Sara, read your open letter on CALITICS website, and I’d like to share a few thoughts.
Aren’t you being a bit over dramatic, crying wolf, telling everyone that the coast is under attack? Unless of course, you’re saying The Crab Monsters are at it again… and that’s some serious Mojo.
On the contrary, Ms. Wan, coastal people say thatyou, the California Coastal Commission, are the attackers.
People living along the coast of Californiawelcome this new legislation, and consider it is very good news for ALL the people of California – especially if pending legislation in the Public Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) requires the Coastal Commission to pay for all legal services previously supplied by the Attorney General (and swept under the rug - so to speak). The People of California need to know how much your commission really spends..
This is something that should have been done long ago - but now is a good time to start.
The California families you sue, that defend themselves in court against the California Coastal Commission, pay their own legal bills.
Maybe now is a good time for the CCC to return to doing what you were supposed to do when the voters passed proposition 20, e.g., protect the coast, that area from the mean high tide land to 1,000 yards in land. By the way you do such good work on the Navy Sonar marine mammal issues and overwhelming plastic debris…why not just stick the coast of California, as it was defined before you and the California Coastal Commission skewered the definition of “coast” to allow you to blitz-krieg inland?
This new budget proposal would force you to stay away from people’s homes, and private property…and stay the heck out of their lives.
This would also mean the California Coastal Commission would be have to think real hard before it capriciously attacked picnic tables, rogue rose bushes, eucalyptus trees, horses, sheep, goats, showers, house colors, trespass on private property, spy on folks, extort people’s land out from under them in exchange for a building permit or any other stuff like that.
This may be also a good time to send Mr. Cease-and-Desist Douglas packing especially since he’s so darn sue-happy. You commissars have done enough to wreck life, liberty and the California economy. Maybe this may be why so many Californians are angry.
You also say that, ” the commission may be unable to initiate lawsuits to protect public access or other coastal resources.” This is a load of rubbish. I’m sure you will still have an appropriate budget to be spent wisely… like on the beach -however this also means you have to close your department of silly lawsuits. In case you elitist imperialists haven’t noticed… times are tough for We the people.
You say, “Jerry Brown’s (the Attorney General) budget people support this bad idea.” Could that mean Jerry B does too? And perhaps whatyou’re calling a bad idea is actually a real good idea…and an idea that is way overdue.
You say, “this also effectively means that the Commission would be unable to deny any applicant or to impose any conditions on any proposal that the applicant opposes, based on whether the Commission could afford the cost of litigation.” Yes, that is what it effectively means.
What this proposal also suggests is that your bad-ass commission needs to stop the 30 year wave of terror. Quit lying and trying to steal folk’s land, then hiding underneath the judge’s robes. And most important of all - quit storm-trooping around people’s private property.
Like what you’re reading? Here’s how you can help --
SINS OF COMMISSION is fiscally sponsored film by International Documentary Association,a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to the art and advancement of all documentary films.
This means you can support SINS OF COMMISSION and receive a tax deduction at the same time when you donate through the International Documentary Association. Simply click the DONATE NOWlink on the upper right… or the Crab Monsters may attack you next..
THE OYSTERGATESCANDAL, a short film by Nicole Adams, clearly shows the great lengths government agencies and quasi-judicial commissions will go in pursuit of their agendas… nefarious agendas driven by corrupt government officials in partnership with NGO’s (non-government organizations) that have a vested political interest and ideological goal.
Agencies like the National Park Service and California Coastal Commission, both ideologically driven, serve as proxies for each other and often pursue a “by all means necessary” approach - even if it means cooking scientific data.
Citizens like the Kevin Lunny family in THE OYSTERGATESCANDAL, Peg and Dan, Milos & Trish, and Kathleen Kenny, in SINS OF COMMISSION, and thousands of other people don’t stand a chance.
What is going on?
I want to be sure facts are driving scientific decisions… not the other way around…the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.
