A busy weekend.

Up Sucker Creek has had a busy weekend.  The good part has been the nice fall weather that has allowed us to get out in the yard and enjoy the benefits of suburbia - raking leaves and cutting up pruned branches - making more mulch for S&H Logging to sell back to us in the spring.

Then:
1)  On Friday, a WSJ article titled, "Seeing Red Over Green Shrub" told of the US Fish & Wildlife Service declared about 270 acres of land inside San Francisco city limits, including the backyards ofof some homeowners, as critical habitat.
 2)  On Saturday morning, the WSJ arrives with an opinion piece from an Alexandria, Virginia native who proclaimed, "We Have Not Yet Begun to Fight the Bike Lanes."  I know instantly what he is talking about but have no time to read it as I hustle off to my Master Gardener Recertification class at Clackamas Community College.
3)  There, the battle between die-hard OSU MG volunteers and Metro is stirred up and the auditorium almost throws the MG tomato logo at the speaker.
4)  When I get home on Saturday afternoon, I have a postcard waiting from the City of Tigard telling me about the wonderful Station Community planned for the Tigard Triangle (but they are just getting citizen opinions now).
 5)  On Sunday morning, the Oregonian writes about the $100+ million public subsidies to a developer to build a convention center hotel - one that would presumably not pencil out without public funding, or at least not get investor money without the public commitment to the project (they say). Ouch!

How do all these events tie together, and what do any of them have to do with Lake Oswego?  Put this together with Lake Oswego's Comp Plan struggle, the controversy over density, the sensitive lands debate, public-private partnerships (subsidies), and The Southwest Corridor Transit Plan (and other transit plans that I have yet to share), they all add up to a level of control over local affairs that is being orchestrated by an entity with authority over land use that supersedes local jurisdictions.  it makes a mockery of Democracy as "the consent of the governed".  But it's "what the community wants", and besides, it's for the common good.

Unfortunately, both WSJ articles are locked to online viewing for anyone without an internet subscription.  A copy of the WSJ can be found at the LO Library.

The camellias and Mexican orange smell heavenly, the Japanese maple in the back still has its leaves and is brilliant, and the hellebores and cyclamen are blooming.  It's a way of life that's worth preserving.