We didn't get to visit every location today (more tomorrow) but those we did proved richly rewarding https://www.oracleartiststudiotour.org/

See:  https://ipsglobal.com
   So that answers the "who" question but why did Faraday think they needed a show of muscle before their recent infomercial event in Oracle? 

  By design there was no central presentation or even welcome to focus the attentions of the curious.  Call it commercial by information dispersal.  The goal of course of this approach is to deep six any possible coordinated reaction that might disrupt the early stages of a controversial mining project in the Galiuros.  So locals were left to their own devices to wander around, peering at slick displays and asking a question or two of various character wearing Faraday logoed shirts.
  I had several conversations with Faraday shirt wearers that followed a template always ending with "too early to say".   
  The upshot of the non-event seemed to be "time will tell".  Maybe Faraday is just doing advance work (drill, assay, raise capital, promote); or maybe Faraday will be involved in the actual mining. One tout said open pit 'yes', another not so sure.  Nothing about water use, nothing about risks to the environment, or economic trade offs (which are huge now that the Tri-Community has rotated away from blasting, hauling and smelting ore in favor of tourism and open space recreation).  And nothing about a union (too soon to tell...).
  So I suppose it's fair to say Faraday may call the event a success - a community gathering with a box checked somewhere, somehow ... without riling up too many more of us locals. I'm sure corporate is pleased that the security force had nothing to do beyond showing up in force. 
  Truth be told, however, some locals are already riled up having put together a well crafted website: coppercreekmine.com.
----------
  I've gotten a lot of pointed reactions from locals who attended the event described above. Two in particular stand out.  Here's Craig Anderson's:
  "Very nicely done Frank. The "Oracle Chronicles" accurately captured the non-event ... sales event. There were a few of us that were "put off"... "dismayed" by the "International Security Services" ominous black SUV and personnel in bulletproof vests we passed to enter the San Manuel, Mammoth and Oracle Community Centers. 
  As Faraday said in their NI 43-101 Technical Report Mineral Resource Estimate Copper Creek Project, Arizona
Report Date: August 18, 2022., section 5.5  Infrastructure Availability and Sources  "The area is in a mining-friendly and politically stable jurisdiction with extensive infrastructure, including power, rail, water, roads, and access to skilled personnel."
-------------------
  Another comment comes from an individual with lifelong employment experience in the mining industry.  His curiosity piqued by the Faraday claims, he  four wheeled to the Copper Creek location. He found the remote location access-challenged and the proposed mine scheme itself likely more "speculative scam" than productive venture. 

If you've never witnessed several hundred grade schoolers encounter a world class opera singer for the first time in their young lives, look for the next opportunity!  It was quite a scene yesterday afternoon organized by Dr. Stephen Cook and the Oracle Piano Society and the Mammoth-San Manuel School District.  The event included the introduction of Lorena Candelaria who starting now brings her considerable musical knowledge and talent to MSSD.  (There's a lot more to be said about how all this came about and what the future looks like but let's save it for future posts.)

Maybe it gets better than this in the sweet by an by but it's hard to imagine.

Joined by local stars sitting in to help make it happen even better.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two hours later on this same Sunday afternoon. We transition from the Way of Bean Coffee Club to the Oracle Center for the Arts. 
How about this?

A remarkable Sunday afternoon musical journey from down home/Cajun genius to operatic magnificance in our little town.   Musical alchemy.
----------------
Stories from recent Oracle history as lived by Kaz and myself: frankpierson.substack.com

Jodi and César at the Metaphysical Faire

Laurie, Liz, and Pat at the Oracle Learning Garden Plant Sale

Kristina at Way of Bean (Tom Turino, Shannon Arnold and Ralph White make music tomorror 1-3)

For Oracle's life and times as Kaz and I have lived them go here:  frankpierson.substack.com

  Kind of mindblowing what's going on around here these days.  Exercise your imagination with a cornucopia of events!