Join SINS OF COMMISSION filmmaker Richard Oshen on Radio Liberty February 5th at 8PM PST as he takes listeners on an incredible journey into the shadow world of the California Coastal Commission - a nether world of twisted schemes and broken dreams -where ’dedication of property’ is the buzz-word for extortion, and driving people off their land a secret agenda of state.
Find out what happened to the family farm, private property and how the commission continues to destroy lives along the coast. Discover why ordinary people can’t win against the California Coastal Commission, the politics of fire, the infulence of Paganists, social-engineering, the emergence of the eco-industrial complex, and why California Coastal Commission rulings could potentially destroy you - no matter where you live.
Radio Liberty is hosted by Dr. Stan Monteith, outspoken radio personality, author of “AIDS: The Unnecessary Epidemic”, and “A Nation Deceived and Betrayed“, February 5, 2010,8 PM - 89.9 FMSanta Cruz. The program also streams live on the web at Radio Liberty Online and is carried over the ACN Network, and CRB Network.
SINS OF COMMISSION Filmmaker Richard Oshen talks with Dr. Stan Monteith, outspoken Radio Liberty talk show host, author of “AIDS: The Unnecessary Epidemic”, and “A Nation Deceived and Betrayed“, February 5, 2010,8 PM - 89.9 FMSanta Cruz.
The program streams live on the web at Radio Liberty Online and is carried over the ACN Network, and CRB Network.
The filmmaker said he identifies with the program’s mission to bring listeners the story behind the story and the news behind the News.
Oshen went on to say, “It is up to small independently owned, grassroots radio stations to carry the message of truth - a message that is being systematically destroyed by big multinational corporations who chose our news for us. Broadcast news, as we once knew it is gone with few rare exceptions.”
[Last] week’s Supreme Court ruling that corporations are protected by “free speech” rights and can contribute enormous sums of money to influence elections is a de jure endorsement of the de facto dominance of corporations over our lives.
Truthout
Homer Simpson discovers corporations have more rights than he does.
To say money has always influenced politics along the California coast would be an understatement. Just a glance at the way the legislature turns a blind-eye to coastal commission shenanigans or how the judiciary rubber stamps rulings consistently in favor of the CCC and the story can be told.
When one ponders the implications of corporate citizenship, take into consideration the plethora of PAC’s and non-profit corporations that wield a mighty big influence on coastal politics.
Well-known orgs like the venerable Sierra Club have also helped the California Coastal Commission eviscerate people’s rights along the coast of California. The CCC is the de facto enforcer… the legal muscle for the corporate thugs. We are just now beginning to discover the pathological relationship that existed between some environment groups like EDC who will sell-out the environmental for cheap.
Last year, SINS OF COMMISSION requested an accounting by the state of California to see which non-profits gave money to infulence the California Coastal Commission at a time way before the US Supreme Court blessed corporate citizenship last week. So far those documents have not been forthcoming.
The danger of foreign loot loading into U.S. campaigns, not much noted in the media chat about the Citizens case, was the first concern raised by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked about opening the door to “mega-corporations” …
Truthout
Corporations will now have more rights than people.
Tara Malloy, attorney with the Campaign Legal Center of Washington D.C.
Under current laws, human-people, as opposed to corporate-people, may only give $2,300 to a presidential campaign. But hedge fund billionaires, for example, who typically operate through dozens of corporate vessels, may now give unlimited sums through each of these “unnatural” creatures.
Truthout
And there you have it.
If corporations are the new citizens… what happens to us people?
In the meantime, think about supporting SINS OF COMMISSION a flim about, by, and for the people. Help to finish the film and get it out. ALL donations are tax deductible and confidential when made through the film’s fiscal sponsor The INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION, a 501 c3 non profit foundation - a very worthy non-profit foundation concerned about preserving people’s rights to Freedom of Speech through documentary films.
