Actually, it was a terrible anti-climax after almost a year of work on it. Dawn and I had all the paperwork and other materials together (permit, blueprints, electrical diagrams and inspection signoff, etc.) we spiffed everything up, I even vacuumed under the floor mats. When the Building Inspector arrived, he hardly looked at the paperwork ("Oh, I've seen those.") and as I showed him around he didn't seem to be working too hard ("Since it's a pre-approved pre-fab building, and the electrical has already been signed off, there's really not much to check.") To get his attention, I confessed to moving the storm drainage a few feet off from where we planned to put it ("On a project this size, you didn't need to provide storm drainage anyway.") Gosh. He signed the approval, handed me a copy and got back in his car. I asked, "Is that it?" He said, "Yes, that's all." "I'm really all done?" "Yes." "Can I take the permit sign down now?" He replied, "Sure, good idea.", and drove away.
Dawn and I just looked at each other. I said to Dawn, "I feel that I missed something just now, but I guess we're done." She smiled and said, "You forgot to offer him the iced tea you made." "Oh yeah. I thought a final inspection would be a long drawn-out process, but we didn't have time to get thirsty." She just said, "Congratulations." Then, "Don't forget to put the vacuum cleaner away."
Even more generally, it seems to me that this is an affirmation that only the people living in an area can ultimately decide what is, or what is not, compatible with their neighborhood. Precedent (or lack of precedent) and the decisions of a neighborhood association board don't count for much in the face of popular opinion. This isn't a "news flash" ... this is the reason that public meetings exist. Although it's a cumbersome and stressful method, it does seem to work well. For us, it was kind of a civics lesson.
One of the other consequences of all this was to clarify that Stagecoach Observatory is a private facility (as was always the intent). It will not be operated commercially and will not be open to the general public. However, the Board of Adjustment was very clear that we can invite whoever we want to our home and observatory as long as we are not disruptive to the neighborhood. As everyone who has been to one of our starparties knows, they are very well-behaved, non-distruptive events. We don't anticipate any problems with that. One thing that will have to change a bit is that the star parties will be by invitation. That isn't such a big change, since we've been inviting our neighbors all along via postcards. (We do so love our computer and color printer!) We'll just formalize that procedure. All our neighbors and friends will continue to be invited to our starparties. Of course, this is now especially appropriate, because it is due to their support that the observatory continues to exist.
Bottom line: I think we can (finally) declare victory. Stagecoach Observatory is here to stay.
A star party is scheduled for Saturday evening, March 4. If you don't get an invitation, e-mail me.
Bottom line: We won, twice. The Board denied the appeal, thus supporting the City's position about private observatories being OK in residential neighborhoods. Yea! They also granted our variance to leave the observatory where it stands.
When all was said and done, it's clear that the reason we won was because there were 225+ people who supported the observatory and 7 who were against it. I guess that's democracy in action. Pretty neat.
The City advised me that it may not be completely over yet. The appellants have 30 days in which to appeal the Board's decision to District Court. I got the feeling that the law firm was all for making the appeal but I'd guess that the appellents will decide not to waste more money on a lost cause. We'll see what happens next, if anything.
It seems that an observatory is a hard thing to fight about. As Robert Frost said about a telescope: "There isn't anything more blameless in the sense of being less a weapon in our human fight."
We've now heard from 190 people: 181 (95%) are pro, 2 (1%) are neutral, 7 (4%) are con. Actually, we've heard from more than that (~214 total), but only 188 have signed and dated letters which we can use for the City. The others were all in support, e.g., e-mails (which are appreciated none-the-less!)
About 10 of the participants were experienced handling telescopes ... some set up their own ... and all of them helped others find objects, center, focus, etc., etc. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We've now heard from 178 people: 169 (95%) are pro, 2 (1%) are neutral, 7 (4%) are con.
