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Joyce Clark Unfiltered

For "the rest of the story"

Koi in November

Posted by Joyce Clark on November 26, 2018
Posted in City of Glendalefish pondKoi pond  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

I haven’t posted an update on my Koi pond in several months. It seemed like a good time to do so in between all of the contentious issues council must decide upon…Glen Lakes Golf Course, Manistee Ranch proposed apartment development, Brown lot development and Thunderbird campus development. All are important issues with Glendale citizens weighing in on them daily.

Our Koi are growing by leaps and bounds. Naturally we wouldn’t take them out of the water to weigh and measure them. That would stress them for no good reason. So I will estimate.

Here is Ming, a Butterfly Koi. Yes, we have named nearly everyone of our 30 Koi. If you can see it there is a small black fish swimming above Ming’s head. It is a Gambusia or Mosquito fish. Its purpose is to eat mosquito larvae. We introduced about a dozen of them into the pond years ago and seem to host a constant population of about a hundred of them at any given time. Ming was the first fish we put into the pond about 5 years ago. This was after refilling the pond when I had added so many chemicals to rid the pond of algae and killed off the few fish that I had. I let the new pond water settle and age, if you will. Then I placed a 3” to 5” Ming into the pond as a sacrificial test to see if the pond water was healthy enough. Ming survived and thrived and is the oldest of all of the Koi. I estimate that Ming is probably about 3 feet long and weighs in at 10 to 15 pounds.

Next up is Mud Puddle, a Standard Koi.  My son picked this fish about 3 years ago because of its copper coloring…after all, Arizona is known for its copper mining. Mud Puddle is one of the last fish we acquired and is a hog. He eats all the time. He can be seen grazing on the algae on the rocks all day long. His prolific eating has caused him to grow and outpace many of his brothers and sisters purchased at the same time. Mud Puddle is slightly smaller than Ming. Probably about 2 feet long and coming in around 10 pounds.

Then there is Convict, another Standard Koi.  My husband named him thus because he is black and white reminding my husband of prison uniforms. Convict is one of the bravest and the nosiest of the Koi. When I go to the edge of the pond to trim vegetation he will cruise on over to see who’s there and what is happening. Convict is about 2 ½ feet long and between 10 and 15 pounds.

The last of today’s lineup is Spine. Spine got its name from the black markings on the top of his back that look like a rendering of a human spine. It, too, is a Butterfly Koi with its long flowing fins. He is about 3 feet long and also comes in between 10 and 15 pounds.

Since I changed the water 5 years ago and introduced our Koi I have not lost one…knock wood. They are disease free and never appear to be plagued with the numerous problems that can affect Koi fish.

This is the time of year that I cut back on the amount of food they are fed. Several years ago, I had fish jumping out of the water. It’s called “flashing.” Some were also swimming in strange ways such as upside down. I went to my favorite reference, Google, and decided that I was giving them too much food in the winter time. They simply couldn’t digest all that I was feeding them. I cut their food down to half of what they are fed in the summer and the flashing and strange swimming behaviors stopped. If any are still hungry and it’s usually Mud Puddle, they can graze on algae on the rocks.

We love our Koi Pond.

© Joyce Clark, 2018         

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.

Ever since I returned to city council two years ago, in December of 2016, I have been sorely disappointed in the inconsistent performance of one city department, Code.  I am sure I will hear from my city manager about once again publicly expressing concern about the work of a group of city employees. However, some situations beg to be discussed and this is one of those.

A little history on the Code Department is in order. When I first served on council in 1992 the performance of the Code Department was not good. Employee abuses included taking extraordinarily long lunch breaks and when they were in the field they earned the reputation of being “Gestapo-like.” Eventually the department was reorganized and a new director took the helm. That was Dan Gunn. Mr. Gunn did an excellent job of turning the department around and for years, under his leadership, code performed at a high level of achievement. When I returned code was once again in disarray.  Over the past few budget cycles council allocated more resources and personnel in order to help the department succeed once again.

