In a message dated 8/3/2007 1:38:55 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
"... so your boss could have had a point up to a few years ago; now we have
the
potential to actually put a lot of that data to use, if only people would
stop cutting corners & record & disseminate it in a format that that makes
it easy to use..."
But let's put this discussion in perspective. Sometimes I feel much of what
I did in my government career was a total waste of time. Although once proud
that I forced developers to dedicate open space easements over hundreds of
miles of oak and pine forests, sleazy realtors have conned those same
government agencies (people who were in grade school when I put the forests in
easements) to vacate some of that forest land for condominium projects. For years, I
was proud that Rattlesnake Mountain east of the City of El Cajon was
preserved "forever" in a dedicated open space easement. Last year, El Cajon annexed
the mountain and now there are condos and houses popping up all over the dang
thing. I also forced developers to conduct about 2,000 archaeology surveys,
record more than 10,000 sites, protect thousands of archaeology sites in
"open space easements," and dig hundreds more. Know what? Most of the reports
never made it to the SHPO funded information center, many of the collections
went to the dumpsters, and the consultants earned steady paychecks for the past
33-years. Ya gotta wonder. Then about a year ago, I attended a county
historical board hearing to defend a client who wanted to landmark his house (just
west of Escondido). One of the local archaeologists (one who profited greatly
from consulting archaeology laws) is there in the room presenting a power
point slide show on why the county should vacate a dedicated open space easement
(the very one that my colleagues created about 15-years ago to protect an
historical archaeology site) because he was going to do us all proud with a
pretty fine report (and his client would then replace the archaeology site with
condos). So, here I am sitting reading Carol's email to HISTARCH this morning
and, yep, sure enough, it was that same damn historical archaeology site I
thought my buddies protected 15-years ago--- you know, the one that the
archaeologist promised he would "do right by" if they just vacated the easement and
let him dig it up. Yep, it just frosted my cookies to read Carol's outrage
that she was cut 50% off the artifact analysis and would have to work for free
to "do right" by a collection that was supposed to be preserved. Yes siree,
some times you gotta wonder if a career in archaeology was really worth it?
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
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