ENVIROWATCH

HOW HUMANS TREAT
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EACH OTHER, THEMSELVES


King County to Master Gardeners: Twist in the Wind
Efficiency is confusion, as bureaucrats scramble to cover budget cut-back

by Doug Nufer
The Free Press
illustration by Ron & Emily Austin

A program that began 25 years ago in King County and has since spread to 50 states and four Canadian provinces now has to fight for its life on its home turf, thanks to a budget cut. More people than ever before need help from the King County Master Gardener Program (KCMG), but the county reduced a key clerical support position from full to one-quarter time in what Sadikifu Akina-James, Manager of King County Community Services Division, describes as a move to make operations more efficient. Akina-James says she cut the position that had been occupied by Joy Pizarro when the 1998 budget failed to provide funding for the $38,000/year position.

Although Akina-James and County Executive Ron Simms have spoken in favor of KCMG and the County Council has pressed for a reinstatement of full support for the staff position, the volunteers are furious. Where Akina-James sees efficiency, the volunteers see chaos. KCMG is funded jointly by the county and by Washington State University Cooperative Extension, which spends $150,000 a year to train Master Gardener volunteers statewide. Last year 3378 Washington volunteers gave about $2 million worth of advice (when their time is figured at $13/hr.). 700 Master Gardener volunteers in King County helped 83,000 people, who otherwise might have descended upon Mary Robson, County Horticultural Agent for King and Pierce counties.

Joy Pizarro was a dedicated and tireless supporter of KCMG. Her loyalty to the Master Gardeners may have seemed excessive in a Division with other community services to address, but according to Master Gardener Marilyn Tilbury, who did an evaluation of Pizarro's workload using a job analysis format Boeing uses, Pizarro's output for KCMG was not only necessary but underestimated: Pizarro did more in her role than anyone else might have done.

While nobody questions Pizarro's dedication, many question what happened to her. Akina-James says Pizarro, a 22-year county employee, remains a full-time Office Technician II, at her old salary with full benefits. Although still assigned to the Community Services Division, Pizarro is no longer the KCMG contact person. After the position Pizarro dedicated herself to fulfilling was reduced to one-quarter time and taken away from her, Pizarro went on leave.

On April 13, Councilmember Dwight Pelz wrote to County Exec Simms to express concern over the cut-back in support to KCMG, joining legions of Master Gardeners who protested the decision. To many, the county's move threatened to kill the program. Two days later an erroneous report appeared in the Seattle Times (Jean Godden column), proclaiming the county had restored full funding to KCMG. In a May 1 letter to Pelz, Simms assured him that neither Pizarro nor KCMG was in jeopardy "at this time." Simms claimed the move made for a "more efficient use of tax dollars." A May 7 letter to the volunteers from Akina-James and WSU's Juana Royster explained that Jan Roark, another Community Services Division employee (who coordinates clerical support for others in the Division- not just Master Gardeners) would be KCMG's lead clerical contact person, and that Roark would work closely with County Horticultural Agent Robson.

"The fact that [Robson] has to spend valuable time at the office instead of getting on with the educational programs is also troublesome," says Sharon Collman, a former County Agent and one of the founders of KCMG. "For that matter, the fact that the largest county in the state with the largest horticultural outreach and proactive education program is run by a half-time agent is also vexing. At a time when we are all being pushed to improve gardening to protect environment, improve diversity, reduce water wastage, and grow food for the growing number of middle-class poor and when climate changes are increasing garden failures, it seems odd that there has been a substantial decrease in the horticultural [support by] King County."

"We're finding governments at all levels are cutting budgets," says Van Bobbitt, Washington State Master Gardener Coordinator. Unlike the programs in many states, Washington has a policy of not charging volunteers for training. He adds, "It's not a glorified garden club."

"The comments I've heard have been positive," says Akina-James of the reorganization at the Community Services Division. When asked to name someone who supports it, she says, "Actually, I don't know." Told of the Master Gardeners' dissatisfaction with the change, she says she hasn't heard of any complaints and that she would like to meet with the volunteers to discuss any problems.

Chances are, Akina-James and the duly elected officials of King County haven't heard the last of this, from Tilbury, Collman, the other volunteers, or the thousands of county residents who've benefited from the program.



Thanks to the office of Dwight Pelz for providing copies of letters. To contact Ron Simms, call (206) 296-4040, fax (206) 296-0194, e-mail ron.sims@metrokc.gov




The County Responds

The decision to reduce Cooperative Extension clerical support, like most budget related decisions, was made over the course of the summer and fall during the Executive Branch budget development process. During this process, all proposals are reviewed and evaluated by several department and budget staff. A single individual is not "solely" responsible for any particular proposal that results from this process. Barbara Gletne, Director, Department of Community and Human Services has always maintained, however, that she is ultimately responsible for all proposals included within the proposed Community and Human Services Budget.

During the early months of 1998, we took the opportunity to re-evaluate our original proposal. We still firmly believe that this was the correct action to take. We have been assured that the Executive supports this position.

