1-29-09

 
1-29-09
Merced Sun-Star
Parkway project to UC Merced campus gets going next month
The first phase, from Highway 99 to Childs Avenue, should be completed in November...CORINNE REILLY
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/662721.html
Construction on Campus Parkway, the long-awaited expressway that will eventually connect Highway 99 to UC Merced, is slated to begin next month.
In the works for more than a decade, the four-lane, $110 million expressway has been billed as vital to UC Merced's success. Officials say it will play a big role in preventing congestion on Merced's roads as the campus, which opened in 2005, continues to grow.
UC Merced now serves roughly 2,700 undergraduates, but that's projected to jump to 25,000 in the coming decades.
Crews are set to begin work on the first phase of the four-mile-long expressway in mid- or late February, said Steve Rough, a supervising traffic engineer for Merced County.
That phase will extend from the Mission Avenue interchange at Highway 99 to Childs Avenue, and it's slated for completion by November, Rough said.
The rest will be built in two more phases -- one stretching from Childs Avenue to Highway 140 and the other from 140 to Yosemite Avenue.
A timeline for those phases depends on funding, Rough said.
So far the county has gathered enough state money to pay only for the first phase. The Board of Supervisors recently awarded that contract, for $5.6 million, to Sacramento-based Teichert Construction.
Officials hope a combination of state and federal tax dollars will pay for the rest.
"We're really excited to finally be at this point in the process," Rough said. "We've been working a long time to get here."
To build the entire expressway, the county will have to acquire about 160 acres of land from 15 owners. Those landowners were first notified in 1998 that they'd probably have to make way for the new road.
So far, the county has successfully negotiated land sales for all the property it will need for the first phase, avoiding claims of eminent domain.
Rough estimated it will take another year to acquire land for phases II and III.
The expressway project earned its final go-ahead to break ground from the Federal Highway Administration in May 2007.
"Obviously, this is an integral part of an overall transportation plan for the area," county spokeswoman Katie Albertson said. "This isn't just important for the county, but for the city and the UC as well. A lot of folks have put a lot of time in on this
Merced County Times
Supervisors adopt Los Banos Bypass Project...Johnathan Whitaker
http://www.mercedcountytimes.net/content/2009-01-29/00482
Merced County leaders are moving forward with a decades-old plan to redirect Highway 152 around the city of Los Banos
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to include the updated bypass project in the county's long-range general plan.
The move will help secure a swath of land to the north of Los Banos as the project — first envisioned in the early 1960s — takes shape over the next decade.
"Our main concern is to approve the route and tie up the existing land use," said Supervisor Jerry O'Banion, who represents Los Banos in District 5. "It won't affect that many homeowners, though there are some. But for now, we want to limit further development."
In a presentation to the board, Planning Team member James Holland said the estimated $500 million, 10-mile bypass would be completed in three phases due to budget concerns.
This concerned Supervisor Deidre Kelsey who warned that "phasing road projects' can lead to ongoing traffic problems and considerable grief for residents.
O'Banion agreed there would be temporary stops added as the planned construction gets underway, but he asked, "Who's got $400 to $500 million dollars to get this project finished right away?"
At the board meeting some residents voiced concerns about air pollution during construction and the affect the project would have on farmland along the route.
Holland said the long-term environmental benefits of the bypass include easing traffic congestion inside the city and redirecting large trucks away from the majority of the population. The finished bypass would have no stop lights as it curves to the north around Los Banos.
He said farmers and land owners would encounter a very proactive Caltrans team that would work to keep operations going during construction. Land purchases, he said, would be at fair market prices and appraised higher if operations did indeed have to be moved.
Modesto Bee
UC ignores its mission, wastes your money...Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, represents the 12th Senate District in the state Legislature.
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/state/v-print/story/581018.html
California parents, beware! Although you've contributed hard-earned tax dollars for years to fund the University of California, that slot you thought was available for your eligible college-bound child could be sold to an out-of-state student.
Some UC officials are urging cutting enrollment to Californians and increasing it for out-of-staters. UC charges more than double the fees to out-of-state students and that's what's motivating this scheme.
That's simply wrong. And it's immoral, because it all boils down to money. A Californian UC freshman pays $8,100 in fees annually, while an out-of-state student pays $20,000.
