Probably because both were discussed on the Board of Supes meeting yesterday. The short version is that the Board wants the GPU process accelerated, or at least some of the Board members do. And they approved a letter to Caltrans calling for more transparency.
On the GPU the members of the public present called for slowing down the process, and some, according to the TS, requested that the GPU be stopped entirely with the old plan remaining in place – presumably for another 20 years, and according to the KMUD report last night one speaker said that lawsuits are inevitable.
Barbara Kennedy was present for the Richardson Grove issue and called for the reopening of public comment, which Caltrans is not inclined to do.
The BOS also voted to ignore the Grand Jury report about their salaries. Some have argued that the Grand Jury has been stacked with a particular political agenda.
Meanwhile, for those of you paying attention to the BOS races, which could lead to a major change of the balance of power, the North Coast Journal interviewed the three Fourth District candidates. Lots of people down here are concerned about the General Plan Update, but also have concerns about “urban” development and environmental concerns, and so have mixed feelings about each of the candidates. I think HumCPR is avoiding election endorsements this time around, which I think is smart given their mixed constituency. But I wonder where Sohum is in the Fourth and Fifth District races.
47 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 12, 2010 at 9:29 am
Anonymous
For me the issue with Bonnie Neely is the out of town money.
May 12, 2010 at 11:24 am
Anonymous
The developers are salivating over this election. Everything is coming together for them in a perfect storm.
May 12, 2010 at 11:26 am
Anonymous
And the homesteaders are playing right into their hands.
May 12, 2010 at 12:23 pm
the reasonable anonymous
If “the developers are salivating,” perhaps the should wear bibs, because they’re probably going to need to continue their salivation for quite some time. My guess is that Bonnie will win re-election and not much will change with respect to the Board’s eventual action on the GPU.
By the way, it was the Planning Department and Code Enforcement Unit that “played right into the hands of” developers by driving a wedge between urban environmental advocates and the environmentally-minded homesteaders who should be their natural allies. There’s no good reason that people who support ecologically sound urban development patterns can’t also support good rural land stewardship, and vice versa.
May 12, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Fred Mangels
For me the issue with Bonnie Neely is the out of town money.
But she does have the nicest yard signs.
May 12, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Anonymous
There’s no good reason that people who support ecologically sound urban development patterns can’t also support good rural land stewardship, and vice versa.
Rob Arkley’s a steward too you know. And he’s not draining any rivers.
May 12, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Anonymous
“…urban environmental advocates and the environmentally-minded homesteaders who should be their natural allies…” No problem at all except that many of the urban crowd believe that homesteaders should not be allowed and are willing to force their ideas down our throats with sneaky backroom politics. Yesterdays vote is a perfect example. Neely and Lovelace conspired to rig a vote to “expidite” the planning commission process. Couldn’t have anything to do with the facts that things are not going well with the Planning Commission who had the audacity to vote to allow houses on TPZ and the fact that the elections do not seem to be going well for the Arcata urbanists.
“There’s no good reason that people who support ecologically sound urban development patterns can’t also support good rural land stewardship, and vice versa.” Very true, unless your idea of good rural stewardship is to eliminate our dreams and to force us all into your idea of sound urban planning.
May 12, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Eric Kirk
So, to tie it into the topic of the thread, Reasonable Anonymous and Anonymous 1:47 in particular, do you support Bonnie or one of her opponents in the Fourth District race? How about the Fifth District?
May 12, 2010 at 2:33 pm
the reasonable anonymous
I’m not a not fan of any of the fourth district candidates, and I don’t vote in that district anyway. But if I had to choose, I’d probably go with Neeley, because despite her faults, Bass and Leonard impress me even less.
I’m not in the 5th district either, and I don’t know enough about the 5th district candidates to have a strong opinion, other than the fact that I would not vote for Jeffrey Lytle, based on the fact that his Henchman of Justice postings are often virtually unreadble and I take that as a sign of either muddled thinking or poor communications skills, or both.
