HisPony
Wondering where I am!?!?
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/17/lets-see-if-silence-can-be-bought-in-ramona/
Some conflicts seemingly defy solution.
Common ground? You might as well find Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
The art of the possible? Impossible.
And yet it’s hard to accept that some 200 Ramona households and the Barona Band of Mission Indians can’t find a way to end a feud that has festered for years.
Today, I’m posing a Solomonic solution that can be summed up in one word.
Money.
Almost 40 years ago, when San Diego Country Estates, Ramona’s answer to Rancho Bernardo, was being graded, a motocross track for little kids was built on the edge of the Barona reservation.
Country Estates residents say it sounded like buzzing bees for one day maybe every other week. No big deal. It was a minor irritation disturbing the peace and quiet of country living.
Life went on until several years ago, when the Barona Oaks track seemed to get pumped up on steroids.
The bikes and riders became bigger, the hours of operation virtually all day, five days a week. A popular drag strip was added to the mix. Paintball, too.
On a recent weekday morning, I visited a house on Barona Mesa Road. Sitting on the patio, the homeowner told me that he was recently divorced. His wife, he said, just couldn’t take the noise anymore. He can’t afford to move.
While telling me this sad tale, he periodically had to raise his voice above the roar of motorcycles going around the track. It sounded illegally loud to me.
Barona has its sovereign rights. Whatever environmental oversight there is from Washington or Sacramento evidently doesn’t include engine noise. The racetrack falls through a giant crack in pollution control.
What’s more, the Ramona residents cannot sue the tribe unless Barona agrees to be sued. (Yes, you read that right.)
A couple of years ago, county Supervisor Dianne Jacob tried to persuade Barona to move the tracks a mile or so farther inside the reservation. No way, the tribe said.
The only locations that might work are “culturally sensitive.” End of conversation.
The tribe’s basic view is that its neighbors moved into an area where a motocross track already existed. If they’re so annoyed by the increased volume, they should build barriers around their houses.
From what I witnessed, the only way to block the noise would be to erect a dome over one’s property. Might suit Mars. But Ramona?
Jacob sighed over the phone and said, “It’s very frustrating.”
A couple of years ago, the county conducted a study that confirmed the obvious: The noise would be illegal coming from anywhere except from a reservation.
Marshall Kersay, chairman of the Barona Noise & Political Action Committee, wrote recently of the desperate resolve of the residents. They have nowhere to go.
“You must consider that when you have a half-million- to million-dollar investment you can’t enjoy and you can’t sell, you can’t expect that our effort (will) halt until the noise and pollution does.”
The homeowners have lobbied politicians and environmental regulators, even picketed beside Wildcat Canyon Road, to no avail. Barona appears to believe it has tried to be a good neighbor, as Chairman “Thorpe” Romero expressed recently in a letter to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
What’s more, the tribe enjoys the support of hundreds of motorcyclists and drag racers, some of whom live in Country Estates.
So how do you heal this running sore? There’s only one way I can see. The green balm.
Some 200 houses sit in the noise zone. Let’s say each homeowner has taken a $100,000 equity hit compared with houses outside the zone.
So let’s say it’s worth 100 grand to a homeowner if the track moves. OK, cut that number in half, just like Solomon’s baby.
Here’s the unrefusable offer to Barona: We’ll give you — or a charity of your choice — a pledge for $10 million (200 times $50,000) if you’ll either move the tracks or close them down.
Some of us don’t have the money at hand, but we’ll sign contracts promising the full amount when houses are sold.
What nation, especially a rich one, could refuse such a heartbreakingly one-sided deal?
I ran this idea past Jacob. “It’s worth a try,” she said. “Nothing else has worked.”
Some conflicts seemingly defy solution.
Common ground? You might as well find Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
The art of the possible? Impossible.
And yet it’s hard to accept that some 200 Ramona households and the Barona Band of Mission Indians can’t find a way to end a feud that has festered for years.
Today, I’m posing a Solomonic solution that can be summed up in one word.
Money.
Almost 40 years ago, when San Diego Country Estates, Ramona’s answer to Rancho Bernardo, was being graded, a motocross track for little kids was built on the edge of the Barona reservation.
Country Estates residents say it sounded like buzzing bees for one day maybe every other week. No big deal. It was a minor irritation disturbing the peace and quiet of country living.
Life went on until several years ago, when the Barona Oaks track seemed to get pumped up on steroids.
The bikes and riders became bigger, the hours of operation virtually all day, five days a week. A popular drag strip was added to the mix. Paintball, too.
On a recent weekday morning, I visited a house on Barona Mesa Road. Sitting on the patio, the homeowner told me that he was recently divorced. His wife, he said, just couldn’t take the noise anymore. He can’t afford to move.
While telling me this sad tale, he periodically had to raise his voice above the roar of motorcycles going around the track. It sounded illegally loud to me.
Barona has its sovereign rights. Whatever environmental oversight there is from Washington or Sacramento evidently doesn’t include engine noise. The racetrack falls through a giant crack in pollution control.
What’s more, the Ramona residents cannot sue the tribe unless Barona agrees to be sued. (Yes, you read that right.)
A couple of years ago, county Supervisor Dianne Jacob tried to persuade Barona to move the tracks a mile or so farther inside the reservation. No way, the tribe said.
The only locations that might work are “culturally sensitive.” End of conversation.
The tribe’s basic view is that its neighbors moved into an area where a motocross track already existed. If they’re so annoyed by the increased volume, they should build barriers around their houses.
From what I witnessed, the only way to block the noise would be to erect a dome over one’s property. Might suit Mars. But Ramona?
Jacob sighed over the phone and said, “It’s very frustrating.”
A couple of years ago, the county conducted a study that confirmed the obvious: The noise would be illegal coming from anywhere except from a reservation.
Marshall Kersay, chairman of the Barona Noise & Political Action Committee, wrote recently of the desperate resolve of the residents. They have nowhere to go.
“You must consider that when you have a half-million- to million-dollar investment you can’t enjoy and you can’t sell, you can’t expect that our effort (will) halt until the noise and pollution does.”
The homeowners have lobbied politicians and environmental regulators, even picketed beside Wildcat Canyon Road, to no avail. Barona appears to believe it has tried to be a good neighbor, as Chairman “Thorpe” Romero expressed recently in a letter to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
What’s more, the tribe enjoys the support of hundreds of motorcyclists and drag racers, some of whom live in Country Estates.
So how do you heal this running sore? There’s only one way I can see. The green balm.
Some 200 houses sit in the noise zone. Let’s say each homeowner has taken a $100,000 equity hit compared with houses outside the zone.
So let’s say it’s worth 100 grand to a homeowner if the track moves. OK, cut that number in half, just like Solomon’s baby.
Here’s the unrefusable offer to Barona: We’ll give you — or a charity of your choice — a pledge for $10 million (200 times $50,000) if you’ll either move the tracks or close them down.
Some of us don’t have the money at hand, but we’ll sign contracts promising the full amount when houses are sold.
What nation, especially a rich one, could refuse such a heartbreakingly one-sided deal?
I ran this idea past Jacob. “It’s worth a try,” she said. “Nothing else has worked.”