Regents who are urging this move have their priorities backwards and are blatantly defying UC's mission to make undergraduate programs available "to all eligible California high-school graduates and community college transfer students who wish to attend the University of California."
UC's duty is to provide quality higher education to California students and the UC should not be dishonoring the system by selling out.
Not only is UC cutting enrollment for in-state students, it is also considering increasing their fees and cutting back on classes, which makes the next revelation shocking: UC workers have recently been paid $600,000 to change offices! According to The Sacramento Bee (Dec. 6, Page B-1) "16 employees (were) paid a total of $682,431 to leave jobs in the UC President's Office." Some of these same employees were rehired at different UC campuses just a few days later, earning more than in their previous positions.
For example, Ingrid H. Schmidt received a five-figure severance package to voluntarily leave her position in Oakland, and then started a new job at UC Davis the next day. She kept $46,100 in severance from the old job, then received a 13 percent raise for her new position.
This is a hard slap in the face to thousands of California students who will be denied entry into the UC system or who have to pay more in tuition. This is an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars.
The president for the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, Robert Stern, said it is "abusing the system" to take a severance from the university and then get rehired.
That's an understatement. The money wasted on high-ranking UC employee severances instead could have been reinvested in the university system to support California students, not used to pay phony severance packages.
It's disappointing that the new UC leadership didn't learn from past pay scandals. The UC president should do what is right and honorable, and he should demand the severance money be returned.
New home sales post 14.7 pct drop in December...ALAN ZIBELAP Real Estate Writer
http://www.modbee.com/2020/v-print/story/581379.html
Sales of new homes plunged to the slowest pace on record last month as the hobbled homebuilding industry posted its worst annual sales results in more than two decades.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that new home sales fell 14.7 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, from a downwardly revised November figure of 388,000.
"This is an awful report...Builders just can't cut back fast enough, so prices remain under downward pressure," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note.
December's sales pace was the lowest on records dating back to 1963. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales would fall to a rate of 400,000 homes.
For 2008, builders sold 482,000 homes, the weakest results since 1982, when 412,000 homes were sold.
The median price of a new home sold in December was $206,500, a drop of 9.3 percent from a year ago. The median is the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less.
Builders have been forced to slash production during a prolonged and severe slump in housing that has seen sales and prices plummet. December's sales activity was depressed by the worst financial crisis in seven decades, which has made it harder for potential buyers to get mortgage loans.
The inventory of unsold new homes stood at a seasonally adjusted 357,000 in December, down 10 percent from November. But at the current sales pace, it would take a more than a year to exhaust the stock as houses are dumped onto a market already glutted by a tide of foreclosures.
"The inventory of unsold new homes is still too high," wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc. "Prices need to fall further to stimulate sufficient demand to begin to balance the market."
The sales weakness in December reflected a 28 percent drop in the Northeast and a 20 percent drop in the West. The South and Midwest posted smaller declines of 12 percent and almost 6 percent, respectively.
Earlier this month, a key gauge of homebuilders' confidence sank to a new record low, as the deepening U.S. recession and rising unemployment erode chances for a housing turnaround.
Sales of existing homes, however, posted an unexpected increase last month, as consumers snapped up bargain-basement foreclosures in California and Florida. Sales of existing homes rose 6.5 percent from November's pace, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.
Fresno Bee
Fresno Westlands growers get some bad news
District likely won't receive federal water deliveries this season...Robert Rodriguez / The Fresno Bee
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/v-print/story/1161605.html
FIVE POINTS -- West Fresno County farmer Bob Diedrich hoped for good news during a standing-room-only meeting of Westlands Water District growers Wednesday.
But Diedrich, a farmer for 45 years, didn't like what he heard.
Westlands officials said growers in the district will likely receive no federal water deliveries this season.
"Our projections are that our allocations will be zero, absent a significant change in hydrology," said Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District in Fresno.
Farmers are heading into their third consecutive dry year.
Diedrich was one of about 100 crammed into a shop building at the district's west side office eager to hear details from district officials and Ron Milligan, operations manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
"What am I supposed to do, if I have no water?" Diedrich asked. "I have five guys that I employ year-round, and now I may have to tell them they don't have jobs."
