There has been a lot going on. One, I’ve been trying to keep up with a fast moving baby. Two, I moved in with my parents, which even though is a small house is better for me and has a larger yard, etc. Three, I’ve been continuing to devote myself to the Rio Grande Bosque, a narrow stretch of woods and river running through the heart of Albuquerque, which is now threatened by the City.
But I am finally taking a moment to catch my breath and announce some exciting news. I have been invited by the North Valley Coalition to speak publicly at the North Valley Senior Center this Thursday. I will be part of a panel discussion and will be talking specifically about the importance of green space and wilderness in the lives of veterans, the need to proceed with an abundance of caution when altering a wildlife refuge, and the multiple failures taking place at command levels within the City of Albuquerque with regard to their plans (See Rio Grande Vision) to develop and commercialize the Bosque that is reminiscent of the multiple failures that took place with regard to our country’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Specifically, I will be drawing parallels between the bad intelligence that is informing both actions, and the inability of officers on the ground to be heard by politicians and bureacrats back in the rear. (Just as the city politicians are turning a blind eye to the intel that the citizens on the ground in Albuquerque are providing them: See thousands of individual petitions, see thousands of individual letters, see thousands of online signatures and comments from Albuquerque asking that the Bosque be preserved and protected: http://www.change.org/petitions/mayor-richard-berry-and-albuquerque-city-council-keep-the-rio-grande-bosque-wild)
Just as we were fed a boatload of crap about Saddam cooking up white phosphorus grenades on his kitchen stove, and other chemical wonders in the basement, and nuclear bangalore torpedoes in the nursery, so here we are getting a load of crap intel with regard to the Bosque.
The landscape architecture firm (Kekker Perich Sabatinihired by the Mayor to come up with a plan of development in the Bosque is asserting that the Bosque, in its current form, is “underutilized.” They assert in their documents, available on their project website that the Rio Grande river is “out of sight and out of mind.” This is bad intel. Their solution is even worse: development, development, development. In a wildlife refuge? Could we kick out own ass any harder, I don’t think so.
A massive outpouring of community resistance (see Bosque Action Team, see multiple Op-Eds http://www.abqjournal.com/267350/news/bosque-plan-depends-on-details.html, see attendance of Sept. 4 Town Hall Meeting numbering in the hundreds, see New Mexico in Focus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Kne3Ox2CI) see Rio Grande Bosque facebook page that I got started and which now has nearly 4,000 followers https://www.facebook.com/newmexicobosque is giving full indication to the Mayor that his intel from Dekker Perich Sabatini (paid $235,000 to produce said intel) is bad.
Any operation relying on bad intel is asking for failure.
Even after the bad intel regarding WMDs was relied on by the Bush Administration, they further compounded their mistakes by disregarding their top strategist, General Shinseki, who advised that if invasion was the best course of action based on bad intel, that he needed an invasion force of 500,000 to get it done. The administration chose to disregard General Shinseki and he was shunted away. “We’ll go in with a quarter of that”, the pinheads decided. Good job, pinheads. We well reaped the fruit of your stupidity.
In this case, Mayor Berry is not even consulting a subject matter expert like General Shinseki, like conservation scientists and enviromental scientists. He is going straight to the private contractors, landscape architecture firm DPS, people who have a vested interest in developing the Bosque without relying on any science at all. He is just relying on what private contractor Dekker Perich Sabatini is telling him, and a document that looks like it was cut and paste together by a couple summer interns. (See executive summary and other repetitive documents at http://www.riograndevision.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Executive-Summary.pdf)
Here’s what we are asking of Mayor Berry. If you’re going to tamper with a wildlife refuge, you should consult with conservation scientists, wildlife experts and environmental experts before making any decisions. Which is what we are requesting here. And before you cut a check for $245,000 to private contractors for a plan on how to cut up the Bosque –money down the drain—try a little public outreach first to see what sort of “utilization” the Bosque is receiving, and gauge the importance of the Bosque in the collective lives of your citizens, FIRST. You can still ask us. We are still here. We’re not going anywhere.
That’s all for now. If you want to hear more, come to the panel discussion. Nov. 14, Thurs. 6:30pm, North Valley Senior Center, 3825 4th St. NW