  Into metaphysics or just metaphysics curious?  There's a Metaphysics Faire tomorrow, Oct 21, 10-4 at the Oracle Community Center.  Mentally cramped?  The same day there's a book sale at the Oracle Library to help you break out of your summer torpor.  Never appreciated opera but want to?  There's an amazing concert at OrCA 3 pm, Oct 22 with a pianist and opera star.  And if you can imagine feeding yourself with a successful fall/winter garden, the plant sale at the Oracle Community Learning Garden is for you (Fri, Sat and Sunday).  And BTW if you can picture the brush pile in your yard gone, the Oracle Brush Dump is now open!

   The short answer is vibrant local institutions coupled with leaders willing to invest time, energy, and money in those institutions.
  This comes to mind because several recent events testify to the vitality of our town and what makes it tick.  Here’s an example.  The day before yesterday the Oracle Piano Society brought a pianist/composer/superstar from Cuba, Aldo Lopéz-Gavilán, to Oracle and the Tri-Community.  What defined the experience for Kaz and myself wasn’t just his phenomenal sold out performance but his willingness to take on the challenging teaching work of young pianists with a joyful expert eye.  

  If you’ve never witnessed a “master class” conducted by a true master it’s hard to grasp the quality of attention and personal development unfolding before your eyes.  I suspect that every one who has something to teach - whether parents with their children, teachers with their classes, artists and trades people with with their apprentices, coaches with their teams, and even institutional leaders of non-profits and churches with their members,  could  learn a lot from the best of the best in the kind of “master class” conducted by a master like Aldo Lopéz-Gavilán.

  But it didn’t stop there.  Aldo, Dr. Stephen Cook, and one of Stephen's young local proteges, Isaac Tineo, ventured into an assembly in the Mammoth/San Manuel School District auditorium populated by the toughest crowd of all - young students.  Their efforts were rewarded by rapt attention and promising future prospects of the youngsters.  Who knows?  Maybe there’s another Isaac Tineo in the gathering ready to be inspired to step in to a new world of musical performance. 

  First among equals in the mighty trash disposal cartel, Waste Management continues to shrink Oracle’s trash disposal and recycling options. A recent announcement by the corporate behemoth to cut Oracle Transfer Station hours, enforce the bagging of all trash including green waste coming on top of charging an exorbitant fee for recycling is part of a patterned slap down of local interests by WM.  A savvy local resident worries that what’s really happening  is a slow walked Oracle transfer station extinction event executed by W M managers. 
  Oracle residents don’t have a lot of spare cash laying around  for trips to Catalina to recycle much less front the dollars for green waste and trash disposal there (and one of these days it may again close to Pinal County residents anyway).    SCIP is already savaging local budgets with extortionate rate increases.  The bottom line here is that local elected officials are asleep at the switch when Oracle’s interests are at stake.   For local families and businesses, their snooze means an economic train wreck for our community. It’s our job as residents and citizens to wake them up.

  Keep in mind that Pinal County has leverage in the waste disposal matter by virtue of contracts, partial land ownership, leases, zoning, etc of the waste transfer station site in Oracle… and elsewhere around the county.   
  By way of contrast, Pinal County officials are burning time, energy and money trying to bring Way of Bean to heal.  Most of the residents I talk to around town recognize the contradiction in policy, oversight and action - different strokes for different folks here means favoring the big powers and shafting the rest of us. 

  No one wants to resort to one obvious solution to our waste disposal problem - dumping in the desert - but that seems to be where things are going absent Board of Supervisor’s intervention.
  Since we locals agree on most things these days about what’s good for our town, perhaps it’s time Oracle residents establish a more unified public voice on these and other pressing matters.

  SCIP's price jump is devastating.  One of Oracle's most important businesses reports a stunning one month 50% hike.

