February 2008

Cardo the Bagman cometh

Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced, has morphed once again from destroyer of natural habitat to beggar for subsidies to California specialty crops and now to big-time party bagman, the same trail his mentor Tony "Honest Graft" Coelho took. The Democrats need to shake all those agriculture money trees this year and "Cardo" is the man for that job, as Coelho once was before the unfortunate loan from Milken.

Public minutes of East Merced Resource Conservation District meetings, December 13, 2007 and January 16, 2008

December 13, 2007 meeting

RCD staff Karen Whipp announced that the agenda for the meeting was legally posted outside the RCD meeting room in the USDA building on Wardrobe Ave. She also said that staff doesn’t not send out staff reports on agenda items to either board members of members of the public because of time constraints. She said county and city boards do the same.

In fact, it is possible to get staff reports for all items on county Board of Supervisor agendas Friday afternoon before the meeting on the following Tuesday.

Public minutes of the Merced River Stakeholders meeting, January 28, 2008

Washington School, Winton CA

Attending:

Merced Irrigation District, 2
Granite Construction, 2
Santa Fe Aggregate, 1
East Merced Resource Conservation District, 2
San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, 1
Merced County Planning Commission, 1
Landowners, 8
Stillwater Sciences, 1
Merced Sun-Star, 1
San Joaquin Valley Conservancy, 1
Members of the public, 2-3
Facilitator

Local groups defeat Merced County/Black Diamond Aggregates Mining Project in court

Merced CA (February 12, 2008) – A Merced County Superior Court ruled on February 7 against respondents Merced County Board of Supervisors approval of the Black Diamond Aggregates project. Petitioners in the California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit were Merced-based San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center and Modesto-based Protect Our Water.

Judge John D. Kirihara ruled that a writ of mandate would be issued to "vacate and set aside the approval of ...the project."

Sonny Star, the Gigolo Press, still claiming it got it right on RMP

The Merced Sun-Star missed, mangled and mutilated the Riverside Motorsparts Pork story so badly in alliance with its advertisers bent on stupefying its readers that it still doesn't get it after all this time: Condren and the County changed the zoning on the land to give the planning department and whoever ends up with it almost unlimited powers to develop it as they please. Without that chunk of private property adjacent to the former Castle Air Force Base, now under County control, the base project cannot get foreign trade zone status.

Regarding sheds

A number of years ago a state forester was interviewed concerning changes in the culture of his agency following the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the California Environmental Quality Act, and kindred legislation regarding the forests. He said, "I knew I was in a different world when bureaucrats started talking about 'viewsheds.'"

Sonny Star, the verbsmith

2-20-08
Merced Sun-Star
City Council decides to peer review Wal-Mart impact report
A second consulting firm will examine the first firm's study for $18,800....LESLIE ALBRECHT
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/story/149721.html

Ah, come on, Sonny, say what you really mean: peerreview Wal-Mart.

How long can it be before Sonny will be medschooling UC Merced?

Badlands Journal editors

The Age of Traumatic Neurosis

Many of us wondered, when John Edwards quit his campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for president, if the subject of poverty might not disappear along with his campaign. The middle two passages in this posting are recent columns indicating that at least some journalists have managed to remember poverty remains, despite the disappearance of its champion in this campaign year. The columns are framed by passages from two books of prophetic social science, written 30 years ago.