X-Message-Number: 22799 Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 19:31:09 -0500 From: Paul Antonik Wakfer <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #22786 - Cryonics zoning in Boca References: <> > > >Message #22786 >From: >Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:08:54 EST >Subject: Cryonics zoning in Boca > >Dear Cryoneters, > >I am very disappointed about the Planning and Zoning recommendation vote of 6 >to 0 which will be recommending to the city council that they reject the >zoning of the Suspended Animation research facility in Boca Raton. > >Like many of you, I wrote letters to all the city council people, the mayor, >and the city manager, requesting their support of the cryonics facility. >While it was not possible for me to make the 6 hour trip to Boca for the meeting >last night, I agonized over whether my presence might have made a difference >somehow, a "tipping point" for the group dynamics of the hearing. > >It turns out it would not have. Even what surely was articulate and >compelling testimony by Bill Falloon, David Shumaker, and Ben Best, surely among our >most competent advocates, was a non-issue to the P and Z board. > >How could a lease--a five year lease--have been signed without securing the >zoning requisite? In a brief call I had with Bill Falloon on Wednesday, he >said basically, "We thought we had this fixed." Evidently, the additional >controversies of Ted Williams and perhaps the CI issues have regenerated additional >resistance to cryonics in Boca. > I find it incredible that those in charge of choosing a location for the facility would not use the lessons of history and get written approval of their planned activities before signing a 5 year lease! After all, it is not as if this whole situation had not already occurred before and not been successfully finessed. In 1993, when Mike Darwin and I set out to find a home for Cryovita Labs, BPI, and the newly formed company 21st Century Medicine, which would replace our somewhat clandestine operation in Colton California, and provide full cryonics and research capabilities, this was also coming on the heels of a great deal of media publicity surrounding Alcor (after the court case involving the Dora Kent affair). In fact, that is why Saul laid low and mostly I was the "front" man of the operation (beside also being its chief funder at that time). To get around the problem, I did a lot of leg work examing the zoning by-laws of many nearby municpalities and Mike drafted an excellent letter of application to the zoning officers asking for approval. The beauty of the letter was that it described all the activities necessary without ever actually referring to anything which clearly stood out as relating to cryonics. I still have a copy of the original in my Word Perfect folder and here it is: 21ST CENTURY MEDICINE 1220 E Washington St #24 Colton, Ca 92324 TEL:(909)824-2468 FAX:(909)824-8259 May 11, 1993 Mr. Scott Murphy, Associate Planner City of Rancho Cucamonga 10500 Civic Center Drive P.O. Box 807 Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91729 Dear Mr. Murphy, 21st Century Medicine (21st) is a newly formed biomedical research and development company with an interest in locating within the Inland Empire and particularly in the city of Rancho Cucamonga. We are attracted to Rancho Cucamonga because of the city's environment and the availability of commercial/industrial property at a reasonable cost. 21st Century Medicine's research and development activities will include the following areas: 1) Canine deep hypothermia/circulatory arrest research aimed at extending safe surgical time for cardiac and neurosurgical procedures. 2) Solid and liquid state organ preservation for improved storage times for transplantable organs and the CNS (employing rabbits, dogs, and cadaveric tissues). 3) Cardiopulmonary/cerebral resuscitation research (employing dogs, rats and rabbits) aimed at improving survival for victims of sudden cardiac arrest. 4) Interventive gerontology employing lifespan studies to evaluate the effect of caloric restriction and drug therapy on lifespan and disease in mice. The above research will be conducted in a contained facility which will emit no sounds or odors and thus would have no "nuisance" effects on neighbors. I am writing this letter in order to determine the following: 1) Which kind of zoning will be required for this facility? 2) Is any kind of conditional use permit (CUP) or special use permit (SUP) required? I would further note that we either have, or will have prior to the start of operations, all necessary state, county and federal licenses. For example, we have the United States Department of Agriculture license necessary in order to use animals for research, we have a contract with a medical waste hauler for disposal of medical waste, and we will have all appropriate hazardous materials permit(s) for compressed gases (such as oxygen) and our small amounts of laboratory chemicals, from San Bernardino County. I would greatly appreciate a written response as soon as possible since we would like to begin seeking to lease or purchase a facility immediately. Sincerely, Mike Darwin, Director of Research Note that there was nothing stated in this letter which was not fully truthful. However, it used language which would appear non-contentious to those in office. The key was also to get approval without the need for any CUP or SUP which