They need donations now.
Some ringing endorsements attached to the TS article.
The members probably thought we would all be dead from global warming ny now anyway. I wonder if Chesbro can fix the NEC like he has fixed the State of California.
….
why is it that the TS can have 2 consecutive stories about the NEC haveing troubles, but can’t have anything on the lost jobs of people who actually contribute to the economy. These hippies just drain the economy by taking grants and not doing much for us as a community. Ehy is that TS. once again you show why the EUreka Reporter was a better option that your crappy paper.
….
The nec wonders why they’re in a financial hole? You can’t run a legitemate environmental organization by just pandering to the “boutique enviromentalists” . The nec turned it’s back on all of their long time supporters that are the back to the landers. They demonized us as polluters. Just look at their last news letter and it’s in black and white.
I didn’t leave the nec, the nec left me and my family.
I, my family and many many friends who are rural homesteaders feel betrayed by the nec and epic. This is the real reason they are in a financial hole………homesteading environmentalists have withdrawn their support.
,,,,
One of these days environmentalists will figure out that their movement has to be more than a growing list of prohibitions and fashionable don’ts. They can’t always simply negate. They must assert. The NEC more than any other organization except maybe EPIC, which makes a tidy living out of obsessively suing people, has no message except thou shalt not. The organization’s demise is darwinian. Good riddance. Maybe something meaningful and inclusive will grow in its place.
Feel the love!
Sohum Parlance II 
29 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 14, 2009 at 4:17 pm
humboldturtle
Is “homesteading environmentalists have withdrawn their support” code for pot money protecting a pot lifestyle?
July 14, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Anonymous
Sorry Turtle, the “homesteading environmentalists” withdrawing their support means exactly what it says. A lot of groups besides NEC should take heed. When you bite the hand that feeds you is it any wonder that the food soon stops.
July 14, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Rose
I someone else fixes it – Chesbro will be there for the ribbon cutting and photo op.
But, you can’t fix what is wrong with the NEC.
July 14, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Anonymous
homesteading environmentalists have withdrawn their support
In other words they bucked the pot money. Not smart in a company town.
July 14, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Eric Kirk
I think it mostly has something to do with the fact that grant money has dried up. Just my theory, for what it’s worth. But carry on with the political angles. They’re more fun.
July 14, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Anonymous
Since, as you say it has little to do with failing popular support and everything to do with grants I guess the same holds true for EPIC and all the other groups. So in essence there is no point in any of us continuing to support these organizations. It’s all about grants and not about the people. You may well be correct, and this may be true now but it didn’t used to be that way, time to get off the bandwagon and back to the roots. Without the popular support of the rural community they are all destined to fail and they will not have rural support so long as they are focused on building little enviro political empires focused more on money than on doing good. We should be looking closely at the boards and directors, and begin to replace those who are soley self interested.
July 14, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Eric Kirk
It’s true of all nonprofits right now. If that means you don’t want to give them money, then I guess that’s your prerogative. I will be sending the NEC some money. I don’t know if their donations from individuals are down. Do you?
Incidentally, I think it’s only a small select group which is holding a grudge against the NEC and EPIC for their support of controlled growth.
July 15, 2009 at 5:33 am
Anonymous
Actually I haven’t seen any position on controlled growth from EPIC. It would certainly be nice to see them get back to their base and take a position supporting rural lifestyles. I don’t expect to see this happen now that they are controlled from Arcata, but it sure would be nice.
With only 1,500 members left NEC funding from individuals must be way down. I know I quit when Greg King started selling us out. I do promise to return when they get back to causes that will make a difference instead of playing wacky urban social engineering games with my families future.
Too bad, at one time NEC was in a great position to sit down with HumCPR and craft a true compromise. We needed leadership and we got elitism. Now HumCPR is growing with 5,000 members and NEC has 1,500 and dropping. Lets see what happens with the other orgs, maybe one will step up and start acting like adults.
July 15, 2009 at 7:37 am
anonymous says
the nec suffers from poor leadership and management. the last director ran it into the ground and the current one doesn’t know what’s going on. they are horribly disorganized. i was in their office like three months ago and was shocked at the disorganization and confusion. plus, they were working on antiquated technology; kind of sad. true, it’s hard to run an enviro non-profit, but the nec didn’t do itself any favors by mismanaging the hell out of the place. plus, they don’t do anything. what was the last big campaign or effort the nec made happen? other than having an auction and printing a cheesy newspaper, what do they do?
