Categories
general freedom local leaders

Home to Gnomes

Oakland, California, serves as home to over a third of a million human inhabitants, but the city has made room for a very different denizen, the gnome.

The gnomes began appearing to observant pedestrians as painted figures on pieces of wood screwed onto utility poles. At ground level.

The gnomes were charming, and appeared in a wide variety of garb, juxtaposed with similarly styled (and painted) colorful mushrooms and other accoutrements and furniture of gnomedom.

The anonymous artist who painted the gnomes did it for fun, as a gift for his neighbors. Only a few people noticed at first. It was Oakland’s best-​kept secret:

About 2,300 gnomes with pointy hats and white beards now live in Oakland. One resembles Santa Claus in a monk’s robe. Others wave or appear to be doing a little disco dance.

Yet until late last month, they had pretty much managed to keep their presence on the down low. Even Pacific Gas & Electric, whose poles are gnome homes, was unaware of their existence.

But when the officials found out, they promised to remove the gnomes. Their very existence, you see, might encourage others to likewise affix near-​permanent painted figures, and soon gnomes would not only proliferate, but be joined by djinn, leprechauns, imps … and perversities.

When the charmed folk of Oakland found out, though, they rallied. They liked the gnomes. The artist came out of the closet, so to speak, but not to make a name for himself — he didn’t provide his name (though it’s an open secret) — for he didn’t want the gnomes to be about him, but about themselves.

And the people won. Public pressure moved PG&E, and the gnomes are safe. For the time being, anyway.

A charming story, reminding us that the character of a place can arise up in humble ways, and without an Arts Council grant, much less a Bureau of Gnomes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people term limits

Corporate Domination?

While Californians celebrated the centennial of their initiative and referendum, the Associated Press pushed a story headlined, “Corporations, wealthy dominate initiative process.”

Reporter Judy Lin gave examples:

  • In 2010, Pacific Gas & Electric spent $46 million on a measure to make it more difficult for localities to go into the utility business — outspending the opposition by 161 to 1.
  • Another measure last year, to allow auto insurance discounts for continuous customers, was funded almost entirely by $14.6 million from Mercury Insurance.
  • In 2008, T. Boone Pickens’ company contributed over $22 million — outspending opponents 100-​to‑1 — on a measure to encourage use of natural gas … which would have benefited the billionaire’s business interests.
  • A 2006 ballot measure charging a severance tax on oil production to fund alternative energy programs was bankrolled with nearly $50 million dollars from real estate heir and Hollywood producer Steven Bing.

What Ms. Lin did not emphasize was that each of these big-​spending corporate/​rich-​dude campaigns had the same result: The voters defeated their ballot measure.

The millions spent didn’t sway the people.

If special interests “dominated” the state legislature (or Congress) in this same way, we’d be dancing in the streets.

I spent the 1990s organizing petition drives to put term limits measures before voters — over 100 state and local initiatives — and virtually every single one passed, usually by large margins. No one ever charged that the term limits movement was “dominating” the initiative process.

Nice to know that I’m not plausibly demonizable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.