  How bad is it?  Consider this post on Facebook from David Ranchy:  "I emailed them and got a refund on the difference because they implemented it a month early but my bill at the cafe went from $2000 to $3000 in one month. Yuck"
----------------
  When you stop to think about it the situation is even worse than it first appears because at the same time SCIP customers are getting rate squeezed the federal government is flooding "infrastructure" dollars into "renewables" nationwide.  Let's not forget that SCIP makes no provision for interface with local solar/wind generation! 
-------------
  Check out the important Robert Bolton/Sheila Miles letter to Secretary Deb Haaland:

US Department of Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC  20240

Dear Secretary Haaland:
  Enclosed is a copy of an email we sent Senator Kelly who had responded to our request for help. 
  We live in Rural Arizona and get power from the US Department of Interior. Our Electric rates have increased over 50% in less than a year and are almost 40% more than average Arizona rates.  
  When we contacted San Carlos Irrigation District office (the electric utility), they said, "we have nothing to do with the rates."
  Please see the forwarded letter below for the impact it has on ourselves and our rural communities.   
  Our home and many others in the area are perfect for Solar Electric.  How about helping us by subsidizing PV cells for our homes and businesses instead of penalizing us?
  Thanks for your attention; we look forward to hearing from you.
  Robert Bolton  &  Sheila Miles
  PO Box 211
  Oracle, AZ  85623 
  (505)699-4173 & (505)603-3781

Another fire in Oracle has aroused local concerns...

What's going on here? 

  Some long time Oracle residents will remember efforts by local leaders to establish OREC (Oracle Electric Coop).  The attempt by those stalwarts supported by the then thriving Oracle Town Hall researched and sought to implement a breakaway corporation focused on fixing the shortcomings of the San Carlos Irrigation Project’s electrical grid.
  Ultimately it proved a bridge too far but in the process the community learned a lot about local control of infrastructure, obstacles to same thrown up by politicians and bureaucrats, and why our electrical grid staggers along with its head barely above water.
  The problems that existed those many decades ago persist as a letter produced by Sheila Miles and Robert Bolton quoted in full shows.   In fact they have metastasized since the OREC days.  
--------
Below is the Miles/Bolton letter:
  Our community needs help.  We are electric rate payers to the San Carlos Irrigation District, US Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
  Our utility rate in less than a year has gone from an effective rate of $.1303/ per kilowatt hour to $.1976 or an increase of 51.7%.  This represents a $200 a month increase for our all-electric, 0 carbon emission home in Oracle, AZ.  My wife and I are retired and in our 70’s.  This is a huge increase for us.
  To put our electric rate in perspective, following is a table of average residential electric rates in cents/kilowatt-hour for years 2022 and 2023 in the Mountain Region:
Source EIA.gov
                              2023    2022
Mountain            14.22    13.09  
Arizona                14.28   13.20                  
Colorado              14.67    14.40  
Idaho                   11.78   11.38  
Montana             13.19    11.61  
Nevada                17.39   13.17  
New Mexico        13.89    14.13  
Utah                     11.45   11.19  
Wyoming             12.62    11.75  
San Carlos Irrigation District
                             19.76     13.03
  We went from a rate slightly under the Arizona average to 38% higher or 5.48 cents per Kilowatt-hour higher than the current Arizona average
  To add insult to injury the August bill contains an increase of 3.1 cents per kW-hour effective September 1 that has retroactively been applied to August billing.
  There are no programs offered by San Carlos Irrigation District to buy back solar energy, subsidize solar energy or to help mitigate energy consumption as many Private Utilities do and are required to do.
 
Thanks for your help,
Sheila Miles & Robert Bolton
 PO Box 211, Oracle, AZ  85623
505.603.3781/505.699.4173  