generally require public hearings (as well as costing a lot of money just to try and which is not refunded if you fail!). We had already applied to the zoning department of Loma Linda (which was our first chose because of its proximity to LLU) and given up when told our operation would require a CUP. Because our request for approval was fully truthful and we obtained *written* permission, once it came out later that we were associated with cryonics, the Rancho Cucamonga officials knew that there was nothing they could legally do to eject us from their community. All that they could do and did do was to scrupulously and rigorously enforce the existing health, fire, etc bylaws. This causes us a few problems, but they were not insurmountable. The other thing that was in our favor was the the State of California had already been forced to accept cryonics as a legitimate disposition of "dead" bodies, by the results of the Alcor court decision. This was the reason why I never understood the logic behind Alcors's decision to leave one state which was now *safe* for cryonics (because all the work which *they* did and move to another state which had not yet fully given permission (at least not through a ruling of the courts). It is also the reason why both the cryopreservation and long term care operations associated with CryoCare were determined to remain in California. >I will clear my calendar no matter what to be at the real decision making >meeting in Boca in January. In talking with Falloon, he seemed to think this >would be the more important meeting, and we will have a meeting with cryonics >supporters in the afternoon of the meeting date to get organized. > While I greatly hope that it is not so, I think that chances are now extremely slim that approval will be obtained. It is time for Suspended Animation, Inc to look elsewhere for a location and to recover as best they can by subletting the building that they have. I would suggest that serious thought be given to California and specifically to Rancho Cucamonga which does permit all the activities involved. In particular there is the building sitting their right now which has two specially designed concrete silos to keep large dewars completely safe from any environmental assault. The current tenants of the building (Critical Care Research, Inc - CCRI) have no use for those silos and dewars and could probably benefit by having their operation elsewhere. Since the purpose of SAI (as I understand it) is the effective consumation of what I began as the Prometheus Project over 7 years ago, given the right arrangements I even would make myself available to join in their efforts which I am still 100% behind. The only reason that I have been out of the cryonics research picture for the last few years is because I found it impossible to work with some of the people involved, at least partly because of what I perceive as irrational and deceitful interfaces with me. In the future, it is my intention to get all understandings up front and in writing *before* I expend my money, time and my honor. With the current change in cooperative spirit between the various organizations, I also expect (and certainly hope as always) that there will not be so much political infight, flaming and back-stabing as there has been in the past. >The parasites...excuse me...regulators...seem to have gotten out of control >in multiple venues as of late. From the SEC ruining Martha Stewart, to idiots >in Michigan regulating CI, to attorneys general attacking WalMart, to NASD >jerks causing Rudi Hoffman untold grief over an administrative oversight, to the >Boca Raton zoning board... > Actually, they have always been "out of control", it is just that recently it has hit "closer" to you and many others so that you have begun to understand how serious and distorting of reality these regulator actions really are. Now what you really need to understand is that the nature of government itself (whether democratic or not) is at the very heart of the problem and that it is this method of social structure and organization which must be changed if any solution to the problem is to be accomplished in a stable and enduring fashion. See the Self-Sovereign Individual Project at: http://selfsip.org for details. >We must develop a more effective "parasite control" in our society, or the >real producers of goods and services will be swamped with despair. > This simply cannot be done in our modern "democratic" society. For a proposed solution, see my Self-Sovereign Individual Project at: http://selfsip.org >The "Atlas Shrugged" fiction could become a reality. > To a certain extent, it already has, and it is becoming increasingly so as time goes on. The major problem with that scenario, however, is the impossibility of a small group of people (even as many as 100,000), however rational, brilliant and productive they might be, being able to carry on a technologically advanced society such as currently exists. There is simply too much division and specialization of labor for that to be realistically possible. This was a major flaw in Rand's book. But then it was only a fictional paradigm for illustrative purposes, and it succeeded brilliantly at that. >Best Regards to all...except regulators... > Good! Just as in my sig lines, "MoreLife for the rational"! --Paul Wakfer MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality The Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22799