Thursday, January 30, 2014

EPIC gets a seat on the Planning Commission

Mark Lovelace proves, once again, the necessity of staying awake, engaged and vigilant.

Lovelace Makes New Appointment to Planning Commission - Ryan Burns

...Whatever the reason, (Ralph) Faust, who was just reappointed to the Planning Commission’s Third District seat last year, chose to step down this week. Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace chose as his replacement Noah Levy, an Arcata resident and program director for the SoHum nonprofit Sanctuary Forest.

Levy is also on the board of the nonprofit Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC)...
__________________

13 comments:

  1. Alongside Hum CPR

    ReplyDelete
  2. Funny thing is, Lovelace is THE reason for the current makeup of the Commission. He just added one more, is all. But they're all there thanks to him. And his overreach.

    Picking someone with EPIC ties means there's no more pretense of 'centrism.'

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow! What BAD JUDGMENT in Humboldt County Planning from a Supervisor bent on political manipulation at any cost to the community. We all must hold EPIC and Lovelace's former Humboldt Watershed Council responsible for Humboldt County's great lag in addressing homestead subdivision eco-damage, that lag lasting almost 20 years as EPIC and HWC along with Earth First! and a host of other enviro orgs all diverting environmental protection information away from the major eco-wrecking culprits, homestead subdivisions. Now Mark wants to put these same yahoos in position to screw the County even more with politics being used in place of planning sense? EPIC is not to be trusted as any sort of environmental protection organization because they still take money from homesteaders and thus are compromised from the get go.

    I'm sick of phony "radical" activists playing stupid political games with our Humboldt County government, people, and land. Vote Mark Lovelace out next election, Arcata, McKinleyville, if you are for a professional non-partisan non-biased unpoliticized Planning Dept in Humboldt County government.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The headline should have read. "Despite Long Odds, One seat filled by a Non-Lobbyist . Subtitle: Lobbyists still hold a 5-2 stranglehold on Planning Commission.

    But "A" for effort Rose. This blogging stuff is tough. You have the pictures and format down. Let me know if you need any help with the content. Reality can be complicated and difficult to report, especially when tainted with Elephant-colored glasses.

    :)

    Seriously, Rose and Stephen, all you have to do is listen to Thursday night's PC meeting. We used language straight out of the Working Lands Resource Group (The association made up of the largest property owners in the county - the shells of the former Maxxim, PLC, etc.). David Edmonds made the motion out of no where after 2 hours of public comment with a great deal of input and work by Gordon Leppig that was actually leading the document to more useful language. Ulansey even seemed on board. I'm not sure why, but out of nowhere a motion was made and quickly passed to negate all the work that had been done in that chamber over the previous couple of hours.

    It was really a sight to behold and it was an inauspicious beginning for what the PC is going to do with it's new-found treasure. The GPU with a developer-friendly majority. Good bye science, good-bye planning, hello property rights, hello governing and planning by the Chamber of Commerce.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jon, do you own any property?

    ReplyDelete
  6. We've been through this already Rose. My family owns a couple of plots in town.

    You've made your point before, buy land and do what you will with it. We can't plan this way Rose. That is the opposite of planning, that's unplanning (is that a word?). If I wanted to build a WalMart on my property could I? No. Should I be able to? Of course not, not unless it is part of a larger public-oversight planning process.

    Yes, I will be advocating for progressive planning ideas, but these are not about non-growth, they are about smart growth. Amazingly, if we do this right, we can have our cake (jobs) and eat it too (land reserved for critical habitats and long term forestry and agricultural concerns).

    Your crew (ie those not named Noah Levy and Susan Masten from what I've witnessed last week) is happy to modify this thought from planning "protect agriculture and timberland for the long term". That was what was so nice about the Guiding Principles topic which I don't think concerns you to any great extent. Those 9 now 11 phrases state in plain English what the principles of the plan will be. We changed those from June to October last year from a protective stance, to a stance which eviscerates the public's ability to "protect" natural resources. We now have to trust property owners to do whats right.

    Are you familiar with the concept of the "tragedy of the commons"? That's where your philosophy of leaving planning to the property owners leads. It's a fault of capitalism, but not a fatal fault if we agree that there are things, like government and public planning that we want to do together -i.e. through our elected representatives.

