Farm Mkt Saturday

Farmer James Stemple will return to Davis Riverwalk to sell lettuce, bok choi, turnip greens, onions, broccoli, eggs etc. 9am to 12pm at 737 William Avenue (parking lot of Highland Prospects, Hypno Coffee, Friends of Blackwater Canyon).

PS - this is a community effort to encourage local produce production and consumption; please pass the word and come buy!

Washingtonated?

Beware the bubble. Most of us know how Coloradoans historically despise Texans on their ski lifts: friendly, dumb, rich...how on earth did they get that money? We also know about Californication: regular Californian sells house for $1M and comes to Oregon or Santa Fe, bringing a fat/happy mentality with no jobs, just dividend income and house equity. The mountain towns hate the new cultural dimension, don't like regular joe's showing up with so much coin, and blame them for running up values without creating jobs.

Below is an article from today's NYTimes on Bend, OR, and the bust following the boom. It relates the woes of a "new west" lifestyle town's booming and then busting due to a lack of underlying economic strength. My ex-in-laws live there and I love the town. I've watched it evolve from half it's present size of 80,000. I remember getting a tour of a mountain-top subdivision and being told that the Californians lived on the side with mountain views and the rest lived on the side with city views. That made sense. They were here for the aesthetic and had seen their share of cityscapes.

The relevance here is the prospect of Davis being Washingtonated. How real is that prospect? I think it is real. But let's get back to Bend, Oregon. There is more to that boom than house equity transplanted. My father in law had built a logistics software and consulting business that sold to Fortune 100 firms operating worldwide. He had long appreciated Bend's lifestyle and decided to move the company's headquarters to Bend. He built a business condo and rented out space while using the rest for his business. He employed Phd's located across the US and a couple moved to Bend to work in his office. His user meetings and various other events took place in Bend. He hired admins, accountants, lawyers etc. His economic power to relocate his own business and in turn generate incomes in Bend was far from Californication. It was Washingtonation. Intellectual capital. Not house equity. Yes it was driven by a love of the mountain lifestyle and enough personal capital to pursue a dream, but that's about where the comparison ends. What the Bend article sees is Californians. What it misses are the many businesses that started or moved to Bend because of the lifestyle, and they are the real economic story.

I believe that we will see people like my ex-father in-law decide to start or move businesses that are not necessarily retail/hospitality oriented. Businesses that are geographically independent and located in Davis because of the lifestyle. Those kinds of businesses will give us the diversification to see our way through the ups and downs.

Slump Dashes Oregon Dreams of Californians

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us/18oregon.html?_r=1&sq=slump%20dashes%20oregon%20dreams&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all

Mountainbike Festival June 26-27-28

Davis is a mountain bike mecca. If you aren't already plugged in -- and even if you already know the routes -- here is a great way to ride the Valley. Below is an excerpt from the BWB site overviewing the weekend.

http://www.blackwaterbikes.com/CMBF.html for festival information
Sue Haywood's blog

Friday June 26

Ladies Day! - Sue Haywood will lead a women’s tour and do on trail skills building. We will leave from Blackwater Bikes at 10 am and ride on the Canaan Valley Institute’s beautiful property in Davis. These trails have a mix of open grassy meadows, singletrack in the woods and the famous “moon rocks”. This is geared towards the intermediate rider who wants to try more technical terrain in a fun, supportive atmosphere. Trailside Lunch is provided.

To sign up or for more info suzehaywood@yahoo.com



Saturday June 27

Group Trail Rides starting at 9 am out of Blackwater Bikes .

Organized Rides*
Hardcore- This ride is long and hard, but oh so fun. Ride a mix of the toughest trails on Canaan Mt. led by a local hardcore.
Intermetzo- Not as long or as tough, but really good trail riding.
Ultimate Fitness Ride- Camp 70 up to Beardon’s Knob, Canaan Loop Road, 244 up Blackwater Canyon. No singletrack, but lots of miles.
State Championship Loop -Be a champ, ride the moonrocks, but at a pleasure pace.
Nice and Easy- Camp 70 flat loop along the Blackwater River.
Olsen Tower- Climb up to the tower for an awesome view
Night Ride on State Championship Course- You are a vampire and only come out at night.
Ride Downhill at Timberline Four Season Resort on your own for gravity fed fun.

*(may change due to trail conditions)


Donation to Tucker Country Trails Club requested of $15 for rides.



Sat Nite

Enjoy the local food scene of Davis, Thomas, Canaan Valley and all of Tucker County.

Come have a brew at Mountain State Brewery Company

Listen to music at Brew Pub and Purple Fiddle.