  When you stop to think about it, Oracle residents’ passionate defense of Way of Bean Coffee Club at the Pinal County Board of Supervisors on August 16 makes a lot of sense.  On the one hand, Oracle has a long history of tensions with county oversight of local matters; on the other, Way of Bean Coffee Club fills a gap in the menu of spaces available to residents and visitors alike that is widely appreciated.
  Several of these spaces are interesting and successful hybrids:  Part business, part community gathering places.  I’m thinking of Sue and Jerry’s Farmers Market; the Patio Cafe; Triangle L; Rancho Robles among others,  Together with the Oracle Community Center, the Oracle Historical Society, the Oracle Community Learning Garden, the Oracle Center for the Arts, Rancho Linda Vista along of course with our faith communities, prospects open up for gatherings diverse in focus, appeal and size.  Way of Bean fits so neatly in because it’s right sized for conversation, small concerts, readings, meetings, openings and the like.  In other words it fulfills a need largely unmet by other venues.  
  That’s how free enterprise is supposed to work, right?
  The key to all this seems to be entrepreneurial talent, energy and inspiration.  Most of us know that to survive and thrive as an enterprise of whatever sort in a small town is really hard.  It’s way more than being in the right place at the right time,  It’s carving out relationships over the long term with mind bogglingly hard work.  No exceptions here.
  Which brings me to the role of local government.  Given that the disposition of local government is mostly rule making and punitive in nature, small business is up against it.  Every election cycle there’s a lot of talk about the importance of small business; you know - about jobs, community services and the like.  But when push comes to shove it’s the big players that get most of the positive outcomes.  Right?  The reason is obvious.    
  Is there a small business in Pinal County that can afford to hire arguably the most powerful lawyer/lobbyist/flak catcher in our county, Jordan Rose and her Scottsdale based firm?  If so, I’m not aware.  Is there a small business in Pinal County with the resources to flood the coffers of politicos up and down the ladders of power?  If so, I"m unaware.  I rest my case.
  Which is why it’s so important for ordinary citizens to weigh in as we did on August 16.
  (Come to think of it, surprise, surprise, that’s the whole point of my book - Sometimes David Wins; Organizing to Overcome Fated Outcomes.)

  I’ve never witnessed a more eloquent defense of community values (as in neighbors caring for neighbors) than at the Pinal County Board of Supervisors on August 16. (See for yourself: https://pinalcountyaz.new.swagit.com/videos/269374, starting about 1:3.)
  When County officials threatened to bring the “Cease and Desist”  hammer down on the Way of Bean Coffee Club and us, members of the club, my blood started to boil.  To be honest, it felt like a gut punch. And  it’s happened before to our town as Justin Palmer, lifelong Oracle resident testified.  Justin tried to educate the supervisors and county staff about our recent history in which the Board of Supervisors fought two of Oracle’s most successful businesses - the Zip Line and the Patio Cafe.  He went on to state “I can’t believe this is even on the agenda - this is not an issue;  so I would hope you would let it go and let it be because we seem to be able to run our town ourselves just fine without a whole lot of help from the county.”  Sadly they didn’t seize on his history lesson or his generously offered face saving escape hatch.
  Strangers to Oracle in the crowd were genuinely moved by what they heard.  Their comments included praise along the lines of “this is what our country needs”, “people who disagree with each other are talking over coffee at Way of Bean”, “look at the left, right and center come together for the community”, and finally, “I want to join the Way of Bean Coffee Club.” Amen, brothers and sisters, amen.
  Courageous and gratifying to all was the refusal of Way of Bean owner Kristina Olivarez to cow tow to the insulting posturing of county officials who admitted they don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to private membership clubs.  In the face of their ignorance of constitutional law and the enterprise concept Kristina has chosen to advance, she stayed cool.  Wow!  God bless her for that.   That’s way more restraint than I or likely many of the rest of the 60 or so citizens present could have exercised.  Kristina didn’t explode even after the officious deputy county attorney strutted out his gobbledegook and the five supervisors split for an executive session.  
  After all this came the final word of the day from the  supervisors:  Come back in three months, they said, and BTW the “Cease and Desist" order will hang like the sword of Damocles over Way of Bean Coffee Club and us, its members.
  For myself I take it personally as I suspect do a lot of others around here.   I think the supervisors are in for a rude awakening as the stupidity of their rigidity becomes ever more clear.

