppiness. Add to that the trio of me, myself, and I all babbling at each other and the conversations gets a bit hard to get a word in edgewise. And of course Molly the dog feels free to contribute here two barks as well. Which might explain why I'm so incoherent at times! {*grin*}

Speaking of raving lunatics, what is the one thing least likely to happen to a U.S. citizen on May 22? That was the question we used to give away the dozen donuts on the trivia show that follows my meandering on the radio. My pre-air prediction was < 3 minutes and 2 callers. I hit it on the nose. Leave your guess of the answer in the comments. I will include the answer in tomorrows blog entry.

A Meeting Up the Road

I just got back from a meeting of mayors and commissioners in a neighboring county, about 45 miles up the road from here. It was a first since the town hosting the meeting is the arch-rival of our own town with a long history of rivalry going back to the late 1800's. The mayor of M (as I shall call the neighboring town), Jack, called and invited me to attend last week. You might remember Jack from this post where he arranged for me to be railroaded into the Presidency of District 1 of the Colorado Municipal League. It is kind of funny that Jack and I have developed a relationship to get things done in cooperation just as we are both term limited out of office. I'm gone in November and Jack is done in January.

So I grabbed the city manager and we journeyed up the road to attend the meeting. We weren't sure what to expect, but expected it to be interesting none the less. We got there and were welcomed with open arms by Jack and the rest of the attendees. It turned out to be a useful meeting all around, as we got to hear what projects each of the towns and the other county were pursuing, what the biggest problems they were facing were, and how they were approaching these issues. And the interesting and unsurprising thing - they face the same problems and issues we face.

The biggest issue for all the attendees was water. Here in the water short American West, you would expect it to be the number one topic and it was. But it was like the old parable of the blind man and the elephant. Each of us had a different aspect of the water problem to consider and as a consequence it looked different but had a common theme. Some of the towns had been slow to recognize the importance of securing decreed water rights earlier and were now in the (expensive) process of acquiring some. Others had adopted long range transport of mountain water shares and were now dealing with the costs and distribution issues. Our city had the foresight to secure water rights, but we are now facing the changing regulations determining out treatment processes as discussed here. Many of the attending cities are very interested in our experience since we are the guinea pig for how to handle the new regulations. That's because we are the largest city out here and thus get stuck going first through the regulatory maze.

Then there was discussion of nuts and bolts, things like budgets and revenue projections. Topics such as potholing and crack sealing and ... One outcome was a chance to coordinate some projects to put together unified bids which might result in lower costs due to overall size. We already have one project underway between our city, M and M's sister city. It is a project to determine what would be needed to have the various railroad crossings in our communities declared part of a quiet zone. We have ~30 coal trains (one mile long trains transporting coal) a day passing over the tracks that bisect our communities. That wasn't too bad until the federal regulations on train horns changed a few years ago and they became 100dB+ annoyances at every crossing, even those controlled by gated arms and lights. But there are pathways to make such intersections controlled to a point where the train horn regulations can be abated. The problem is that a city like ours has 7 such intersections and a naive approach can cost more that $1 million per intersection to achieve quiet zone status. So the three cities pooled funds and grants to have an engineering study done to see if there weren't cost effective methods to achieve quiet. This becomes a further quality of life issue since th number of coal trains will rise to 40-50 in the coming year and may hit 100 or more in a few more years. This is because all the trains are being routed out here rather than through the high population areas due to yet another changed federal regulation.

Well, that should be enough rambling on topics of absolutely no interest to 99% of the readers of this blog.
For extra credit - did you know what potholing was before you read the link?

TGIF

My cold finally quit running my nose like a faucet, but then morphed into the ache and shiver stage.

It didn't help any to sit for five hours (we even had lunch in to keep on working) with several others all in various stages of recovery. But at least we won't have to do this again for at least a month. The bad news is that now the project costs have escalated to ~$24 million and 15% of our water due to additional requirements from the the EPA and CDPHE. At least we have identified some possible funding sources. If I were even more cynical, I'd believe it is all part of the mandatory water conservation plan that we have to file with the project plan. After all, if the water costs the citizens too many $$$s, they will tend to use a lot less. Probably one of the more effective conservation plans.

Today was as warm as it is going to get for the next week or more. The cold front is supposed to blow into the state starting tomorrow and settle in for Christmas. When I talked to my wife up in the mountains, she said they were predicting winds in the 40 mph range coupled with sub-zero temperatures. So the skiers and snowboarders may find it a bit chilly with wind chills in the -50 degree range over the weekend. It shouldn't be quite so bad down here on the plains.

Tomorrow starts the college football bowl season. On the down side, I need to clean the house  for Christmas, so it may cut into my viewing pleasure a bit. On the up side, it is early enough that it isn't the most interesting games yet either. All in all about neutral.

Off to have some hot soup and call it an early evening.

I hab a cold!

It had to happen. I awoke this morning to the familiar runny nose and sense of displacement that could only mean one thing - I have a cold. Given that everyone I have been meeting with for the last couple of weeks has been in some stage of recovery from the cold going around, it was only a matter of time before I became the next victim. So now instead of a well planned post, you're going to get a random rant and thought as I honk my snorter between keystrokes.

I guess it's fitting given that I have a five or six hour meeting tomorrow with the engineering firm about our EPA mandated change in water treatment. May as well be miserable and as well as in sticker shock. We are going to have to spend somewhere between $15-20 million to remove the granite decay products from the water here. The levels in the water haven't changed in 2 or 3 million years, but because the congress critters changed (to levels even the EPA though were "unsupported by scientific evidence") the limits, all of us out here in the water scarce plains are being forced to spend like loons and waste precious water in the process. We are spending this money to remedy a problem that *might* lead to one (yes 1!) excess death every 300 years in a town of our size. Historical data from the 1900's on shows no statistical effect from the ever present granite decay products, but ... Even the official EPA stats claim that if you drank 2 liters of the water here every day for 70 years, you would increase your chances of getting ill by less than 1 in 10,000. Oh well. It just seems that there are a lot of ways of spending that much money that would produce much better results.

You may remember my words about the community benefactor from this post . Here (if you read this latter, select the 2008-12-17 link in the box at the bottom) is one of the official reports of the unveiling of the gift. They have chosen to honor their son (L and I's classmate) by donating and naming an oncology center in his name. Thank you Frank and Gloria and family! And here's to the memory of Dave!

I'm off to snort my honker and drink tea. At the rate of tea consumption today, I'm going to have to become English or give up my coffee drinkers card. {*grin*}


P.S. And I just looked outside and notice that it has snowed some more.