Sunday June 28

9am- noon Trail Maintenance led by the Tucker Country Trails Club on a local riding trail. Come give back to the trails!

10-12 Family and Kids ride on Camp 70 and Dobbin House. Take the kids out and have a good time.

2pm-4pm Bike Hash : Try something different... Let the Canaan Valley Hash Hound Harriers remind you how fun drinkers are with a mountain biking problem.

Come sun or mud!

For lodging see www.visitcanaan.com and www.canaanvalley.org

Fee and Free Camping available in Mon National Forest, CVI, Blackwater Falls State Park, Canaan Valley State Park.

Save the date

Misunderestimated

None of our three transplant business leaders made the Town Council. The existing leadership had a much greater ability to guide votes to candidates within their comfort zone than most people expected. Voter turnout quadrupled over last election, presumably because this was a year when several of the council candidates were not the mayor's or existing town council members' picks....The base was energized.

There is definitely a bright line now drawn between traditional locals and transplant locals. Traditionals tend to have lower levels of post-high school education, tend to work in labor professions, and have longer histories in the immediate area. The pro-change set tend to have more education, have lived in urban centers previously and have lived in Davis for years perhaps, but not for generations. This election marked the brightening of that line between the two groups...a greater awareness of the steady changeover of the population from a dwindling, post-mining, labor-led market to a growing service/hospitality/retail-led market that generates service and labor jobs, and which because of its allure, becomes a desirable relocation destination for retirees and small geographically independent businesses.

This defeat will energize the more progressive citizenry of Davis to get busy in a civic sense...to attend Council meetings, to understand the town's issues first hand, to know the ordinances and legal issues for residents, to understand how roads and sidewalks get paved and plowed, to understand the facts bearing on better sewage for the city, to understand these issues from their authoritative sources and to then form considered opinions about how this town's governance should progress.

Yes that may be asking for alot more homework than the old guard may have done. But alas, change is not 10% better than no change; it is at least 3X, because that's the only way old ways can change. Take a look at the before and after picture for our White House. I'd say we're talking at least 5X better; and that's what it took to make real change occur.

Now let's get busy and make Davis the mountain life style treasure that it is destined to become.

Elections Tuesday

Tomorrow is Election Day in Davis and the townspeople will re-elect our good mayor...however there is a little drama in the race for Town Council. The Davis Town Council consists of 5 elected people who have been elected without much competition in the past couple of elections that I am aware of. This year three incumbents declined to run, prompting several new folks to raise their hands. What is unique about this year's lineup is not just the competition for spots, but the profile of candidates. Three of the candidates are "new entrepreneurs," ie residents who chose Davis in the past few years for the lifestyle it offers, and are building businesses. They are entrepreneurs who are actively engaged in the town's growth segments -- hospitality/dining and retail that serve permanent residents and visitors. They are also relatively young. The town is friendly to business and friendly in general, but it would be very promising to see several of our town's small business leaders elected to council.

One can imagine an array of political dividing lines between newcomers, old timers, entrepreneurs, miners, retirees etc. Frankly I have not really seen a huge amount of evidence that inequitable treatment or gamesmanship is a factor in Davis government. What I have seen is a sort of no-change approach to government which mostly considers the quiet life of an aging post-mining population. This has been fine for the years I have been involved with Davis and it will be fine for a few more as well. However, the voters of Davis are the residents of Davis, and the residents of Davis are increasingly people who choose Davis for what it is and will become. Folks who are here to build a practice or a company and raise a family have a huge stake in this town. They are the true economic and cultural leaders of Davis and they will lead with the energy they pour into their interests -- in education, culture, economic strength, volunteerism, and the village life they share.

Insofar as this election goes, I won't be surprised if these three 'new entrepreneurs' get elected. If they do, we will have a town council whose collective experience includes what it takes to start and run a business today in Davis. As a developer in Davis I would be ecstatic to see such a huge step for Davis government. I might also get to find out out what the town ordinances are.;)