Fastest, easiest way to help is to click the “DONATE NOW button” on the side of this page, and you will be whisked away to a secure PAY PAL page set up for us. Fill in the blanks, click “send” and bingo…you’ve helped! You can also send a check to:
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Please be sure to write “for: SINS OF COMMISSION” on your check.
“Power never concedes anything without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
Frederick Douglass (no relation to Peter Douglas)
Yesterday’s blog post was about secret back room deals resulting in a covert agreement between an environmental grout Environmental Defense Center, EDC and Huston based Oil company PXP. This revelation seems to suggest just how twisted our system has become and offers the possibility that the system may be too broken to be fixed by politicians, commissions, and other so-called government insiders.
Regarding all matters coastal, change if it going to be real, and long lasting must come from outside Sacramento. It is time for all of us to take a good sharp look at the California Coastal Commission, and other land management resource agencies to see exactly how things get done along the coast of California.
Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
Martin Luther King
I always wonder why we people say we won’t get fooled again but inevitably do. Could it be that the new boss is the same as the old boss?
The fate of public lands cannot be decided in contracts negotiated behind closed doors.
Controller John Chiang, Lands Commission member
I’ve been looking for a way to demonstrate what I call the new eco-industrial complex while raising awareness about whole-scale corruption in the “name of the environment” then I read this little Dusey about a secret agreement between an oil company and a California environmental group, thank-you Calbuzz, and the pieces fit neatly into place.
It seems there is some kind of a secret pact between Huston based oil company PXP and Environmental Defense Center (EDC).
EDChas been prominent in the decades-long fight against offshore drilling in California according to Calbuzz.
Wait a second.
EDC, a prominent environmental group, has been publicly eschewing off-shore drilling but privately endorsing PXP’s application for lease to slant drill into state waters, from an existing platform under federal jurisdiction, more than three miles offshore.
It is shameful that an oil company got an environmental group - in this case Environmental Defense Center to do its bidding for YEARS for a piddly 100k… peanuts compared to the billions PXP is going to make.
PXP and EDC said they recently incorporated amendments to the agreement to address criticisms raised at the initial State Lands Commission hearing by strengthening written assurances that the promised benefits of the agreement will materialize.
Calbuzz
In one fell swoop EDC has not only tarnished environmental groups and raises the pay-for-play question, but has trashed the street cred of the State Lands Commission, and all the other agencies under them. This revelation raises some very uncomfortable questions - similar to the ones I raise in SINS OF COMMISSION that demand rigorous investigation and appropriate action.
SINS OF COMMISSION reveals that for decades the California Coastal Commission, an agency of state, engages in environmental degradation in exchange for a dedication of land or an easement of property.
Now it seems this deal-making behind closed doors is “business as usual.” - despite claims of transparency. If recent scandal-ridden history has taught us anything…this is just the tip of theiceberg.
…it is not unusual for environmental groups to keep private the legal agreements or settlements it makes with corporations applying for permits or leases before public agencies.
Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center
If it is a private deal that is one thing… but oil leases are not generally considered private….oil leases are a public resource.
If permission is given, this would be the first lease granted by the state since Union Oil’s disastrous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill - an oil spill that lead to vociferous public outrage- an outrage that needs voice now right here in California.
LOS ANGELES (Aug. 29) — A growing wildfire sending massive billows of smoke into the sky north of Los Angeles nearly tripled in size Saturday, injuring three residents, burning a small number of homes, knocking out power to many more and prompting evacuations in a number of mountain
Mandatory evacuations were extended Saturday into neighborhoods in the canyons on the northwestern edge of Altadena, Glendale, La Crescenta and Big Tujunga Canyon, Forest Service spokesman Bruce Quintelier said. It was unclear how many residents were ordered to leave.
California is heading into the most destructive part of its fire season, when winds can whip flames into 90 mile per hour storms of fire - it’s clear that a promise was not kept.
