Posted on 06/26/2007 9:50:48 AM PDT by BurbankKarl
The mood of the crowd jammed into the meeting room was angry.
Many had lost their homes to the forest fire that swept through the Sierra Nevada just south of Lake Tahoe.
They said they were angry at bureaucrats and environmentalists who made cutting of trees and clearing of land difficult. There was always too much red tape, they said, and now it was too late.
In all, a crowd of nearly 2,000 people descended on the South Tahoe Middle School auditorium Monday night, wanting to be heard in the face of their losses.
And if there was an object of scorn in the crowd, it was the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a powerful bi-state environmental land use agency charged with managing the resources of the basin.
When a speaker mentioned the agency, the crowd responded with a chorus of boos. "What a joke!" yelled one man.
The wrangling began in earnest over the assignment of blame, including arguments over whether federal and state forest managers had made their tree clearing rules too strict in the face of pressure by environmentalists.
A common sentiment Monday was expressed by Jerry Martin, a bartender at the Horizon Casino Resort, whose house was still standing, although eight others around it had burned to the ground. He said U.S. Forest Service rules regulating the harvesting of dead trees were too stringent for those living next to government land.
"I hate to get political, but environmentalists wouldn't let us cut down the dead trees," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
When we get this state divied up the way it should be, you'll have a much better chance of getting "Jefferson" being the 52nd united state! Think about that, my FRiend!!! (grin)
There ... made that a little more accurate for you.
How could I when I'm in a constant state of cornfusion???(that ain't some new high-powered form of ethenol, neither!)
Tahoe is an eclectic mix. You have your super-wealthy with their pimp compounds—plenty of R’s in that mix. You also have your granola-munchers who work the shops, restaurants/bars and businesses, drive cabs, etc.
A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged! Sounds like the same thing, only instead of being mugged, their house burnt down.
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