Tying it All Together - Part 4
Friends in High Places? (Let me tell YOU about it!)
SYNOPSIS: Parts 1, 2 & 3 brought us from Mainstream America’s kneejerk intolerance with American Indians all the way to torching the historic old Cloverdale Depot in 1991, a spectacular conflagration that also took with it the plans and toil for a monument in Cloverdale to the local Pomo Indians, which would have been on the site where the Cloverdale “multi-modal transportation center” now stands, having picked up a few officials of the County of Marin and the City of Mill Valley along the way, and connected all of that with the Evergreen Avenue sidewalk affair in Homestead.
This episode, Part 4, is not much more than a loser’s lament, but it hopes to open a few eyes to what goes on while we are playing canasta or out walking the dog or just gazing at the moon.
PART 4
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold…” Robert W. Service
(Parenthetical remarks: A few weeks ago, late in January, 2011, I sent a courtesy email to Supervisor Steve Kinsey which included as attachments three letters I planned to mention on this blog sometime, so he wouldn’t be blindsided by any references to them here:
1- Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey to me, dated February 17, 1997 re: FHWA
2- Thomas Ptak, FHWA to Lynn Woolsey, dated January 27, 1997 (3 weeks earlier.)
3- Me to David H. Densmore, FHWA, dated February 19, 1997 - End of parenthetical remarks.)
However, there is a FOURTH letter worth noting which I did NOT send him and which I will only introduce here by reference, but I sent copies of it to some of my Homestead neighbors just to establish it as a fact that exists. It addresses “this matter,” which is the historic Cloverdale depot that burned, and a lot more.
Expressing it as kindly as possible, it is the explanation by the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento of events subsequent to the fire that destroyed the historic Cloverdale depot. Expressing it from my heart, though, it is FHWA's triumphal fanfare of what happened: such a sublime construction of gobbledygook that it will stand for generations as a high water mark of bureaucratic achievement. The signature is illegible, but the letter writer’s superiors in Washington, D.C. revealed his identity. Poor fellow, he was only a victim of the fray who signed on behalf his superiors, and thus is entitled to his anonymity. His superiors, on the other hand and the politicians, who for their own righteous reasons sanctified “this matter,” are entitled to such judgment as history may accord to them.
Now – Your CLOSE ATTENTION, please.
My Congressional Representative, Lynn Woolsey, (letter number 1, above) opened with these words: “Dear Mr. Cook: I am sorry to tell you that the Federal Highway Administration has advised me that it was unable to take the action you requested. Enclosed please find a copy of the agency’s response.” Several polite personal paragraphs followed, then her signature.
Well, the “agency’s response” (letter number 2, above) was a letter to her (Ms. Woolsey) signed on behalf of FHWA, Washington, D.C., by Thomas J. Ptak, telling her to tell me (figuratively, of course) to take a hike, but (actually, of course) telling her to tell me to go bother the FHWA Division Administrator in Sacramento, because he (the Division Administrator in Sacramento) had already told me (according to Mr. Ptak) that, “CHANGES IN CIRCUMSTANCES(Caps mine-for emphasis. RC) since approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the bypass made the intended use of the archaeological site no longer applicable.”
Then, I suppose, Mr. Ptak and his buddies had a good laugh (hah hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw) watching me chase my tail, because the Division Administrator in Sacramento had already said all of that – and a lot more – in a letter to me seven months earlier (letter number 4, above.) Which had provoked me to write Ms. Woolsey in the first place! Hah, hah hah, slap slap haw haw haw.
BUT … … … I didn’t go chasing my tail.
I just wrote the Division Administrator in Sacramento, a guy named David H. Densmore, and admitted that he had won the battle for the Pomo Indian Monument in Cloverdale. (What else could I do? HIS Friends in High Places were more numerous and more powerful than MINE, namely, Lynn Woolsey, My Congressional Representative.)
He had beat me, yes, in the contest for the Pomo memorial. (But, “fair and square?”)
You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with the Evergreen Avenue project? Stick around for Part 5: Tying it All Together/Friends in High Places/Evergreen Avenue Project
To be continued.
