“Beautiful Bioswales members on top of a swale at Sierra Madre City Hall” Date was Sept 26, 2018. Photo by Sylvia Holmes.

Swales and bioswales are ditches that capture water. A bioswale is a swale with bio or life added which causes water to move faster through the soil. Beautiful Bioswales https://www.facebook.com/Beautiful-Swales-999988803354733/ is a project of Transition Pasadena and Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition. Our goal is “more bioswales everywhere”.  Each swale that is seen can inspire the next swale. For example, in Sierra Madre, a City Council member saw a swale nearby and said, “Why not at City Hall?” and now there are swales at City Hall!
 
We are all glad that Beautiful Bioswales has connected so many like-minded people. We are forging bonds with other groups and starting projects left and right. You can get involved with Beautiful Bioswales in many different ways.
 
Water LA https://www.waterla.org/ will soon start parkway swale projects in Altadena. Some lucky homeowners in Altadena will have swales installed for free as part of the free workshops, which we can all attend. The project will improve our watershed without major public works. Instead the project empowers residents. Using public money contractors help home owners who will work together on one whole block. Learn more: We hope to have April Cerrato from Water LA at our next Beautiful Bioswales meeting.
 
Because there are federal regulations and fines regarding pollution, we are proposing solutions and providing volunteers to help Pasadena meet legal guidelines. Swales will help remove pollutants. Did you know that California has been in violation of federal mandates for 20 years?  Local cities are paying fines every year and they pass that cost on to us. And we have been dumping our pollution in the ocean. Enough!
 
We speak up for bioswales. At a public meeting recently, many Beautiful Bioswales members spoke with city representatives in support of adding bioswales along with the bike lanes planned for Cordova Street. Thanks team!
 
Pasadena Water and Power (PWP) wants a list of local bioswale locations. We have started this list, so please send in locations of bioswales you notice.  When we have a list we could do a bike tour and visit a bunch of them. PWP is developing signs for customers who have retrofitted their landscapes to showcase features--drought tolerance, irrigation efficiency, rainwater capture-- they have incorporated. Let’s help develop these signs.
 
WE VOTED. We are in unanimous support of building swales at schools. Leigh Adams remarked that a good swale should be child friendly. And we have a working group on getting grants to do these bigger swale projects. They will seek funding from groups like Trust for Public Land.
 
You can build bioswales! Make shallow depressions in your garden which will hold water. Rainwater will slowly infiltrate into the soil as the plants, mulch and soil naturally remove any pollutants.
 
If you are ready to try some water capture on your own, check out this amazing Water LA report https://www.waterla.org/resources/water-la-reports which shows sample projects in the San Fernando Valley illustrating swale-building techniques including curb cuts and tells how the projects affected their water bills.
 
If you want some help, we recommend a related three-session course by one of our members, Shawn Maestretti. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/three-part-california-native-garden-design-with-shawn-maestretti-beginning-saturday-june-1-registration-52624449144 and a related workshop series by another of our members, Jadene Mayla. https://www.arboretum.org/events/aesthetics-of-ecology/
  
And since you are interested in water capture, you should also know that the PWP is hosting a Laundry To Landscape Greywater Workshop Feb. 27.
 
Welcome to Beautiful Bioswales!
 
----Sylvia Holmes

                                    Monday, February 25, 11:00am-12:30pm Pacific

Writing effective grants is part craft, part discipline, and requires self-awareness at both an individual and organizational level. Grant writing can be a stressful endeavor – especially when we’re juggling deadlines and family commitments. To succeed in creating a beautiful grant proposal (and world), it’s critical that we also create an empowering context for ourselves to do the work.

In this webinar, we’ll explore the fundamentals of writing successful grant proposals while living a good life at the same time. Participants will learn:

Keys for Writing Winning Grant Applications
- Anatomy of a grant proposal: what you need to include
- Engaging language and formatting that gets funders' attention
- How to differentiate yourself from the other candidates

Before And After The Proposal: What You Need To Do
- Pre-proposal contact: do you need it, and if so, when?
- Strategies for developing your credibility as an applicant
- When and how to follow up with a proposal
- What to do if your proposal is denied

Getting The Grant: Key Strategies That Work
- How to identify the intent of the funding source and their priorities
- Keys to develop productive relationships with funders
- Common grant writing pitfalls and how to avoid them 

This free, interactive webinar is limited to 100 participants, so please register early! If all spaces are filled, you will still be able to watch a live broadcast of this event on the Transition US Facebook page. However, only those who have registered in advance will be able to participate in polls and ask questions of the speaker.
Click Here to Register.