  Dang!  We missed a photo op in the hood when a small Javelina got caught in a neighbors gate trying to escape her back yard.  The gate pictured here features iron bars 3 1/2 inches apart. A confab ensued as several walkers including Kaz and myself joined the discussion.  A family with two youngsters in a stroller happened by ... to good effect it turned out because the dad helped another handy guy who also lived nearby succeed in prying the steel bars apart just enough to release the freaked out, now exhausted wild pig. 
  The javelina’s predicament resulted from jamming its head through two of the gate's bars but finding itself unable go forward.  Nor would its hind end slip through despite a desperate scramble that exhausted the poor creature.  The alternative of last resort was to shoot the critter.  Anyway, all’s well that ends well with neighbors helping neighbors help a javelina in distress.

  Owning an older home presented myriad challenges. Plumbing was the first. Being city-suburb dwellers, such matters had always been invisible to us. Two toilets didn’t flush properly, and all the faucets leaked. We called Oracle’s one plumber, Delbert “Dub” Ragels, owner of Dub’s Plumbing. He showed up a couple days later. After greetings and a few niceties, he fixed the worst offending faucet and suggested that we’d better learn to change the washers ourselves or we’d soon run out of money.
  “This is Oracle,” he said with a grin, “but don’t get me wrong, I like the business.” 
  Read the rest of the Episode 4 here:  frankpierson.substack.com

  During our first few days in the new house, a balding white haired man (about my age now) drove an ancient four-wheel drive Ford pickup from the road straight to our front door on what wasn’t intended as a driveway.  So who the hell is this rude old guy and what does he want?
  Stiff of back (like mine is now), ever so carefully placing each foot, he lowered himself down from his truck - breathing heavily with an oxygen tank in tow. “Bill Collier,” he announced holding out his calloused right hand, “the neighbor right behind you.” Before we could respond he followed with, “Just thought I’d drop by to meet you folks and bring you up to speed on the neighborhood and its history”. 
  (Visit frankpierson.substack.com for the entire Episode 3.)

Looks about the same as when we moved to Oracle in 1979. 
------------
  New York City was drowning in debt.  Felix Rohatyn and the Municipal Assistance Corporation had just taken over the government moving it even farther from ordinary citizens.  Crime was spiking.  A series of bizarre murders, several nearby us in Queens, scared everybody half to death.  A couple was shot returning from an evening out at a disco. A Barnard student was shot dead in the face.  Mayor Beame and local law enforcement were helpless.  He showed up one day near our apartment when Kaz confronted him: “Do something you asshole, “ she shouted to his face.
  I had a meltdown of sorts one afternoon in Astoria Park.  Sitting with my dog Roofer I put my arms around his neck and started telling him my troubles (okay, I was crying).   As man’s best friend Roofer was a good listener with an ear for lament.  I told him my work seemed to be going nowhere and I wanted out of the city. 
  Meanwhile, David Berkowitz, Son of Sam, was also engaged in dog conversation, one that included demonic instructions of murder and mayhem.
  My work – “community organizing” -  in light of the cataclysmic events unfolding all around us seemed piddling. I was exhausted by trying to play the hero.  We were lonely for relationships that we didn’t know we missed. A weird limbo we struggled to get our heads around.
--------
Visit https://frankpierson.substack.com/ for the complete Episode 1.  I'm looking to post a new episode every other week. Free sign up.

This is It: No knead bread right out of a Dutch Oven. 

BTW I'm writing my Oracle book on https://frankpierson.substack.com/
Serialized in "Episodes" that capture some of the events and people we've known over the years since we moved here in 1979. What does substacking and bread making have in common?  Trying out new things.

  I'm not sure when I first met Reg. Given his elephantine memory he may recall details of our first encounter but I don't.  I suspect it had something to do with Kaz and my involvement with the purchase of the triangle of land around the Oracle Post Office from his family.  Anyway, I'm here to say the guy is amazing.   For one thing he's buried more local folks than all preachers combined.  (Or so I believe without hard numbers to back me up.)  He has been wrangling burials for more decades than most of us have been alive.  He recalls family histories like nobody else in town.  And he comforts the grieving with singular respect and compassion.  Plus he's funnier than hell.  