May 12, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Anonymous
The candidates supported by both would appear to be fairly obvious. Less so is wether Bonnie and Mark will be able to force their agenda on the County prior to the election. What an embaressment not to let the peoples will decide and to scam their way into a General Plan vote weeks before the November vote.
Of course these are the same people who, on another blog brought us the most heinous, dispicable, and simply mean spirited thread imaginable. Clearly, Bonnie has established that there is no level too low for her to stoop. If not yet clear I support anyone but Neely and question the integrity of anyone who, with knowledge of the facts, would support her.
May 12, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Eric Kirk
R.A. – The consensus of the pundits is that a Neely win will result in a GPU along the lines of Plan A or an Aish B, whereas Bass or Leonard wins would result in a Cish or Dish outcome. So while you don’t vote there, the impact of the election is profound.
In the 5th, Higgins would be an A proponent. Cleary probably a Clendenenesque A-/B+. Sundberg Cish or Dish.
So it could come down to a choice. You get to build with minimal to no restrictions on TPZ land (and continue to enjoy the tax break), but you live with Home Depot or Wal-Mart by the water in Eureka.
So I’m wondering where the left wing of HumCPR is standing in the election. “I don’t know how I would vote” is certainly a reasonable answer, but not a very helpful one.
May 12, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Eric Kirk
So, 3:09. without revealing who you are, can you describe generally your politics? How have you voted on other issues? What are your environmental views? Do you support a big box on the Eureka waterfront?
May 12, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Anonymous
Last I checked the Marina Center issue was city issue not a county one. So your analogy of a choice between a big box and being able to live on your land (subject to the myriad of restrictions that currently exist and a few that should) bmake no sense.
May 12, 2010 at 3:20 pm
anonymous#1
Rural homesteaders are playing into the developers hands. They have been connived into thinking that somehow their land, houses, and lifestyle are at risk by the General Plan. In reality the rural environment is at risk from the developers who would love to break up every piece of land and turn the community into zillions of mini-ranchettes. Where is the current rural lifestyle when that happens?
By the way, if more parcels become available then the existing parcels become less valuable according to the law of supply and demand. That is if the monetary value is the main value that you place upon your parcel.
Get behind infill. It will save the rural lifestyle.
May 12, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Eric Kirk
Last I checked the Marina Center issue was city issue not a county one. So your analogy of a choice between a big box and being able to live on your land (subject to the myriad of restrictions that currently exist and a few that should) bmake no sense.
Well, let me lay it out for you. Bonnie will vote for TPZ restrictions, and against the big box. Bass and Leonard will vote against TPZ restrictions and for the big box. At least, that’s the consensus. We don’t have any candidates in the Fourth District who will vote against the TPZ restrictions AND against the big box, and we don’t have one who will vote for both. So therefor, it comes down to a choice. My question is about that choice.
I’m not forcing anyone to answer it. I’m just putting it out there.
May 12, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Anonymous
Sorry Eric, Not biting in this forum. Hopefully the opportunity will arise in person some time, it would be fun. Bet you will be suprised. xxxooo
May 12, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Anonymous
Supervisors don’t get to vote on the big box. At least not one within the city limits. Eurekans could easily vote for a Supervisor who supports rural living and a Councilperson who opposes a big box.
May 12, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Eric Kirk
Sorry Eric, Not biting in this forum. Hopefully the opportunity will arise in person some time, it would be fun. Bet you will be suprised. xxxooo
Be I won’t be. Some of the more thoughtful hippie types around here have adjusted their political outlook a little bit and have a little more respect and sympathy for developers than they had before this issue came up. And that’s not a bad thing. But it does raise some uncomfortable questions for those who can’t abide by cognitive dissonance or contradictions. We all live with contradictions. But most of us don’t acknowledge them.
Supervisors don’t get to vote on the big box.