Anyone who suggests fire protection can be as good this fall as in recent years most likely will turn out to be living a fantasy. That, of course, would include Schwarzenegger, for whom everything almost always is “fantastic” in more ways than one.
The new state budget cuts $27 million from Cal Fire, the state agency that sends people and equipment wherever they’re needed most. The reduction includes more than $10 million earmarked for new fire engines, hoses, pumps and other equipment.
There’s also the matter of the DC-10 airborne tanker, another so-called budget cut likely to cost more than it saves.
For years, California has contracted for a standby DC-10 that can dump up to 12,000 gallons of water or fire retardant each time valves open beneath its huge tank.
But a stroke of Schwarzenegger’s pen cancelled the $7 million contract that kept that jumbo jet plane on standby for California.
Now, the state will pay more than $66,000 every day it uses the plane, with a five-day minimum. Anything beyond 21 deployments would end up costing more than the budget cut - and if this year turns out like the last few, that’s how it will be….assuming the DC-10 is available.
But these reductions in state firefighting ability may pale beside what local fire departments will suffer because of the new budget’s raids on local funds.
In Los Angeles, for one, firefighting officials must cover a $39 million shortfall caused in large part by the state raid. So there will be “brownouts” at many city fire stations, with a total of 87 fewer firefighters on duty each day, almost one-tenth of the usual work force. One battalion command team, 15 fire companies and nine ambulances will be out of service each day, but no city fire stations will actually close.
In other areas, including parts of San Diego County ravaged by several large fires over the last five years, fire prevention efforts are being cut. High-risk Fallbrook is one such place, while several other local districts are ironically casting about for money to pay their contracts for standby assistance from Cal Fire. If they can’t pay, the state agency will either have to let the locals handle all problems or go to work without the payment it usually gets. Since Cal Fire insists nothing will diminish its performance, the agency will probably work some fires without reimbursement. Some budget solution.
The most significant thing here is that while officials say they will still “attack and respond,” they may not be able to be as effective as usual.
So far, there heven’t been any mega-blazes anywhere in California until mid-August. But the driest part of the year is still ahead, the season when past wildfires have ravaged Malibu, Berkeley, Bel Air, Rancho Santa Fe, Laguna Beach, the Oakland hills and many other California areas.
Please take action on the following FARM TEAM ACTION ALERT.
We need the farmers - and the farmers need us!
Coastal Commission Bills Await Floor Vote
Two bills that would have major impacts on property owners in the Coastal zone are headed to the Senate floor for a vote.
AB 226 (Ruskin) and AB 291 (Saldaña) grant the California Coastal Commission (CCC) with new authority in determining violations, imposing penalties and administering the permitting process.
Considering California’s current budget situation, this is likely an attempt to increase revenues for the commission in order to maintain a budget the commission feels it deserves.
Stop the power grab and take action today by clicking on the bill numbers below!
Increases the role of government by granting new authority to the California Coastal Commission to impose massive civil penalties for violation of the Coastal Act. The bill would allow for penalties to be imposed after a simple hearing of the Commission as opposed to due process afforded through the judicial system.
Increases the role of government by granting new authority to the California Coastal Commission that prohibits a landowner from even submitting a coastal development permit if they are merely accused of a violation of the Coastal Act.
The State Legislature only has until September 11 to take action on the remaining bills. Make sure your voice is heard today!
Donate to SINS OF COMMISSION or The CALIFORNIA FARM BUREAU
Support SINS OF COMMISSION. I urgently need your help to finish the film and get it to the people. ALL donations are tax deductible and confidential when made through the film’s fiscal sponsor The INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION, a 501 c3 non profit foundation. Fastest, easiest way to help is to click the “DONATE NOW button” on the side of this page, and you will be whisked away to a secure PAY PAL page set up for us. Fill in the blanks, click “send” and bingo…you’ve helped! You can also send a check to:
The International Documentary Association
Fiscal Sponsorship Program
1201 West 5th Street, Suite M270
Los Angeles, CA 90017.
