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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| California Town Votes to Love Nature |
| 2003-11-05 |
| What, no "Impeach Bush" measure on the ballot? They disappoint me. BOLINAS, Calif. - Residents of this quirky coastal town north of San Francisco decided overwhelmingly to declare their love of nature, skunks and a few other things perhaps not as easily understood. I’d keep an eye on the power lines up there. Sponsored by a local woman known for wearing hats made of tree bark and newspaper, Measure G won 314 to 152 in the town of 1,200, where residents are so protective of their isolated way of life that they regularly remove highway signs pointing into town. She sounds like she’d be a "thought leader" in any community. Lady, do you know how many North Korean kids would kill to have one of your hats on their dinner table? The text of the measure, in its entirety: "Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful." Wonder what’s in that water? |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #16 Dakar is Cannibal saliva, is it not? That would put everything in context. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2003-11-5 11:46:12 PM |
| #15 You guys are kidding me!? A town that has told HRC to beat the feet, JRR Tolkien atmosphere, Martha's house for the obligatory egging op, a nice local slop shoot, a gun range, and the integrity to not want to be the next f*ckin' 'sundance'. Sounds pretty damn good to me. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-5 9:55:44 PM |
| #14 I'm just glad the measure passed. |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2003-11-5 8:29:12 PM |
| #13 obviously, from their syntax, grammar, and punctuation they were products of Bay Area ("Self Esteem are our Business") public schools as well....and proof positive that Nixon was wrong to spray pot with Paraquat |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-11-5 7:24:19 PM |
| #12 Uh, guys, none of you live in the Bay Area I take it? Fellahs, you are selling poor Bolinas short: it isn't Berkeley. Actually, it may be one of California's most charming little maverick hippy towns. I've spent many an enjoyable evening there drinking at the local bar (called Smiley's) before talking a hike along its picturesque beaches which are framed by towering, epic cliffs. Actually, it's not even really a town as it lacks a council or a mayor.... except for the drunk guy who sleeps in front of its single gas station. The locals call him "the mayor." Bolinas is kind of like Andy Griffeth's Mayberry on acid. Traditionally Bolinas (which is on the tip of a peninsula), with its single road leading in or out, was a haven for San Francisco artist/anarchist weirdos fleeing the competitiveness of the big city. Most of its older (and, to my thinking, cooler) houses were walled with driftwood or untreated, weathered pine, giving the entire place a sort of "hobbiton" feeling.. The locals were eccentric hippies, sure, but not what you would consider textbook liberals.... more like libertarians, I guess. There was even an unofficial shooting and "plinking" range in the woods north of town. The reason that the locals were (and are) so isolationist is that they don't want to be "discovered" by Bay Area yuppies. They were all horrified when, a half a year or so ago, Hillary Clinton & Company cruised through there little slice of heaven in search of a "quaint little Northern California town" to buy a house in. Martha Stewart has already purchased a home there... so I guess the end it near for these people. Soon they will have a real mayor, a town council, zoning, and so forth. All of these freaky, inoffensive, anarchist types with their nutty, homemade, off-grid homes will leave. Hell, my buddy that lives there has already bought a place 1 ½ hours north in Willits. Maybe the Bay Area Megalopolis (tm) won't get that far.... PS Dar, there are a fair number of guns in that little town. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2003-11-5 7:14:29 PM |
| #11 Think anybody owns a gun in this town? They probably don't trust banks so they have all their money in jars, and you just know they have weed stashed all over the house so they can feel even more like one with the universe. No wonder they took all the signs down--one criminal could knock over the whole town! |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-11-5 4:28:51 PM |
| #10 Tree bark? Is that as effective as tin foil? An honest question deserving of an honest answer. The answer is no if you are discussing mind control rays. However, tree bark has proven to be an effective Agent Orange brain-o-frice. Note Agent Orange... not Agent Grape... Anabuse is the only answer to that. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-11-5 4:22:32 PM |
| #9 Great. A beautiful people utopia! Why am I not surprised... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-11-5 4:07:15 PM |
