Traverse Notes from the Initial Point

Transcription

1 California Land Surveyors Association East Bay Chapter March 2010 Traverse Notes from the Initial Point 2010 OFFICERS President Michael Cusick (650) ext. 103 Vice-President Vacant Secretary John May (925) What a Conference.. The 2010 CLSA-NALS has come and gone. We had several attendees this year and our correspondents have gotten several good responses from questions the Chapter deserves to know. Treasurer Frank Borges (925) ext. 205 frank.borges@towill.com Immediate Past President Susan Jackson (925) ext. 123 susan.jackson@tetratech.com CHAPTER REPS Steve Martin Hal Davis Janine Hampton Christine Parks (Alternate) John New (Alternate) Gwen Gee (Alternate) What was your overall thoughts on this years conference? - well, it was ok as a conference goes. I was looking forward to seeing a lot of my peers, but alas the attendance was not so good. What was your favorite seminar? I enjoyed the LS review session, it was very pertinent. How well did you do at the bowling function? Bowling was ok, we all enjoyed very much. It is a great sport for recreation, combining drinking and rock throwing. What was the funniest thing that occurred at the conference? Aaron as Arnold S. I ll be Back! COMMITTEE CHAIRS Education/Scholarship Jim Swanson TrigStar Aundrea Tirapelle Bylaws Mike Foley CSRC Steve Martin Legislative Hal Davis Membership Dave Murtha Seminar Brain Spore JPPC John Poore Upcoming speaker for April, Ed Medley Ed will present on 3 short stories involving aspects of Geopractice with possible surveying significance: 1.The Pacifica Cliff failures (and lost houses) during the 1997/1998 El Nino event that may be of interest to folks caring about the frustrations of losing property, besides, some of the conditions leading to those failures are possibly at work now during current cliff slides. 2. A land development in Santa Maria which went complexly wrong because of simple surveying errors, among other things. The case was considered one of the leading defense verdicts in A project involving the retrieval of priceless Hawaiian cultural artifacts from lava tube burial caves in which simpler geological observations proved vital; and reported the geometry was very misleading...

2 Page 2 CLSA East Bay Newsletter UPCOMING EVENTS CLSA/NALS CONFERENCE Feb. 27 to March 3 Reno, NV CHAPTER MEETING April 14, 2010 Location: The Englander Speaker: Ed Medley Topic: see page 1 CHAPTER MEETING May 12, 2010 Details TBD JOINT MEETING W/ SANTA CLARA CHAPTER July 14, 2010 Beck s in Newark Speaker: Bill Hofferber CLSA President LS REVIEW COURSE Every Tues. night until the 6:00pm Contact: jmay@aliquot.com Upland resident won 1920 election by a surveyor's line Joe Blackstock, Staff Writer Created: 03/08/ :15:20 PM PST Sometimes you just wonder if the hassle of running for public office is really worth all the grief. In Upland today, a councilman is bearing the scars of aspiring to be mayor. Councilman Ray Musser lost his mayoral bid in 2008 to incumbent Mayor John Pomierski and subsequently has been snubbed from being assigned to any council committee by Pomierski. But then again, even 90 years ago running for the Upland City Council hardly appeared painless. Rancher William Springer in 1920 won a four-year term to the council, but only because of his wife's persistence and the skill of a surveyor. Springer, who owned a citrus ranch on the west end of town, told friends he was interested in running for the City Council in April's election. But at that moment the election was the last thing on everybody's mind; there was a bigger burning issue in town -- whether to continue to allow public dances. A delegation of civic and church leaders in March petitioned the council to put an end to dances put on C.M. Sykes in Ruedy Hall in downtown. It wasn't actually the dances that bothered the good citizens of Upland. Instead it was because parents "had complained that their daughters, following the dances, went for automobile rides with young men, and did not arrive home until a very early hour in the morning," according to the Upland News of March 9, And in the middle of this heated morality debate, Springer was said to be the only Whoa, said Springer. "I certainly would not be a candidate for council on a shimmy-shirt-dance platform, as a lot of papers in Los Angeles and elsewhere have stated," he told the News on March 23. ("Shimmy shirt" refers to the attire of some young Roaring 20s women -- some were called "flappers" -- who wore dresses lined with rows of fringe.) Springer said resolutely that he had no real opinion on the issue other than the council was doing the right thing. He was already showing a politician's keen skill at dancing around touchy situations. The council, a week or two before the election, put the issue to rest, not by barring the public dances but by restricting hours and putting a minimum age limit to enter them. That issue having been settled, the election went on without much excitement. When the ballots were counted on April 12, Springer finished 25 votes ahead of incumbent Councilman W.B. Cavers. That's when things got a bit bizarre. In the April 20 edition of the Upland News, an article concluded Springer didn't actually live in the city. His house on West 11th Street was on property just south, and outside, of the town limits, according to the article. At their first meeting after the election, councilmen certified the election without Springer's votes. Cavers was sworn in for another term. But not so fast, said Springer's wife, Florence. Upset over the whole mess, she asked City Engineer F.C. Frohde to go out to their property to determine where the Springer homestead was in relation to the city limits. Frohde, fortunately for the Springers, had just accepted a similar position in Pomona and apparently had no hesitation about doing so, even to the possible detriment of one of his bosses. It turned out the assumption where the city limits was wrong, said Frohde -- it didn't run near the Springer house, it sliced it in half. It "runs through the house in which William Springer has resided," Frohde wrote in a affidavit. And "all of the bedrooms and half of the dining room is in the city." It fortunately, Mrs. Springer didn't make her husband sleep on the couch because their living room was part of the house outside the city limits. The City Council wasn't so sure. On April 26 it had Councilman Alden Bradford Whitney, an engineer, give his own assessment of the Springer property. He "chained the lines" of the city limits and agreed that Springer's bedroom was indeed within the city. On April 29, the council reversed its certification of the election, removed Cavers from his seat and declared Springer a councilman. He was sworn in May 11, almost a month to the day after being elected to the position. Springer would serve for four years, but in 1924 was adamant about not running for re-election.