July 15, 2009 at 7:38 am
anonymous says
The nec wonders why they’re in a financial hole? You can’t run a legitemate environmental organization by just pandering to the “boutique enviromentalists” . The nec turned it’s back on all of their long time supporters that are the back to the landers. They demonized us as polluters. Just look at their last news letter and it’s in black and white.
I didn’t leave the nec, the nec left me and my family.
I, my family and many many friends who are rural homesteaders feel betrayed by the nec and epic.
This is the real reason they are in a financial hole………homesteading environmentalists have withdrawn their support
July 15, 2009 at 7:53 am
anonymous says
to nec/healthy humboldt:
……..Our homesteads did not cause the demise of this country’s waterways. The filth from citys and industry did that.
Stop trying to imply that a one home tucked in 160 acres is worse for the enviroment than a small city full of enviromentalist.
The hemp shoes you wear so proudly are imported from China and their trip here damaged the enviroment more than any “trout pond”…….
HumCPR seems to be the only group able to work with and stand up for us rural folks along with another group who is gaining support by actually working with people as well, Sanctuary Forest.
July 15, 2009 at 9:58 am
Anonymous
Rose is right. DUHC has sucked so much of the oxygen out of the room teh other groups are dying.
July 15, 2009 at 10:34 am
Anonymous
Some of the people involved with Sanctuary Forest may tell you a much different story privately as far as local environmental issues. But they know to keep quiet about it publicly.
July 15, 2009 at 12:57 pm
anonymous
When Rose types too fast she transposes letters. teh for the, every time.
July 15, 2009 at 1:07 pm
anonymous says
“Is EPIC also in trouble?”
When EPIC was still in Garberville they had some great people movin and shakin ….but along comes the psychologically wounded hangers on. They were soooo negative against these people actually doing the work that they DROVE all of the good people out. Of course these “psycho’s” couldn’t sustain it after they took over…. they had to move north to No.Hum and now they’re in just as much trouble as NEC because of their B.S against rural land owners.
July 15, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Anonymous
Healthy Humboldt. HumIBA. Humboldt Green Party. Humboldt Community Currency Project. CCCD. Local Solutions PAC.
These are ALL front groups, all tentacles of the Cobb/Kaitlin control freak machine known as Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC).
Why is the NEC going under? They don’t fit into the DUHC financing scheme, that’s why.
July 15, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Skippy
The NEC has been a very important and effective advocate for prtecting our Old Growth forests, removing the dams on the Klamath, cleaning up our coastline, rejecting the liquified natural gas boondoggle, and many other issues.
Their newsletter and radio show are great places for folks working on different aspects of environmental protection to learn about and support one another’s work, and for the general public to learn about these issues and how they can get involved.
Tim McKay was a terrific leader, a very effective fundraiser, a talented organizer, and a wonderful mentor and role model for scores of young would-be eco-activists.
I don’t always agree with everything written in their newsletter (for example Jen Kalt’s next-to-most-recent piece in which she made the hyperbolic and nonfactual claim that rural residents are even more damaging to the environment than industrial logging), but I do think that the organization continues to play a constructive role in our community, especially with their work to undam and restore the Klamath.
I’m sorry to hear that they are hitting upon hard times, and I’ll talk to some friends about putting together a little bit of money to donate. I hope they can pull through and re-emerge stronger and more focused than ever.
July 15, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Skippy
I do know for a fact that SOME rural environmentalists/homesteaders have stopped supporting EPIC, the NEC, and the Humboldt Watershed Council because of the perception that some of the leaders of these groups don’t seem to have a clue about the realities of rural life and stewardship of rural lands in Humboldt County, and are trying to apply urbanist planning principles in areas where they just don’t make any sense.
But I really doubt that this has amounted to a very large portion of the financial problems faced by such groups. As was pointed out above, all across the country, non-profits of all sorts are facing major declines in donations as the economy has contracted.
However, the disputes over the General Plan Updates and land use issues, and the urban enviro vs. rural enviro split that has developed as a result, certainly isn’t helping groups like NEC and EPIC.
But I don’t think they should rethink their positions based on worries about donations — I think they should re-think their positions on the General Plan Updates because these positions (like supporting Plan A) are bad public policy, poorly thought out and possibly counterproductive to the goal of protecting our rural lands.
July 15, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Dave Kirby
In the case of EPIC I felt they had gone astray when they got involved with anti big box elements. I felt they were pretty effective fighting Maxxam but when they took a stand against the Target store they lost me. After all there was the remains of the Monkey Ward store already there. They should have stayed in the woods.
July 15, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Skippy
Well they did settle with Target, enabling the the store to open, but with a greater set-back from the Bay and better public access. Pretty good outcome.
