Early last year, during the rehabilitation of the Oddfellows Hall building on Virginia Street, my employer was contracted to do the maintenance on the fire extinguishers for the construction process. In the course of my duties I was able to look out from a window in the top of the tower, on the virtual sea of flat roofs in downtown Vallejo. In particular, around the intersection of Santa Clara at Georgia, the acreage of roof area, is really something. For example the building at 201 Georgia, which currently houses Bay Respite Care, our public library, our Vallejo City Hall, the main branch of our U.S. Post Office, and an abundance of properties, erected as commercial buildings with flat or minimal pitch roofs. This is where I had my brainstorm. With the current boom in renewable energy production, we could put solar panels on, well, everything. From bus stop shelters to the Museum, think how many opportunities there must be on Mare Island. Crews of employed individuals, roaming the streets, being productive, reinforcing roofs and installing solar panels. Earning income, and spending money in Vallejo, bolstering our economy, and not giving it to P.G.&E.! Does anyone remember the power crisis debacle of 2001? Vallejo was in a constant state of brownout, it would take me an hour and a half or even more to drive from Napa to Vallejo in the evening commute because there wasnt enough power to run the traffic lights, and police were in every intersection directing the traffic. Later we would find out that this was all perpetrated by natural gas suppliers, financial speculators, and of course, P.G.&E. In the course of promoting this concept, my family encouraged me to become a Budget Delegate in the newly created Participatory Budgeting Vallejo. And so I did, but in the midst of my enthusiasm, my father succumbed to pneumonia, and I went to Illinois to be with my family. Honestly, this took the wind out of my sails, and when I returned to Vallejo, Im afraid my motivation flagged, as a myriad of wonderful projects had been outlined in my absence, so i threw my support as best I could into my favorite ones. Now, in this PB Vallejo 2.0, we have another opportunity, and the way I see it, in our present time, everything we do, everything we see, everything we use, in some way is electrical. So, therefore, one thing that could be a serious benefit to every individual in our community, is to make electricity more practical. In closing, I would just like to say that a council member informed us that the PB Vallejo process is a use it or lose it proposition, so we need to come together with some solid ideas that could make Vallejo a better place. Last year there were a lot of ideas, but we need to go big, for instance, a community garden is a beautiful idea, how about taking some of the open space adjacent to the gunnery range, and make it acres big, with an apiary (bee hives) Stand up to monsanto, and market Vallejo brand honey, this could be another employment opportunity, and teach our youngsters how to be real farmers. Whatever happened to the idea of windmills in the hills of Mare Island, how about the lower section of our marina green, where the birds gather and the weeds grow, there are already a couple of pieces of nice cast concrete sculptures, follow through the concept, and build an aesthetically pleasing skate park With the input of the skaters, and some architectural artwork we could have a place of interest to outside communities, and a place for skaters to gather in a healthy atmosphere. I truly hope this is food for thought for everyone, and not just perceived as monopolizing the conversation, Im truly hoping to spur the process. Thank you for your kind attention, I look forward to hearing from you. Thomas Wiggins
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 06:01:51 +0000
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