FBBFS Newsletters | FBBFS Home Page
News from the Friends of The Bernard Biological Field Station of the Claremont Colleges
City Council Candidate Statement

Michael KeenanMichael Keenan

The scientific value of the Robert Bernard Field Station has just increased since the release of the international climate change report. Why you may ask? The station and the plants and animals of this barely ecological patch, represent so to speak, a thermometer of extreme weather adaptations of life under a Mediterranean climate. We have a lot that can be learned from them in regards to our own adaptation to what looks like future of increased weather changes. Given that this station is the only existing walk on station in any of the worlds five other Mediterranean climates, the station will become a wealth of scientific research in areas of extreme weather change, and should therefore be preserved by all costs under the current dire circumstances. It just may provide a window into our future as its does to our past.

A number of grievances exist that I want to address as a council member in regard to land use issues and the station.

  • The lot line adjustment left out a plot line and therefore the legal definition is wrong.
  • Other plot line changes have occurred without any approval process or open meetings of the neither planning committee nor council. There is no public record of such meetings.
  • The tentative tract map has expired and without a final map approval no deeds of property can be exchanged under the general plan and the California Map Act. An actually the county assessors map shows that other parcels may have been created.
  • I know of no meeting that has occurred between the colleges and city council and the public record does not show of any meeting of taking place.
  • I do not recognize the so-called agreement. How can a suit over an EIR turn into a development agreement. The signature was between a college employee and CUC.
  • The city determines what an agreement shall be. And besides any agreement requires that two officers of the nonprofit sign off which did not happen. In short, the “agreement” is a legal FICTION. The city has so far abrogated its responsibilities on this matter under the land use development code.
  • Under the Open Space element a new independent biological assessment is over due as to the status of not just the endangered species that live on the station but all other inhabitants.

As your council member I will not need to be arrested in order to protect the field station and I have to do is uphold the existing law. This is my promise.

FBBFS Newsletters | FBBFS Home Page