The NENA board meeting happened when we were away. Judith Gordon and Eric Enfield were there and from what they said, it didn't go too well. The board had apparently made up its mind before even reading our letters or listening to Judith. Too bad. It's not as if they actually have power to decide about anything, but I was hoping that they would withdraw their support from the Dube's appeal in the light of so many letters supporting the observatory from people in their constituency. NENA's stand appears to be that they want to hold the city to task for issuing a permit in a way which they feel was not appropriate and that they are unconcerned about what I (or the neighbors) think. Strange huh? One would think that their primary job was to represent us so they would care about our opinions. And the appeal is on the grounds that the the observatory is "unsuitable to the neighborhood" ... who gets to decide what is or is not suitable if not us, as in "all of us"? Oh well.
The City of Santa Fe Board of Adjustment will meet to decide this issue on 16th, I think. Although the issue is between the Dube's and the City, I understand that "interested parties" are allowed to voice their opinions. Interested parties include Dawn and myself and everyone who signed the petition or wrote to us. I was told that the City will be sending out announcements of the meeting (though we haven't gotten one yet). I'll find out more and post the information here.
One nice bit of news from Judith Gordon is that of the 22 signers of the anti-observatory petition, 17 have changed their minds and have removed their names from the petition.
Mini star party
About 22 people came over, nicely spread out from ~8p until ~1:30a. We got to meet some swell neighbors. Nice views of M57, M31, Saturn, Jupiter. Adric Lucero finally got to see Saturn and was suitably impressed. One of the visitors didn't see Alberio's colors, after trying really hard several times, strange. The double-double e-Lyrae was an easy split at 450x, seeing was. fine, which explains why the globular clusters M15 and M2 looked so great. Before the moon came up, our eyes got dark-adapted enough that M15 left retinal after-images. It would have been really, really dark if it weren't for that pesky Milky Way. Also, the glare from Jupiter rising made shadows on the ground. If it's not one thing, it's another. A beautiful quarter moon followed Orion rising over the Sangre de Cristos as the last visitors left. A nice night.
More letters!
This is wonderful: we've now heard from 117 people and almost all of them were positive or neutral ((110+2)/117 ~ 96%). Even more important, more than half (13 of 22) of the signers of the anti-observatory petition have told us that they are no longer against it! If a vote were taken by the petition signers, we would be able to keep the observatory. However, it doesn't work that way; a single person can file an appeal. The most important thing we can do now is to make a good showing at the NENA meeting on 26 Oct. The Dubey's will be there and if we can convince NENA to withdraw their support of the appeal (or better yet, support the observatory, why not?), the Dubey's will probably bow to community opinion and drop the appeal.
News! maybe progress...
William Dubey called me today and told me that Andrew Douglas, the President of NENA (Northeast Neighborhood Assoc.) would allow me to present our case at the next NENA meeting on October 26. With all the letters of support, I think we can make a good case that most of the people in the neighborhood support the observatory and do not think that it is incompatible with the neighborhood.
Mr. Dubey indicated that, if NENA withdrew its support, he and Mrs. Dubey would abandon their appeal to have the observatory permit revoked. He suggested that we postpone having the matter decided at the October 19 Board of Adjustment hearing until the next such meeting (which is Nov 18, I think). That seems pretty generous and I readily agreed.
This makes sense to me. I suspect that the Dubey's actions are based on the belief that that most of our neighbors find the observatory offensive in some way. However, they seem to be open-minded enough to find out if that is actually so, and if it's not, to drop the issue, possibly despite their personal views. That's a pretty fair point of view. I'm quite sure that most of our neighborhood is for the observatory, so now it's up to us to demonstrate that. We need to make a good showing at the October 26 NENA meeting.
The bad news is that Dawn and I won't be in town that week!! Arrgh! I'll be at a scientific meeting in Cambridge, England. Scientists are coming from all over the world to be there and, well, I'm kind of the chairman, so there's no reasonable way we can change the date or that I can miss it. Dawn's coming partly as vacation and partly for emotional support (which I could sure use, it's a big deal for me professionally). So I guess we'll write everything down, put all the observatory support letters together in a package, and ask some people to make the case for us. I talked to Judy Gordon about it (Judy is one of the people who signed the petition against but changed her opinion), and she tentatively agreed. The timing sure is agonizing, though.
Meeting with City
I met with Ed Romero at City Hall today. He's the laison for the observatory permit appeal, which means that he's the guy to talk with about this issue. Here's what he told me:
So I guess that's it, there will be a public hearing. I'll give Mrs. Dubey a call today and see if we have any common ground or or if there's any chance of her withdrawing her appeal. Failing that, we'll have to ask concerned neighbors to show up at the hearing.
