Butterfly or Pig?

Last week’s Weekly article, “Good Growth,” called out Monterey Coastkeeper as among the organizations opposed to the Monterey Bay Shores Resort.Rana Creek Architecture’s Paul Kephart suggests that by opposing green-featured projects environmentalists are “pulling the wings of a butterfly apart.”

You can dress up a pig, but it is still a pig.The proposed Monterey Bay Shores Resort has plenty of green features including a green roof and good use of rain and recycled water. It might be a good – even great – project if it weren’t for the ocean-side site.The project will harden and pave the dune structure with unknown consequences.The project claims it will restore habitat but ignores the fact that the project will be dug into blowing sand.

And then there’s the small issue of global warming and coastal erosion.Stilwell Hall was north of the site, the Monterey Beach Hotel is to the south.Stilwell Hall (set back nearly 400 feet from the bluff when it was built) is gone; the Beach Hotel has a seawall.This project is built into the bluff with a stairway leading onto the beach. Miraculously, the developer’s consultants say the hotel won’t fall into the sea for at least 50 years.We’re skeptical.

Maybe the cities of Monterey and Pacific Grove won’t mind looking across the water at a ‘butterfly.’What if it is a pig?

Learning from Prop 8 Vote

Since Nov. 5, I’ve attended many protests, forums and other events with regard to the constitutionality of Proposition 8. I’ve immersed myself in hundreds of viewpoints.

On March 5, 2009, the California Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments as to the validity of Prop 8; specifically, whether a majority (52 percent) can take away rights from a minority. Another case, headed by Kenneth Starr (will also be put forth asking that the 18,000 same sex couples that married legally between June 17, 2008 and Nov. 4, 2008 be mandated to divorce. The Supreme Court has 90 days to hear all arguments and rule.

When I listen to so many who have now begun speaking out – Dolores Huerta, Anna Caballero, Wanda Sykes, hundreds of union leaders, speakers from the NAACP, faith-based leaders and their congregations, teachers, lawyers, rich, poor, old and young – I am inspired by the power in numbers and the advocacy for civil rights! I never thought I would say this, but “THANK YOU TO ALL WHO VOTED YES ON PROPOSITION 8!” You have fueled hundreds of thousands! You have motivated the best of the best! You have awakened a sleeping giant!