Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Here's where we stand in a nutshell:
The idea of renaming the land portion - controlled by the City of Avalon and the Island Company - has been abandoned (a while ago - I think we mentioned this previously) due to the logistics of local politics (and I mean that in a realistic way, not a pejorative way).
The focus then turned to renaming the water portion, the MPA - now know officially at the Casino Point State Marine Protected Area - for Dr. Bill as the water area is controlled by the State of California and specifically the Fish & Game Commission. The proposed name is "Dr. Bill Bushing State marine Conservation Area at Casino Point."
There's a special form for all of this (of course) which I filled out and attached a number of comments that we got at the DrBillMPA@aol.com e-mail as well as comments condensed for the Change.org petition. We also have a nice letter from Jean-Michel Cousteau supporting the renaming.
The proposal was e-mailed to the F&G Commission on March 4. On March 29, I was notified that everything was in order and that it would be officially submitted to the F&GC at their April 20-21 meeting (in Monterey) and would be acted upon (grant or deny) at their June 15-16 meeting, which will be held somewhere in Los Angeles/Orange County (TBD). This will be a public meeting with (I presume) a comment period. I will plan on attending and hopefully speaking and perhaps some of you will as well.
So that's where things stand at the moment. On a related topic, the family had hoped to have a public Celebration of Life for Bill in Avalon on June 12 (which would have been Bill's 75th b-day) but I haven't heard anything more about that. The F&GC meeting will be a few days after that, Fingers crossed all the way around.
- Ken
The idea of renaming the land portion - controlled by the City of Avalon and the Island Company - has been abandoned (a while ago - I think we mentioned this previously) due to the logistics of local politics (and I mean that in a realistic way, not a pejorative way).
The focus then turned to renaming the water portion, the MPA - now know officially at the Casino Point State Marine Protected Area - for Dr. Bill as the water area is controlled by the State of California and specifically the Fish & Game Commission. The proposed name is "Dr. Bill Bushing State marine Conservation Area at Casino Point."
There's a special form for all of this (of course) which I filled out and attached a number of comments that we got at the DrBillMPA@aol.com e-mail as well as comments condensed for the Change.org petition. We also have a nice letter from Jean-Michel Cousteau supporting the renaming.
The proposal was e-mailed to the F&G Commission on March 4. On March 29, I was notified that everything was in order and that it would be officially submitted to the F&GC at their April 20-21 meeting (in Monterey) and would be acted upon (grant or deny) at their June 15-16 meeting, which will be held somewhere in Los Angeles/Orange County (TBD). This will be a public meeting with (I presume) a comment period. I will plan on attending and hopefully speaking and perhaps some of you will as well.
So that's where things stand at the moment. On a related topic, the family had hoped to have a public Celebration of Life for Bill in Avalon on June 12 (which would have been Bill's 75th b-day) but I haven't heard anything more about that. The F&GC meeting will be a few days after that, Fingers crossed all the way around.
- Ken
