Posted on 05/27/2004 6:11:18 AM PDT by forester
DATE: MAY 2, 2004
TO: ALL GRASSROOTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS . . . . . . . . . . . (PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR LIST OF CONTACTS)
FROM: ROSE COMSTOCK - PRESIDENT - ALLIANCE FOR AMERICA www.allianceforamerica.org
WHAT: Wednesday of this week the California Assembly Appropriations Committee approved two bills that would establish a Sierra Nevada Conservancy.
Governor Schwarzenegger has indicated that he intends to create a Sierra Nevada Conservancy during his first term in office. These two bills-AB 1788 and AB 2600-present radically different ways of doing so.
AB 2600 by Assemblyman Laird (D-Santa Cruz) would give Sierra residents virtually no say in the conservancy's operations. In contrast, AB 1788 by Assemblyman Leslie (R-Tahoe City) would create an entirely new type of conservancy. It would ensure that a large portion of the conservancy board is comprised of locally-elected officials, and it would give local communities the right to say "no" to projects they find objectionable.
Yesterday, however, staff members of the Appropriations Committee removed the parts of AB 1788 that gave local communities a "veto" power over objectionable projects.
Assemblyman Leslie has stated unequivocally that he will actively oppose any Conservancy language that does not provide local communities a point of real leverage in the decision-making process. If he cannot amend AB 1788 and return meaningful local influence to the bill, he wishes to "assure the residents of the Sierra that he will drop his own bill and actively oppose any attempts at creation of a conservancy-regardless of the possibility that AB 2600 may become the law of California."
ACTION: There is only a small window of opportunity to generate pressure to reinstate language that ensures strong local voice in the conservancy decision-making process! Both bills are headed for the Assembly Floor next week. Governor Schwarzenegger, the Resources Agency, and members of the Assembly need to hear from you! Governor Schwarzenegger can still intervene, but he will only do that if he gets strong pressure from all of us. Make your calls beginning Monday, May 24th, send your faxed letter and emails all next week until a vote occurs.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger http://www.governor.ca.gov/state/govsite/gov_homepage.jsp State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633 governor@governor.ca.gov
Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman
California Resources Agency Sacramento, CA 95812-2815 Phone: (916) 653-5656 (916) 653-8102 fax http://resources.ca.gov/
Assistant to the Secretary for Resources: Cynthia J. Paulsen Cyndy.Paulsen@Resources.Ca.Gov
Members of the State Assembly
To find your State Assembly member: http://www.assembly.ca.gov/
TALKING POINTS:
- Any proposed conservancy gives us cause for serious concern. Countless problems have been created in our region by state employees with no accountability to the people and little connection to the areas their decisions impact. Like the Governor, it is our desire to see government become more responsive and connected to the people, not less so.
- If there is to be a Sierra Nevada Conservancy, it must be built upon respect for and collaboration with the people who live in the Sierra.
- Such a conservancy can be established only if its design requires collaborative decision-making. The Conservancy board must contain strong representation from the Sierra region, and, more importantly, any major board action must be based upon general consensus with local elected officials.
- Local governments are responsible for local land use planning and decisions, and are held accountable by their constituents for such decisions. Unless local government has the ability to say "no" to conservancy acquisitions it finds objectionable, the conservancy will have the power to approve acquisitions with no local oversight.
- Giving local communities a true voice would be unique for a conservancy. However, any conservancy stretching across the entire Sierra Nevada would be unique. No existing conservancy contains the vast area, diverse sub-regions, and varied land uses encompassed by the Sierras.
- The best government efforts always draw from the perspective, volunteerism, and commitment of local communities. By ensuring the conservancy only undertakes projects embraced by local communities, we can create the goodwill and trust critical to effective efforts.
- In addition, a new conservancy must not be funded on the backs of taxpayers. How can Sacramento lawmakers justify crating another agency in the business of buying up more land, while the state is dealing with a severe budget deficit affecting education, healthcare, fire protection and other vital services? Unless its funding is drawn from existing conservation programs, new conservancy would only add to the existing budget burden the state is facing.
Background:
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/acsframeset2text.htm - AB1788 Leslie This bill creates the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) in the Resources Agency, with a governing board consisting of 20 voting members and three non-voting members, to acquire, and direct the management, of public lands located primarily within the "Core Sierra Nevada Region."
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/acsframeset2text.htm - AB2600 Laird This bill creates the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) in the Resources Agency, with a governing board consisting of seven voting members and three non-voting members to undertake activities that encourage tourism and recreation, protect, conserve, and restore the region's resources, reduce the risk of natural disaster, protect water quality, help local economies, identify high priority projects for funding, enhance public use and enjoyment of public lands, and advance environmental preservation and economic well-being.