Actually, Bonnie does in her capacity on the Coastal Commission, which she would lose if she loses the election.
Eurekans could easily vote for a Supervisor who supports rural living and a Councilperson who opposes a big box.
Where Eureka stands on preservation of ag land and TPZ vs. residential rights is unclear. However, in theory you’re right. But not in this election. It’s one or the other.
May 12, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Eric Kirk
By the way, the BOS would be involved in the process on other regulatory layers, as Mark Lovelace explained to me a few years ago.
http://kunsoo1024.wordpress.com/2006/11/05/is-the-marina-center-proposal-dead-in-the-water/
May 12, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Anonymous
I acknoledge the point with respect ot Bonnie’s seat and vote on the Coastal Com. In that sense she does get to vote on both issues. I suppose that I would rather lose on every issue dear to me than sacrifice all honor by supporting a totally amoral candidate. Otherwise, in order of priority, I tend (though not absolutely) to be pro rural living and anti big box. As mentioned, both are a distant second to integrity.
May 12, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Anonymous
So much nicer here. Way better, but harder, than beating up on the disabled.
May 12, 2010 at 4:03 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Eric,
Yes, I’m pretty well aware of the candidates’ overall orientation on the GPU stuff and the Big Box issues. But there are plenty of other issues, too, as well as the general competence of the candidates — which is actually quite important to me, because on most issues I tend to be somewhat of a pragmatist and not so much of an ideologue.
Yes, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t restrict the building of a single residence on a TPZ parcel, and at the same time I also don’t want to see a lot of Big Box development (nor am I interested in seeing lots of ag lands swallowed up in suburban cul-de-sacs), nor do I think that a Big Box-anchored strip mall is a wise way to utilize the Balloon Track. If there was a candidate who lined up with all my own positions, then they’d certainly have a leg up in getting my support — or more to the point, the support of folks who actually live in their district who may share these views.
But the actual choice in the 4th is Bonnie vs. Jeff vs. Virginia, and given those choices, I’m leaning toward Bonnie. (Although, again, since I don’t vote in the 4th District, I can lean ’til I fall over and it won’t make a bit of difference.)
I don’t agree with Bonnie’s every action, in particular I wish she had played a more constructive role during the code enforcement fiasco, and a less ideologically dogmatic postion on the GPU. But I very much value her efforts for the County Library and generally approve of her performance on the Coastal Commission. She is generally knowledgeable and competent, and I just find both Virginia and Jeff to be somewhat politically immature and lacking in accomplishments and substance.
I really don’t know any of the 5th candidates all that well, and haven’t been paying very close attention to that race. Sorry if that’s unhelpful, but it’s the truth. Like you, I have other things to do. I don’t work on any campaign, am not a member of HumCPR nor Healthy Humboldt, I’m just a casual observer.
Which reminds me, I ought to get off the computer and back outside, where it is windy, but otherwise a lovely may day.
May 12, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Dave Kirby
You folks need to get a clue. The demand for rural land for homesteads is grinding to a halt. It was always about dope growing for the majority of buyers. Not only will there be no market for anymore rural subdivisions but many of the existing homesteads will continue to lose value. You take pot out of the equation and many parcels become nearly worthless.
May 12, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Anonymous
well that is sure gonna sour things for bob mckee and buck mountain. he would love to develop every square inch of land. he is the epitome of rural sub-division, perry meadow, tooby ranch,,,,,, and he loves to cut trees.
May 12, 2010 at 7:57 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Which is one reason why restricting a single residence on TPZ parcels is a solution to a problem we don’t have.
We have enough real problems to deal with without wasting time on non-problems for ideological reasons.
May 12, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Anon
I am a resident of the 4th and will be supporting Bonnie largely because she is the most talented of the three candidates. People fault her for changing her positions on issues over time, but that is exactly what an intelligent person does as times and circumstances change. I have come to appreciate her integrity and understand that her changing views reflect thoughtful consideration of the issues shaped by her experience and wisdom.
