Posted on 08/22/2004 4:38:37 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Dear Sierra Friends,
A very good Friday afternoon to you all!
In case you had not heard, I wanted to make sure you knew that the Sierra Nevada Conservancy bill, AB 2600, will be heard on the Senate Floor this coming Monday, August 23.
Senator Bruce McPherson (R—Santa Cruz) will be presenting AB 2600 as the bill’s official floor jockey.
Below, I am including material we’ve put together on the highlights of the consensus reached by Assemblyman Leslie and Assemblyman Laird and the Schwarzenegger Administration.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by phone or e mail.
Sincerely,
Jedd Medefind
--AB 2600--
Sierra Nevada Conservancy
Assemblymembers Leslie and Laird
Thirteen member voting board
• Six elected Sierra supervisors appointed locally
• Five gubernatorial appointments
• Two legislative appointments
Nine stated goal areas include:
•"Provide increased opportunities for tourism and recreation."
• "Protect, preserve, and restore the region’s … resources"
•"Reduce the risk of natural disaster, including fire"
The Conservancy Can:
•Carry out restoration, trail building, fuel load reduction, and other projects
•Purchase easements
•Give grants to local government and non-profits for projects, easements, and land acquisition
The Conservancy Cannot:
•Exercise any power of eminent domain
• Regulate land use
• Regulate activities on land owned by others
•Hold any authority over water rights held by others •Purchase land
The Conservancy Must:
•Undertake public hearings and planning with local officials and residents
•Cooperate and consult with local government and water agencies
•Require land management of any lands acquired via its grants
• Include in its planning process existing government plans, including local general plans and recreation plans
•Spread funding equitably across the region’s six sub-regions and among its stated goals.
The concession game they have played, changing the bill so that there is some elected representation, is just a game. Do not give in to concessions, they have still written themselves the ability to destroy the free market and the freedom to own property in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
PING
At last, a property-rights victory!
Posted: August 7, 2004
Landowners across the nation can breathe a deep sigh of relief because of a decision rendered by the Michigan State Supreme Court July 30. The court reversed a 1981 decision that has allowed state and local governments to take the private property of thousands of landowners and then give or sell it to other private entities.
In 1981, the same court allowed the city of Detroit to condemn an entire community known as "Poletown" so General Motors could build a new factory. More than 1,000 homes, and 600 businesses and churches were bulldozed, justified by the city's argument that the jobs and tax revenue the new factory would produce provided a sufficient "public benefit" to warrant the use of government's eminent-domain power.
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Since that decision, tens of thousands of individual property owners have been uprooted in every state in the name of "economic development." Often, the property taken by government was sold to another private entity – often at a profit – redefining the constitutional term "public use" to mean whatever the municipality believed to be "public benefit."
In case after case, the courts have upheld these eminent-domain cases, relying on the 1981 Poletown decision.
More than two decades later, the Michigan court corrected its mistake, saying: "We overrule Poletown in order to vindicate our constitution, protect the people's property rights and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch as the expositor, not creator, of fundamental law."
Since the ruling was based on the State Constitution, it is not appealable to the U.S. Supreme Court. The victims of the 1981 decision are not affected by the reversal, but it will have profound implications for all future eminent-domain actions.
The Poletown reversal is undoubtedly causing gastronomical distress in municipalities and economic development agencies across the country that are, at this moment, processing hundreds of eminent-domain condemnations for "public benefit," rather than for "public use."
In community after community, visioning councils are developing comprehensive land-use plans, enforceable largely by the municipality's power of eminent domain. The Poletown reversal must put a monkey wrench into these plans. No longer can a city simply declare private property to be an obstacle to economic development as justification for condemnation.
If the public benefit from economic development is insufficient to justify taking of private property by eminent domain, then perhaps open space, critical habitat and environmental protection are also insufficient reasons to take private property. The U.S. Constitution does not say "public benefit," it clearly says "public use."
The Southwest Florida Water Management District is threatening the use of eminent domain to take Jesse Hardy's land in their Everglades Restoration Program. Is this program a "public benefit" or a legitimate "public use," as intended by the Fifth Amendment?
In community after community, eminent domain power has been used to acquire private property that has then been sold or given to a private, not-for-profit entity for preservation. Is this public use or public benefit?
Every person whose land is threatened by any kind of government action should seize on this question and force the government agency to prove that the proposed taking is indeed a legitimate public use, rather than merely a public benefit.
Land-use agencies, at every level of government, should take a long, hard look at the Poletown reversal and re-evaluate the criteria by which they enforce land-use rules. Rules and regulations that preclude land use by the owner are often justified on the basis of public benefit. No longer can this justification be raised without a challenge.
