Free Republic

This summer, Midpen is celebrating the initial purchase of lands that will become Midpen’s 27th open space preserve: Cloverdale Ranch, a unique ecological and agricultural jewel on the San Mateo County Coastside near the rural town of Pescadero. The lands, first protected by our nonprofit partner Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), contain large, intact coastal grasslands, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in North America. The property also has abundant water resources, both natural and human-made. Together, the natural habitat and plentiful water support a diverse community of native wildlife and plant communities, including grassland-dependent species such as American badgers,...

San Jose Creek Trail south of Carmel, which connects Palo Corona Regional Park to Ixchenta State Park, will open to the public Saturday after being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The trail was made possible through coordinated land acquisitions and public access planning through the Lobos-Corona Parklands Partnership consisting of the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, Big Sur Land Trust, California State Parks, and Point Lobos Foundation. San Jose Creek Trail was previously set to open in March 2020. Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District resumed scheduled docent-led hikes on the trail in February and the Lobos-Corona Parklands Partnership resumed...

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District recently expanded one of its oldest preserves. The agency added 182.15 acres to the El Sereno Open Space Preserve that formerly belonged to the San Jose Water Company. The agency paid just over $1 million for the land, with funding from the California Wildlife Conservation Board. El Sereno sits just south of Saratoga and west of Los Gatos in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s a public preserve, open to hikers, cyclists and horseback riders. The district has owned El Sereno since 1975, and in that time has expanded the public green space to more...

The most popular place to put a city park is, increasingly, on a highway. Cities looking to boost their downtowns, or to improve downtrodden neighborhoods, are creating “highway cap parks” on decks constructed over freeways that cut through the urban center. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Denver and Dallas have deck parks underway. Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis and Santa Monica, California, are among the cities considering similar projects. In crowded cities, highway deck parks are a way to create new acreage and provide green space that can spur downtown development. Capping a highway to create a park also can reconnect urban neighborhoods sliced apart...

Local planning politics on Los Angeles’s Westside is in a sad state of affairs. There, a municipally-led push to complete city streets by adding bicycle infrastructure and other pedestrian improvements has been met with fierce opposition from local drivers. Recent efforts in L.A’s Mar Vista neighborhood, for example, grew so toxic that community members launched a now-stalled recall bid to remove Mike Bonin—the local council person who champions the so-called “road diets” as well as the city’s Vision Zero plan those diets support—from office. The embarrassing spectacle has thrown into question the commitment L.A. residents have not only toward prioritizing...

Clearing the way for what could potentially be the biggest open space deal in the Santa Cruz Mountains in years, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a bill that would streamline the sale of up to 6,500 acres of land owned by San Jose Water Company, allowing it to become a public open space preserve. The bill would allow the sale of the land — which includes 1,100 acres of redwood forests and could easily eclipse $30 million in price — to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District without approval from the state Public Utilities Commission. The commission regulates San...

For the first time in 37 years, the summit of Mt. Umunhum is open to the public. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District on Saturday hosted a ceremony to mark the long-awaited occasion. "We’re thrilled to invite the community to create Mount Umunhum’s next chapter as one of the Bay Area’s great publicly accessible peaks and nature destinations,” said the district's General Manager Steve Abbors. Situated within the 18,000-acre Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve south of Los Gatos, Mt. Umunhum has been closed since 1980. It was at that time that the former Almaden Air Force Station, which sits on...

Thirty-seven years after the U.S. Air Force shut down a mountain-top radar station in the hills south of San Jose that scanned the skies for Soviet bombers during the Cold War, the summit of Mount Umunhum is finally opening to the public this week as a new park, with stunning views of San Francisco Bay, Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a public agency that owns the 3,486-foot peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains east of Los Gatos, spent $25 million over eight years on the project. Supporters say the new summit, which visitors will...

There are few things I dislike more than paying taxes. As Americans, a third of all your hard earned dollars is confiscated by the U.S. government. Most of us get to determine what we do with our money – but not when it comes to taxes. However, there is the argument that taxes are a function of our democratic system. Those taxes are the result of laws implemented by freely elected representatives. If anything, we — the voters — are as much to blame for the muddied tax codes as are the nitwit politicians we elect.

Important Questions on the ballot, next Tuesday, November 4 There are two State questions that are proposed constitutional amendments. One relates to your right to bail and pretrial release, and the other is on Open Space. If you are in Morris County, there is a third question that is also about Open Space.   Please use this information to inform your friends and family, and tell them it is critical for them to get out to vote! Public question No. 1 - End the Right to Bail !!!! A “yes” vote on this constitutional amendment would END your current right...

