Floating Times06I S S U E

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Lit Quake

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WALDO POINT HARBOR RESIDENTS COMMITTEE REUNION by Pam Bousquet

On Oct. 28th, the remaining resident members of the Waldo Point Harbor Residents Committee (WPHRC) got together to commemorate their crucial role in the 10 + year process of getting Waldo Point Harbor permits ap-proved and implemented.

April 10, 1991 was the date on a chilling letter received by every resident of WPH, Kappas and Yellow Ferry from the Executive Director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). I will never forget the date. He informed us that our harbors’ permits would expire in 10

months and it was not certain that they would be renewed. The letter said the permits were especially “problematic” and “particularly difficult” for Waldo Point Harbor due to ongoing lawsuits between BCDC and WPH over non-compliance with the previous permits. In addi-tion, the letter went on, house-boats were considered “fill” which would require extensive mitigation by the marinas in or-der to be allowed to remain in place. Coming on the heels of the infamous ”houseboat wars”, a ripple of fear and even panic went through the community.

Without permits to live here, what was going to happen to us and our homes?

Thus began years of work by residents of all marinas. Harbor Equity Group (HEG) led the charge for WPH. HEG had been formed a few years earlier to deal with issues specific to WPH residents.

Reconfiguration of the Harbor would be necessary because the Gates Cooperative homes had to be relocated per edict from the County, State and Federal regulatory agencies. They demanded public access to the shoreline where the Co-Op now sits. The message was unequivocal: No open space, no park = no permit.

BCDC and the State Lands Commission were requiring the County and the Harbor to submit reconfiguration plans that were repugnant to the residents, but we had no legal

Stan Barbarich, Tony Williams, Henry Baer, Stuart Riddell, Pam Bousquet, Ric Miller and Suki Sennett photo by Emily Riddell

ANNUAL MEETING SAVE THE DATEBy Mari Steeno

The annual meeting and party will be held at The Bay Model on February 22nd. Once again there will be a raffle, a deli-cious dinner provid-ed by Whole Foods, and music by Pacifi-co Samonte for your dancing or listening pleasure. It is free for mem-bers, so this is a great time for non- members to join the FHA. .($25/year or $65 for 3 years)

standing. WPH was the applicant for the renewal of the permits, which made it all but impossible for the residents’ voices to be heard.

HEG filed a lawsuit to intervene in the legal proceedings. After all, the Co-Op had become a party, having been sued by BCDC. HEG’s suit was denied, but the Attorney General declared that HEG would nevertheless be included in the process going forward, and that put us unofficially at the table, but we were still far from having any real control over our destiny.

Numerous groups of concerned residents formed and folded, as ideas for the survival of the floating homes community came and went. Finally, the Waldo Point Harbor Residents Committee (WPHRC) evolved, comprised of members of every dock. It grew out of the frustration and fear of WPH residents that their views and neighborhoods – the essence of why people live here - were going to be destroyed by the upcoming required harbor reconfiguration.

Many meetings were held on each dock, and eventually, one basic plan emerged as the favorite: a small new dock for some of the Co-Op houseboats and the remainder to be distributed throughout the existing WPH docks. It became known as the Community Development Plan (CDP). Year after year, through 2 Environmental Impact Reports,(‘97 and ’01) and despite initial rejection and roadblocks from every quarter, the residents gained ground inch by inch.

The WPHRC met regularly to strategize around Tony Williams’ dining room table on Wolf Island on Main Dock. It was a very unusual group: meetings could be called at the last minute, and everyone would show up. One by one, the other players realized that the residents were organized, they were going to strenuously oppose the other proposed plans, they were developing real clout, and they were not going to give up.

Members of the WPHRC met with the Co-Op, the Harbor, County Senior Planners, the Environmental Planning Director, BCDC staff and Executive Director and the assigned Attorney General to make its pitch and to try to explain how terribly damaging the presently proposed plan(s) would be. The state agencies’ staffs were entrenched in their positions, and fought very hard to resist anyone opposing department policies, especially a group with no standing or “official” place in the process.

In 1999, during the Environmental Impact Report review, the WPHRC submitted the CDP, under the combined logos of Harbor Equity Group and Floating Homes Association. Because no one but the applicant was allowed to submit a plan, the CDP slid in during a phase which allowed for public comment on the issue of whether the information collected so far was “complete”. The CDP was bootstrapped into play, claiming that the data acquired thus far was not complete if it did not include the CDP! The County and the EIR consultant allowed the argument, and we were off and running.

However, even after the “The New Dock Plan” (CDP) was the twice selected by the EIR consultants as the environmen-tally preferred plan, BCDC told the county it would never issue permits because the CDP did not comply with its policies.

