The McKinleyville Press is a weekly community newspaper published in McKinleyville, Calif. If you want to read about everything that’s going on, you’ll need to buy or subscribe to our print edition, which comes out every Wednesday. We’ll post a few articles, opinion pieces, photos, breaking news and occasional nonsense on this blog. For more information about the newspaper, visit www.mckinleyvillepress.com.
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McKinleyville Press Blog 
Glad to see some of your articles will be online.
Yay! Jack! This is a GREAT idea.
The Press Blog has appeared at an important time in McKinleyville’s development. It provides a forum to discuss the upcoming changes due to increased population. I suggest readers take a look at the recent action the Arcata City Council has taken toward implementing an online public participation tool. They seem to be moving toward adding “Open City Hall” to their existing website. This feature will allow the public to access the agenda for the next meeting (most likely the Friday before the next Wednesday meeting) and submit comments to the Council members. The comments can simply be a no or yes, or the writer can elaborate, even attaching a YouTube video if desired. The time for comments is cut off the day of the Council meeting, with a detailed summary available for each member. This not only allows the members to get a larger cross-section of the public’s views, but it affords the public to participate in the democratic process from their homes. Many people do not have the time, or are inclined to attend the meetings. Maybe someday MCSD will be able to implement this tool. There is no set-up cost and the only fee is $50 for each agenda item selected for comments. Generally only the most contentious agenda items would be selected for inclusion. According to Robert Vogel of Peak Democracy in his presentation to the Council, Oakland and Berkeley have been testing this during the past two years. I would prefer to be able to participate from home without sitting through an MCSD meeting.
Hey, Jack—— Mckinleyville is up sheet creek , or I should say MCSD is putting sheet creek into the river, and most of us seem to have no clue. MCSD has failed in taking care of our wastewater for at least the last 10 years, and our new upgrade has gone bust because MCSD failed to construct and grow the vegetation correctly. Now the CA State wastewater cops are doing their thing. The North staff, and the legislators who made the laws, for our dilemma. Those who were at the April MCSD meeting can attest to this. I told the water board that this reaction is like a driver who fails to negotiate a well marked curve, and then blames the curve when he drives the car off the road. –I suggested that MCSD get someone who is well enough qualified in wastewater treatment and management that they can adequately negotiate the water quality permits. Everyone in the wastewater business knows that permits get more stringent as time goes on. That is the law the legislature made, the law society wants, and the law that is enforced by the water quality control board. There is ALWAYS a curve coming up in wastewater management, and the manager must be anticipating the curve rather than reacting to it after the fact.
I pointed out that if we have a MCSD boardmember who is also a State water board member, and who has to excuse himself regarding Mckinleyville wastewater issues because of this, he is worthless to us as either a MCSD boardmember or a water quality control board member. (We do have such a boardmember and this did happen at the April meeting) We elect people to our MCSD board to take care of our wastewater needs. By recusing himself, the elected boardmember leaves us with no-one in his position to help, and we and the rest of the board need all the help we can get!—I suggested that MCSD boardmembers be required to NOT be members of other boards (like water quality control board) which may obviously cause conflict of interest.
I pointed out that the reports to the MCSD board regarding the performance of the treatment plant have been confusing and sloppy, and I suggested that a format be used which is more transparent: so the Boardmembers (and ratepayers) will not be confused. I used MCSD reports from 2007 to show this confusion, and related my conversations with MCSD Boardmembers who confirmed that the reports were confusing to them.
I pointed out that if our treatment marshes are fixed and become functional, we can expect many, if not all, of the pollutants listed on our new permit to be adequately treated. I expressed concern that the MCSD (in their non-wisdom) would opt to build a new treatment plant rather than fix or expand their treatment marshes, which would be much less expensive. Again this worry relates to the fact that no one at MCSD knows anything about performance of treatment marshes, and they insist on making decisions based on this ignorance. I used data from other existing treatment marshes to show performance possibilities of MCSD treatment marshes. I used an early plan by the MCSD citizens committee for a 10 acre marsh system, which would treat the water much better than the system we ended up building—approximately 2 acres.
Well, this is a big problem for all of us who flush in Mckinleyville. I hope the bloggers and all the ratepayers can become aware of the situation , and that we all do what we can to get our sheet together regarding this. I am tired of pooping in the river. I do not see this as a technical problem, but rather a political or bureaucratic problem of some kind. I have 20 years experience building and remediating sewage treatment marshes, and can definitely help with the technical part of the solution. But I am baffled at how to help MCSD get functional again at the Board and staff level. How long has MCSD been distracted from the main chore (wastewater) by issues of personalities, power, and posturing?
Thanks for reading.
——–Curious, George Waller
The public is invited to a public scoping workshop to discuss options for future upgrades to the McKinleyville Community Services District (MSCD) wastewater treatment facility. An evaluation of facility upgrades are in response to the challenges of meeting the final effluent limitations required in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, that was adopted by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, North Coast Region (RWQCB) and issued to MCSD in 2008. MCSD is seeking public input during this planning process to help prioritize objectives and evaluate various wastewater treatment and disposal alternatives.
Wednesday April 7, 2010, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Azalea Hall
1620 Pickett Road,
McKinleyville, CA
From the letter of invitation:
The workshop will consist of brief presentations describing the requirements of the permit, the feasibility study process, and small discussion groups to gather public input on wastewater management alternatives. Your participation in this workshop will be a resource to the public and help guide the outcome of MCSD’s planning efforts. If you have any questions or comments please contact Norman Shopay, General Manager, at 707-839-3251.
Please add a Search feature to the blog
Just a note to ELAINE WEINREB. Her old friend Paul Herbert died this spring at Esalen.
How about obituary on the blog.
Dear Alfred,
If a family or friend wants me to post a particular obituary on this blog, I’d be happy to do so. However, I only put a very, very small amount of the newspaper’s content on this blog. In order to stay in business, I depend on people paying 50 cents a week for the paper, or subscribing. If I give all the content away on this blog for free, people might not pay for the paper, which means I wouldn’t have money to pay for writers to create the content.
I just went to your site for the first time in months (at least), and was surprised to find someone had recently posted under a pseudonym — the real mitch — that I’ve recently used. It wasn’t me.
I don’t know that there’s anything you can do about it, or that you care. I just thought I’d let you know.
Mitch,
This was probably connected to the recent Suddenlink problem.
See link below:
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/news/2011/02/03/cache-flow-problems/
Jack, monetize it – put in an Amazon Affiliates link (you make up to 15%) (you can promote books by local authors!) – sell add space here… it can be done! Add a PayPal link so people can subscribe/pay for their ads online with ease…
Rose,
I’m putting these ideas in the biz plan. I’m actually checking off a lot of things on the “to-do” list, although it’s often overwhelming. (On Tuesday, during my route, all racks will be squirted with WD-40. Biz plan, page 6)
Excellent!