Posted on 05/17/2005 10:07:20 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Eight towns would love to land the new Sierra Nevada Conservancy headquarters, projected to eventually have 70 employees and a $10 million budget.
But only two showed up at the historic first meeting of the conservancy board Thursday in Sacramento, and both were from Nevada County.
Nevada City used a laid-back approach in its pitch, but Truckee came on like a runaway snowboarder. Auburn, Colfax, Placerville, Amador City, Ione and Jackson were no-shows.
“Give us your serious consideration,” said Truckee Mayor Craig Threshie in a lengthy speech that trumpeted the town’s location, history and commitment to the range. “We have good intentions.”
But in a speech steeped in brevity, Nevada City Mayor Conley Weaver issued his own invitation.
“We want to invite you to Nevada City anytime. Remember, Nevada City was the first city to endorse the Sierra Conservancy.”
In attendance with Weaver were Nevada City City Manager Mark Miller and Chip Carman and John Paul, who recently produced a slick booklet to land the headquarters in Nevada City. Also at the meeting were former Nevada County Supervisors Peter Van Zant and Izzy Martin, who was there with her colleague from the Nevada City-based Sierra Fund, Shawn Garvey.
The headquarters location will probably not be decided until later this summer, according to California Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman, who chaired the Sacramento meeting and gave no hints. The board will also select the conservancy’s executive director soon, with a two-person subcommittee doing the initial screening. One of those two will be Inyo County Supervisor Linda Arcularius, who represents her county as well as Mono and Alpine counties on the board.
The other is Gov. Schwarzenegger appointee Bob Kirkwood, a former government-environmental affairs man for Hewlitt-Packard. He hails from Palo Alto but has a place in Alpine County. While there is competition for the headquarters and the top job, speaker after speaker said the conservancy needs to keep the tone of cooperation used to create it.
Republican state Assemblyman Tim Leslie, who crafted the conservancy with Democrat Assemblyman John Laird, said, “There’s still people across the Sierra who hold serious reservations about this conservancy.” The conservancy should “create a collaborative effort,” he said.
Conservancy staffers said the first year’s budget will be $3.5 million for about 20 positions. The money is expected to come from special Sierra vehicle license plates similar to the ones that finance the Lake Tahoe Conservancy.
Staffers said the agency will look to enhance watersheds, wetlands, wildlife habitat and thin forests to protect the ecology and boost the economy in the conservancy’s 22 counties spread out more than 25 million acres.
Partnerships with nonprofit agencies will be explored to help get grants and loans for the projects. Chrisman said the conservancy needs to act quickly to save the Sierra because it is under serious stress from population and pollution.
I remember seeing it but never posted it, Thanks!
They're all 'Republicans' so its OK. ;-)
I'll check those out tomorrow. Norton seems to be blocking the content, so once I figure out how to bypass my software, I'll be able to read it.
It looks excellent from what I could access. Thanks!
Think of smart growth as government sprawl. Think of smart growth as inflicting collective federal zoning on local communities, telling property owners and businesses what can and can’t be done on their property.
Smart growth has a number of objectives in mind in order to achieve its primary goal - control of property.
One goal is to remove land decisions far away from elected representatives, government closest to the people, and into the hands of unelected bureaucrats, government farthest from the people.
Another smart growth goal is to take choice away from individual citizens, as enshrined in the state constitution, and give that choice to bureaucrats for the common good. Group or collective rights are paramount in socialist countries and trump decisions desired by the individual. Socialists call this collectivism.
The biggest problem for the socialists trying to build a sustainable socialist community is the individual and his rights. People having a ball building wealth for their family, the community and themselves is a huge impediment to establishing utopia. Thus, individuals must be controlled.
Individuals are difficult to control through elected officials. If they mess up, voters can throw them out. The best way to control individuals is to give complete power to unelected bureaucrats. That way they can commit countless harassments, errors and abuses to build utopia and remain in power, unchecked by the people through the ballot box.
Any unelected, unaccountable group with power to write law, judge law and execute law is, by definition, a dictatorship. The American system separates these powers into branches accountable to the citizens. It prevents the establishment of an unaccountable governing body dictating laws to the citizens. Smart growth is an effort to collectivize property under the rule of unelected planning councils.
The Russian people called these unelected councils soviet socialists.