Gradually, the other players began to see the merits of the CDP and letters of support were received from the residents, the CoOp, and even from the Harbor. The Marin County Community Development Agency (planning department) did not want to see a plan put forth that that residents were going to fight, and which therefore could not succeed.

HEG hired consultants to advise and lobby for the plan. We had been told that in order to make an impact, we needed to have 200 residents showing up at the hearings and we did. Residents took off work, got babysitters and time after time, showed up en masse at the Housing Commission, Board of Supervisors and BCDC, even hiring a bus to go to BCDC in Oakland. Finally, after about 8-10 years of work by the residents (and 15 years by HEG) the CDP was approved by the BCDC Commission in 2004, against the recommendations of its staff, which was quite unusual, if not unprecedented.

On Oct. 28, 2013, the WPHRC had a lot of memories to share and enjoy. But the fruit of its labor is now in evidence, in mud, asphalt and gravel, which the members believe will result in a better community then would have been, had it not done its work.

*A Dock: JoAnn Ponek; T.J.Nelson; Issaquah Dock: Pam Bousquet, Stuart Riddell, Ric Miller; Main Dock: Suki Sennett, Tony Williams; Liberty Dock: Stan Barbarich: So. 40 Dock: Henry Baer, Denise Forant. Other participants: Steven Frisch, Richard Mickley, Richard Holstein, Amy Pertschuk.

Susan Neri photo by the Dinghy Dame

MEET SUSAN NERI OF SOUTH FORTYSusan Neri is a third generation Californian whose grandparents actually arrived in Inverness by stagecoach. Susan was born in Berkeley, but spent summers with those beloved grandparents, and later raised her own family there for 12 years.

When her college years rolled around, she headed to Missouri to attend Stephens College as an art major. At that time it was pri-marily a girls’ school. Since horses are Susan’s passion and they had stables of them at Stephens she was happy for two years.

She then went to Europe for the summer ending up in Italy for fun. But she learned to love it and attended a university for for-eigners and mastered Italian for the one year she was there.

Susan came back to the Bay Area and took a job in the city in the International Department of the Bank of America. This was during the Viet Nam war, and she had taken High School French, so with her tri-lingual ability she stayed there 2 years before joining W.H. Friedman Book Company doing layout and designing. Soon she went back to school and studied at Arts and Crafts in Oakland for 2 years. It was here that she met Manuel Neri, an established artist and teacher who she ended up marrying in 1967. You will enjoy seeing examples of his extraordinary work as an abstract expressionist on line.

Susan and Manuel settled in Benicia and renovated and lived in an old church and had their two children. They soon built a home in Inverness, which Susan said was an art mecca, and lived there with their daughter and son for twelve years. They lived in the old

family house for 5 of those years while building their own home out of bits and pieces of buildings from the city and old pilings they salvaged from Suisun. I’m sure it was a thing of beauty.

By the time Max and Ruby were ready to attend high school, Susan and Manuel made the decision to move to San Anselmo. It was here that Susan started her graphic design business.

In the 50s and 60s Susan had been to Sausalito and had looked at house boats along with places like The Tides Book Store and the No Name Bar. And in late ’89 she returned and bought a totally hand built big home on Main Dock where she lived for 7 years. In ’96 she bought The Lone Star and has been happy there for 17 years on South Forty.

Her daughter went to the San Francisco Art Institute and became a well-known graffiti artist with Barry Magee. They were Twist and Reminisce. She was Reminisce.

Susan’s son is an archeologist, and her home is filled with finds of his, in-cluding a horse head skeleton, which is lovely and meaningful. No bones about it!

When I met Susan she was wearing a lovely silver and scrimshaw necklace of a moth, which she had made for her mother. In her own words, Susan said, “When thinking about what I do/have done I realize it is an ongoing series of arts and crafts projects, usually commissioned specialty pieces;

Water You Doing Here? by The Dinghy Dame

Calypso, by Susan Neri

quilts, lots of signage for businesses, logos, scrimshaw, painted furniture and murals, and currently I’m making hand painted onesies for babies. In the last 10 years photography has become my most recent passion. I’ve been lucky enough to know and work with amazing artists and designers and they have been mentors in the arts as well as life.”

She has taken a small space and created many spaces within it, which is a passion of hers. She currently is doing horse portraiture with graphite, an example of which is shown at right.

Susan is happy in The Lone Star surrounded by the esoteric things she adores. She is a self- proclaimed movie freak and enjoys a good read. She loves her life here. She said we all know one another and have a sense of community while remaining an individual.

(And then there are the dock parties...)

The 2nd Litquake/Words on the Waves took place on a beautiful October afternoon on South Forty Pier.

The event, a resounding success two years ago, sold out a week before the event this year and in spite of difficulties finding South Forty, attendees reported having a delicious, fun and inspiring time.