Virginia just doesn’t have the intellect to be Supervisor and would naively rely on her old guard friends for advice on what to do. She is simply not capable of sizing up complex situations on her own. She reminds me of Goober. Incredibly well meaning. Great to have around in the right setting and also incredibly dangerous when given real responsibility.
Jeff is a lot smarter and is willing to work, but way to solicitous and sleazy for me to ever vote for him. He would do pretty much anything if he thought that there was a short term opportunity to get votes. I can’t think of many principled decisions that he has made while on the Council. He will take credit for all manner of things that have little do do with his efforts. He particularly lost me when he was feted at Arkley’s Marina Center shindig a few weeks before his last election. An election that he won by a just few votes over Ron Kuhnel. That event cost several times more that his total reported campaign expenditures and was done expressly for Jeff although he never had to recognize it on his filing forms. Smart-yes. Sleazy- in spades. Jeff is a circus promoter. These elections sometimes resemble a circus, but hope springs eternal. Vote for Bonnie.
With regard to the hippies as Eric refers to them, they have always at their core been capitalists. For a while their economic interests were tied to the liberal agenda as it favored the the sale of their product. Now that land value has moved to the forefront, (they have been so successful with their prior efforts that marijuana may soon be legalized), their lot is becoming more closely tied to the property rights movement which is the provence of conservatives.
At present, I am somewhat partial to rural landowners issues as the County has handled things badly so far but we need to be careful before we hitch our wagon to a dying business model. The urban areas could really get screwed and who knows, we may actually want to cut some trees in the future.
May 13, 2010 at 7:05 am
longwind
I think Kirby nails it. Like generals still fighting the previous war, our Supervisors are scrambling to ‘fix’ problems that vanished with the real estate bubble, never to return until some other weed is made illegal.
Anon, granting that your character studies are accurate, you’re forgetting why people make them: the strong character wants to decide for us how to prevent a non-existent real-estate bubble from damaging our cut-over timber industry; the weak characters want to let individual actors, rather than activists looking out their windows, decide how our extractive economy will recreate itself after the holocaust of industrial logging.
Hippies and trash trees are both by-products of that heedless destruction; both will thin out as the forests grow back and Prohibition rolls back. I don’t think there’s any doubt that smallholders’ trees will become our most valuable resource in years to come, as our weeds become worthless again. We need no push-around policy to make it so.
Why can’t we talk about reality? We’re so locked into fighting the good, dead fight. What can we do instead? Consider voting for do-nothings in place of do-somethings whose doings we don’t pay for and wouldn’t supervise even if they made any sense.
My land hasn’t made me conservative. If it had, I would fall in with the Wealthy Humboldters whose policies would give my landed privilege greater scarcity value. My values haven’t changed. I’m not a real-estate speculator. I vote against my economic self-interest because selfish policies are destructive. We’ve got enough destruction here, and I’d rather enjoy the recovery.
May 13, 2010 at 8:48 am
Eric Kirk
So basically,you’re arguing that the timber resource value of the land will always greatly exceed the development value. It’s a nice thought. I wish I could believe it. What I’m seeing is what’s happening in Mendocino County in the coastal subdivisions and even the Willits west subdivisions; namely that over the past decade or so the land has been bought up by urban yuppies either vacationing, retiring, or telecommuting. For instance, I watched the “Third Gate” subdivision gentrify almost completely from its former rustic quality. The tweakers are gone. But so are many of the hippies. Anderson Valley looks like Marin County these days.
I think that’s eventually going to catch up with Humboldt, even though it’s farther from the city, and I think it’s the recession which has lowered the values more than the reduction of pot prices.
But I could be wrong. In any case, we’ll find out soon enough.
May 13, 2010 at 9:27 am
Ed Denson
So, two questions:
1. Eric – I live in Sohum, what power shifts could occur on the BOS which would affect Sohum or, of course, medical marijuana?
