Menlo Park should save that money. What they should do instead, if they actually are interested in saving water rather than feel-good conservation theater, is raise the price of water until the desired savings are achieved.

I am so excited to get mail from the City. I do hope it's a high gloss brochure that gets delivered to my house. A few pages at least. I never get enough junk mail, really looking forward to this. Besides, how else would I know that there's a drought and need to conserve water? The water company could just include a message on my bill, but what fun is that? And while I've read numerous articles online about the new water restrictions, if the City would just pay the newspapers to print up an advertisement to better inform me that would super awesome. I would much rather get my information from an advertisement than a reporter. And coming home to see something hanging on my door knob that's not just a Pizza coupon would be cool. Golly gee, this is the best use of City funds I can imagine. And while a robo call might anger some and get them to more water out of spite as Councilman Cline says, junk mail - I mean purty brochures delivered to my home or door hangers are something to be thankful for. Congratulations City of Menlo Park, you're doing a heck of a job.

How pathetic that the city is spinelessly intimidated by residents. This isn't some feel good vanity measure, this is the shortage of one of our most precious resources. What we all do and don't do makes a difference. Sure, we are not farmers nor are we in the cattle industry, but given how many emerald green lawns there still are on the Peninsula, it's obvious that we can all cut back more.

those "emerald green lawns" amount to maybe, maybe, 2% of water usage in this state. When the Ag interests in this state stop wasting water (they use 80% of our water) I will be interested in conserving my paltry 100 or so cubic feet compared to big Ag's 1000's of ACRE feet.

I encourage people to learn about how much the Ag Industry is doing. There was a good show on KQED last night, as part of the Climate One program, that helps put in perspective the 20% of urban use and the 80% agricultural use. Web Link
Web Link

I personally would welcome a robocall reminding me to turn down my irrigation controller in September, when the days are shorter and plants need less water. And I also would welcome more encouragement to plant something other than grass. Do we wait until there's not enough water to take a shower before we take serious action or can we be proactive and a leader on the Peninsula?

It was a bit disheartening seeing the water sprinklers active (in the middle of day) for the new landscaping on the Marsh/101 exit. That's probably Caltrans not Menlo Park jurisdiction, and it might be reclaimed water, but it was bit ironic as the next thing I saw was the Caltrans "Serious Drought, Help Save Water" sign. Shouldn't they be watering at night or early morning?

I understand this is all symbolic compared to the 80% consumed by Big Ag, but that's the same argument other countries make about global warming and the US... isn't it? Shouldn't we all do our part? I'm washing my car less frequently...

Since I was the one who launched what the Almanac kindly refers to a "spirited protest" (in truth I am a nervous public speaker and try to hide this with brava, but probably end up looking like a Jerry Springer show participate) I am surprised to hear that anyone actually likes robocalls and would welcome a robocall reminder system from the city to tell them how the weather is and there is still a drought. The newspaper, television, radio, internet ads and even billboards have made this common knowledge.

The outreach program, as I saw it presented in the staff memo, was not very creative, had some redundancy (like 4 mailings of what seemed to be the same information) and was wasteful of other resources including the time of citizens who have to answer their own telephones.

I do not want to block calls for the City of Menlo park, because usually they are only for emergency issues. But if I had to answer the phone four times to hear some lousy robot tell me not to waste water yet, I would probably have to block them.

Also, council member Cline's comment is astute, just the increase in water usage to down the aspirin from the headaches these calls would cause in my household as well as extra water for highballs once the robots had finally driven me to drink, would negate any water savings the City might be hoping for.

Conserving water is important and the efforts are worthwhile, but we need to be doing things that will help people conserve water, not just pay lip service to the notion of water conservation by nagging people and bombarding them with repetitive information that is eventually ignored. The staffs' proposal was weak in my view. The council members had several suggestions, ideas and directions for the staff that I think will improve the overall program and prevent a lot of waste. Their comments went beyond the robocall issue, which was really just a side note. The council was not 'caving to the public' or giving water conservation the short shrift. The staff seemed to appreciate the guidance.

I thank the council not just for stopping the robocalls in this case but also for improving the plan, putting a lot of thought and time into their responses, researching the problem and negotiating with other area agencies dealing with this drought as well as listening to the public.

