By Cathy Salustri
I'm a Tornado: I graduated from Clearwater High, class of '90. I wasn't a cheerleader, although I did letter on the Academic Team, which, as we all know, is practically the same thing.
Nevertheless, I attended football games. I loved yelling from the stands and cheering on the football players. I especially loved it when we would chant at the other team, "We've got spirit, yes we do... we've got spirit, how about YOU?" and the opposing team would chant it back at us.
Spirit's a funny word. I thought that meant a general feeling or undercurrent, but at the Gulfport council meeting Tuesday I realized that it actually means playing nice with the majority.
Councilman David Hastings suggested Al and Cindy Davis, who recently battled with the EPA over water quality issues, for the Spirit of Gulfport award. The Davis', with the help of their attorney, forced the EPA to admit that it hadn't been doing what it was supposed to in regards to water quality and agree to come up with a national plan to do so.
Yup, Al and Cindy Davis made a federal agency admit its negligence. I'm not sure I understand the ruling enough yet to debate its finer points, but it seems to me that getting the feds to admit a muck up is, at the very least, noteworthy. So did Councilmembers Hastings and Jennifer Salmon. Vice-Mayor Michele King, however, called the Davis' a "disruptive force" and Councilman Sam Henderson said he couldn't support the award, either. The mayor said he didn't want to bestow the award- which, as far as I can tell, is a Microsoft Word certificate in a cheap frame awarded without discretion or criteria - if there wasn't a consensus.
That disgusted me. Whether council likes it or not, The Davis' are some of the most involved members of our community. They pay attention, attend meetings, and speak their mind. They tried to donate an RV to the city. They rescue imperiled rabbits and find them homes. Whether you agree with their tactics or not, you can't deny that they're in the trenches. They visit local restaurants, spend time on the water, and own rental property.
I disagree with them about certain aspects of the Clam Bayou restoration, and I've said here I don't care for the way Mr. Davis speaks to council. Additionally, I don't think Mr. Davis likes me much - he waved me off after the meeting tonight- or believes this paper does an adequate job, but I cannot, in good conscience, discount his value as a Gulfportian because he doesn't like me.
Being on city council means being the bigger person and trying to work with all the people you represent, not just the ones who are nice to you. Is that fair? No. Who said it was supposed to be? If you don't like it, don't run, because despite what we would all like to believe about Gulfport, Al Davis isn't the only one who doesn't smile and make nice at city council. Other people get upset. Other people say mean things. Government meetings aren't intended to be a lovefest where we all hold hands in a circle and sing Kum Ba Yah; they're a place where citizens and government come together to work on issues.
I was a nerd in high school. The cheerleaders made fun of me and the jocks had no clue I existed. But at those football games, when we were all hooting and hollering for our team, we were united. Come Monday morning, yes, I'd be the geeky one on the Academic Team and they were the in crowd, but on Friday nights we were all on the same team. And, really, what good would high school - or anything- be if we were all the beautiful people? We would never learn to be any better than we already are.
Clearly the people offended by Mr. Davis' behavior don't remember their high school experiences, or they were the beautiful ones who never had any social unpleasantness. Not so for most of us, though. And what did we do? We learned to adapt. We tried to see the other person's point of view. We grew up understanding that it isn't personal when people aren't nice to us; it's more about their needs and frustrations than our inadequacies, real or perceived.
Like in high school, everyone in a community doesn't always get along. They can treat each other with indifference and sometimes cruelty. But they're all in it together.
I'm not defending the way people address council; it's no secret I think there needs to be more decorum in the meetings. I see Mr. Davis' bad side, yes. But a bad side doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him human. Emotional, passionate, occasionally ill-tempered, but human no different than any of us. A voting, tax paying, thinking, bunny-rescuing, human who disagrees but supports the city. He just doesn't always agree with the mainstream opinion. And he's a citizen who deserves a council that may not agree with him but understands he, too, is rooting for the same team. He's just doing it in his own way.
Which, actually, is what I thought Gulfport was all about.
Contact Cathy Salustri at CathySalustri@theGabber.com, or comment on this column on Cathy Salustri's Hard Candy Facebook page.