2 Kirby – are you jumping the gun on the marijuana land boom being over. I don’t sell real estate so I don’t have any inside land market info, but I defend people busted for growing marijuana and there does not seem to be any shortage of them occuring, and many appear to be fairly recent residents, suggesting the land boom (or bubble, depending upon the fate of the marijauana legalization vote) is not over.
May 13, 2010 at 9:46 am
longwind
Some of those upscale inland Mendo gated communities have been hidden in the hills for 30 years. As you say, they’re not growers, they’re equity refugees. Will they ever teem this way again? Yep, it’s debatable.
The Mendo seashore was lost long ago, with the Coastal Commission restricting uglification privilege to the most wealthy and tasteful. Which is fine if you’re wealthy and tasteful, I guess, and enjoy ghetto values. I don’t fault the CCC for this; the seashore was doomed. Our question is whether we need CCC-style regulation here where we’re 1) not doomed, 2) not wealthy, and 3) not terribly tasteful.
The SF Bay real-estate bubble blasted southern and coastal Mendocino, and to some seemed to threaten Humboldt. Will it rise again? Will bankers invest in productive enterprises again? Will casino capitalism devolve back into financial service?
Will pigs fly? I confess I don’t know either. My point about trees is that, short- to medium-term, the land will likely get less valuable, the trees more valuable. Our ever-present trickle of urban refugees like you and me will be more important in SoHum’s economic future than we’ve been until now. We don’t want scads of us but do we need rollover, and I think our numbers will diminish with our wealth. So I second Kirby’s prediction that abandoned land may become a bigger problem than subdivisions. As you say, we’ll see.
May 13, 2010 at 9:48 am
longwind
ED, I’d be amazed if anyone’s now planning to move here to grow pot. If they are, I pity them.
May 13, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Anonymous
what a nice discussion.
May 13, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Eric Kirk
1. Eric – I live in Sohum, what power shifts could occur on the BOS which would affect Sohum or, of course, medical marijuana?
Well, anybody living on ag zoned land or TPZ land could be affected depending on their plans for their property. Anybody who drinks water could be affected. Anybody who depends on a healthy local economy could be affected.
As for medical marijuana, I think any of the candidates will pretty much sign what the staff puts in front of them, unless there’s a significant opposition in which case you’d probably want the “liberal” candidates in there.
May 13, 2010 at 4:32 pm
anon
about land, its not just for growing weed, aren’t people going to want to maybe buy a place in the country just to have a peaceful place to live? i have five acres an hour from town with a nice house, 24/7/365 hydro power, a spring above and below with a lot of privacy, sun and a little ocean view…i think the place has value regardless of the weed situation…
no?…
May 14, 2010 at 7:13 am
longwind
anon, yes. I think sweet properties will continue to have value. Others, without your amenities, too dark and wet for winter use, were plausible summer homes that owners left for the darkest months of winter. Those properties weren’t real easy sells even in the bubble. Kirby may know if they sell at all now. There’s lots of ‘em.
May 14, 2010 at 11:03 am
Jeff Muskrat
I think commissioner Faust said it best at the planning commission meeting last night. I’ll paraphrase:
During the PL bankruptcy, PL’s plan was to build McMansions on their TPZs…
What’s the difference between PL’s McMansion plan and HumCPR’s interests in the GPU? Can anyone from HumCPR tell me?
And where is the water going to come from? How many more roads will be built for resident access?
I’d rather see TPZ’s kept for strictly timber harvest than sprawling residential habitat encroachment. The less impacting of the two evils…
May 14, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Anonymous
“I’d rather see TPZ’s kept for strictly timber harvest than sprawling residential habitat encroachment. The less impacting of the two evils…”
Interestingly Jeff if you take away dewatering and sedimentation, admittedly big if’s, residential uses are far less impactfull than timber harvesting.