Since 2007, Mike and Chantell Sackett have been fighting to build their dream home on the Idaho lot they bought years ago. The Sacketts say they had gotten local permits and spent thousands prepping the land for construction - then the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed up. The EPA told the Sacketts their property contained wetlands and issued a compliance order mandating that they return it to its original state or risk facing fines starting at $37,500 per day. The Sacketts say they were stunned, and asked the EPA for a hearing on the matter. The agency denied their request,...

Metallica rock band leader James Hetfield has donated to Marin County a 330-acre agricultural conservation easement near his home on land overlooking Lucas Valley. The Marin Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously accepted donation of the easement, which precludes development on the land known as the Luiz Ranch. "This is a really exciting offer," said Supervisor Steve Kinsey. He said Hetfield was "taking a break from heavy metal to become a heavy contributor to our agricultural conservation efforts. "It's another indication of a continuing effort to improve our partnerships on that important ridge and I think it reflects very positively...

Exposing the Hoax Please view our three minute video report on the real meaning behind "Green Acres." To our astonishment, a number of State Legislators continue to support this reckless and irresponsible program. With the highest property taxes in the country, the worst and most destructive income tax in America, and a crippling debt load that threatens the future of our state, Democrat and Republican lawmakers join together for a bi-partisan fleecing of our state’s already over burdened taxpayers. Check out our Question One Scorecard and find out who has the guts to stand up against more debt and higher...

Two pieces of prime coastal real estate will be maintained as open space if they are purchased by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a public agency with the goal of preventing development on scenic lands rich in wildlife and farming history. The district is likely to approve the purchase of two rural properties in the San Mateo County foothills at a meeting Wednesday in Half Moon Bay. The lands — the sprawling Bluebrush Canyon property and the smaller Roberts property — make up nearly 300 acres of forest, creeks and wild grassland. They currently are owned by the Peninsula...

Open Space Authority to Return Assessment Funds San Jose, CA, May 29, 2009 – Property owners who have property within the jurisdiction of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority will soon be able to claim refunds of an assessment charged by the Authority on their real estate tax bills between 2002 and 2008. In 2001, the Authority approved a $20 annual assessment on single-family homes located within the Authority’s territory to help purchase and maintain open space and parkland. Higher amounts were charged for multi-family and commercial properties. The Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and...

Editorial: Assessment ruling won't serve state well Monday's state Supreme Court decision striking down an assessment by the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority was one more nail in the coffin of California's quality of life. Not that the court was unreasonable. The justices were interpreting Proposition 218, as convoluted and mean-spirited an anti-tax law as California voters ever passed. The 1996 initiative aimed to tighten the rules set by Proposition 13 to make it even harder for government to raise revenue, and it's succeeding all too well. Californians must come to grips with the kind of place they want...

California high court strikes down Santa Clara County open space tax The California Supreme Court today struck down a special fee on Santa Clara County homeowners used to pay for open space acquisition, possibly wiping out more than $50 million collected over the past seven years for parks, trails and other services. In a unanimous ruling, the justices found that the 2001 special assessment by the county's Open Space Authority violated Proposition 218, a 12-year-old voter-approved law known as the "Right to Vote on Taxes Act." Proposition 218 was designed to limit local governments' ability to raise revenue without voter...

Backed by studies showing that middle-class Seattle residents can no longer afford the city's middle-class homes, consensus is growing that prices are too darned high. But why are they so high? An intriguing new analysis by a University of Washington economics professor argues that home prices have, perhaps inadvertently, been driven up $200,000 by good intentions. Between 1989 and 2006, the median inflation-adjusted price of a Seattle

WHITEFISH, Mont. — William P. Foley II pointed to the mountain. Owns it, mostly. A timber company began logging in view of his front yard a few years back. He thought they were cutting too much, so he bought the land. Mr. Foley belongs to a new wave of investors and landowners across the West who are snapping up open spaces as private playgrounds on the borders of national parks and national forests. In style and temperament, this new money differs greatly from the Western land barons of old — the timber magnates, copper kings and cattlemen who created the...

Bargaining With the Open Space Devil Makes Us All Greenies Now http://www.CaliforniaRepublic.org by Wayne Lusvardi 9/12/07 American newspaper journalist H. L. Mencken once wrote: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." This is no more exemplified than with what is conventionally called "open space preservation" in California. In a German legend, a character named Faust (German for "fist" or Latin for "lucky") traded his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge or power....