Diedrich farms 960 acres that at one time grew processing tomatoes, dry beans, cotton and alfalfa. He is contemplating pulling up stakes temporarily and moving to Texas to live with his son.
"We are at the point where a lot of us farmers need to make some decisions today about whether we are going to plant this year," Diedrich said. "We don't want to just walk away from this."
Birmingham told growers that the district is working on options, including water transfers and accessing water that was not used as part of a water rationing program last year.
"We are literally looking all over the state to get water as quickly and inexpensively as possible," Birmingham said.
But none of those options is guaranteed.
Farmer and Westlands board President Jean Sagouspe sympathized with growers, saying he, too, is having to make tough decisions.
But Sagouspe also said the problem is not just the lack of rain and snow. He said environmental policies, including court-ordered pumping restrictions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect endangered fish, have helped create this current crisis.
"People don't have a clue about what is going on," Sagouspe said. "The governor doesn't even care. He will only care when L.A. runs out of water."
Although the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation won't announce a water delivery forecast until Feb. 20, Milligan told growers several things are certain: Rainfall is below normal, the state reservoirs are depleted and the snowpack is small.
And the short-term weather outlook is not promising.
"We do not see a lot of water in the forecast," Milligan said. "And that will make it a very complicated operational season."
Westlands growers, who suffered the biggest hit among water districts on the west side of the Valley, are expected to have only about 300,000 acres in production this year, down from 500,000 acres that are farmed.
Birmingham said that while he hopes for a solution, he knows it may come too late for some growers.
"I pray that I am wrong," he said. "But the reality is that a lot of you in this room may not survive this."
Calif. scientists: fish needs more protections...The Associated Press
http://www.fresnobee.com/384/v-print/story/1161301.html
FRESNO, Calif. State scientists are recommending new protections for a tiny fish native to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The Department of Fish and Game released a study Tuesday saying the longfin smelt should be listed as threatened under the state Endangered Species Act.
The longfin's cousin, the delta smelt, is already protected by state law. A federal judge restricted pumping from the delta two years ago to help keep that fish from going extinct. The decision has caused anguish for farmers and cities south of the freshwater estuary.
The Fish and Game Commission is expected to decide whether to list the longfin smelt in March.
Americans receiving jobless benefits hit record...CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER - AP Economics Writer
http://www.fresnobee.com/559/v-print/story/1162919.html
WASHINGTON The number of people receiving unemployment benefits has reached an all-time record, the government said Thursday, and more layoffs are spreading throughout the economy.
The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans continuing to claim unemployment insurance for the week ending Jan. 17 was a seasonally adjusted 4.78 million, the highest on records dating back to 1967. That's an increase of 159,000 from the previous week and worse than economists' expectations of 4.65 million.
As a proportion of the work force, the tally of unemployment benefit recipients is the highest since August 1983, a department analyst said.
The total released by the department doesn't include about 1.7 million people receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program authorized by Congress last summer. That means the total number of recipients is actually closer to 6.5 million people.
Businesses continued to hemorrhage jobs Thursday. Ford Motor Co. reported a fourth-quarter loss of $5.9 billion and said its credit arm would cut 20 percent of its work force, or 1,200 jobs. Eastman Kodak Co. said it's cutting 3,500 to 4,500 jobs, or 14 to 18 percent of its work force, as it posted a $137 million quarterly loss on plunging sales of photography products. Black & Decker Corp. said its fourth-quarter profit tumbled 77 percent and the power tools manufacturer announced about 1,200 job cuts.
More signs of the deepening recession came in separate government reports on home sales and durable goods.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that new home sales fell 14.7 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, the lowest pace on records dating back to 1963. For 2008, builders sold 482,000 homes, the weakest results since 1982.
The median price of a new home sold last month was $206,500, a drop of 9.3 percent from a year ago. The median is the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less.
Meanwhile, new orders for durable goods dropped by 2.6 percent last month, even worse than the 2 percent decline economists expected. Orders fell 5.7 percent for the year, the second biggest drop on government records, exceeded only by a 10.7 percent plunge in 2001, according to the Commerce Department.
The financial markets fell on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 115 points in midday trading.
The tally of Americans filing new jobless benefit claims rose slightly to a seasonally adjusted 588,000 last week, from a downwardly revised figure of 585,000 the previous week. That also was worse than analysts' forecast of 575,000 new claims.