Please be sure to write “for: SINS OF COMMISSION” on your check.
If ever there ever was a time in California to stop the abusive practices of the California Coastal Commission, that time is now. Two dangerous bills AB 226 and AB 291 are in committee and must be stopped.
AB 226(RUSKIN)would greatly expand the Coastal Commission’s enforcement authority by allowing the Commission to act as both prosecutor and judge and impose civil penalties and allow the Commission to retain the penalties it assesses to augment its own budget.
Even more sinister, AB 226 creates dangerous motivation for the Commission to seek civil penalties as a way to augment its budget, and would strip alleged violators of due process afforded by the courts.
AB 291 (SALDANA)grants Coastal Commission staff the authority to deny permit applications without a hearing. AB 291 gives Coastal Commission staff the power to halt processing of a permit application if the Commission staff asserts that any violation exists on any property for which a permit is filed.
In other words AB 291 presumes an applicant is”guilty until proven innocent” by giving the Commission staff the ability to refuse to process a coastal development permit application until staff is satisfied that the alleged violation, whether related to the permit application or not, was cured. Families with homes will be prejudiced by arbitrary delays.
If there is one thing the California Coastal Commission does not need it is additional enforcement authority. 30 years of court records clearly shows the CCC abuses the power they already have! The triple c doesn’t need more power ... they need reform… and it is well past time that the California legislature reform the California Coastal Commission.
The following letter explains why-
There are two bills in the California legislature, AB 226 and AB 291, that grant more broad sweeping legal powers to the California Coastal Commission to intimidate citizens and the people he presents in his documentary film project, “Sins of Commission.” I saw it at a showing at a private home. It is a powerful call for reform of the California Coastal Commission, which evidently fears its exposure in the film as an autocratic, appointed board with special powers and no meaningful oversight.
Those of us who support public access to and preservation of the California coast, as I do, may not be aware of the aggregation of powers by the CCC. I witnessed it in action recently, as it attempted to subvert the Brown Act (transparency in government) and as it refused to even read the opposition arguments submitted by an NGO and by 84 citizens who wrote individual letters, before it “permanently voted” to approve the filling of a swimming pool that cost the state nothing and served the handicapped, the chronically ill, children, and the public for over 50 years. I also look down on a private beach club’s two story buildings and tennis courts on the beach across PCH from where we live that were approved by the CCC apparently without meaningful mitigation.
The CCC now uses special legislative powers over a swath of land five miles inland from the coast to further its objectives, in concert with other state agencies and commissions. In so doing, Richard Oshen documents, it legally intimidates and financially breaks private citizens with landholdings inside the designated “coastal zone,” even when they seek rational, small improvements on their properties. He shows how a CCC board member, however, holds property in the zone that is not subject to the same rules. He also presents a powerful indictment of the CCC’s powers over local control by munipalities that would protect against the wildfires we have experienced during an extended drought. Even large cities, such as San Diego, and wealthy towns, such as Malibu–both severely affected by wildfires–have been unable to defend against the CCC powers in concert with other state entities.
These bills need opposition.The CCC needs reform, oversight, to operate according to democratic rules of procedure, and to return to its mandate to protect the coast. Please contact your state representatives and urge them to oppose AB 226 and AB 291. Please circulate this email to conservationists and supporters of private property, local government, and open democracy.
I am circulating this letter in my role as a private citizen, not as a member of any group. As a historian of religions, an environmentalist, and a community development worker, I am supporting Richard Oshen’s film as a private act of conscience. I do not express the views of any group with which I am associated. They are solely my views.
Thank-you,
Jean Rosenfeld
Thank-you, Jean for your kind words.
A now… a little foot tapping music while you’re making that phone call.
Aren’t you being a bit over dramatic, crying wolf, telling everyone that the coast is under attack? Unless of course, you’re saying The Crab Monsters are at it again… and that’s some serious Mojo.
