www.montereycountyweekly.com April 6-12, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 19 After the Pajaro River levee breached in the middle of the night, the response was swift and urgent. Firefighters and law enforcement officers were on the scene with high-water rescue vehicles, then with boats. SPCA staff scrambled to get puppies and parakeets to safety. Protecting life and safety comes first. The floodwaters have receded and evacuation orders have been lifted. But for Pajaro residents, the crisis is still in its early stages. Many returned to discover their homes are uninhabitable. Some are filing insurance claims, others are not covered by insurance and are sorting through the wreckage of destroyed furniture and appliances and clothes. Some are considering moving, staff writer Celia Jiménez has reported. The fact that Pajaro was subject to this flood to begin with is a function of relative poverty—as staff writer Dave Schmalz has reported, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used a formula to determine it wasn’t worth it to invest in infrastructure to shore up the levee, because property values weren’t high enough to justify the expense. We know events like this—floods, rising sea levels impacting coastal communities, increased frequency of fires and severe droughts—are going to be more common as the climate continues changing. While Pajaro residents were hauling destroyed refrigerators en masse to the curb, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on March 20 released a report that gets at the crux of the big, existential issues about how humans will continue to live in a world where weather events have life-altering impacts. “Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,” the report states, offering very high confidence in that conclusion. “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence). Climate resilient development integrates adaptation and mitigation to advance sustainable development for all, and is enabled by increased international cooperation including improved access to adequate financial resources, particularly for vulnerable regions, sectors and groups, and inclusive governance and coordinated policies (high confidence). The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years (high confidence).” The IPCC’s report focuses largely on the urgent need to curb greenhouse gas emissions to stave off catastrophe. The report also recommends we move, and fast, on adaptation strategies—and that we apply those strategies equitably, instead of letting relatively poorer people suffer the worst consequences of climate change and reserving resilience strategies for the wealthy. Pajaro residents for years have said that if they were a wealthier community, the levee would have long since been worked on. That’s true. There’s an even deeper layer to that concern about inequity: If they were a wealthier community, the town might not have been built there, in a floodplain on a riverbank, at all. It’s not entirely true that places at higher risk of weather and climate disasters are more affordable. Look at Big Sur, Carmel Valley, the River Road corridor, Del Monte Forest on the Monterey Peninsula—plenty of more affluent neighborhoods are at risk of increasingly fierce wildfires. As nature takes its course, our disaster response systems react: Insurance claims are filed, county building inspectors clear people to move back in, fundraising efforts help families get their lives back on track. And for many, life continues on the same track—again, in a disaster-prone place. Meanwhile, it’s largely insurance companies that are driving planning decisions that incorporate climate change hazards. Flood insurance long ago became untenable, prompting FEMA to step in where private insurance wouldn’t. Homeowner’s insurance is starting to take fires and development in the wildland-urban interface into account, and simply dropping clients. We can leave it to insurance companies to guide decisions about where we do and don’t develop, but I think it’s a wiser idea to plan collaboratively—and make sure that communities like Pajaro don’t get left behind again, just because they can’t afford to be ahead. Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com. Resilient Road As Pajaro residents resettle, it’s time to rethink how and where we live. By Sara Rubin Storm Time…Fortunately, Squid’s undersea lair is sheltered from atmospheric rivers, so Squid just hunkered down while humans were experiencing all kinds of hardship—trees falling, extended and repeated evacuations, property destruction and more. And then there are humans whose job is to support those facing immense hardship, and they had to work extra-hard during the storms. Many get paid overtime for their efforts; some are classified as exempt from overtime, but many county employees still qualified for “local emergency pay.” Squid was curious about that, so Squid’s colleagues submitted a California Public Records Act request to the Monterey County seeking info on additional compensation to exempt employees from January through March. The total was enough for Squid to buy a new lair, or for a Pajaro family to buy a new house (or two): $762,651.73. The payments—called “local emergency pay”— went to 202 employees in a variety of departments, some that made more immediate sense to Squid than others. Extra pay went to many workers in the field, in departments like the Water Resources Agency; Public Works (where project manager Juan Mesa Ceballos made $29,307); the Health Department; and the Sheriff’s Office (where Sheriff Tina Nieto earned an extra $9,350). It also went to county Library Director Hillary Theyer ($1,577) and to the County Administrative Office, where County Communications Director Nick Pasculli earned a whopping $32,947 extra. Unfortunately, Squid is paid per word, no matter the weather. Name Game…Speaking of Nick Pasculli, it’s under his watch that Monterey County recently underwent a rebranding process in which it’s changing its emblem. No longer will it read “Monterey County”— now, it’s “County of Monterey.” Mmmkay? Squid didn’t make much of it when seeing it on the Board of Supervisors’ agendas recently, but caught a bit of the discussion in the March 14 meeting while tuning in for important updates about Pajaro. Then Squid got an email March 31 from the county communications department and it really sunk in: Not only did the county change its emblem, but it changed its official name with the state. The email was unsigned (though sent on behalf of Pasculli) so Squid doesn’t know who to thank for the advice that “both the new emblem and proper naming convention needs to be implemented immediately wherever possible.” Needs? Immediately? Squid needs a fresh supply of shrimp-flavored popcorn in Squid’s pantry immediately, and perhaps some slow news days. Squid doesn’t need to be told what to call Monterey County. The County of Monterey (oof) can try if it wants, but aren’t there more pressing matters at hand? the local spin SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. We know events like this are going to be common. Send Squid a tip: squid@mcweekly.com
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