The number of initial claims is close to the 26-year high of 589,000 reached in late December, though the work force has grown by about half since then.
The record number of ongoing benefit claims is an indication that laid-off workers are having a difficult time finding new jobs, economists said.
"This highlights the key point that the trend in gross hirings has slowed as abruptly as the trend in gross firings ... has risen," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note.
A year ago, continuing claims stood at about 2.7 million, less than half their current level when the extended unemployment program is included.
Abiel Reinhart, an economic analyst at JPMorgan Chase, said the report indicates the unemployment rate likely rose this month. January's figure will be released Feb. 6.
The rate jumped to 7.2 percent in December, a 16-year high. Employers cut an average of 510,000 jobs in the last three months of 2008, and may cut a similar amount in January, Reinhart said.
The crush of new and continuing claims has overwhelmed many states' ability to process them all. Electronic filing systems crashed in three states earlier this month, and last week Michigan said it would hire 276 workers and open a fourth call center to handle increased phone traffic.
President Barack Obama's $819 billion economic stimulus package, approved by the House Wednesday and now on its way to the Senate, would provide $500 million to the states to upgrade their unemployment insurance systems. The measure also continues the extended unemployment compensation program, which adds up to 33 weeks of benefits, until the end of the year.
Companies have announced a huge number of layoffs this week as they prepare for an extended period of economic weakness. Economists expect the current recession, which began in December 2007, to be the longest since World War II.
Starbucks Corp. on Wednesday said it would cut 6,700 jobs. The coffee company also said it would close 300 underperforming stores, on top of 600 it already planned to shut down.
Time Warner Inc.'s AOL division is cutting up to 700 jobs, or about 10 percent of the online unit's work force. And IBM Corp. has cut thousands of jobs in its sales, software and hardware divisions in the past week, without announcing specific numbers.
Boeing Co., Pfizer Inc., Home Depot Inc. and other U.S. corporate titans also have announced tens of thousands of job cuts this week alone.
Companies have announced about 130,000 layoffs in January, according to an Associated Press tally.
Higher density gains momentum
Majority at urban planning forum support most far-reaching scenario...Editorial
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1161535.html
Change is hard to contemplate for most of us, but sometimes the argument is so compelling, we take the plunge. That's what happened at a public forum on the future of urban planning in the Valley in Fresno on Monday.
At the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint Project's public summit, about 53% of the nearly 600 people in attendance choose the most far-reaching scenario as their recommendation for adoption by officials in each of the eight Valley counties. That's a hopeful and gratifying commitment.
The choices posed at the summit recommended urban densities -- the average number of people and homes permitted per acre. Currently, the Valley average is about 13 people, or four homes, per acre. The attendees at the summit chose the highest density among several choices -- 31 people per acre, or about 10 homes -- as the goal for the Valley by 2050.
That sounds like a lot -- and it is, set against the pattern of sprawling suburbs that has characterized the Valley for decades. But it isn't that much compared to cities all over North America.
Moreover, there are compelling reasons why the status quo in development is no longer sustainable.
Sprawl erodes the capacity of agriculture, the Valley's economic base, by paving over productive farmland.
It exacerbates traffic congestion by imposing longer commutes on increasingly crowded roads and highways.
All that traffic further pollutes the Valley's air.
It makes public services such as safety, water and sewer more costly at a time when we cannot afford those costs.
It ignores growing demand for a more urban lifestyle among many.
Increasing urban densities doesn't mean packing people cheek-by-jowl in sardine-can urban slums. Modern urban apartment and condominium designs are attractive and comfortable for a wide range of consumers, from young professionals who want to be close to jobs, recreation and entertainment, to retired empty-nesters who want to move down in home size, but still want services and amenities nearby.
Ed Thompson, state director for American Farmland Trust, put it this way Monday: "Once people get over the fact that this doesn't mean 20 stories of gulag blocks, there will be great support."
That support will be needed. The next step in the blueprint process is submitting the summit's consensus to a panel comprising two elected officials from each of the eight Valley counties. Getting them to look past the status quo will be difficult. Many county leaders up and down the Valley have already expressed their skepticism about what looks to them like radical change.