Luminaries included Joyce Maynard and Piper Kerman along with many brilliant North Bay authors reading their works on everything from Houseboat History and the struggles of the worlds oceans to regain their health to classics with practical application in our lives, and poetry. Larry Smith and the Six Word Memoir was a great hit once again. Phil Bronstein, the force behind the Center for In-vestigative Journalism and former Publisher of the SF Examiner, was the auctioneer for a lunch with prize winning and best selling author, Dave Eggers, and generated an enthusiastic and generous response from the crowd to make the event one of Litquake’s most successful fundraisers.

The resi-dents of S o u t h

Forty were out in force to make sure our guests found their way around, enjoyed the afternoon, had plenty to eat and drink, and returned our home to its pre-party pristine quiet just as the sun went down. Thanks to the sponsorship of J Lohr Winery and the gustatory delights of Davey Jones, whose staff cooked a terrific Paella meal on the dock, a satisfy-ing time was had by all.

The planning committee, Diana Cohn, Holly Payne, Maria Finn, Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Chris Ryan and Hillair Bell, has its roots in the houseboat community and was encouraged by Litquake to take advantage of our unique attraction and literary DNA to make it happen again.

Words on the Waves by Hillaire Bell

Photos Courtesy Hillaire Bell

Christmas Concert by Steve Sehkon

On Sunday, December 15th, Issaquah Dock was host to a very special holiday concert organized by it’s very own Mark Lawrence. As former Principal Trombone for the San Francisco Symphony and current professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mark is uniquely positioned to tap into the rich vein of Bay Area musical talent and ask them to perform for his appreciative ap-plauding neighbors. He generously organized a free holiday concert made up of 14 horns, some from the Symphony, most from the Conservatory as well as special guest, Sarah Shepherd, a young and talented Issaquah resident and member the top jazz band at the Marin School of the Arts where she is a senior.

Mark, Tim Higgins, Princi-pal Trombone, Paul Wel-comer, Second Trombone, Tim Owner, Utility trombone, nearly a dozen students from the Conservatory and Sarah rocked the wonderful ar-rangements created by Bob Elkjer of San Rafael. The 70 plus crowd was mesmer-ized by the bright sound, the seasonal sentiments and the spontaneous specialness of this musical congregation that unfolded under a bright, full moon, clear sky and comfortable temperatures. Residents from all docks gathered to enjoy the sono-rous sounds, eat a nibble of food, sip a tad ‘o winter cider

and just be with a crowd of their fascinating floating neighbors from waterways both near and far. The grateful echoes of the multi-dock winter holiday event could be heard reverberating between the sideboards of floating habitations for days and days after the disbanding of the beautiful brass brigade.

The celebration was such an overwhelming success that it kinda makes one quizzically consider the conundrum of why festive forays like this don’t occur at more regular intervals. Hmmm...

Good question!

Could you conceive of an event you think would be enjoyable to residents of all the docks? Make a

Photo courtesy Michael Scott

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with no formatting and with a header of up to 2 lines and 50 characters. Call Cathy Moreland at (415)332-2429 Email: cathy@morelandonline.com

WPH Construction Update by Harbor Equity Group

All in-water work has stopped, due to regulations, and will not resume until July 1, 2014. On-shore work will continue throughout the winter and throughout 2014. This includes completion of the Liberty Dock lot, lighting and entry structure, by January 1, weather permitting. Work on those same projects at A and Issaquah docks will also continue to completion, along with the elevation of Gate 6 Road; again weather will affect progress. For more details on specific projects, you can ask your dock rep for the latest Project Reports or review those reports at http://harborequity.org, where you can also find notices of upcoming work, including any scheduled utility interruptions.

BY JOVE, IT’S THE TOADSBy Larry Clinton

Humming toadfish, scourge of the Waldo Point floating homes community, have long since ceased their noisy all-night serenades in our waters. Now they’re turning up in – of all places -- Jolly Olde Eng-land.

In October, the Daily Mir-ror, which bills itself “Britain’s brightest tabloid newspaper, “ ran a story entitled: “All night long: Residents losing sleep thanks to the droning mating call of RANDY FISH.”

In the town of Southampton Water, Hants, “Around 30 peo-ple have complained about the din which usually starts up at 10pm – and some even had to move out,” reported the paper, adding “Experts said the noise could be caused by male midshipman fish which produce a droning from their swim bladder to attract females.” The midshipman fish is known more colloquially in these parts as the humming toadfish – for obvious reasons.

“The noise can go on for hours and often increases in volume as competing males attempt to out-hum each other. Scientists say the sound can be amplified by bouncing off buildings and ships,” reported the Mirror, which quoted one woman as saying, “I thought I was going mad. I hear it every night unless it’s windy or rain-ing.”

The local council has reportedly deployed monitoring equipment to find the source of the noise.