How about a requirement to provide 40,000 gal of storage and responsibly engineered roads on any new subdivision of any type of land, TPZ or not?
May 14, 2010 at 3:47 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Hi there Jeff (and everyone else),
No one, including the CPR supporters I’ve talked with, supports the kind of massive develoment of TPZ lands that Hurwitz proposed. Basically, his proposal was an unrealistic attempt massively inflate the value of PL’s assets in the eyes of a bankruptcy judge, with the hope that the judge would let Hurwitz keep control of the company. Chances are that few of those riduculously high-priced “kingdoms” would have actually sold, but Charlie would have had a chance to milk PL for a few more years.
An important distinction between Hurwitz’s plans and the individual hopes and dreams of rural residents, is that our rural residents develop their own plans suited to their own unique location and landscape, and most are informed by a love of the land and the desire to see the habitat stay healthy over the long term. Rural residents often do much of the the building work themselves, supplemented by local labor. The vision we are striving towards is a rural landscape that is neither crowded with suburban cul-de-sac developments, nor barren of human habitations and given over to corporate logging and corporate ranching.
Given that overdevelopment is not currently a real problem in most of rural Humboldt (as opposed to, say, Cutten, where Kirk Girard and Mark Lovelace’s favorite development, Forster-Gill, would plop thousands of suburban homes onto the edge of an already-crowded suburb) there is no good reason to prevent the relatively small number of people who want to live and work on the land from being able to do so.
Also, it’s interesting to note that smaller TPZ landowners tend to harvest less frequently, more selectively, and with greater respect to the habitat, as opposed to the way Big Timber does things. This should come as no surprise, because unlike Hurwitz, or the new owners of PL or the owners of Green Diamond, many of the smaller TPZ owners live on their land, or plan to. They live in our county, contribute to it’s economy (rather than leeching off it like the out-of-area owners of the Big Timber outfits), and care about our shared future.
Oddly enough, the recent complaint about small TPZ owners has been that they cut too FEW trees, and are therefore not as “productive” (in the short-term) as Big Timber’s operations. Another way to say that is that the small, individual TPZ owners are more conservation-oriented and better stewards of the land. Again, that should come as no surprise to those who are aware of the impacts of Big Timber. I’ll take owner-occupied Small Timber any day!
Here are responses to your two specific questions.
“Where is water going to come from?”
Winter water storage is the best way, because we have PLENTY of water for most of the year. We could do much more to educate people about the importance of conserving water and storing winter water, and to incentivize winter water storage. For example, the Mattole Restoration Council has a program where they chip in toward the purchase of water storage tanks, and in return the landowners pledge to draw no water from the springs creeks, or river during the dry months.
So there ARE solutions available. Unfortunately some folks would rather USE the dry-season water issues to support their general opposition to rural living, rather than to work on actually solving the problem, which is fundamentally a problem of water storage, not water supply. By the way, many of our rural homesteaders and back-to-the-landers are some of the most environmentally conscious folks around, using composting toilets and greywater systems to conserve water (despite the County’s absurd insistence that crapping in a porcelain bowl of clean water is the only acceptable way to go).
“How many new roads…?”
Most residences on TPZ land are built on existing ranch roads or existing logging roads. I’ve seen plenty of logging roads “maintained” by PL, Green Diamond, Barnum, etc., that are “out of use” for decades between harvests, and in many cases they are in very poor condition, bleeding sediment into the watersheds. Most TPZ and AG lands owned by homestead-scale landowners have old ranch and logging roads that have been graveled and graded better, with improved culverts and drainage and less erosion. In addition, many thousands of miles of old, poorly-engineered, eroding and collapsing former logging roads are being permanently decomissioned by rural Humbolt residents. So I’m not at all sure that there is any net increase of roads going on, and of those that remain, the ones maintained regularly by local road associations are generally in a lot better shape than many of the roads used by Big Timber.