The Poletown reversal has restored some of the sanctity of private property, so well-recognized and respected by our nation's founders. It is high time the judicial system recognized the value of private-property rights, and recognition by other government agencies is long overdue.
As welcome as the Poletown reversal may be, government has a long way to go before regaining sufficient respect for private property. Still, communities, states and even the federal government are using tax dollars to buy private property, not for public use, but for what they describe as public benefit: open space, watersheds, viewsheds, scenic areas, historic areas, heritage areas, buffer zones, habitat and the like.
Government should immediately stop further land acquisition from private owners, and begin divesting its inventory to maximize land holding in private hands. Government should own no land beyond that required for the essential government functions as set forth in the U.S. Constitution.
Perhaps the Poletown reversal is a good first step toward this goal.
FYI
As a Republican State Senator and ASSemblyman, he has in the past been a fairly strong supporter of property rights and an opponent of previous efforts to establish this CONservancy! I believe he was instrumental in getting even Gray Davis to veto this insanity just a couple of years ago.
So I guess he just didn't have the backbone to stand up and buck it anymore with a seemingly fellow Republican Governor who campaigned on being a property rights Terminator, right on his website.
Everyone here saw that fact posted on several threads, but was so freaked out over a perceived possiblity of a Bustamonte win over a consistent Conservative that had previously won victories statewide. Oh well, I'm sure this will go far in solving the worst economic/fiscal crisis in California's history... NOT!!!
So here we are with an unprecedented Socialistic GANG-GREEN victory that ASSemblyman Leslie feels is a compromise, but still leaves the door wide open for the very kind of corruption and abuses that have been occuring with Barbara Striesand's Santa Monica Mountains CONservancy!!!
So we got our "half-a-loaf" Republican victory because we lost faith in conservatism in CA, that thrived for a decace from 1988 to 1998. Coastal CA now rules rural CA in a way that will lead to massive "Rural Cleansing" and everybody knows it!!!
The only remedy I see now is a fifty first state named "SIERRA REPUBLIC" that leaves the coastal CA counties as old "California!" We'll take the word "REPUBLIC" from their flag and let 'em stick "DEMOCRACY" on theirs as our new state will fight to overturn both the 17th Amendment and the "Cows Don't Vote" SCOTUS ruling of 45 years ago by the Warren Court.
It may take longer than I'll live, but as long as I live in CA, I'll persist in pushing for a state that is a Republic, and not a direct Democrazy!!!
I am against this Conservancy in general.
But, wouldn't this:
"The Conservancy Cannot:
•Exercise any power of eminent domain
• Regulate land use
• Regulate activities on land owned by others
•Hold any authority over water rights held by others •Purchase land"
pretty much renders it toothless?
I'll answer that. I can just hear the board of this CONservancy's conversation in a future "closed session" in discussions with their legal counsel... "Counsellor, what does the law say we can do with this resistant property owner?" CONservancy Lawyer: "Well... what do you want the law to say, Mr. Chairman?"
Bump...
Dent...
Sacramento area ping.
To anwser your question with another question, if I may:
How can the conservancy "Protect, preserve, and restore the region’s … resources", and not regulate land use, and regulate activities on land owned by others?
How can the conservancy reflect the will of the electorate, if more than half the board is appointed? They will always have the majority so the deck is stacked against any constitutionally correct representation.
If you lived in Santa Cruz County, you would know that however many "public hearings" conservancies undertake, they do not run them by Roberts Rules of Order, they facilitate them guaranteeing the predetermined outcome they sought.
Then, you might also ask, how does a "conservancy" do this:
Provide increased opportunities for tourism and recreation." ?
It reads like they can't do what SW says they are gonna do based on past practices.
Nite all!
How can this help solve CA's current and future economic/fiscal crisis? The Eco-Tourism/Recreation Industry will use this to fund facilities and infrastructure for their businesses alone, while continuing to militantly politic against all other economic development in the SNC defined area.
The SNC should truly be called the Stealth Negativity Commonistas who will use their new victory and foothold on the foothills with new vigor to either get around, or ultimately weaken the few limitations ASSemblyman Leslie was able to get them to accept as a temporary compromise!!!
This will have a chilling effect on the economic progress of the eastern 1/5th of the entire state of CA. Obviously a dumb idea in the face of our economic desperation and an embarassment that it's going to be signed by a Republican Governor who bowled over a Republican ASSemblyman who has nearly abandoned a record of supporting his constituents with what little land rights they had left!!!
He didn't even show up to vote on a law that has his name shamefully upon it's face!!!
One of the best comments/replies I've ever seen on FR!!!
We must prepare for filing a law suit if this is signed. We will have to use the court system to show unconstitutionality.
Thanks for the permission. I'll do it!!!
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