But it isn't radical. Whatever standard is adopted in the blueprint won't be binding on counties -- though it could be tied to state transportation funds in the future.
And we're talking about an average here. Urban development in downtown Fresno, for instance, could yield densities far greater than 31 people per acre -- leaving the rest of the county with room to develop at lower levels.
In any case, the age of sprawl is over. Increased densities are inevitable. Our goal should be to make them happen in as smooth and appealing a fashion as possible. We should plan our way into that future rather than stumble into it.
Valley Voice
Agri-Center Refuses to Extend Racetrack Escrow
Move 'Not a Deal Killer'
http://www.valleyvoicenewspaper.com/tv/stories/2009/
agricenter.htm
Tulare - The developer has not come up with a requested $240,000, so the International Agri-Center board of directors has refused to extend an escrow agreement to sell 331 acres of land to the Tulare Motor Sports Complex (TMSC) limited partnership.
The decision is “not a deal killer” and the board is still interested in this or any other project that would give the Agri-Center the hotels, parking and other amenities it needs to secure the future of World Ag Expo, said Jerry Sinift, Agri-Center general manager.
The escrow agreement expired on Dec. 31 and Bud Long, general partner in the TMSC limited partnership, had asked property owners to extend the escrow because the entitlements were not in place.
The five owners of the remaining 380 acres have agreed to the extension, said Lynn Dredge, president of the Tulare Industrial Site Development Foundation (TISDF), which is handling the land deal for all property owners.
The Agri-Center notified the TISDF it would not extend its agreement after Long refused to pay the $240,000 — 1 percent of the purchase price — the board had wanted in exchange for the extension.
Sinift stressed the board's action “does not mean we're not for this project or don't think it's vitally important for this community.”
City Councilman Richard Ortega said he thinks “chances are very good” that if Long comes up with $240,000, the Agri-Center would extend the agreement.
Owes City
Long owes money to the city for the approximately $1 million it has paid Michael Brandman and Associates of Fresno for preparing an environmental impact report on the project, which includes two race tracks, a recreational vehicle park, multiple hotels, retail commercial and office space.
The city has paid the bills as they were received with the expectation developers would put an amount equal to the charges into a bank account as a guarantee of reimbursement.
The majority of the City Council that was in place when the agreement was struck did not understand the bank account would function as a guarantee and thought the city would be drawing from it to make the payments.
When this and the fact Long was behind in funding the account came to light at a Jan. 6 City Council meeting, the council withheld approval of a developmental agreement needed before the project can go forward.
At the same meeting, attorney Michael Houston of Costa Mesa gave the council copies of a lawsuit that a Fresno bank had filed against the TMSC partnership, alleging it had defaulted on more than $1.59 million in loans.
Houston, who represents Nunes Brothers Dairy, which opposes the project, also told the council Long's company has a $1.1 million tax lien against it.
The development agreement was not on the council's June 20 agenda and City Manager Darrel Pyle has said it won't return for council approval until a check covering the approximately $1 million cost of the EIR is in the city's general fund.
In the meantime Long, who had promised on Jan. 6 to pay the $83,000 he owed the guarantee account within five or six days, has not done so. Since then, the city has received and paid the final bill for the EIR, bringing the amount owed the account to about $130,000.
Neither the city nor the TMSC can access the money in the account unless both parties agree in writing to the release. Long has said he will agree to a release when he gets a bridge loan for the project.
City Manager Darrel Pyle reports the developers' financial representatives are working with two banks, including Wells Fargo, to put together a loan package.
Harsh Criticism
The way the city has handled payment for the EIR has come under harsh criticism.
Visalia attorney Michael Lampe, who has clients opposed to the project, said officials have put $1 million of the public's money at risk and operated in a “conspiracy of silence” regarding the escrow account.
“Weren't we all being told that Long was 'doing everything he said he would do?'” Lampe said, reporting documents he has received as the result of a Public Records Act request indicate Long was behind on his payments to the EIR guarantee account on two other occasions.
A May 8 e-mail from Finance Director Darlene Thompson to Pyle and other city officials, which Lampe provided to the Tulare Voice, indicated Long had not responded to a March 20 bill the city had sent and was about $175,000 behind in his payments.
A July 17 e-mail from Thompson to Pyle and others indicated he was again behind, this time by about $189,741. (Prior to bills she sent on June 5 and June 19, it appears the account was overfunded by $1,752.)