    Not by lobbyists and special interests.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rose, you fed the troll...

    LibJon, you run out of words and now plagiarize fellow Progster Ken Miller post? Here's Ken's post on the "tragedy of the commons".

    "You well understand that a ‘tragedy of the commons’ can occur even when the common resource is unlimited space for text."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well, Stephen, I was wanting to see if Jon had made any 'progress' since he last declared that he had the right to pee on someone else's bushes and call it his own.

    In the name of the common good and all, of course. Without him having to invest a single conch shell. Or run any risk if his schemes fail, he just gets to walk away muttering.

    It's all in the philosophy, Jon.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nice Stephen, now I know first hand how you roll. Make stuff up. I've never heard of Ken Miller. Is the only thing in common with his quote and mine use of the phrase "tragedy of the commons"? That's a pretty standard idea that I first came across some time around 1989 to 1991. I'm curious. a) do you really believe you are right, b) do you think you are probably right and just wanted to write that or c) do you not believe that at all and are making stuff up whole cloth to try to win a debate. Seriously, I'd like to try to figure out where you are coming from.

    Rose - is money and capital the only investment that counts in your mind? What about labor, what about time?

    Exactly right, "common good". Without a vision of the future that includes the common good we will continue the cycle of civilization. We didn't invent the free market, it's been around since the dawn of civilization. Just one visit to the Middle East will cement that. Trade, bartering, exploitation have been around forever and the overuse of civilization's resources has been our kind's m.o. foreeevvveeer.

    We have a chance to change that, but only if we think about the common good. Something Republicans like to forget. It's like Teddy Roosevelt always said. We don't need no stinkin' Parks, just have the rich buy land and we can all pay to enjoy their land.

    ReplyDelete
  10. GEE, Jon. How in the world have we survived all these centuries without your perfectly fine help.

    When you read back what you wrote - does it make any sense to you? Really?

    ReplyDelete
  11. "Without him having to invest a single conch shell. Or run any risk if his schemes fail, he just gets to walk away muttering."

    Yes Rose, my argument makes sense. I'm of course dealing with a tough conch shell to crack.

    We'll try again. I can't invest. I don't have the capital or the interest. I will work hard and put in my time to a job/profession. As a citizen I expect the right to effect policy. Policy will help direct the direction of our county.

    One of the most important policies our community makes every day since we first started building semi-permanent structures is our pattern of growth. Who gets to decide on the pattern of growth? Should we leave it up to those with the most conch shells?

    From what I'm observing at the Planning Commission, it doesn't seem like a good idea. Those with the most conch shells don't seem to appreciate science (in Thursday's case biology/ecology) when it comes to being able to do what they want with their property.

    *********

    Stephen - I cannot find what you are referring to for the life of me. Now you have me curious, could you provide a link please?
    (Lightbulb) Oh, I think I get it. You are doing a double whammy aren't you? Calling out a consistent anon from another thread and trying to slime my cred at the same time.

    OK, yes confirmed. I did read that comment Stephen. Maybe somewhere in my unconscious the phrase remained top-of-mind, but in no way does that constitute plagiarism. It is "plagiarism" as much as my use of the word "plagiarism" is. Ugh Stephen.

    To sum up...score: Stephen: -2. Minus one for calling out a commenter by name who chooses not to be. Also, minus one for just making stuff up to try to lower the credibility of another commenter.

    In right-wing land where any strategy is a good strategy as long as it is a winning strategy over the evil progs...score... +2.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jon, you know the Apple ad where the woman throws the sledgehammer into the Big Brother screen? You're not that person.

    And that's the problem. You're a Nanny-Stater. It's fine for you, but I have absolutely zero respect for it.

    That's the basic, fundamental, impossible to bridge divide.

    ReplyDelete
  13. "That's the basic, fundamental, impossible to bridge divide."

    Because modern conservatism has removed itself from intelligent policy conversations. Instead of Keeling curves, conch shells; instead of public sector, nanny state; instead of debate we get references to an Apple commercial.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are closed for the time-being.