Ah, Country Club Plaza, how do we not love you? Let us count the ways, this time focused on the old Macy's, the wetland created by leaking pipes and the return (again) of a self-storage facility (plus hotel and speculative retail) we don't need.

You already know about the leaky roof and black mold, the homeless vagrants and the additional chicken sandwich place that competes with the other chicken sandwich places at Watt and El Camino. But were you aware that the pipes in the old Macy's building have been leaking? Leaking enough to create a wetland that was such a potential breeding ground for mosquitos that the Mosquito Abatement District planted mosquito-eating fish (!) there two years ago ?

Thankfully, someone eventually got through to the Sacramento Suburban Water District about the wasted water. The Water District sent over a pump truck this week to get rid of the dirty water. One wonders if, with a little more effort, the pump truck could have also done something about the absentee owner of Country Club Plaza. Alas, that did not come to pass.

Macy's old loading dock became a swamp, thanks to leaking pipes.

At the center of our Metro Area: a home for Mosquito Fish.

The pump truck holds 3000 gallons. It took 3 trips. That's 9000 wasted gallons of water

What if we told you, too, that Country Club Plaza might be on the verge of yet another stupid move? Yes, folks, it looks like the transformation of the old Macy's Building into yet another big old self-storage facility is back again? Hmm...what do we already have plenty of and don't need more of: homeless encampments, discount stores, check-cashing places, sidewalk cell phone hawkers, fast food and coffee drive -throughs, chicken sandwiches, and (now) self-storage places. When does this mad rush to the bottom stop?

And what if we added that it looks like the dumb hotel plus yuppie retail stores component is still alive and kicking as part of the self-storage proposal? Yes, the same property owner who last bought the place and has run it into the ground wants even more entitlements (conditional u$e permi$$ion and other rule-bending$) from which to profit. In our minds, rewards are supposed to be earned - based on good performance - instead of just demanded "for business sake".

What can you do about this, if anything? Well:

• Collude with like-minded people at the Community Happy Hour at Flaming Grill on August 14th
• Show up at the CPAC meeting on August 27th (flyer below) - in numbers, so they will listen and respond to our opinions
• Light up the phones and email in-boxes at Supervisor Desmond's office, who - it has been said - has told some people he does NOT want self-storage there.
• If you have Facebook, send a note of thanks to our local history partner, Vintage Arden Arcade, which has been pushing to not let our historic buildings go down the drain (pardon the expression).
• Be prepared to attend, and testify at, the eventual County Planning Commission meeting because the County has determined it will let the unelected Planning Commissioners (most of the members of which do not live in our community and, frankly, don't have much of a clue about it) be the final decision makers, thereby letting the Board of Supervisors off the hook for disrespecting our community.

OK, got that? Noise, phone calls, emails, meeting attendance, public testimony, strength-in-numbers. Because it's OUR community and OUR future. WE should be the ones making the choices, not the out-of-area investors, the gadflying developers or the faceless appointees who have no idea what happens here. Us local yokels, us nobodies who live here and pay the taxes come first!