So, I would invite you to re-think your position on this issue. I suspect that you and I would agree on a lot of the real issues. My advice would be to try not to get caught up in the inflated rhetoric where greedy developers are supposedly on the cusp of turning Humboldt into a maze of suburban cul-de-sacs. And I’d be a little more skeptical of folks like Mark Lovelace and Kirk Girard, who advocate for thousands of new homes in Cutten, a maze of suburban cul-de-sacs that is being presented with buzzwords like “Smart Growth” and “Mixed Use.” Those are the folks who are pushing for conversion of timberland to residential. Most of the rural residents and small TPZ landowners that I know just want to have a house on their 160 acre parcel, so they can be present to care for and enjoy the land they have worked hard to aquire.
By the way, what’s the zoning where YOU live? Are you in a semi-urban “smart-growth” development that was recently converted from farm or timber to residential? Do you live in a sprawling suburb like Sunny Brae, like Mark Lovelace does? Do you live in a city center within walking distance of most places you need to go, like Wealthy Humboldt wants you to? Or perhaps you yourself live on former timberland, which you are now using as a residence, while not wanting others to have that same opportunity. We all have to live somewhere, how about you…you’re talking the talk, but are you walking the walk?
May 14, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Anonymous
bob mckee should be held to that standard, and then some. he should be made to go back and fix all his screwed roadwork, culverts, and put water storage on his tooby ranch development. he should pay for it all himself, not have the mattole restoration council and taxpayers pay for it like in the past.
in other states, you can’t build unless you have a PROVEN water site on the land, well or spring. one homestead can use 50-60,000gal easily,ask michael torbert. one state has a 3gpm per residence requirement.
May 15, 2010 at 7:05 am
longwind
These are great comments.
Jeff, I’d only add, to answer Faust’s fatuous rhetorical flourish, this: Maxxam’s kingdom plan was a transparent fraud that was never going to happen, written with the hope that the judge it was written for was a moron. He wasn’t.
HumCPR’s plan to carpet-bomb McMansions is also a transparent fraud that’s not going to happen, repeated with the expectation that Humboldt voters are morons. Another subtle difference: Maxxam put out the first lie on its own behalf. But Faust et al put out the second lie about their boogeymen-under-the-beds. Since we’re talking about boogeymen here, I’ll concede it may be fair to characterize Faust’s fancies as projections, rather than simple lies a la Hurwitz.
If there were truth in Faust’s fears, we would see the resultant McMansion bloom all over the land. We don’t. We do see some dope subdivisions of cut-over land, which there won’t be more of until we have a healthy economy, stable, high pot prices, and pigs fly. McMansions do encircle some towns that don’t control their peripheries–but rural residency has absolutely nothing to do with our county’s failures of urban planning.
Demonizing rural residents for urban planning and policy failures is a telling example of what our county chooses to do instead of addressing and solving its problems. Luckily, we’re not stupider than a Texas judge, so these divisive projections aren’t working. Not even the Planning Commission is falling for it anymore!
May 15, 2010 at 8:48 am
longwind
I should add that Faust in previous blusterings has asserted that *any* house in rural Humboldt is evidence of urbanization. He doesn’t recognize rural residency as a longstanding way of life, and doesn’t believe that people should live like he’s privileged to live, on generous acreage outside built-up areas.
Can you say blind? Ignorant? How about hypocritical? Faust is his own best argument against your case, Jeff.
May 15, 2010 at 7:41 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Every site in the county has a proven water source: rainwater. We get huge amounts of it in the winter. It’s a storage issue.
By the way, use of wells and especially the use of springs, during the dry months, still robs the creeks and rivers of water.
Ideally, people need to collect rainwater (or springwater or creek water or well water) during the wet seasons and store it and conserve during the dry seasons. I would say the same thing for more populous areas that draw their water from the river, like Redway. Store the water when there is a surplus of it, and use it carefully during the dry season. That’s what works with our climate in our area.