In budgeting general fund resources, it is difficult to find a balance between support that is critical to function of a program and allocation of resources to other unmet needs such as child care for families attempting to enter the job market and exit welfare, troubled youth in need of programs to keep them out of juvenile detention, low income senior citizens in need of subsidized meals, and so on. These programs all compete for the same general fund dollars that support the Master Gardener Program. It is our challenge, in budgeting general fund dollars, to provide the support critical to the Master Gardener Program while making as many resources as possible available to other programs critical to the support of our community. We believe that this reduction does not remove critical support from the Master Gardener Program.


-Michael Emby for Barbara Gletne, in response to e-mail sent to elected official Ron Simms, the Executive.




Enviro Blurbs



Northwest


STOP HANFORD REACTOR
The US Department of Energy (USDOE) is proposing to restart Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) to make tritium, a radioactive isotope used to boost the power of atomic bombs. Hanford is already burdened with two thirds of the nation's high-level radioactive waste from weapons production. Since 1989, Hanford's sole mission has been cleanup, but restarting the FFTF would produce additional radioactive waste. Hanford boosters who have benefitted from a half century of weapons production have heavily lobbied state politicians to support the restart. But a better way to provide jobs is to simply clean up Hanford, which will take thirty years. Call your senators and governor to support cleanup, not bomb production: Governor Locke (360) 902-4111, Senator Murray (202) 224-2621, Senator Gorton (202) 224-3441. (Northwest Disarmament Coalition)

LOCAL ENVIRO MAGS
A Free Press reader sent us notice of two Seattle-based environmental publications that are worth reading. Environmental Newsletter is a monthly which focuses on subjects such as American grizzlies, future oil shortages, and pesticide residues in humans. For info write 6920 Roosevelt Way NE, ste. 3087, Seattle 98115-9812 (subscription price was not given). Butterfly Gardener's Quarterly is devoted to the gardening of plants that will attract butterflies: Subscription $9 to PO Box 30931, Seattle 98103.

SPOKANE RIVER
The state of Washington may be prevented from having input into the cleanup of the Coeur d'Alene Basin watershed, an Idaho region which is heavily polluted by mining and which drains into the Spokane River in western Washington. State Attorney General Christine Gregoire is concerned that proposed changes to federal Superfund laws would put Idaho fully in charge of the cleanup, even though 80 percent of the population living near the polluted area reside in Washington. (Pacific NW Inlander)

National


BABY TOOTH RADIATION STUDY
The Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) wants you to send them your child's baby teeth so they can do a study of radioactive Strontium 90 in the teeth. The goal is to see if radiation accrued in the teeth is higher in areas near nuclear reactors than in areas farther from nuclear reactors. A news release from RPHP says that earlier research by the organization has found that women and men living within 100 miles of nuclear reactors are at greater risk of dying of breast cancer and prostate cancer. For instructions or information contact 1-800-582-3716 or visit the website at http://www.radiation.org.

NUCLEAR BANS
City and reservation governments have been declaring themselves "nuclear free zones" in an attempt to block shipment of nuclear waste from reactors. In March, the Flagstaff, Arizona city council passed an ordinance declaring the city nuclear-free. A large Navajo reservation in the Four Corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, is also considering a ban on nuclear shipments. Some 75 native tribes in the US and Canada have already done so. Although the bans may not be ultimately successful in blocking federal efforts to transport the shipments, they at least will force the federal government to go to court over the shipments. Some tribes in their original treaties agreed not to interfere with roads through reservations, and their nuclear bans may be challengeable on these grounds. (High Country News)

RENEWABLE ENERGY
Global projections for alternative energy production are outsripping former estimates due to advances in the past year. Researchers in the Department of Energy's Los Alamos Laboratories are exploring a solar conversion process that approaches a 50 percent efficiency rating. Current conversion rates of solar cells average about 20 percent. Geothermal electric production may be made more easy by the invention at Sandia National Laboratory of electronic equipment able to operate at high temperatures. Wind generated electricity is simply becoming more popular, and grew worldwide by about 25 percent in 1997 alone. Most wind-generated electricity is currently produced in Europe.

International


EUCALYPTUS FARMS
The Pulsar Corporation of Mexico proposes large-scale tree plantations in economically depressed areas of southern Mexico, and has already opened test sites in Chiapas where the Lacondan Jungle used to be. The project is assisted with financial backing from the World Bank and the cooperation of multinational pulp companies, and is intended to revitalize the economy of and defuse revolutionary tensions in the region. The plans call for planting mostly of eucalyptus, a fast-growing species, but environmentalists are critical because eucalyptus trees tend to consume large amounts of water and soil nutrients, and the use of pesticides on the tress may contaminate local water. In some areas of Mexico, similar pulp farming attempts have been run out of operation by indigenous farmers or guerilla activity. (Multinational Monitor)



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Contents this page were published in the July/August, 1998 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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