That is the goal but the very groups supporting this are the same ones filing law suits against the USFS to stop clean up of over grown forest and removal of dead trees after a fire in the Six Rivers Forest of Northwest California. Have you ever seen any green group come to the aid of the Forest Service in these suits?
Wow!!! What a choice review of the oxymoronic term "smart growth!" Once again you have absolutely "nailed it!"
Smart growth began with the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), established by executive order in 1993. The PCSD is nearly a mirror image of the United Nation’s Agenda 21.
In 1992, 179 nations adopted Agenda 21 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, including the United States. Agenda 21 calls for government control of all air, land and water, including that owned privately.
In 1997, the PCSD adopted a full-blown plan to implement Agenda 21 throughout the nation. That year the Clinton administration publicly announced that it would bypass congress and implement the PCSD’s recommendations via the federal bureaucracy.
Former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown told a meeting of the President’s Council that he could implement 67% of the Sustainable Development agenda in his agency with no new legislation. Other agencies like Interior, EPA, HUD, and more did the same thing.
The bureaucrats illegally bypassed the US Congress and wrote laws, the out-of-control courts granted it figs of legality and the president wrote a blizzard of executive orders to implement it.
The EPA coordinates the Smart Growth Network nationwide through the Urban and Economic Development Division. The EPA runs cooperative partnerships with organizations like the International City/County Management Association.
Dozens of organizations and municipalities throughout the country have signed on as Agenda 21 partners. Some of the more familiar organizations include the American Farmland Trust, The Conservation Fund, Joint Center for Sustainable Communities, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Natural Resources Defense Council and Trust for Public Land.
As citizens catch on to the attempted theft of property, the name changes. It could be Kansas City 2005, or Goals 21 or (your town) 2020.
The premier organization for pushing the bureaucratic control of property is the American Planning Association. It has written a “Growing Smart” legislative handbook, with the support of federal bureaucrats, that legislators are urged to use to control property.
Its key provisions limit opportunity, economic growth and significantly interfere with the rights of people to use their property.
One of its dictatorial recommendations include governments seizing homes and businesses under eminent domain if a building doesn’t meet a bureaucrat’s definition of “aesthetics.” How a building looks should not be public policy, but an individual choice.
It will also label homeowners and business owners as criminals for violation of land use regulations.
They don't call it "Little San Francisco" for nothing.
former Nevada County Supervisors Peter Van Zant and Izzy Martin, who was there with her colleague from the Nevada City-based Sierra Fund, Shawn Garvey.
There's a reason they are "former" supervisors. Just my luck those droids will seal the deal.
Well, Peter was re-elected at least once! That means 20 percent of Nevada County residents were fooled TWICE!!!
By keeping people out of the forests..
and thin forests to protect the ecology
That is by banning logging and allowing massive forest fires to ravage the countryside
and boost the economy in the conservancy’s 22 counties spread out more than 25 million acres.
That is to boost the pocket book of the nature conservancy by allowing the rich, liberal elite cherry properties and keeping the rest of us commoners away.
You mean where all the Lalas of the Motherlode live. Well you have to have culture, and poor ol' Grass Valley where all the remnants of those dirty mines are located is just too working class./sarc
Look up the membership of Wordslingers that is located there. Its like a Who's Who of authors of contemporary literature.
As opposed to the Gunslingers that used to populate the place, right?
The hills surrounding Nevada City are full of retired bay area baby sitters screwel teachers.
"Please put the Gestapo Headquarters here, please!"
(so that they don't have to walk too far in their Birkenstoks when they want to obstruct progress)
BTTT
Eveyone here is an "author/artist" don't 'cha know?
It's a never-ending battle, Sierra.
In attendance with Weaver were Nevada City City Manager Mark Miller and Chip Carman and John Paul, who recently produced a slick booklet to land the headquarters in Nevada City.
I don't know Weaver. If Mark Miller is the old operator of the 16-to-One, I'm very dissappointed in him. I once considered contracting with Carman and Paul. They're partners is a website development company. They wanted $12,000 to develop a website and another $650 a month for basic maintenance. That was 7 years ago. I didn't see why I should pay their office rent every month. Trouble is, so many people here are desperate for money they'll sell their mother's outhouse. These guys are prospecting for any fees they can get.
Aanestad's office said, "now that it has passed, Sam will be supportive of it. "He is very interested in economic development for the fourth district and landing the conservancy headquarters would be a boon for the area and something he would support."
Like I said, desperate for $$$.
It was Mike Miller that operated the 16 to One.
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