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=31721
In the Heights of Sierra, It's Hard to Give an Inch Source: Copyright 2004, LA Times Date: May 16, 2004 Byline: Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer
The Sierra Nevada's rural communities share more than 400 miles of the granite mountain range and an unswerving conviction that the region should not be dictated to from afar.
But that independent streak threatens to scuttle a five-year effort to create a Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which could funnel millions of dollars to the economically depressed region while protecting its vaunted scenery and natural resources.
Two bills in the Assembly that would create a conservancy could be defeated as a result of the region's reluctance to cede authority to outsiders and because of fear that too much land will be put off-limits to hunting, fishing, livestock grazing and other traditional activities.
Originally posted at: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-sierra16may16,1,6491835.story?coll=la-news-environment
RED ALERT (Property Rights)or something similar.
This defines the issue at hand for the reader.
I read the article on the next round of the poisoning of Lake Davis (Lake Davis on hook again, May 31, 2004) dreading what it portends for the rest of the state. This will soon be the standard.AB 2631 is an invasive species bill that has passed the Assembly and is now in the Senate. The intent is to go after mitten crabs and star thistle. The implications are much worse.
Are we going to go after barred owls that are displacing the spotted owl? How about the wild horses roaming the arid areas? Are we going to change our policy on coho salmon? Archeology shows these fish are not native to CA. What about all those eucalyptus trees? Shall we cut them all?
And the budget! How is the creation of a whole new bureaucracy going to effect that?
And to those who think that the ESA took their property rights away, wait until you can’t build that dream house or plow that field or graze those cattle because they want to promote some native grass, endangered or not.
I'll let everyone know if it gets published.
Sorry forgot to ping everyone to that last post.
BTT!!!!!!
BTTT!!!!!
You've brought it home to were even the flatlander city slickers live... In their back yards!!!
Just keep in touch with Tom in Oller's office who you spoke with and he'll let you know about the committee hearing dates.
I carried over the original thread title to this thread. You are right, a little clarification would have probably have eliminated critism like that drivel in post #47.
It blows me away how so many think that this kind of stuff is no big deal. I was out on a 13 acre parcel yesterday explaining to the landowner how the State will not issue him a permit to cut any trees within 150' of the creek that flows through his property...he may cut them for firewood, but may not sell them to a sawmill for profit....all of this from a State $15 billion in the hole...so who are the wackos here?
>>so who are the wackos here?
<<
Over the years you have certainly shown us that you are not amongst that group.
Thank you
The g*ddamn left will kill this country. Didn't Feinstein set aside 6 Million acres of desert not too long ago? When it comes to quad-runner vs. tortoise, the turtle had better pick up the pace.
What the h*ll ever happened to "this land is your land, this land is my land"?
Welcome to Gulag California. The abuses committed by the left against the citizens of this state are on par with Abu Ghraib (sp?) They may not have nude citizens stacked in pyramids or leashes attached for their personal pleasure (well, ok, maybe in San Francisco), but, they're getting damn close. At times like this I'm reminded of these words:
From the Declaration of Independence....
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
Individuals are perhaps more suseptible to abuses from the State than were the colonies as they pose less of a threat to an absolute despot. Unorganized, racially fractured, publically educated....yeah, that's the guy you want sharing your foxhole. < /sarcasm>
Thanks, that I can do.
Thank you.
I like this part. It's so descriptive of today. Just replace "Colonies" with "Rural Counties" and then one realizes what has happened since the Warren Court's infamous "Cows Don't Vote" ruination of rural representation!!!
Fabulous rant! Right on the money... Tax money, that is!!!
Hey Dan! How come Rico isn't pounding his chest against these stupid GovernMental control freak/land grabbing bills? I know he just lost a tough campaign, but now is when we find out what he's really made of and we need his help, right? Doesn't he need a "cause" to focus on the foolishness of liberals? This would seem to be pretty close to It!!!
We need a Sierra-Nevada champion!!! NOW!!!
Thanks. Looks like it is going to be published.
Arnold stated that he was for something like this prior to the election in a position paper on the environment...C-O did an analysis, and could probably provide the link if you are interested.
My favorite quote from the Declaration is - "He has erected a Multitude of new Offices and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People and eat out their substance."
Madison also has a quote about more liberty is lost to gradual usurpations than to violent uprising, or something like that. Great rant by the way.
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