July 15, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Anonymous
But who are they to tell a big box what to do? Big boxes are naturally environmentalists. These EPIC thugs are just prejudiced against the big box lifestyle. No wonder they’ve lost all the big box environmentalist support!
July 15, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Skippy
Tee-hee!
July 15, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Enviro & Homesteader
Ditto! About NEC slamming homesteaders!!!! All one has to do is read the so called “article” in June ECONEWS by Dr Loon. In this totally inflammatory piece that NEC published, he refers to “upstreamers” and “downstreamers”. Wow, let’s just start making HUGE generalizations and divide people into good people and bad people. Later Dr Loon actually DEMONIZES rural homesteaders by saying that “even the back to the landers made a devil’s pact with Citizens For Property Rights.” !!!!!I’m sure he’s referring to HumCPR.
This just hit me like a ton of bricks and totally felt like an attack by NEC!!!! And what! I’m supposed to support them and give them money now????? And even though I flirt with the devil, they would probably take the money anyway.
Yeah, something has gone WAY wrong with NEC and with all the city enviros that obviously don’t have a clue about our rural land stewardship.
July 15, 2009 at 9:02 pm
T.S. Editorial
NEC has more than just debt to overcome
The Times-Standard
Posted: 07/15/2009 01:30:12 AM PDT
Even five years ago it would have been hard to believe that the Northcoast Environmental Center would ever lose its mojo. At its head stood a brilliant man with connections and a disarming way of working with people on all sides of an issue. Tim McKay was a large man, literally and figuratively.
Under his leadership, the group effectively inserted itself into the middle of nearly every major environmental issue in Northern California, and had a well-earned reputation for reasoned arguments and perseverance. The breadth of the NEC’s involvement in such issues was clearly illustrated by the vast troves of documents and other data that center had in its archives.
It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that the NEC had fashioned itself into the pre-eminent environmental institution in Humboldt County and the greater North Coast.
Those days are now gone.
Since McKay’s death, the center has made a series of blunders, economic and otherwise, and it’s had some bad luck, too. Greg King, the executive director who followed McKay, certainly wasn’t able to keep the group on track.
These mishaps have now led the NEC to a point where its relevancy — and ultimately even its survival — are at risk. A mailer recently sent out to NEC supporters says that the organization’s fiscal problems are massive, and it calls upon its friends and sponsors to dig deep and help the environmental center find sound financial footing.
There’s no doubt that such help is needed, but we believe there are even bigger issues at play. Frankly, the NEC has lost its way. In what has turned out to be a painfully long period of transition after McKay’s death, the group has lost its identity, and in many ways has alienated former supporters — by opposing a plan aimed at restoring the Klamath basin, in one example — and angered what used to be respectful intellectual adversaries.
Such struggles are not a surprise. When an entity depends so much on a single man for its fire and passion, outreach and team-building, it’s a given that the organization will struggle for a period with that man’s departure. But if the NEC hopes to survive, now is the time for it to again find its place.
It has reached its current crisis under the leadership of its board of directors, and while we hesitate to blame anyone for all the problems that are currently plaguing the organization, we do think some serious thought should be given to possibly reconfiguring that board in order to encourage and cultivate fresh ideas and new perspective .
Fresh blood, and the resulting vitality that would come with such an infusion, can only help.
Ultimately, when this ship is righted — as it must be — and when NEC’s supporters throughout the community recognize that the center has again found its long-lost mojo, financial support will no doubt be found.
July 15, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Hippocracy uberalles
In other words, it’s okay to criticize “them.” The loggers. The ranchers. Big business. But don’t dare suggest that we hilltop hippies can do anything wrong. We have nothing to learn. We know it all. We’re stewards.
July 16, 2009 at 9:47 am
longwind
I don’t think it’s hypocritical to defend yourself against unfair and ignorant attack. And it’s simple honesty to stop supporting groups that turn on you and demonize you, after decades of warm relationship. What would you do, hippo?
July 16, 2009 at 10:44 am
kaivalya
So it’s decided – the NEC is moving out of its G street house and into the Jacoby Storehouse with one less employee.
Leaves me wondering what will become of the G Street house. Indoor grow for charity?
Good luck to the NEC. Personally I’ll have my eyes open in anticipation of a change in attitude and rhetoric.
July 16, 2009 at 1:53 pm
kaivalya
I suggest indoor grow more as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the northtown neighborhood than the NEC.
July 17, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Anonymous
Well under Plan C, I just can’t wait until Barnum subdivides his clearcut, sprayed, 10,000 acres into 40s so everyone can live above the dry Mattole and pretend to be environmentalists.