Impromptu star party scheduled for this Friday!
As every amateur astronomer knows, star parties are held on the Saturday of the new moon, so you can take a nap in the afternoon, look at the stars all night, and sleep-in the next morning. So we're going to break the rules and have a mini-star-party this Friday evening, October 1. It will be from sunset (sunset is around 7 pm, but it won't get really dark until 8:30) to about 2 AM (when the moon will rise ~40% illuminated). After that, the moon's bright light will wash out other objects (except of course Jupiter and Saturn ... and Venus, just before dawn).
The Saturday nearest this new moon is October 9, which is when the Enchanted Skies star party will be held in Soccoro. That's the big NM star party (in fact, one of the biggest star parties in the country) and we'll be there, not here. So much for October 9, but how about Saturday October 2? Well, on October 2, the Santa Fe Astronomy Club has a star party at the Santa Fe Ski Basin. It turns out that many of our neighbors have their own telescopes and this is the perfect opportunity to set them up under the guidance of John Buting and other experienced amateur astronomers (call 983-1554 for info). We don't want to conflict with that. So our mini-star-party will be Friday October 1. The next (regular) star party will be November 9.
Hey, you don't actually have to look at the stars! You'll probably want to, but even if you don't care a hoot about astronomy, consider coming. It's a great chance to meet with your neighbors. They're really a great bunch (see below). Unfortunately, Dawn (Abriel) won't be here for most of it, she's an ER doc and will be working that night.
Bring a warm coat, bring binoculars, bring your kids. More information here.
Do you have any idea how wonderful our neighbors are?
I've been getting a lot of letters and phone calls recently. A lot of them say things like
Don't get so blue ... as my friend Nez says, "Right highway, wrong exit." It's probably true that a few of our neighbors would be against almost anything new or different. But most of our neighbors are being wonderful! For every one that complains, there are 10 others who are encouraging ... and less than half of them have any direct interest in astronomy ... they are mainly happy to see someone doing something interesting. See the comments page. More than 75 people took the time to call, write and/or visit us in the last week. Think about that. For the most part, they didn't have anything to gain by doing so; they just went out of their way to do the right thing as they saw it. That's an awful lot of good neighbors! Personally, I expected the kids in our neighborhood to be excited about the observatory, and perhaps the odd stargazer or two ... but I didn't realize that, for the last 5 years or so, we have been living among such a great bunch of supportive and open-minded people. I'm here to tell you, it's a pleasant surprise. And that probably does make us "the city different" (despite the fact that our houses are all painted about the same color).
Dawn and I have no idea about what will happen with the building permit appeal; we hope and expect the best, but the process is probably not going to be a whole lot of fun. Whatever it takes, we'll do it. Just a month ago, it would have been much more of a drag. But whatever happens, knowing that we're doing it amidst a bunch of good-natured neighbors makes it a lot less scary than "running the gauntlet" alone. The truth of the matter is, building the observatory has already been worth it to us. Directly: we've seen more of the universe in the last month than in 20 years of skywatching, wow. Vicariously: we've introduced at least couple dozen people to a least few new galaxies; that's worth something. And indirectly: we've had more interactions with neighbors in the past three weeks than in the previous five years we've lived here, and the vast majority have been good interactions. So whatever an observatory is for, this one is working well.
Another letter to the editor!
This letter to the editor by Sally Blakemore appeared in today's New Mexican. Thanks, Sally.
The appeal, what is it?
Today I talked with Bob Sicaros of the City and think I got the facts straight. Our building permit application was properly submitted to, and approved by, all the appropriate departments at City Hall. It was approved as an "accessory structure". Accessory structures are usually automobile garages or storage sheds. Not too surprisingly, there is no special "astronomical observatory" category, so this was the closest category.