People might want to watch the Council's deliberation on the web video before jumping to the conclusion that they caved (but please fast forward past my robocall rant during the public comment).

Typical city wasteful spending ! Is there anyone who is unaware we are experiencing a drought ? The water district sends out information with their bill. Fines for exceeding allowable amounts, based on past use are effective although probably not 100% necessary.
I suppose thDe cities next big idea will be to hire a Consultant for $50K or more to figure out an effective way to spend the $45K. Of course the consultant will be an old buddy of some sort. Anyway by time the money gets spent the drought will be over and the new talk will be about stopping the building of any new Dams.

I agree with the comment about the watering on 101 and Marsh road, during the day and for what? It looks like they already landscaped for drought tolerant vegetation. I can get interested in stopping my watering of my 6k lot when the 22000 people in Sacramento get water meters and they put meters on the ground water wells in the central valley and we stop funding rice growers north of sacramento!!!

If the City of Menlo Park is really interested in getting people to use a lot less water, they should reward people who stop watering their lawns, and the City itself should stop watering all lawns on all City-owned property -- at least until this awful drought is over. (Only water just enough to keep trees alive until the drought is over.)

Just a reminder for those who do not know: Never water our native oak trees under their canopy during normally dry months -- roughly May through early November -- or they will get root fungus and die.

The fact that 80% of water used in California is used (often wastefully) by Big Ag ignores the fact that 100% of the water delivered to the Peninsula is used by residences and businesses, not Big Ag. It comes from Hetch Hetchy, and goes directly to Crystal Springs Reservoir. So we all do have to do our part to save water, our most precious resource.

Good comment, Louise68.

Roxie,
You may have been joking about the water to down an aspirin, but I want to make sure people have these quick stats in mind:

4-40 gallons of water per shower (depending on showerhead age and length of shower)
25 gallons to do a load of laundry
300 gallons to water the lawn once

If the robocalls get 20% of people to remember to stop or reduce their lawn watering when it's not needed this month and next, we will save a substantial amount of water.

You can see more stats at Web Link

Needs water,

I know your goal is to save water, but your assumption that the robocalls will affect the water usage behavior of 20 percent of the recipients is quite a leap.

I think many people are unhappy when they rush to answer their phone, thinking maybe someone is trying to reach them for important reason, or maybe just a friend is calling, only to hear some recorded message with information they are already aware of. That's why there are Do not call lists and specific laws regarding robocalls from commercial enterprises.

I want City and other governmental organizations to use the phone systems with a little more restraint, otherwise and important communication tool becomes just another source of noise and will be ignored. Do you know the the old " Peter and the Wolf" folk tale?

Your stats are interesting, but how do you know that every lawn takes 300 gallons to water? Some people have very small lawns, maybe they only water them a short amount because the ground cover they have is not so thirsty.

I do conserve water, have cut my water use this year already. But even if my household is beamed away by aliens who then thoughtfully turn off the water system and lock our doors, and Agee to return us after thr drought ends, there will still be a water shortage for the remaining citizens of Menlo Park. Harassing individuals with messages they have already heard can be abusive as well as ccounter productive.

Lets see, 300 gallons to water a lawn. That's 40.1043 cubic feet. An acre foot is 43,560 cubic feet of water. That's 325,851 gallons of water. Ag in this states wastes tens of thousands of ACRE feet of water. And we're worried about someone's paltry 40 gallons for watering their lawn? Let's get real folks. We would have plenty of water if we didn't allow Ag to waste so much of it.

Reducing lawn watering is spit in the ocean to solving the problem. It's a feel good bandaid that in the aggregate might save an acre foot of water. Maybe. Meanwhile Ag continues to waste tens of thousands of acre feet.

Menlo Voter --
Big Ag gets none of the water from Hetch Hetchy, which is where we who live on the San Francisco Peninsula get all of our water. So it does matter a lot whether or not people insist on watering their lawns. That is water that cannot be used for drinking, cooking, bathing or washing clothes or dishes. Jay Famiglietti, a senior water cycle scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor at the University of California, Irvine, said that the drought manager for the California Department of Water Resources said recently that California has, in our reservoirs, only 18-24 months of water left at present rates of usage -- if winter rains do not fill those reservoirs before then.

We each MUST do our part to conserve water.