Community Organizations

Why so Many Community Organizations?

You may have wondered why a tiny community like Elfin Forest has so many organizations. There are many reasons – first, and most important, is that preserving a rural environment is a big job. Second, we all want to pitch in and do it.

Our community has been beseiged by every imaginable horrific project, including a sludge plant, trash incinerator, landfill expansion, water pipelines (with 15' diameter pipes), attempted annexation by San Marcos, large scale development, you name it. As a result, most of the people who live here have been involved in one or more of these fights. All of them are major. Some people are burned out. Others are newcomers and new to the process. The bottom line is that every project that hits the area is inter-related. One feeds off the other(s). So what may seem to be insignificant today may turn out to be a huge issue tomorrow, had we only known the whole story. A lot of this happens in insidious ways, behind the scenes, as politicians, developers, utilities and public agencies, etc., make deals that we never hear about.

So what we have found to work best, considering all the issues we have to deal with, is to put out the facts. Let people choose which battles they want to fight. Don’t assume that one issue is more important than another - they're all important. We need to share facts and be inclusive.

Trust that the right people will become involved, but remember that they won't get involved unless they know who, what, when, where and why. There will be days when you feel like you're doing it all by yourself - that's just part of the game. The biggest asset is communication - that's why the newsletter and town council meetings are so important.

Virginia McManus summarized it so eloquently in this essay.

Beware of Gifts

By Virginia McManus

I am an Elfin Forest resident since1984.

Some gifts we have been offered in the recent past are:

A small reservoir for emergency water storage.  This gift became a large reservoir with rock crushing, blasting, habitat destruction and a defacing of the natural slope line. The large reservoir emergency water reservoir can increase the likely hood of denser development.

The gift of traffic relief, son of 680, was offered us for free.  This would have been a major freeway through our neighborhood.  It was a gift bringing us noise and air pollution. Another gift was the major road through Questhaven Retreat. “No thanks,” we said.

We on Fortuna del Este were offered the gift (!) of paying to use a road we use for free. No thanks.

We were offered lower electricity rates.  The building of a smokestack trash to energy plant at the dump site was not acceptable. No thanks.

We have had many gifts offered that in reality were Trojan horses.  Why are we being offered these gifts?  Is this to make up for a destructive impact on our neighborhood? Can we find out? What can we do to help?  I need the facts.

In the past, efforts have been made to set us against ourselves. This is a frequently used tactic.

As Joe Friday would say , "Just the facts"

For me, living in Elfin Forest is an adventure and sometimes the question comes to mind…

Where is the masked crusader?

It is my belief that there are many lone rangers in this neighborhood and that is why it is such a wonderful place to live.

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01/30/2006 Copyright Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Town Council. All rights reserved. Web design by Evelyn Alemanni