Nancy and William Dubey of 1050 Camino Real 982-6476 submitted an appeal to have the building permit revoked and the observatory removed on the basis that the observatory is not in keeping with the standards of the neighborhood. According to Mrs. Dubey, the City Code specifically prohibits structures such as our observatory. Mrs. Dubey is also on the Board of the Santa Fe NorthEast Neighborhood Association (NENA) and says that this association is opposed to the observatory. It is not clear if the appeal was made by the Dubey's personally or by the NENA. I have requested a copy of the appeal from the city (it's public record) and will hopefully get it on Thursday.
The City of Santa Fe got legal advice about whether the issuance of a permit for this observatory as an accessory structure was correct as per the city codes. The legal conclusion (opinion?) was that this action was appropriate per city code. If and when the Dubey's pursue the issue with the Permit/Planning Department, they will find that their appeal will be rejected on legal grounds. But it's not over. If they choose to do so (and Mrs. Dubey told me they would), their next step will be to request a hearing by the Santa Fe City Council, who (I guess) could do whatever they decide. According to Mr. Sicaros, this could happen as soon as October 19. And, yes, that might mean that we will be required to remove the observatory :-(
I spoke with Mrs. Dubey today to find out what bothered her about the observatory. She said the main problem was that "all the neighbors hate looking at the observatory". I told her that we have letters from about 60 neighbors who are for it, many of whom actually say they like it. I even read her a bit of one from Jean Pearce, "You're the kind of neighbors every neighborhood needs! We love the fact that we can see an observatory from our back deck (we live down the hill, just acorss the arroyo). I offered to send Mrs. Dubey copies of the letters to look at, but she said, "I'm not interested." When I suggested that, as a board member of the NENA, these are many of people she represents (me too!), and in fact some of them were people who signed her petition but have since changed their minds, she said, "It doesn't matter." She told me that there was an NENA board meeting tonight. I asked if I could come and address the Board. She said, "No, you're not invited. If they want to hear from you, they'll call you." I asked for the name and address of the president of the NENA so I could send the organization a letter. She said, "I'm not comfortable giving out that information." She did say that she'd bring it up at the meeting. I didn't quite know where to go from there. So maybe that wasn't the most productive conversation, but at least we've talked with each other, and maybe we've broken the ice.
What can we do?
Eric Enfield, a friend who is an architect in town, told me that I made a mistake asking people to send letters of support to us. He said that we should have asked people to send letters to the City (with copies to us), because the letters then become part of the official public record which must be part of any future review. He's probably right; I didn't think of that, I just thought we'd hand over the big pile of letters we received. I'll try to do just that when I meet with the City on Thursday, but if that doesn't work, perhaps we'll have to ask people to send letters to the City directly. If you want to do so anyway, please mention the correct address of the observatory (1045 Stagecoach Road) whether you support the continuance of the observatory (or not), and that that you want your letter to be part of the public record. I think the right person to send them to would be:
Anne CondonA copy to us would be appreciated:
Chief, Building Inspection and Enforcement Division
City Hall
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Dave Weininger and Dawn Abriel
1045 Stagecoach Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Eric also mentioned that, if it comes to a public City Council hearing, the side with the most supporters present usually prevails. I really hope that it doesn't end up in such an adversarial place, but if so, I hope that a lot of observatory supporters show up.
What else? Well the best thing that could happen would be that the Dubey's and other anti-observatory-ists would realize that a lot of people think that the observatory is a pretty neat idea; and even if it's a bit different or they don't like it personally, it's OK for the neighborhood ... and they withdraw their appeal to have it removed. I don't know if this is likely; my talk today with Mrs. Dubey wasn't very encouraging. But it's possible. To this end, it would be constructive to write Nancy and William Dubey (1050 Camino Real) or call them (982-6476) and tell them how you feel. Remember, be nice! Like all of us, they are probably doing what they think is right. They may honestly feel that the majority of our neighbors hate observatories. If so, that mis-impression should be easy to correct. Be nice, but tell them how you feel. Really, it would be better if they find out at home rather than at a City Council meeting.
Possibly even better than writing the Dubey's would be to write the NENA. If anyone knows the name of the NENA president, or their official address, please let me know (email dave@daylight.com or call 988-7394). Or a phone number (I couldn't find a number for them in the phone book). If NENA actually represents our neighborhood at any level, it seems that they must at least listen to us; we live here just the same as they do, right?