| #8 I thought I'd heard of this town before. I believe this is the place that tried to prevent electromagnetic waves from being broadcast into their town. Anyway here's some backround: BOLINAS, Calif. — The turning point for this quirky little Marin County beach town can be traced to a 1971 recall vote in which elected officials were removed from the local utility district and replaced with a quasi-revolutionary board. The result was a radical no-growth policy that froze the Bolinas population in its tracks at about 1,300 and steadily raised the market value of a water permit here to a staggering $265,000 — the amount paid at a recent auction. After decades in which local activists systematically removed direction signs to Bolinas on nearby California 1, Caltrans finally just gave up putting them there. To get to Bolinas, a collection of clapboard houses and shops nestled on a peninsula about 30 miles north of San Francisco, you have to know where you are going when you set out. Another issue of modest local concern is something called Measure G, a stream-of-consciousness initiative that was placed on the ballot by Bolinas resident Jane Bethen. Bethen is a local character who wears burlap undergarments and crowns made from bark, newspapers and palm fronds. Beloved by the townspeople, she is sometimes difficult to decipher. "Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town," says her free-verse ballot petition, "because to like to drink the water out of the lakes, to like to eat the blueberries, to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats." Bethen, who sometimes uses the pseudonym Dakar, gathered 263 signatures from the town's 1,000 registered voters for the measure, which concludes, "Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful." The Measure G initiative, set for the Nov. 4 ballot, targets the Bolinas Community Public Utility District. But not even utility manager Philip Buchanan, a former rock-station disc jockey, knows exactly how. "It seems to be saying, 'Let's all get along,' " said Buchanan, who has been with the utility district for 23 years and presents a leery, long-suffering persona to visiting reporters. "The crux seems to be about airplanes." For her part, Bethen concedes that some of the language has to do with her childhood in Minnesota, which at least explains the blueberries, which are not native to coastal California. After its success in the 1971 recall election, the five-member Bolinas utility district quickly established itself as the town's most powerful local institution and principal public forum. Because the community is unincorporated, there is no mayor or city council. So the utility district has taken on many of those functions, including acting as a target for letting off steam or making political points. Buchanan has seen the utility district board adopt an El Salvadoran sister city and declare a nuclear-free zone. "As far as I know," said Buchanan, his tongue firmly in cheek, "we have had no transportation of nuclear and fissionable nuclear materials since, or before, for that matter. Personally, I think we should mind to our own knitting." The keys to the utility district's power are water and sewage. In a desperate attempt to block a major highway and harbor development plan for the area, a handful of local residents discovered that they could effectively control growth by limiting water and sewer permits. After winning control of the board in 1971, the new utility board members, including two residents from a nearby communal farm, issued a moratorium on new permits that stands today. One of the young activists was Orville Schell, the Bay Area writer and China scholar. Schell, currently dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, wrote "The Town that Fought to Save Itself," a book that chronicles the Bolinas anti-growth movement. "Bolinas has a reputation for being a little daft," said Schell, who still owns a ranch home in the community. "But actually what it has done by way of growth control and community management kept the character of the town from being blasted to smithereens." Key to the effort, said Schell, was the initial recall election that was used to seize control of the utility board. However, although it successfully restricted population growth, the Bolinas movement also had the unintended consequence of helping to drive housing and land prices far beyond the means of the modest farming and countercultural population that lived here at the time of the utility district coup d'etat. In 1975, the year Schell's book was published, the median household income of the town was about $8,000. Large homes were available for less than $20,000. According to the 2000 census, the median household income here has risen to $53,187, and the average home value is about $465,000, with some of the older Victorian homes selling for as much as $2 million. OK, this sounds like the last place I'd want to live. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-11-5 3:29:10 PM |
| #7 Prob'ly accounts for the syntax. Dakar, bro! |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-11-5 2:14:53 PM |
| #6 If they are drinking the water out if the lakes, then they all have giardia lamblia, or beaver fever, as we call it up here, from drinking water out of beaver ponds. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-11-5 2:04:05 PM |
| #5 What angers me is that there are 152 nature-haters in this town that must be destroyed! May their yards be filled with skunk oil and fox scat! |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-11-5 1:55:19 PM |
| #4 I wonder if she is distantly related to the English fellow that nudged the peanut up ot No. 10 Downing. I think he also wore a turkey on his head to bring attention to obesity. It might have been easier if he just took his shirt off instead; if he looks like me other s would have gotten the idea. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-11-5 1:26:40 PM |
| #3 Tree bark? Is that as effective as tin foil? |
| Posted by: BH 2003-11-5 1:21:50 PM |
| #2 Sounds good if you can see past the fact that maybe the woman might be a little loony. But all and all, I'd love to live in a small secluded town. (tree bark) Hats off to the folks! |
| Posted by: R.A. Myers 2003-11-5 1:13:03 PM |
| #1 Juche and a dakar-based policy... |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2003-11-5 1:02:58 PM |