Those actions have not borne the fruit council expected. I have seen situations that I can only describe as retaliation against our citizens and cases of inconsistent enforcement of the Code Department dependent upon where you live in the city.

I am aware of two cases that can only be described as retaliation. In one case the resident, in an effort to clean up a blighted south Glendale neighborhood, reached out to councilmembers for assistance. That action of taking it to councilmembers resulted in the citizen being cited for minor violations while much graver neighborhood issues were ignored.  It appeared to be a case of retaliation.

In another case, as a result of a neighborhood dispute now being adjudicated in court, one litigant, a neighbor began calling in continuous code complaints. Code’s actions in enforcing those harassment complaints flies in the face of their unstated policy that when a situation is in litigation they back off and let the police department and the courts settle the matter. That is not what occurred in this case.

In this case, the citizen (a Vietnam vet) who has an injunction to prevent further harassment by his neighbor is being cited for an inoperable vehicle that has been repurposed as “yard art” and for having a flag pole greater than 6 feet tall.

As I said in a recent city council workshop on the issue of placing a permanent flag pole and American flag on Thunderbird Mountain, “I can’t imagine any place where the flying of the American flag is inappropriate.”

Did you know that historically only 38 permits at a cost of $230 each have been issued and those, in the majority, were for commercial properties?  Nearly every Glendale resident who has a flag pole 6 feet or taller has no blinkin’ idea that a permit is even required, much less the cost of such a permit. Some residents, such as myself, had a flag pole greater than 6 feet when the home was purchased in 1998. I assume that it is grandfathered in but I certainly had no idea about code restrictions on resident flag poles. Here is ours. By the way, the resident has taken down the flag pole.

As for “yard art,” all art, as we well know, is subjective…very, very subjective. What is art to one person may be an abomination to another. The resident took an old, antique truck and spent about $3,000 to have it repurposed as an art piece and placed in his front yard. It was his art. By the way the property in question in the northern portion of the city is a ½ to 1 acre horse property (exactly as is mine). No one complained and in fact, passers-by would stop to have their photo taken with the “art truck.” Once again, the neighbor with an injunction for harassment called code and complained. The only rule upon which code could hang its hat was that the vehicle is ‘inoperable’.  By the way, I have antique tractor equipment as “yard art”. It’s definitely inoperable and again, probably grandfathered in since it has been there since the house was built. Here is our ‘yard art’. 

I find code’s actions to be astounding when at every council voting meeting, a citizen comes forward during the public comment period and brings photos of rampant illegal parking of inoperable vehicles in his south Glendale neighborhood resulting in little if any enforcement. If parking an inoperable vehicle is a code violation in one area of the city then code should be enforcing it throughout the city. It is not doing so per the citizen who regularly brings the situation to council’s attention at its voting meetings.

Today people are more affluent and often have several vehicles in addition to the fact there are often multiple families or extended relatives living at a home. Hence many have more than two vehicles resulting in on-street parking (which is OK) or parking all over the front yard, often on dirt or grass (which is not OK). It makes Glendale look trashy and blighted. No one would complain if the code for inoperable vehicles was being administered fairly and equitably throughout the city.

There are code regulations to prohibit this behavior as well as others. The problem remains inequitable enforcement, selective enforcement or no enforcement at all in areas of need. It is frustrating to not just the citizens who want their neighborhoods cleaned up but to the councilmembers and their assistants receiving complaints on a daily basis. It is a situation that had been resolved in years past and has now deteriorated once again.

This situation has prompted the creation of a Code Review Committee comprised of councilmembers and citizens. It is scheduled to start its work after the holidays. As a member of the committee I am confident that we will recommend changes to the code department’s operations and to city code as well. I am also confident that a majority of council will concur with the committee’s recommendations. Currently code’s enforcement is an untenable situation that cannot, and must not, continue.

© Joyce Clark, 2018         

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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