The defining movement of our era may be the Green New Deal (“GND”). Whether we embrace it or not will be our legacy. The GND's ambitions are expansive, encompassing not only climate but a broad spectrum of issues related to social and economic justice.  GND’s scope covering energy, environment and economy, feels like it could have been drafted by the Transition movement. When it is ultimately detailed, it will certainly consist of a host of legislative initiatives and policies.  One such policy may be the bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019, HR 763, which has been reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/all-info?r=27
 
Can HR 763 co-exist with the Green New Deal?  Citizens’ Climate Lobby (“CCL”) emphatically believes that it can.  The just-released GND resolution calls for development of a legislative agenda by 2020 and become carbon neutral within 10 years. CCL supports linking HR 763 to the GND.  The ready-to-implement legislation could be a powerful first step in any long-term, multifaceted program to address climate change.  The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act will drive down America’s carbon pollution and bring climate change under control, while unleashing American technology innovation and ingenuity.
 
At last week’s CCL’s monthly meeting, the basic tenets of HR 763 as well as its enormous carbon reduction and economic potential were outlined. Part two of the tutorial  next month, will show how the bill's border adjustment tax will ensure American manufacturers aren't penalized in the global marketplace by the carbon fee as well as how it leverages the economic might of the world's largest economy (that's us!) to encourage climate action around the world. 
 
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not birth the concept of  the GND, but has certainly helped to shape it and has become a beacon holding the light to the vision of a sustainable world. And at age 29, she has become the face of her generation’s bold plea for a livable world for future generations. I feel hopeful for the new female thought, heart, and vision emerging in Congress. 

CCL’s mission is to build political will to stabilize climate and to empower citizens to exercise their personal and political power. These are the five core activities that all CCL chapters leverage to bring citizens into the political process and to ensure their contribution is constructive and makes more good possible. These activities are called the “levers of political will.”
 
1. Lobbying: Training citizens how to lobby in support of the Carbon Fee and Dividend
2. Media relations: Training citizens how to engage with and influence the media.
3. Addresses Grassroots outreach: Recruiting and educating the public on climate solutions, citizen advocacy and how to participate with government.
4. Grasstops outreach: Educating, building partnerships with and gaining the support of community leaders.
5. Chapter development:  Growing the local CCL group/chapter to push on the other four levers for building political will.
 
The Pasadena Foothills chapter of CCL gathers every second Saturday, next on Sat March 9, 9:30-12, at Neighborhood Church, second floor.
 
-------Therese Brummel

Last time I said our institutions seem like they have power over us. That we are powerless.
I also said it's easy for us to feel powerless when facing large institutions.
 
What I didn't say is that if you let yourself be "sucked" into the conversation of the institutions you are giving up your power. Your power lies in your ability to think and act independent of the large institutions. Of course, I'm not saying it's easy to be or think independently. 
 
Large institutions have the appearance of control but actually no one is in control. There are certainly individuals with titles. There are also individuals and groups that conspire/attempt to gain control despite the attempts of a few. Society is essentially a driver-less car.
 
Since we are living in the industrialized world, we can't stop paying attention to the large institutions because there are laws, norms and expectations that you will pay your taxes and much more. The trick in this day and age is to dance between the old story of following the institutions and the new.... that of individual action as a part of a community of life. It's a balance between maintaining some form of independence and of having to deal and be dealt with by institutions.
 
In addition to maintaining your sanity, independence is also an issue of physical survival. As institutions become increasingly dysfunctional, it will be increasingly important to distinguish between institutional requirements and institutional options. As institutions eventually fall down of their own weight, individuals need to be able to recognize when to get out of the way. Start practicing now by exercising your options.
 
It's easier to take independent action if you are not caught up in the old stories. Here's a story that illustrates what I'm talking about. There was a monkey and there was a cage. The monkey was outside the cage but there was a banana inside the cage. The monkey wanted the banana. The bars of the cage were set just far enough apart that the monkey was able to slip its hand between the bars and grasp the banana, but when the monkey's hand grasped the banana it was like making a fist and the monkey's hand had become bigger in order to grasp the banana. When the monkey tried to pull its hand and the banana out, the bars were close enough to trap the clutching hand of the monkey. As long as the monkey grasped the banana, it was trapped and it was free to go at any time.

We are that monkey and our industrialized society with all of its conveniences, modern lifestyle and all the trimmings, is the banana. We are having a bit of trouble letting go and so we are stuck. That is the predicament we are in. Community action and being with others in service are the best ways I've found to let go of the banana. Stay tuned for more.
 
-----David Cutter