This is an Open Letter to the Mayor and Council Members, the DWP, the Planning and Development Department regarding the City's PROCLAMATION of December 17, 2007 ordering a "Projected Water Shortage Plan" to be put into effect.

While I agree with this plan and believe it should become normal lifestyle habits to do as it states, the real heart of the matter is that the city itself has brought on the vast majority of these problems, along with many others, with its own uncontrolled planning and development which has been going on unchecked for a number of years. Our entire infrastructure is being taxed to the limit by this uncontrolled growth and the city has failed to plan far enough ahead to prevent further problems along these lines. The simplest and most effective solution to these problems would be to put a moratorium on any and all major construction projects within the city limits. Put a new person in charge of the Planning and Development department, a person who is more concerned about our environment and quality of life and is less concerned about what the developers have to offer. Sometimes "status quo" is the best strategy.

I will take exception to item "I" of the Water Shortage Plan. I feel the DWP should have put some more thought into this provision. Being a homeowner with a vinyl-lined in-ground pool, if I were to follow item "I" as listed, I would cause irreparable damage to the liner if I were to allow the water level to descend pass the level it has been maintained at since its installation. You can not drain a vinyl-lined pool without causing its complete destruction resulting in thousands of dollars of loss. To give you an analogy, it would be akin to telling you that even though you need to add oil to your car motor but since oil is in short supply, you can not put any in it. If you were to continue to drive the car, your engine would be destroyed resulting in thousands of dollars of loss.

We humans, or as my wife is fond of saying "humanurers," need to come to the realization what the planet can not continue to be plundered in the same manner as it has been for the past centuries and that we are the problem and only we can be the solution. This is going to require a complete mind set change, one that some folks will find very distasteful. Our biggest problem is over-population and until we come to the realization that we need to limit the number of humans brought into this world, the situation is only going to become worse.

We are at a stage in the history of mankind that we have never been at before and the old solutions are not going to work anymore. We either start to correct the situation or the planet will take care of it by itself in a way the human animal will not like. Only fools and idiots still deny the existence of Global Warming and that we humans are a major cause of it. We have known about Global Warming for decades but failed to address the problem because it didn't help the bottom line.

Below is a letter I sent to the Mayor and each Council Member in Nov. of 2006 [letter not included] expressing some of these same concerns and only one Council Member responded. And now he is the CEO of our Chamber of Commerce. That should send a chill down the back of anyone concerned with the over-development in our City. Now we have come to the point of needing a PROCLAMATION due to the lack of following the "6 P's" principle, that being "Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance."

We need to stop all the all construction. We need to stop expanding our population and need to start fixing our infrastructure.

Sincerely,
Fritz Puelicher,
Pasadena, 91107