Update 2-22-2008
Thanks: Big thank-yous to the 10 volunteers who pioneered restoring a new swath of Cerrito Creek at Albany Hill Saturday -- and did always-needed maintenance. Thanks, too, to the Duroudchi family for super work at Mortar and Grotto Rocks on Sunday, and the 40 Bentley School sixth-graders who removed heaps of invasives at the mouth of Strawberry Creek Monday. Please visit these sites, as well as Cerrito Creek next to El Cerrito Plaza, where Weed Warriors worked today. They all look wonderful!
Ages 50+: EXPLORE LOWER CERRITO CREEK, OHLONE GREENWAY THURSDAY
STUDENT VOLUNTEERS SPEAK AT AT F5C MEETING APRIL 7
PLEASE TELL LAWMAKERS TO KEEP VOLUNTEERING LEGAL!
SB 1345, to remove the sunset date and make volunteering permanently legal, will be eligible for reconsideration as early as April 8.
You can see the bill's wording at http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_1301-1350/sb_1345_bill_20080220_introduced.html. For a newspaper article, see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/27/BAKDVR03E.DTL&hw=volunteer+watershed&sn=001&sc=1000.
Please telll Senator Carol Migden, committee chair, as well as your own senator and representative, to keep volunteering legal! Contact Sen. Migden at http://legplcms01.lc.ca.gov/PublicLCMS/ContactPopup.aspx?district=SD03>legplcms01.lc.ca.gov/PublicLCMS/ContactPopup.aspx?district=SD03 or call her office at (415) 479-6612.
To find your representatives in the legislature, go to http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html and enter your ZIP code.
Here is a sample message, to customize as you like:
Dear Senator Migden (or your own representatives.)
Please urge the Senate Committee or Labor and Industry to support SB 1345, which will enable volunteers to continue to work on projects like watershed restoration, trail building, or beach cleanups. I am a volunteer with _______________ (Or, I am familiar with the important volunteer work done by ___________, ) Groups like this depend on volunteers for restoration work critical to the health of our environment. Volunteering also builds the kind of positive, responsibly citizenry we need.
Thank you for doing all you can to help volunteers continue their vital work here and throughout California.
Sincerely,
APRIL 14 MEETING RE UNIVERSITY VILLAGE CREEK & GREEN ISSUES?
The aim is to try to resolve or compromise complex goals: of UC Berkeley, which owns the land and wants to support family student housing; Whole Foods, which wants to build a supermarket and garage facing San Pablo; the creek people, who want Codornices and Village Creeks restored; the Albany Little League, which wants to keep the same or better space for ballfields; Urban Roots, which wants an urban farm at the Gill Tract; and the Albany School District, which is concerned about possible relocation or loss of play space at the Child Development Center next to Codornices Creek.
These are complex questions. Please go in a spirit of listening and compromise -- along with due skepticism. Friends of Five Creeks does have some positions. The two most salient: (a) Whole Foods should not wall off Codornices Creek with its garage, as it proposes and (b) residents of the proposed housing for the frail elderly next to Village Creek should have walking and wheelchair access along the creek, and not be shut off from nature as proposed.
ALBANY LOOKING FOR MEMBERS FOR IPM OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE
VOLUNTEERING WITH OTHERS
If you're looking for outdoor volunteer opportunities in the meantime, consider joining the Berryland project, which works green and produce food on the Richmond Greenway in Richmond's Iron Triangle, every second Saturday (April 12 this month). Contact park@urbantilth.org.
SPAWN, which works to save critically endangered Coho salmon in Marin, will hold work days every Saturday through May, 1 pm - 4 pm, restoring along San Geronimo Creek. They are also looking for volunteers to help trap, net, measure, and mark baby fish for research, starting 8 am on selected days including weekends. For information contact kevin@spawnuse.org, 415 663 8590 x 107, or see www.spawnusa.org.
OTHERS' MEETINGS, TALKS, WALKS:
Apr. 7 meeting on future EB MUD water supplies: Apr. 7 comment on how EB MUD gets our water: The EB MUD Board's Citizens Liaison Committee Meeting will meet 6:30 - 8:30 pm Monday, April 7 at EB MUD headquarters, 375 11th St., Oakland (near 12th St. BART). The hearing will receive public comment on Board plans to evaluate various projects for its new Water Supply Management Plan. The long-term plan aims to look as far as the year 2040. At issue are the roles of water conservation, groundwater storage, recycling, new or expanded reservoirs, or desalination, projects for future water supplies that it plans to evaluate. 6:30pm - 8:30pm. For information contact Andy Katz, EB MUD Director, Ward 4, Andykatz@sonic.net. 510-848-5001.
Apr. 8 talk on desalination: "Desalination with a Grain of Salt" is the topic of the UC Berkeley California Colloquium on Water, 5:30 pm Tuesday, Apr. 8 at Rm. 250, Goldman School of Public Policy, 2607 Hearst at LeRoy, Berkeley. Heather Cooley, Senior Research Associate at Pacific Institute, will speak on questions like economic and energy costs, environmental and social impacts, and consequences for coastal development. Information at http://lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/ccow.html
Close to Home new series of talks and walks begins in May: Close to Home will start a new year-long series of walks and talk centered on Living with Wildlife in the East Bay in May, with a visit to normally closed Vasco Caves and a talk on the problem of windmills killing hawks and eagles. For information, or to sign up for the walk series (limited number of participants), go to www.close-to-home.org or call Cindy Spring (510) 655-6658.
For Albany's new 50+ walking group 9 am Thursday, April 3, I'll guide an easy, level walk on lower Codornices Creek and the Ohlone Greenway, focusing on creative citizen efforts and future possibilities. Meet at the garden next to Berkeley Bagels, 1281 Gilman near Santa Fe (AC Transit 9). Free and open to anyone over 50, but numbers are limited. Register at Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic, 510 524 9122, or Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin, 510 524 9283.
Student public service is on the upswing nationwide. At Friends of Five Creeks' meeting at 7 pm Monday, April 7, at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin (at Masonic), a panel of UC student volunteer leaders will discuss the trend and their own motivations and experience. Free and all welcome - please join us.
On March 27, the California Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee failed to release a bill to keep volunteering legal after the present law making it legal sunsets on January 1, 2009. This temporary bill was passed through the efforts of local Rep. Loni Hancock, after the State Department of Industrial Relations ruled in 2003 that volunteers had to be paid if they worked on projects such as stream restoration, trail building, and beach cleanup.
From 4:30 – 6:30 pm Mon., April 14, there apparently will be a meeting at Albany City Hall, 1000 San Pablo Ave., regarding plans for the east end of University Village and the Gill Tract, Albany, including Codornices and Village Creeks. (Why the doubtful wording? Although the meeting is at city hall, there has been no real public notice. I advise checking the City of Albany’s website, www.albanyca.org, if you plan to attend. I'll be out of town.)
The City of Albany is looking for residents interested in serving on a committee to oversee the city's new Integrated Pest Management policy. Information on applying is on the city’s website, www.albanyca.org
Friends of Five Creeks' next public work party will be Saturday, April 26, 9 am - noon again at Cerrito Creek at Albany Hill. This is part of El Cerrito's Earth Day celebration, and is followed by a free barbecue at the El Cerrito Community Center.
April 5 walk to find Mission Blue butterfly: The Golden Gate National Recreation Area Big Year, offering opportunities to get acquainted with local endangered species, feature a quest for the Mission Blue Butterfly on Milagra Ridge in San Mateo County, 10 am Sat., Apr. 5. RSVP to 415 572 6989. Information on the project and its many events go to http://www.ggnrabigyear.org.