  It’s not a “city” or a “town”.  To qualify as either, boundaries must be set and a local government incorporated.  So what the heck is it?
  Oracle is a place identified on a map of indeterminate location.  The Oracle Fire District has boundaries.  The Oracle School District has boundaries.  We have an Oracle Post Office, a shared justice court and a shared zip code.  What does this add up to? 

  Oracle isn’t defined by any lines.  It’s something else entirely different. The bottom line is Oracle is a figment of residents’ (and some visitors’) imaginations.  Made up out of whole cloth from stories residents have told themselves beginning more than a century ago. Oracle is a civic life form sustained by local hopes, dreams, and real world accomplishments.  It is quite literally a story town living on energy derived from stories told and retold. 

  Kaz and I live in the oldest platted and zoned subdivision in Oracle.  Some of the homes are older than ours which was built in the late 1940's but the neighborhood anchored by the Oracle Park has held up pretty well.  As many of us stroll around our neighborhood, when something happens - or threatens to happen - to a property that we all know well we worry about its fate.
  “Will the new buyer put six homes on it?”  “Grade and blade after chainsawing the fabulous old trees?”  “Build SaddleBrooke style homes that will stick out like sore thumbs?”  We didn’t know but anticipated the worst.  So much so much so that some of us schemed up an idea for a group purchase … which we all knew was just a fantasy.
  So we waited with bated breath.  
  The moment of truth came when the "For Sale" sign came down signaling the deal had closed.
————————-
  Let me back up for a moment.  The property in question has wonderful natural features but had fallen into dangerous disrepair.  Shacks with holes in the roofs, windows busted out, pack rats running rampant, 50 gallon drums full of god knows what. A colossal challenge to any new owner.  Conditions suggested an aggressive assault by heavy equipment, including front end loaders, back hoes and trucks to clear the place at great cost was likely.  OMG!
———————-
  On one of our walks we noticed small changes beginning to happen.  Weed whacking for pathways and to reduce fire risk; rusty metal gathered and neatly placed on one pile; block and reusable materials placed on another.  No heavy equipment, just a pick up truck and a couple about our age apparently doing all the meticulous work!  So who the hell are these miracle workers we wondered?  What do they think of the “subdivide whisperers” who populate some of the real estate agencies around town?  
  One morning they were working away as we passed by so we wandered over to say hello.  Kaz took the lead with introductions.  “Hi, we’re your new neighbors from a couple of properties over.  Good to meet you.”
"Good to meet you too!”
  The conversation unfolded from there.  Much to our amazement the couple described struggling to overcome obstacles put in their way by the seller to the purchase of land they had fallen in love with.   Yes, especially the trees.   They refused to give up until they succeeded.  Their intention? To build a modest home down the road - themselves.  And BTW they’re not ready for retirement at 75. 
   Welcome to the neighborhood!

Darrell and Rodney complete the wraparound walkway and handicap access at OCC.

Work like this has an indelible impact on our town.

Credit Kaz with the pics as the work continues.

Check out the grand improvement for yourself when next at the Oracle Community Center. 

  When I arrived at the Oracle Cemetery to see how the brush clearing with a volunteer team was going I was greeted by fellow board member Justin Palmer.  He reported that yes the work was going on but there had been a glitch.

  The first dead tree the group attacked was home to a colossal nest of bees and they weren't happy being invaded.
  "Everyone was stung and one guy was hit eight times." 
  "So they packed it in, right?"
  "No, they moved to another area and are hard at work."  And so they were.

  I've never seen these guys around town but I sure hope they come back.  I understand Alicia Bristow with the Visitors Center connected them with Justin ... and that's how a lot of good stuff happens in Oracle.  A connection that turns into a positive impact.  Amen to that and more.

  Now back to Justin for a second.  Among other roles around town he's the drummer for the Mother Cody Band.  I caught his/their act at the Oracle Community Learning Garden celebration the other day and he/they were great. (Special kudos to Jennifer Rinio for her spectacular rendering of White Rabbit.)  A local band on the rise!