First, let me say that I am writing this because ...... I...uh... just don't know how this happened. I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND! With so many millions of dollars of public funds sunk into this project ...and just to get to this point... paying the consultants... the board members (LA County Public Works, Metropolitan Water district, the Californian State Conservancy - RMC, the various water agencies in the San Gabriel Valley) sit on the Boards ....many of whom gave more money from their Agencies. I went to meetings and witnessed these people reviewing all of the documents, AND designs, ...even rubber stamping paying LOTS of money for public relations for this project.... Why did no one ask the question of the basic design ....WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???? I also would like to know how the County Supervisors and the Congress people ... past and present, let this question be unasked.
You see.... let's take this slow....
During the years that I lived in Ohio, I had the good fortune to work with the Natural History Museum at Sunwatch Village. The village is an important archaeological site for the Fort Ancient civilization, which flourished in the Ohio River Valley. The founding of the Fort Ancient civilization roughly corresponds to William the Conqueror's invasion of England in 1066, and its collapse approximately coincides with the arrival of Mayflower in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. During those same years, England went from a post-Roman backwater to a rising global superpower.
The Fort Ancient people left behind a beautiful architectural legacy, including villages like Sunwatch. However, they are most famous for their ceremonial mounds, such as the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio, which is more that a quarter of a mile long.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/...
The Fort Ancient people were not the only ones to create massive earthworks that can only be viewed from above. The Nazca people, who flourished in the deserts of Peru just prior to the reign of Charlemagne in Europe, built dozens massive geoglyphs depicting geometric shapes and animals. The Nazca geoglyphs are so large that they can only be viewed from airplanes or from space.
http://www.dragonflyhostels.com/...
If the areal vantage was so important to the Fort Ancient and Nazca people, it should be even more important to us. Our own earthworks are not only visible to gods, but also to air travelers, and to anyone attempting to navigate by GPS or Google Maps.
The United States Navy recently learned the importance of this when it was noticed that one of the training buildings for the Navy Seals in Coronado, California looks exactly like the Nazi regime's inverted swastika when viewed from above.
http://maps.google.com/...
This was, of course, completely unintentional. Nevertheless, the Navy is as uncomfortable with the symbol as the traveling and Google-maps-using public, and so they have elected to redesign the building.
This brings us to the proposed design of the facility here at Wittier Narrows, the San Gabriel River Discovery Center. I have showed the areal view to many people, and I have found wide agreement that it resembles an enormous flaccid penis lolling across the landscape.
I propose that the design be changed to resemble an erect penis. If we are to plunge an enormous asphalt phallus into the last remaining natural open space in the San Gabriel Valley, we should at least provide accurate visual symbolism. We owe the public, and the gods, at least that much.
If you doubt this design .... please visit this site..
http://discoverycenterauthority.org/...
There is a side note....Many of the governing bodies of this project, and of others by the RMC, are 'Authorities'. These ad hoc groups, which are paid nicely, do not do the oversight as they should. The people on the various Boards just nod their heads in compliance. And, if there are any comments that DO NOT begin with "WOnderful!" the head of the Conservancy's eyes glaze over, and none of the problems are addressed. The RMC has been audited and found to have violated a number of issues/important procedures/Brown Act/State Laws and the fact that the Head of the RMC is the 'acting' head of all of the Authority Boards. This apparently happens a lot in California. We need to change a lot if we are going to be solvent, have decent schools, solve our water and power problems, or be energy efficient at ANY time soon.
p.s.
Since the State does not have so much money these days, the RMC has graciously decided to go with a smaller ... OH! GRIEF! smaller version of the above phallus. Honestly.