3 CLSA East Bay Newsletter Page 3 In case you missed it We sent a correspondent to the Bay Bridge for an update. Everything worked out as planned. We went up to Drake's Bay on Sunday to setup the tripods at the top of the cranes and also to make total station measurements to compare the highest point of the folded apex to the level of the deck. Then yesterday we rode out with the pilots and boarded the vessel, climbed back up to the top, then attached the GPS equipment to the tripods, turned it all on and radioed the real-time clearance info to the pilot. Before the trip we had predicted there would be 9 feet of clearance at the Bay Bridge, and my GPS receivers confirmed that prediction. Caltrans had a couple of their bridge climbers on the bridge standing by, so they took some really cool photos, two of which I have attached.. One GPS antenna is right next to him. To the right of that is my orange jacket tied off, and to the right of that is me in a tan sweatshirt and a white hard hat. The second antenna and the two controllers are next to me, but you can't really see them. This shot lets you see that it was closer than is clear from the first photo.. The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook. -William James There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader. -Alexandre Ledru- Rollin Surveyor s Trivia 1) 1 st California Surveyor General: a) Andrew Jackson b) William T. Cody c) Samuel D. King d) Don Nelson e) Sherman Day 2) What does MDBM stand for: a) mothers don t borrow milk b) MT DIABLO BASE AND MERIDIAN c) Mt Reagan Base & Meridian 3) How many diurnal tides in one 24 hr period? a) 19 b) 6 c) 3 d) 2 e) 1 Answers are on Page 4

4 Page 4 CLSA East Bay Newsletter Quiz Answers 1)c 2)b 3)e Do you have a new service you want to share with your fellow surveyors? Want to see your company name in your chapter newsletter? Rates are very affordable, starting at $10 per month. Are you hiring? Job announcements are FREE!!!! Contact John May at jmay@aliquot.com

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6 CALIFORNIA LAND SURVEYORS ASSOCIATION EAST BAY CHAPTER 2010 MEMBERSHIP DUES: $ MEMBER INFORMATION: 1. NAME FIRST LAST 2. FIRM/AGENCY/COLLEGE 3. MAILING ADDRESS STREET CITY ZIP 4. BUSINESS PHONE ( ) 5. RESIDENCE PHONE ( ) 6. FAX PHONE ( ) 7. MEMBERSHIP GRADE: [ ] REGULAR (California P.L.S.) P.L.S. # [ ] C.E. (Pre-1982 Calif. R.C.E.) R.C.E. # [ ] ASSOCIATE (L.S.I.T.) L.S.I.T. # [ ] AFFILIATE [ ] STUDENT Are you a C.L.S.A. State Member? [ ] YES [ ] NO NOTE: EAST BAY CHAPTER BY-LAWS REQUIRE STATE MEMBERSHIP WITHIN ONE YEAR OF JOINING CHAPTER IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN CHAPTER VOTER PRIVILEGES. BRING COMPLETED APPLICATION WITH CHECK PAYABLE TO C.L.S.A. EAST BAY CHAPTER IN THE AMOUNT OF $35 TO NEXT CHAPTER MEETING OR MAIL TO: PAYMENT INFO JOHN T. MAY CHECK: # ALIQUOT ASSOCIATES, INC SOUTH MAIN STREET, SUITE 310 AMOUNT: $ WALNUT CREEK, CA DATE: FOR MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE USE