Peacock Strut: Arcadia Takes A Shot At Sierra Madre?

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The Los Angeles Examiner has published an article about Arcadia's very minimal Phase 1 water use restrictions. And while the paper makes the same rather erroneous claims about the strictness of our neighboring city's somewhat bird-brained (though nicely feathered) legislated response to the worst California drought ever that NBC did, they do go on to publish Arcadia's excuses for not implementing the same kinds of restrictions as Sierra Madre or Pasadena. Titled "Arcadia City Council implements water restrictions" (link), here is an example of their far milder approach to all of this:

“It’s not our goal or intention to be punitive or water cops,” said Public Works Services Director Tom Tait. “Our goal is to educate our customers about the severity of the drought and provide recommendations on how they can save water.”

The prohibitions, if not renewed by the City Council, automatically expire after 270 days.

Should rainfall be sparse this winter, City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said the council could move to implement Phase II, which would require a mandatory 10 percent water reduction. The baseline amount would be derived from the past three years of a resident’s water use.

Tait said that although water reserves are low, Phase II restrictions are unnecessary – for now.

As far as meaningless and highly ineffective water use public education campaigns go, perhaps we could lend them some of our Water Wise Owl light post signs. Though apparently they do have their own homegrown "Phase 1 Peacock."

Where things apparently get a little edgy, and perhaps even downright snarky, is in the following passages.


I am not sure how you can draw a connection between the state of a city's water infrastructure and the need to conserve water during a record setting state-wide drought emergency, but then again Arcadia has hardly been a good citizen in any of the commonly recognized water usage categories. As one Tattler reader reminded us this week:

You forgot the part where Arcadia stole close to a million acre feet of water from the East Raymond Basin. They charged it against another basin. 

Mission accomplished? Yes. That rampant over-pumping depleted the only basin Sierra Madre pumps from. And one that arrogant SOB Tait has the nerve to say they planned well. The entire Raymond Basin Board agreed that Arcadia cheated. Check out the public record.

It seems obvious to me that the real problem with Arcadia is that as the foremost regional proponent of the environmentally callous McMansion lifestyle, they just are not predisposed towards making any of the real sacrifices their neighboring cities felt they needed to make.

After all, think of the effect it could have on their lawns.

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