Designing for Davis

Michael Mills (Mills Group Architects)and I will work together next week to draw up the concept for a couple of houses to be built on Thomas Ave in Davis. This session will drive the design for the first homes in Riverwalk style, but undoubtedly will evolve and diversify as the project progresses. My goal for aesthetics is to echo the profiles and rythm of Davis' Victorian homes circa 1900 while using a more casual and less ornate lineup of materials and architectural details. So the basic shape of the house would best be defined as Victorian, but the materials lean toward the farm and industrial, and the architectural details are minimized. For functionality, it will be important to understand the demographics of the buying public. The active retiree who bikes and enjoys fishing and bird watching? The young family with one head of household running a small business and the other working for a company? A DC family that loves Davis and Canaan? A couple who has chosen the lifestyle that Davis offers? A major opportunity is to build housing that doesn't require much maintenance and has very low utility bills. Accommodating today's recreation interests is also important. Flexibility in the number of people the house can sleep is important to retirees hosting their families or weekenders with guests. Formal dining and entry areas are not important. Graciously hosting a large cookout or dinner party is important. Large mud rooms with sturdy materials will handle the gear and clothing of mountain living and mountain sports. A separate space for an office, a guest, or for small children to play is important. A front porch acts as an extension to the mud room concept for bikes, skis or as a doorway to the community. Unfortunately, many Davis homes have had their front porches 'closed in' in an attempt to cheaply add interior space. I believe a front porch - big or small -- is a tradition that fits well with today's mountain life style.

Another idea: Side-by-sides. Davis lots are 30 and 40' wide with no setback zoning. People routinely build to within feet or inches of the lot line. Side yards can become useless, dark, snow gulleys - wasted space that leaves exterior wall space needlessly exposed to the elements. One of the photos above shows a 'side by side'....two houses with a section between them that eliminates a side yard, saves some exterior wall exposure, and allows a larger side yard on the other side of each house. Building houses in pairs as side-by-sides may be a good solution in Davis for eliminating some waste and gaining more useful side yards.

A second idea: modernized carriage houses. With 132ft deep lots, Davis homes often have a variety of structures found on the alley. Traditionally these were carriage houses for horses, wagons, livery and workmans' tools. Today many of those are gone...replaced by sheds. Keeping horses is not allowed in Davis any more, and cars are a bit cramped in 10' alleys. Winter makes the unplowed, unpaved, alleys even less likely to accommodate parking. In designing a useful carriage houses of the future, the structure should be set back from the alley to allow turning radius and outside parking. For now we will gravel the public alley up to the properties, but my understanding is that the Town is seeking funding to eventually pave the alleys. A 2-car garage can be topped with a small apartment or studio. A carriage house apartment then becomes a part of the property that can be rented or used by the owner. With this flexibility, the owner can use what parts of the property they need and rent out the rest.

Learning to sell Solar Renewable Energy Credits (ie saving money on the net cost of solar PV array)

I'm learning so bear with me. If you generate power in WV there are companies out there who are compelled by law to reduce their carbon footprint by producing a certain quantity of renewable energy credits per year. The solar variety are called Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SRECs). Dependng on the state there are fines per SREC not produced. These companies (eg Starbucks does it) must buy SREC's (or create them) at a lower price than the fine.

People or businesses with a solar PV array on the roof have no use for SREC's because they are nothing but credit (ie little gold stars by your name) for having reduced your footprint. It makes sense for large dirty non-compliant companies to pay you and me to reduce the total footprint as long as it is cheaper for them to meet there requirements (or pay the fines) by paying us to do it for them, this opportunity should persist.

There are brokers who approach solar PV system owners and try to sign them up for a 10 year contract without disclosing the accounting definitions used to calculate your net price. For example, they may offer to pay you 50% of their SREC 'sales price' but the one I spoke with wouldn't define sales price, leading me to conclude that their definition can be padded with fees or overhead as they please. It would be true, legally, to look at their agreement.

So I called the power company and they referred me to this hitherto unknown entity called PJM, who operates the Generation Attribute Tracking System. Very helpful folks there are holding my hand through a process that promises to set up Blackwater Overlook as a registered power plant capable of selling its Renewable Energy Credits to the "needy" (ie the dirty who must pay to be clean).

To do this the PV generator has to have a state certification number. What? WV does not even issue such certifications. However! PA and DC apparently allow registration of PV generators that are located in WV. Hmmm. OK I applied for certification. Once gotten I then register the generator in the PJM GATS system as a producer. From there I believe the gig is similarly primitive to craigslist, where I would post Megawatt-Hours (Mwh) (of which I should produce between 2 and 4 per year) for sale. These little bundles of joy go for a few hundred dollars each, depending on the market/legislative forces at work.

It is facinating so far, and I figure that IF it works, the SRECs revenue will just about pay for my time to figure out how to sell the SRECs. Kidding aside, the real opportunity is to add this to the equation for how much it really costs after taxes and SREC liquidation to own a PV array in Davis. The true net cost of the system is what we can compare to the savings in electrical bills. Although the systems and even the need for an SREC trading marketplace will change, it would appear that the Riverwalk Homeowners association could handle much of the administivia for getting the equipped Riverwalk residences in a position to sell off their SRECs.