Po Po and Porta Potties

Hi Friends,

How are you doing? Hope you’re doing well. Just thought I should share an interesting story about another encounter we have with government. It won’t disappoint.

You’ve already heard about the superbloom, I hope. From me or media, its a big deal for the area. Primarily in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, rare desert flowers blooming everywhere because of the perfect weather conditions we’ve been having. Only suppose to happen every couple of years. So visitors flock to the park by way of Montezuma Valley Road. The main road our market is on. This is a big win fall for the business located in Borrego Springs, a small town surrounded by the park.

A few weeks ago we were visited by a lady that work for the park or the Anza Borrego Park Foundation. She was asking if they can place extra porta potties by the store to supplement what we have because they are expecting lots of traffic. The remaining porta potties will be in Borrego Springs. This will be paid for through a grant from the county. Of course we agreed because we don’t have a means to do it ourselves, pretty relieved as well. Then we here later that they didn’t get as much as they requested and are therefor not providing an extra porta potty at our location.

This was a surprise, because just one would suffice. So we figured the whole area is out of luck from lack of funding. Lol, I guess thinking that everyone will be suffering with you makes it all better. Well this turns not to be true. Borrego Springs is overflowing with porta-potties. So much so that they way they placed them, a few can’t even be accessed. Yep, Mike did his recon. Now we are a little hurt. Is it because the more affluent Borrego Springs gets all it wants and them some. So we decided to reach out to our newly elected County Supervisor, Jim Desmond. Can’t help it, automatically had respect for him, being prior military, mayor. We felt that he’d figure something out or at least provide a logical reason for Ranchita being screwed over.

So we wrote a nice email about the need for a extra porta potty in Ranchita. We simply can’t afford having our current porta potty and bathroom becoming overloaded and giving visitors bad impression on the town. As a new small business and trying the get the town on the map. We felt good about it and sent it. Then a few days later Mike gets a phone call.

From the county sheriff!! The man sounded confused and irritated. Explained that he has nothing to do with porta-potties, like no shit. Mike is utterly confused as well, but explains the the situation to the sheriff. The guy says its the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce that controls how the grant is spent. And then added a threat for good measure. He says they can make us get more porta potties……….whaaaat! Talk about shock going into another shock. Not sure what was more surprising, the cop tossing a threat into the conversation or the threat itself. WTF! Note: Never send a cop to do something a politician should do.

So Mike and I had to make a decision. Should we just let it go? Maybe them making the sheriff call us was on purpose, you know scare us into shutting up. Or was it because its a new administration they didn’t know what to do? So we opted for the second because the first seemed way too crazy and we don’t handle threats well. So we wrote another email, very nicely thanking them for the call from the Sheriff (lol) and explaining they aren’t the porta-potty czar.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried! So now we wait for a response, hopefully we don’t get raided. We have high hopes for you Mr. Desmond. Veteran to veteran, don’t let us down. All our fingers are crossed.