PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Last month's column started with Part 1 of my story of how I became League President. If you recall, I was Dave Cox's alternate; next, Joe Sullivan asked me to become a "full" board member; I was elected President, and became the League's face and voice for the "No on Measure L" campaign.

Now, before I could be in the position to become President of the League, or even a Dave Cox alternate, I had to go to college, work, finish college, get a "professional" job, buy real estate, accumulate a lot of experience, run for office, etc. Well, part of my college/work experience was an 8-month "tour of duty" including the Christmas Season at J.C Penny's in Country Club Plaza, in 1971/1972. The store had just opened and among the new staff was an attractive young lady named "Judy." As it turned out, Judy and I had a casual relationship, went out a few times, and shared the same Organic Chemistry class-since we had similar majors. We both graduated in 1975 and went on to live entirely different lives.

But, last October, Judy recognized my voice on television-you know, the "No on Measure L" ad. Next, she recognized the face, and sure enough, the name was the same too. After watching the ad several times, Judy noticed the name of the League at the bottom of the screen, and after gathering some courage, sent an e-mail to the League office asking if I were the same Ken Payne that worked at Penney's, etc. Well, Joe forwarded the note to me, and when I saw her note on my screen, I though, "Why is she contacting me?"-since I had always thought she was "too good" for me. To be continued.

Be sure to read Joe's article on the Auburn Dam. If you missed my appearance on Channel 3 News a few weeks ago, one of the main points of the interview was that the Auburn Dam Council was happy with the "numbers" in the update feasibility study for the Dam. However, the new figures included $3.95 billion for environmental mitigation measures, or "set-a-sides," which may or may not be related to the $5.4 billion to build a full service dam. These environmental mitigation measures are a bad habit to get into. For transportation, like Measure A, monies are appropriated for transportation improvements, which are literally transportation mitigation measures. So, additional environmental mitigation measures unrelated to the transportation improvements, just draw monies away from transportation projects that could further reduce "grid lock." What have we "gotten" ourselves into???

Ken Payne