Mayor Craig Vejvoda, Vice Mayor Phil Vandegrift and Councilman Richard Ortega said Monday they were not aware Long had ever been behind prior to the present time and would have liked to have known.
“I thought he was always current until this last go-around,” Vejvoda said. “That was part of the arrangement. If at any point he was behind, we tell Brandman [the EIR consultant] not to go any further.”
In his response to Thompson's first e-mail, Pyle told her: “We will not proceed one more step until the account is paid current.”
Contacted Monday, Pyle said he recalls contacting Brandman once during the process to stop work on the EIR and doesn't recall needing to do that a second time.
“I think we were very consistent all the way through the process,” he said.
“Nobody was trying to be secret” about the matter, Pyle said, adding he did not view the relationship with the developers as problematic. He added he “had a lot more grief” dealing with the parties involved on another city project.
Paying for EIRs
The city has been criticized for not having the developer pay for the EIR directly, with some critics suggesting Long and his group were given preferential treatment.
City officials argue that is not the case.
“We've done this all different ways,” Planning Director Mark Kielty said.
He cited the South I Street Specific Plan, which if adopted paves the way for a new industrial park, as an example.
“The city was very pro-active and we up-fronted the money on that EIR,” Kielty said, estimating the final cost at “a shade over $200,000. “We will get reimbursed when the properties develop.”
The recent meat packing plant project, which required a $575,000 EIR, was paid for with a federal job creation grant, Kielty and Economic Development Director Bob Nance said.
In the case of the Cartmill Crossing project, he said the developers have hired their own consultant. “We haven't had to fool around with any billings or managing the process.”
As for the race track project, Kielty said Long wanted to make sure the EIR was viewed as an independent, non-biased study, so he had the city take charge of the process.
Houston, the Cosa Mesa attorney, said in representing government agencies and private clients such as the Nuneses, he has found cities handle the EIR process in a variety of ways.
In one somewhat typical approach, he said, the developer gives a list of four or five consultants to the city, which then solicits a proposal with cost estimates and selects one to prepare the EIR.
The developer then deposits money into a city account, from which the city pays the consultant, Houston said.
“What's so bizarre [in Tulare's case] is the city has fronted all the money out of its account,” he said. He also maintained it is “highly unusual” to give the developer the power to block the city from withdrawing the money once it has incurred charges.
City Attorney Steve Kabot has explained that the account was established in this manner because the original plan was to create a community facilities district in which the developer/property owners could sell bonds and use the proceeds to pay for a portion of the EIR as allowed by law.
The fear was if the developers paid up front, they would be ineligible for reimbursement, Kabot said, adding the city has since learned the council need only adopt a resolution of reimbursement to allow them to recoup funds.
Sacramento Bee
Editorial: Mining protected as salmon dwindle
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1581347.html
The California Department of Fish and Game said "no" to fish this week and "yes" to gold miners. Even though experts within DFG have said that suction dredge gold mining is having "deleterious effects on fish," including endangered coho salmon, the department declined to further restrict gold miners who use giant dredges to vacuum up rock and sand from creek and river bottoms, likely killing fish in the process.
In a petition to the state, the Karuk Indian Tribe and several environmental organizations had asked the department to curtail dredging on sensitive stretches of waterway. The department said it could not act until it completed a court-ordered review of the issue. But DFG was supposed to complete that review last July. It hasn't even begun.
Meanwhile, so serious is the decline of salmon that federal regulators banned fishing off the coasts of California and Oregon last year. State officials say the mining restriction requested by the Karuks would do nothing to address ocean conditions, which are suspected to be the main cause of the decline. Suction dredge gold miners insist that global warming and dams are the culprits and that their mining operations actually improve fish habitat.
No doubt global warming, dams, logging, pesticides and other human activities kill fish and destroy habitat, but the bulk of the science strongly suggests that suction dredge mining harms fish, too.
As salmon populations dwindle, the state agency charged with protecting them protects gold miners instead.
Stockton Record
Naturalists in the making
Students, builder team up to restore Delta wetlands...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090129/A_NEWS/901290327/-1/A_NEWS14
SHIN KEE TRACT - Land once tilled by a man known as the "Chinese Potato King" is reverting to wetlands under the direction of a major developer and with the help of dozens of schoolchildren.
