November 2007

As I have noted in letters to the editor of the Merced Sun-Star, and also before the Hilmar/Stevinson MAC Board, I am greatly disturbed by the process that Merced County used to expand the Stevinson SUDP (Specific Urban Design Plan).

This expansion is only being created to enable the Stevinson Ranch developers to attach a 3,880 unit gated community onto a town with a population of 400 people. Without the development there were no plans by Merced County government in place to expand the growth boundaries of the town of Stevinson.

Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, sicced the state auditor on a Natural Conservancy-owned ranch near the San Joaquin Delta recently. Maze says the easement and TNC management of the 9,200-acre ranch stink and asks why $17.6 million in state flood protection funds is being spent on a Delta island that shows no signs of levee improvement.

The money came from Prop. 13, passed in March 2000, originally AB 1584, the $1.97-billion Safe Drinking Water, Clean Water, Watershed Protection, and Flood Protection Act authored by then Assemblman Mike Machado, D-Linden.

There are a number of planning processes going on in the San Joaquin Valley at the moment. They include the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint dealing with transportation planning, numerous general plan updates of counties and cities including Merced County and whatever proposals UC/Great Valley Center is fomenting. Although these planning processes are formally uncoordinated, they are closely linked by the guiding ideology of finance, insurance, real estate and large landholding interests: "Growth is inevitable."

I mourn the passing of Vern Williams and extend condolences to his family and his many friends and colleagues. I cannot yet imagine Vern absent from a newsroom somewhere, perhaps convening one of his incomparable "Come to Jesus" meetings to calmly restore order when it has broken down.
Bill Hatch

Merced Sun-Star
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007
Former Sun-Star editor, 'skilled newsman,' loses battle with cancer
By DOANE YAWGER
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/story/83422.html

Vern Williams

One of the things that emerged from farm labor conflicts in the 1960s was the need for more permanent farmworker housing. The town of Planada became a target for efforts to achieve that goal and much work was done by many good people through the years to make it possible for farmworkers to own homes in Planada.