So the question is how to bring about this desirable state of affairs. On one extreme, we could have all kinds of mandates, permits, penalties, compliance inspections, appeals processes, lawsuits, etc. On the other extreme we can do nothing in particular and just hope for the best. And somewhere in the middle we can try removing obstacles (like county permits & fees for the storage tanks) and providing incentives (like the MRC program) and continue educating the public about the importance of storing water, the consequences of drying up the creeks and rivers, and the practical how-to of collecting and storing winter water.
May 16, 2010 at 11:09 am
edsvoice
You don’t have to look that far to see what is going on, even here in SoHum.
If you are at all concerned about saving Redwoods, the River/Water and your own life style in Humboldt, maybe you should all go to the LAFCo Board meeting ( http://humboldtlafco.org/sites/default/files/Humbolft%20LAFCo%20NOTICE%20OF%20PUBLIC%20HEARING_revised%20website%20posting%20May%204.pdf ) The Garberville Sanitation District (GSD) plans on running a 8″ water line down Sprowel Creek Road to Kimtu. If anyone has ever been down there, they have seen that beautiful grove of Redwoods. The pipe will be running right between Kimtu road and all of those Redwoods. Makes one wonder how they can dig a trench to bury a 8″ pipe without disturbing all those roots under the road leading to the river?
The upside is; homes and people in Kimtu will now have save and healthy drinking water.
The downside is; this water line will create massive growth and development from the Southern Humboldt Community Park down to Kimtu. New property owners from what use to be Community Park property, along with the Community Park Board have already made deals to use water from GSD (South Fork Eel River). This is a win win for them and developers, not for our; Wildlife Habitat, Eco-systems, Watersheds, Ag lands, Open Space and existing water needs and usage of the Community.
What is planned and on the table for Sprowel Creek Road down to Kimtu, reminds me of why people don’t want a Wal-Mart in their Community!
You talk about conserving water, but no where in this community has anyone been talking about this new GSD water line down to Kimtu and the new development it may serve along the way. Not to mention the new water treatment plant project GSD wants to build next to the Community Park, now owned by what’s called “River Ranch Homes LLC” c/o Sanford Goldeen (81 acres) And lets not forget the 70 acres that Stephen Dazey now owns between the Community Park and Kimtu, with that proposed GSD water line running right past his new property on Kimtu Road. Dazey has submitted a request to Humboldt County to rezone and develop that property into estates using GSD water from the Kimtu pipe.
But I guess it’s better to keep your ears plugged, your eyes shut and your mouth closed, right Eric?
May 16, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Anonymous
Leave it to Ed to be afraid of a water line.
May 17, 2010 at 8:11 am
edsvoice
No,
Leave it to edsvoice to bring up an issue that no one else wants to talk about, that would change the lives of everything in our neighborhoods down here, i.e. water, trees, land, roads, wildlife, open space etc…
It is amazing that someone not using their own name would call another “afraid”.
May 17, 2010 at 8:23 am
Anonymous
If it is close enough to town for a water line it is probably a good candidate for development. We need more affordable housing. Good for the Garberville Sanitation District!
May 17, 2010 at 9:22 am
edsvoice
Who said they would be “affordable housing”,
GSD is asking LAFCo to expand their Sphere of Influence to place this new water line down to Kimtu, because the new water treatment plant and line down to Kimtu are outside the Disticts Sphere of Influence now.
They also state that the new water treatment plant and line down to Kimtu are not going to induce growth or development in the area.
So why have new developers said they are going to use GSD water for their planned development along the water line down to Kimtu and the new GSD water treatment plant? This new water line down to Kimtu comes from State Grant money and should only serve Kimtu Homes, nobody else!
These developers are talking about Estates with swimming pools, large single family homes up to 2400 sq ft and Condo’s. Plus rezoning AE Ag land into housing! Nothing was ever said about HUD or PUD