Let’s string two recent news reports together regarding the bureaucrats at the Bay Area Air District. First, somehow the SF Comicle editors let slip a piece about how “few” (meaning one!) of the BAAD members behind the gas water heater ban have actually made the switch themselves. The ban is scheduled to kick in this January unless they vote next month to delay it one year. When asked by the Comicle if the 24 members had made the switch, less than half bothered to respond and the only one with an electric water heater opposes the outright ban! 13 ignored the inquiry, three declined to answer, and four are still on the evil gas feed. All of them plus three more who are renters (who have no clue what is involved in making a switch) have no idea what it will really cost a homeowner. Their cost estimates are way off both for the units and for all the work needed to swap over. Furthermore, I recently had an HVAC tech call for something else and learned that the electric “heaters” draw in heat from their surroundings; so my indoor water heater on a service porch will actually chill down that part of my house. Fine on the rare hot B’game day. Not so good all the rest of the time.

The Daily Post provides another view of these bureaucrats’ priorities. It found that BAADies like the Palo Alto mayor, a Sonoma County supe and her chief of staff as well as four BAAD employees are set to blow $92,000 on a junket to Turkey for a “climate conference” in November. Will they be absent for the delay vote? Apparently “it’s important for local agencies to attend the conference because the federal government isn’t addressing climate change.” Oh, and they are spending less travel budget than the last two years. We get the government we vote for, and we get it good and hard.