A brick – the Wrong Write Stuff award – to the U.S. Department of Commerce for wasting stamps and killing trees by forcing prospective speakers at a Sept. 22 hearing in Del Mar to mail in their requests to speak.
You read right.
No faxes or e-mail allowed. If a mailed letter isn't received at a Maryland address by Sept. 12, access to the microphone is denied.
It's a transparent strategy to discourage public diatribes at O'Brien Hall at the Fairgrounds. One environmental activist accurately called it a “red-tape barrier.”
To be sure, the February hearing at the fairgrounds was a raucous affair. It was democracy in action – jeers, cheers, warts and all.
More than 3,000 people turned out to witness the California Coastal Commission ultimately vote against the toll-road extension that would run through a nature reserve in Orange County as well as a state park in San Onofre.
To be fair, the Commerce Department, which has jurisdiction over the section of the route that would cut through federal land, is to be commended for even holding a hearing. Legally, it didn't have to face the folk music.
But in this day and age, the snail-mail requirement – as opposed to e-mail, faxes or, better yet, same-day sign-ups – is an obvious tactic to reduce the numbers of speakers, the likely majority of whom will be surfers and environmentalists in passionate opposition.
Is the deck being loaded?
Following the Coastal Commission's ringing rejection, this proposed route from Oso Parkway to Interstate 5 at Basilone Road is going nowhere without a major power play that extends from the governor's office in Sacramento to Washington, D.C.
Let's hope this return to the communication technology of the 19th century is not a subtle flexing of that muscle.
A brick – the Catastrophic Stroke award – to the Tri-City Healthcare District board for suffering another brain aneurism in trying to pass a bond measure.
After the expenditure of more than $500,000 for consultants – and $700,000 for the campaign itself – it's clear that the strategy to modernize the hospital during a recession was flawed.
The reaction to the defeat was even worse.
In the aftermath, board President Larry Schallock predicted that the defeat of the $589 million bond measure “will have a catastrophic impact on our ability to provide comprehensive health care.”
Now isn't that reassuring to anyone who's admitted to Tri-City Medical Center?
I understand that Schallock was bitterly disappointed that the third bond measure in two years was not the charm. Opting for a special August election with unusual mail-in rules, Tri-City's champions clearly didn't trust the people of the hospital district to do the right thing. They tried to game the system, hoping that low turnout would carry the day.
Well, they were too clever by half. (Do consultants return the money if they're wrong?)
Thanks in part to a feisty anti-tax group – supported by the San Diego Minutemen, the anti-illegal-immigration activists – Tri-City's hospital will remain less than stellar. (Imagine the envy when Palomar-Pomerado Health rolls out its modern hospital, paid for in part by a successful bond measure.)
Sure, it's galling to be the shabby, poor cousin of North County. Defeat hurts. Still, Schallock's remark sends the clear signal that a disaster of Katrina proportions is headed for Tri-City.
Raise your hand if you'd feel in good hands while being admitted to a hospital that, according to the board president, is experiencing “a catastrophic impact.”
If it's really that bad, then Tri-City ought to consider closing up shop.
A posthumous bouquet – the One for the Books award – to Chuck Valverde, San Diego's bookseller emeritus, for his life-changing advice to a struggling college instructor about 30 years ago.
One of the famous “Sayings of Chairman Chuck” was, “Never go into the book business.”
Needing another job to pay the bills, I dropped by Wahrenbrock's Book House on Broadway and asked Valverde if he needed any help.
I told him my ultimate goal was to learn the business and open my own bookstore someday.
Before he could take the chomped cigar out of his mouth and tell me to come down out of the clouds and buy a liquor store or something, the phone rang.
After curt salutations, Valverde said something like this: “You want 15 yards? OK, OK. Goodbye.”
He turned back to me and growled, “Interior designers. They just want books for libraries, so they buy them by the yard. They don't care what the hell they are.”
Valverde, who died Aug. 23 at age 73, didn't hire me that day. No openings, he said, letting me know he was doing me a favor.
Shortly thereafter, at the ripe age of 30, I concluded I was cut out for nothing particularly useful – or lucrative – in this world.
That's when I resolved to become a newspaperman.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com
