Pacific Wildlife Care a contrast to bureaucratic folly

If you’re closely following the perplexing shenanigans of the local government entity, the Cambria Community Services District, you’re aware that: (a) the agency speaks with forked tongue; or, (b) faced with a fork in the road vis-à-vis community water supply decisions, it chooses neither left nor right, but simply creates its own new, taxpayer-funded corridor — with or without proper permits.

The development of CCSD’s $13 million “Sustainable Water Facility” was ostensibly based on Cambria’s need for emergency water sources. It originally was called an “Emergency Water Supply” project. But wait — now it appears that this facility was also stealthily designed for commercial growth.

Ratepayers have to wonder why, in the middle of a water crisis that is at best confusing and at worst terribly mismanaged, the CCSD would fight to fatten the wallet of the general manager. But that’s an old issue, so let’s move on.

Indeed, when it comes to authority and leadership, it’s a screwy world here and elsewhere, and getting nuttier and murkier. Within the past couple months, legal lunacy has been on display, vis-à-vis governmental blunders when it comes to firearms and citizen safety.

Guns and marijuana

The attorney general of Texas (Ken Paxton) filed a lawsuit against Waller County, Texas, because that county has an ordinance prohibiting individuals from bringing firearms into their courthouse. Texas law states that local governments cannot post signs restricting the carrying of handguns in any venue by lawful permit holders; hence, the litigation.

Really? Hey, we are talking about Texas, where guns and macho rule. No church, school, day care center, hospital ICU, battered women’s shelter — or even a courthouse — dares post signs in the Lone Star State denying gun-toting citizens the right to pack heat upon entering.

Paxton justified his litigation, saying he would “vigilantly protect and preserve the Second Amendment rights of Texans.” I seriously doubt that 240 years ago the Founding Fathers really meant that weapons should be allowed to be legally carried at any time and any place. But that is an old and tired discussion, and no common ground is anywhere in sight.

Meanwhile America’s legal psychosis was also on display Aug. 31, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal ban on selling guns to medical marijuana card holders does not violate the Second Amendment.

This court decision is truly wacky. Medical marijuana is legal in 25 states. It’s been legal in California for 20 years. Science, medicine and thoughtful legislators have long ago coalesced through empirical research that marijuana is a valid, bona fide medical aid to patients suffering from AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, chronic pain and migraines, to name a few conditions.

Why would it be a hazard to the public to allow a patient with a medical marijuana card to purchase a firearm for self-defense? Congress can’t even get it together to ban the sale of weapons to suspected terrorists on the “watch list” (those individuals aren’t allowed to board commercial airlines but they can purchase an AK-47 assault rifle that fires 40 rounds in a minute).

Informed and fair-minded citizens know that Congress is hog-tied by the gun lobby, which explains Congress’s failure to pass laws beefing up background checks for would-be gun purchasers — notwithstanding that multiple polls (http://bit.ly/1NhqEz2) show that more than 90 percent of Americans have supported the idea for years.

Speaking of ideas worth supporting, it would be a breath of fresh air, and helpful fiscally, socially and structurally if the CCSD could be rescued — perhaps by newly elected, open-minded directors — from its bureaucratic ineffectiveness.

PWC to the rescue

On the subject of rescues, there is an organization whose worldview, environmental activism and leadership is making a positive difference for wildlife in San Luis Obispo County — and that is Pacific Wildlife Care (PWC).

It isn’t just that PWC rescues, rehabilitates and releases upwards of 2,000 birds and other injured wildlife annually; it’s that PWC understands what legendary corporate CEO Peter Drucker meant when he wrote: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

The PWC family is 800 people strong (including donors, volunteers, members and staff), and is the only licensed rehabilitation center in our county. It is approaching its 30th birthday, and has earned a sterling reputation because the organization is the quintessential blending of management and leadership skills.

PWC was founded in Morro Bay in 1986 when a small group of dedicated home rehabilitators responded to an oil spill that impacted a number of brown pelicans on South County beaches. Since then, the organization, a 501(c)(3), has expanded its services and today has a full-time wildlife veterinarian.

I very much appreciate that funds have been raised through smart leadership that keeps the veterinarian on duty. That is because I am a volunteer transporter, and I have rescued pelicans and gulls with serious injuries that had to be euthanized once they were brought to Morro Bay.

At that time, a bird’s broken wing meant its inevitable demise; but now, the vet at PWC (with X-ray technology on board) can set that broken wing and later release that bird back into the wild.

In one recent incident, PWC was called to rescue a pelican on the beach at San Simeon. When I got there, the poor critter had fish hooks cutting into his neck and fishing line wrapped around him to the point of near strangulation. We brought him to Morro Bay, and the vet tended to the bird with the same care and professionalism that a doctor would provide for an injured child.

Yes, there is plenty of nuttiness, weirdness, legal psychosis and ineptitude to be witnessed in Texas and around the country — including the twisted interpretations of the Constitution’s Second Amendment — and even here in Cambria.

But there are also well-managed organizations with strong leadership to use as examples regarding how things should get done properly. I could name a dozen of those groups here on the Central Coast, but I’ll stick to the one I’m associated with and totally trust — Pacific Wildlife Care. The only forked tongue at PWC belongs to the injured gopher snake that was brought in last week.

Please plan to attend PWC’s big fundraiser, “Soupabration,” on Sunday, Nov. 6, at the Morro Bay Community Center. Visit www.pacificwildlifecare.org.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 9:38 AM with the headline "Pacific Wildlife Care a contrast to bureaucratic folly."