Showing posts with label Gulfport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gulfport. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Fixing Things
By Cathy Salustri
In his nonfiction book about endangered species, Last Chance to See, the British satirist Douglas Adams says that “human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
I went down to Clam Bayou the other day and looked around at the construction site. I saw a lot of earth-moving machines, litter, and a young black-crowned night heron. Right or wrong, the restoration is moving forward, hopefully in tandem with the heron and at odds with the litter.
I say right or wrong because I don’t know. Florida history is littered with environmental decisions that forever changed the state, and not necessarily for the better. I do not know that these decisions, like trying to straighten the Kissimmee River or drain the Everglades (we didn’t realize mosquitoes caused malaria; we thought swamps did and hey, we can sell that land if it’s dry, so let’s dredge the hell out of it!) were made with malice. Greed? Well, yes.
Humans screwed up Clam Bayou by dredging up a bunch of land so we could have houses in Gulfport, put a golf course right next to it, and allowed people to try and coexist with an estuary before anyone realized what a really, really ill-conceived idea that was.
And now we want to fix it. As a species, we’re not so good at that sort of thing. Look at any number of environmental projects in this lovely limestone state. Oh, we’re fantastically gifted at mucking up the environment, but the fixing? That’s kind of hit-and-miss for us humans.
I’m not concerned that we’re going to muck up the bayou forever. Eventually all systems right themselves; the earth possesses an amazing capacity to pull itself back into balance. Don’t believe me? Pay attention after the next hurricane, because that’s a classic example.
It’d be nice to see it recover in our lifetime, which probably won’t happen without an assist. It’d also be grand to see the stormwater diverted before it goes into the last remaining bit of estuary on Boca Ciega Bay, but that’s not going to happen. Instead we’re digging a deep pond- deeper than anything in Boca Ciega Bay, by the way- and hope it sorts itself out.
No, I’m scared it isn’t a good idea for other reasons. DDT in the soil from years ago? Dredging it up puts it back into the water and the food supply; that can’t be good for the osprey that fish Clam Bayou. Huge ponds deeper than anything that was there before? Is there a reason they weren’t there before? The arrogance of doing what nature never would have begs for failure and in Florida, ecosystems aren’t small-time. When we fail the environment, we do it in style. People across the world study our environmental failures.
I think the scientists suggested what they believed best for the bayou, but that’s the problem. We’ve created a whole new set of problems and this business of fixing isn’t as much of a science as we’d like to think.
I don’t have answers. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know what to do with all the junk that flows into Clam Bayou. I realize we’re not all going to move away, and I know that this is all part of the process of learning to coexist with nature, but I wonder if we know what we’re doing by creating things that have never existed in that area. How do you un-dig a pond that’s 30 feet deep? How do you get rid of toxins that you’ve unburied?
Scientists make the best decisions they can with the information they have. But what if the scientists are wrong? What will happen when they have to tell the water management district's governing board- comprised of people dedicated to selling the state rather than preserving it- that things didn’t exactly pan out? What decision will that board make?
Half of the Pinellas-Anclote Basin Board members make their living from development. Not one scientist sits on the board. The larger governing board has realtors, ranchers, and farmers on it. As much as I want to believe that the scientists are doing what they think is best, every time I think about those boards, I start to feel a little queasy.
When will we learn that leaving the fate of our world in the hands of developers is just plain stupid? How can they possibly have the best interests of the estuary at heart when they, as individuals, make their livings by buying and selling land and creating huge buildings up and down the Pinellas coastline?
Do you really want the man who designed the Aqualea on Clearwater Beach deciding the fate of Clam Bayou? Do you want cattle ranchers and citrus farmers deciding what’s an acceptable way to keep nitrogen, an essential element in fertilizer, out of Boca Ciega Bay? Do you honestly believe the president of a construction company should have the right to tell scientists how to rebuild an estuary?
Look, if the restoration works, I’ll be thrilled. Believe it or not, I want it to work. I can’t wait to kayak Clam Bayou once the work finishes. Short of ripping out the golf course and stopping cars from driving on local roads, I guess a redesign is as good a choice as any.
Unless it turns out they shouldn’t have tried to redesign it at all. What if things get worse, not better?
What if they’re wrong?
Do you trust the developers with the fate of our bay?