Maybe some of these folks would be interested in a house swap for a floating home.

Midshipman, AKA humming toadfish Photo from Daily Mirror

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FLOATING TIMES06ISSUE

FHA OFFICERSPresident Katherine Boschetto 297 6592 kbbb@mindspring.comVice President Flo Hoylman 332-1043 flohoy@gmail.comSecretary Hillair Bell 577-7220 hillair_michael@yahoo.comTreasurer Ron Moreland 332-2429 ron@morelandonline.comDirectors at Large Suki Sennett 331-6375 sennett24@comcast.net Henry Baer 331-9220 baerdds@aol.comAdmin. Coordinator Lewis Shireman 331-8325 lewisshireman@gmail.comVP Gov. Relations Stan Barbarich 332-7225 stan@floatinghouse.netCOMMITTEES Emergency Prep. Ray Dunaway 332-5548 rdunaw@attglobal.net Joe Novitski (786) 367-5859 jwnovitski@gmail.comEmergency Notification Stan Barbarich 332-7225 stan@floatinghouse.netSystem Committee Ron Moreland 332-2429 ron@morelandonline.comEnvironmental Blaise Simpson 331-6079 blaises@yahoo.comLegal Pam Bousquet 331-3614 pamafloat@comcast.netMembership Jarl Forsman (510) 866-5275 jarlforsman@gmail.com Claudia Duncan 272-5002 duncanclaudia@sbcglobal.netNewsletter Editor Scott Stoneback 806-6083 scottstoneback@gmail.comNewsletter Submissions Donna Lunsford 332-5350 carlbanjo@comcast.net Newsletter Classifieds Cathy Moreland 332-2429 cathy@morelandonline.com Tour Co-Directors Arthur Brendze 522-6949 abrendze@earthlink.net Hillair Bell 577-7220 hillair_michael@yahoo.com Larry Clinton 332-6196 click@dipsymusic.com JoAnn Dunaway 331-2888 JoAnnDunaway@e-msii.comWebmaster John Adams john@johnbadams.comPublic Relations Michelle Affronte 798-0236 mgmarin@earthlink.netSERVICES Emergency Line when using cell phones 472-0911RBRAHarbor Admin Bill Price 289-4143 bprice@co.marin.ca.us cell: 971-3919 San Francisco Baykeeper Hot Line 1-800 533-7229Marin County Fire Dept. Non-emergency 446-4463Marin County Sheriff Non-emergency 332-5422Harbor Equity Group (HEG) Pam Bousquet 331-3614 pamafloat@comcast.netWPH Residents (HEG) Liaison Ric Miller 331-6116 ric@floatinghome.comKappas Residents (KHA) Liaison Ron Moreland 332-2429 ron@morelandonline.comWildCare 456-7283 (24 Hour Nightline) 300-6359The Marine Mammal Center 289-7325

FHA Voice Mail: (415) 332-1916 Website: www.floatinghomes.orgDOCK REPS and ALTERNATES ADock Bob Engman 608-5068 engmanaia@sbcglobal.net Alternate Laurel Polarek 339-8964 reddog1@sbcglobal.netCommodore Felicity Kirsch 888-3919 felicity_kirsch@comcast.net Alternate Michael Bank 717-5876 michael.bank@rabin.comCo-op Michael Labate 331-5081 labateml@netscape.net Alternate Malinda Macey 332-0501East Kappas Carolyn Le Coque 608-1431 clecoque@aol.com Alternate Rose-Meri Muldoon 331-5348 rozom2@aol.comGate 6 1/2 Blaise Simpson 331-6079 blaises@yahoo.com Alternate Larry Clinton 332-6196 click@dipsymusic.comIssaquah Steve Sekhon 510 205-2148 stevesekhon@gmail.com Alternate Rachelle Dorris 272-1543 rdorris@fhallen.comLiberty Nanci Starr 244-2499 nancistarr@gmail.com Alternate Stan Barbarich 332-7225 stan@floatinghouse.net Main Dock Peter Huson 332-6240 peterhuson@att.net Alternate Peter Hudson 717-6469 phudson@csassoc.comSouth Forty Joan Sheehan Alternate Martin DenglerWest Kappas Court Mast 331-1953 court@mastphotography.com Alternate Rick Whiting 740-2924 captain_rick@sbcglobal.net Alternate Beverly Serpico dave@abuzz.com Yellow Ferry Richard Pavek 331-3753 shenmaker@msn.com Alternate Eric Browne 887-9551 browne@uwm.edu GOVERNMENT District 3 Supervisor Kate Sears 473-7331Assemblymember Mark Levine 479-4920San Francisco BCDC 352-3600FEMA 800-462-9029Army Corps of Engineers 332-0334Sausalito Post Office 332-0258