A.G. Spanos Cos. is restoring 142 acres of habitat here in part to offset the impacts of a proposed development in north Stockton.
The work continued Wednesday with children who lowered sprouts of rye grass into holes in the mud and planted willow sticks that should take root and grow.
This all meant getting dirty and muddy, which most kids were all too eager to do. Just call them naturalists in the making.
"I want to go and get stuck again in the mud," 9-year-old Megan Constantino of Kohl Open School said, after following raccoon tracks around the banks of the flooded fields.
Spanos bought the land in 2004 without any specific plan, said company senior Vice President David Nelson. It later became apparent that the company could restore habitat to mitigate the impact of building elsewhere.
The company decided to make it an education endeavor as well by inviting students to help. "Unless we pass on the message of how important the wetlands are, they're going to disappear," Nelson said.
Government biologists and flood control officials gave the plan the OK, and what was once row crops is now an inland lake which, through its connection with the Delta, rises and falls with the tides.
The birds are loving it. "We saw a bunch of cranes flying," 13-year-old Justin Galvan said. "You could hear them from, like, 100 feet away."
The San Joaquin Council of Governments, which administers a countywide habitat conservation plan, will manage the wetland for perpetuity with funding from Spanos, the company said.
Delta smelt may benefit, along with the equally reclusive but more ominous-sounding giant garter snake.
Shin Kee Tract, like much of the Delta, was nothing but marshland until it was reclaimed in the late 1800s by Chinese farmers and laborers. Immigrant Chin Lung, the potato king, had one of the biggest farming operations on leased land in the central Delta.
Nelson said a portion of the new wetland will mitigate for The Preserve, a 360-acre development project on Atlas Tract, south of Bear Creek.
San Francisco Chronicle
Congress takes another stab at mining reform...(01-29) 07:45 PST Elko, Nev. (AP)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/29/financial/f074520S96.DTL&type=printable
A mining reform bill similar to one that passed the U.S. House last year but failed to get out of the Senate has been reintroduced in the House.
In addition to rewriting the Mining Law of 1872, the measure would impose royalties on the hard-rock mining industry.
"Given our current economic crisis and the empty state of our national treasury, it is ludicrous to be allowing this outmoded law to continue to exempt these lucrative mining activities from paying a fair return to the American people," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the chairman of the House Resource Committee who introduced the bill on Tuesday.
Rahall said the current economic crisis makes it more important than ever to generate royalties from minerals mined on public lands. The National Mining Association disagrees.
"Mines are already operating in the highest cost environment in the world. They certainly cant withstand one of the highest, if not the highest, royalty in the world," said Luke Popovich, vice president of external communities for the Washington-based organization.
"The economy is so fragile, so it's a particularly bad time," he said. "We are already seeing member companies announcing layoffs and mine closures."
Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., also pointed to Nevada's suffering economy as a key reason he will oppose the Rahall bill.
"With Nevada's unemployment at 9.1 percent, the mining industry and the jobs it creates is one of the few bright spots in our current economic environment. It would be misguided to burden the mining industry with excessive regulations and taxes if we want our economy in Nevada to thrive," Heller said.
"I led the fight against destructive mining reform in the House last Congress and will continue to do so in the future," he said.
The bill Rahall reintroduced calls for an 8 percent gross royalty on mineral production from new mines on public lands and a 4 percent gross royalty on mines that are already in operation.
Popovich said the NMA is willing to work on mining law reform, but any royalty should be a net royalty on production, not gross, and certainly 8 percent is too high.
Environmentalists support Rahall's effort to get the reform bill back on the table this session, however.
"Today, the U.S. Congress takes an important step toward reforming one of the last remaining public-resource giveaways, the 1872 Mining Law," said Lauren Pagel, policy director for the Washington, D.C.-based Earthworks.
She said the Rahall bill would "promote economic development in rural communities throughout the West by creating jobs for abandoned mine cleanup while protecting communities and water quality from the damage caused by modern mining."
Rahall's bill proposes establishing a cleanup fund for abandoned mines and a permanent end to the patenting system that has been frozen for a number of years. Mining companies could patent claims, which gave them ownership of the land.