In his nonfiction book about endangered species, Last Chance to See, the British satirist Douglas Adams says that “human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
I went down to Clam Bayou the other day and looked around at the construction site. I saw a lot of earth-moving machines, litter, and a young black-crowned night heron. Right or wrong, the restoration is moving forward, hopefully in tandem with the heron and at odds with the litter.
I say right or wrong because I don’t know. Florida history is littered with environmental decisions that forever changed the state, and not necessarily for the better. I do not know that these decisions, like trying to straighten the Kissimmee River or drain the Everglades (we didn’t realize mosquitoes caused malaria; we thought swamps did and hey, we can sell that land if it’s dry, so let’s dredge the hell out of it!) were made with malice. Greed? Well, yes.
Humans screwed up Clam Bayou by dredging up a bunch of land so we could have houses in Gulfport, put a golf course right next to it, and allowed people to try and coexist with an estuary before anyone realized what a really, really ill-conceived idea that was.
And now we want to fix it. As a species, we’re not so good at that sort of thing. Look at any number of environmental projects in this lovely limestone state. Oh, we’re fantastically gifted at mucking up the environment, but the fixing? That’s kind of hit-and-miss for us humans.
I’m not concerned that we’re going to muck up the bayou forever. Eventually all systems right themselves; the earth possesses an amazing capacity to pull itself back into balance. Don’t believe me? Pay attention after the next hurricane, because that’s a classic example.
It’d be nice to see it recover in our lifetime, which probably won’t happen without an assist. It’d also be grand to see the stormwater diverted before it goes into the last remaining bit of estuary on Boca Ciega Bay, but that’s not going to happen. Instead we’re digging a deep pond- deeper than anything in Boca Ciega Bay, by the way- and hope it sorts itself out.
No, I’m scared it isn’t a good idea for other reasons. DDT in the soil from years ago? Dredging it up puts it back into the water and the food supply; that can’t be good for the osprey that fish Clam Bayou. Huge ponds deeper than anything that was there before? Is there a reason they weren’t there before? The arrogance of doing what nature never would have begs for failure and in Florida, ecosystems aren’t small-time. When we fail the environment, we do it in style. People across the world study our environmental failures.
I think the scientists suggested what they believed best for the bayou, but that’s the problem. We’ve created a whole new set of problems and this business of fixing isn’t as much of a science as we’d like to think.
I don’t have answers. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know what to do with all the junk that flows into Clam Bayou. I realize we’re not all going to move away, and I know that this is all part of the process of learning to coexist with nature, but I wonder if we know what we’re doing by creating things that have never existed in that area. How do you un-dig a pond that’s 30 feet deep? How do you get rid of toxins that you’ve unburied?
Scientists make the best decisions they can with the information they have. But what if the scientists are wrong? What will happen when they have to tell the water management district's governing board- comprised of people dedicated to selling the state rather than preserving it- that things didn’t exactly pan out? What decision will that board make?
Half of the Pinellas-Anclote Basin Board members make their living from development. Not one scientist sits on the board. The larger governing board has realtors, ranchers, and farmers on it. As much as I want to believe that the scientists are doing what they think is best, every time I think about those boards, I start to feel a little queasy.
When will we learn that leaving the fate of our world in the hands of developers is just plain stupid? How can they possibly have the best interests of the estuary at heart when they, as individuals, make their livings by buying and selling land and creating huge buildings up and down the Pinellas coastline?
Do you really want the man who designed the Aqualea on Clearwater Beach deciding the fate of Clam Bayou? Do you want cattle ranchers and citrus farmers deciding what’s an acceptable way to keep nitrogen, an essential element in fertilizer, out of Boca Ciega Bay? Do you honestly believe the president of a construction company should have the right to tell scientists how to rebuild an estuary?
Look, if the restoration works, I’ll be thrilled. Believe it or not, I want it to work. I can’t wait to kayak Clam Bayou once the work finishes. Short of ripping out the golf course and stopping cars from driving on local roads, I guess a redesign is as good a choice as any.
Unless it turns out they shouldn’t have tried to redesign it at all. What if things get worse, not better?
What if they’re wrong?
Do you trust the developers with the fate of our bay?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)