CARLETON = DUMBASS
Time to recount another instance of me outsmarting myself.
When I started my campaign for Inyo Supervisor in District 3, I decided I’d need some stationery to pen a few notes here and there. So I stop by the Booky Joint in Mammoth and owner Dave Leonard’s got a few selections courtesy of Peter Pauper Press.
One option had a very simple card featuring a small drawing of an owl on the front. The other had a somewhat larger drawing of a sloth resting on a tree branch. Great, I thought. Cute, tasteful. Yeah, the sloth might conjure an association with laziness, but the wise and thoughtful owl. Who’s gonna quibble with that?
Until …
I received a sympathetic phone call this week from a friend and member of the Bishop Paiute Tribe.
A piece of advice, says my friend. Stop sending cards with owls. In our culture, owls are a bad omen.
After I hang up, I google “Owl symbolism in Paiute culture” for details.
This is what I get back. “While some Native American cultures view owls as protectors or wisdom keepers, the Paiute-Shoshone perspective tends to align with the interpretation of owls as ominous figures related to the supernatural and the end of life.”
Fortunately, I not did send out cards with white owls, “specifically seen as warnings of upcoming death.”
Now, a different site expanded upon the subject, adding that owls are commonly associated with premonitions, the souls of the deceased or as omens signaling a future death or significant change.
Significant change isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but most people find change unsettling and a little scary.
So for now, I’m glad I have my sloths to turn to. “These animals are seen within the context of a deep-rooted spiritual connection to the land.”
When I was informed of my faux pas, I immediately thought of the famous tale of the GM executives who were mystified why the Chevy Nova wouldn’t sell in Mexico … not realizing that the name Nova (“doesn’t go in spanish”) wasn’t going to be a great selling point south of the border. So as I was contemplating this piece, I researched that marketing disaster, and was surprised to discover that it is in fact an urban legend. My friend Google says, “Despite claims it flopped, the Nova actually sold well in Spanish-speaking markets, including Mexico and Venezuela.”
Speaking of va/no va, I attended the regular meeting of the Bishop Paiute Tribal Council last week to get a better sense of what’s going in that realm of District 3, and it was pretty darn interesting.
Tribal Councilmember Steven Orihuela, who also happens to be running for District 3 Supervisor, was absent. He was also apparently absent last month as well, and has also missed various committee meetings. This is not sitting well with his fellow Councilmembers or the community at large.
The Tribe has 12 pending enrollment applications for membership. These applications cannot be considered unless all five Tribal Councilmembers are present.
This means that in some instances, these applications have been held up for months.
As fellow Councilmember Chad Delgado groused, “At what point are you [Orihuela] going to get down to business?”
His absence last Thursday was vaguely chalked up to a “personal matter.”
A person who was there was Scott Marcellin, the third candidate for District 3 Supervisor.
And he was there touting a grant application to build a few sidewalks through the reservation – most likely on Barlow, See Vee and Diaz.
Great idea. Of course, it takes nearly four years and an election for the idea to get some traction.
Marcellin brought Senior Transportation Planner Justine Kokx with him to the meeting.
Kokx said that in the last funding cycle, Inyo County was awarded approximately $10 million for a project in Tecopa, which has one-tenth the population of the reservation. Tecopa also doesn’t have the 1,600 vehicles per day on See Vee or the 1,800 vehicles per day on Barlow.
Neither Kokx nor Marcellin explained why a Tecopa project would have been higher in the queue than a Bishop-area project. Offhandedly, Kokx mentioned that this was the second time she had appeared before Council in recent months.
She said where the issue had been left previously was that the County was waiting on approval from the Council to move forward.
Councilmember Meryl Picard and Chairwoman Emma Williams assured her that approval had been granted to move forward.
What wasn’t said, according to a source, was that the former Tribal Chairman (Orihuela) had dropped the ball and nothing had happened since.
More va/no va. The local union reps invited District 3 candidates to meet for interviews/discussions/loyalty tests? in the back room at Las Palmas on Monday night.
The lineup went Marcellin, Orihuela and then myself.
Orihuela and his wife left via the front door as I was summoned (I had been eating dinner in the dining room with friends).
*What is it with my opponents that they have to attend meetings accompanied by someone?
Based upon the increase in wages and benefits the current Inyo Board has approved, it’s hard to imagine the Unions would not be in Marcellin’s corner for the upcoming election, though I was told the union will not be endorsing anyone.
During the interview, six questions were asked. It’s the sixth question which I’m not sure I quite fully processed at the time which I now find pretty revealing.
The question: LADWP recently approved its first few land sales to long-term tenants in Bishop. As a Supervisor, how will you push to accelerate this process to include land for new workforce housing, rather than just selling to existing business owners?
My response would be that business owners who’ve leased property long-term should properly have first dibs on purchase.
And I don’t like the verbiage that LADWP would be “just selling” to business owners – as if it’s a disappointment. I’ll take small business over big government any day of the week.
Certainly, it would be nice to acquire land for new workforce housing, but I am no fan of the current model of soliciting grants, agreeing to income requirements which frontline personnel like teachers and nurses don’t qualify for, and then building heavily-subsidized units for $700,000 apiece.
I am more in favor of using resources on down payment assistance programs instituted by entities like Mammoth Community Water District. Personally, I bought my first property in Mammoth with help from a down-payment assistance program. I think I had to put 1% or $3,600 down. But it was something – not a handout.