In addition, the bill gives the U.S. interior and agriculture secretaries the authority to temporarily suspend mining operations when there is an environmental crisis.
Rahall said the bill also would create a community impact assistance account to provide financial aid to mining communities, including money for infrastructure and public services, and set threshold environmental standards for mining companies to protect natural resources.
"I have labored to reform the Mining Law of 1872 for nearly three decades — not just to fight the giveaway of public lands and valuable minerals and to combat the threats to human health and safety from abandoned mine lands — but because I am a supporter of mining," Rahall said.
"I believe we can no longer expect a viable hard-rock mining industry to exist on public domain lands in the future if we do not make corrections to the law today," he said.
Environmentalists sue over Richmond casino plan...Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/29/BA5215ITRM.DTL&type=printable
(01-28) 17:33 PST RICHMOND -- Opponents of a planned Nevada-style casino at Point Molate in Richmond - a $1.5 billion project with 1,500 hotel rooms and as many as 3,000 slot machines - are back in court accusing the city of giving a go-ahead to the developer without an environmental study required by a 2006 legal settlement.
In a suit filed Monday in Contra Costa County Superior Court, opponents argued that Richmond made a commitment to the casino project in September when the City Council assigned responsibility for cleaning up the shoreline site to the developer, an Emeryville firm called Upstream. The site is a former Navy depot.
By relying on the developer and an Indian tribe that would operate the casino to pay for the cleanup, the city has effectively approved the project without first completing an environmental impact report, the suit said. It was filed by Citizens for East Shore Parks and an allied group that wants the site preserved for a park.
"The majority of the Richmond council ignored the concerns of the public regarding the environmental degradation the Upstream plans would visit upon Point Molate," said Robert Cheasty, president of the park advocacy group, whose earlier suit over the proposed casino-hotel resulted in the 2006 settlement requiring environmental review.
"This project sacrifices the East Bay's most spectacular public shoreline to intensive commercial development," said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Stephan Volker.
But a city official and the developer both denied Wednesday that the September agreement amounted to approval of the project and said the environmental study will be issued next month before Richmond enters into any commitment.
The cleanup plan, and an agreement with the Navy in July to transfer the rest of its Point Molate property to the city, "do not approve any proposed land use or development," said Janet Schneider, administrative chief in City Manager Bill Lindsay's office. "None of the environmental review steps will be skipped or overlooked."
The two agreements actually mean the Navy would provide funding, if the project goes ahead, "so that the city can accomplish a more comprehensive and speedier cleanup of waste that the Navy left behind," said James Levine, president of Upstream.
He said the casino and accompanying development would create about 17,000 jobs, 40 percent of them for local residents, and would be environmentally friendly. The Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, which would run the casino, describes it on its Web site as a "super-green development."
The City Council first voted to sell the 412-acre site to the developer in 2004, over opposition from both environmentalists and opponents of gambling alarmed at the proliferation of urban casinos. Point Molate is 4 miles from San Pablo Lytton Casino, which is operated by the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians and has 1,050 electronic bingo machines.
In this week's lawsuit, opponents said the project would deprive the public of shoreline access and the potential "crown jewel" of East Bay shoreline parks.
The suit says the development would cause traffic backups, accompanied by noise and air pollution, on the eastern approach to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and would violate land-use plans adopted by both the city and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission that designate the site for noncommercial uses.
The suit asks a judge to prohibit development until the city completes its environmental report, including alternatives to the project, and considers public comments.
UC and service workers union agree on contract...Patricia Yollin
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/29/BAKB15J3V2.DTL&type=printable
The University of California and a union representing about 8,500 service workers have agreed on a five-year contract after 18 months of negotiations.
The tentative agreement, reached Wednesday, provides more than $64 million in wage increases, including 3 percent across-the-board pay hikes each year - plus an additional 1 percent effective in July.
For the first time, service workers - including gardeners, custodians, food service employees, drivers and security officers - will have a statewide UC minimum wage that reaches $14 an hour by the end of the pact in 2013.
"It's wonderful, though realistically the university has to keep working with us to keep people out of poverty," said Maricruz Manzanarez, a UC Berkeley custodian for 10 years and single mother of three. "But this gives me a little bit of peace of mind."
The pact also features stronger benefit protections and a pay scale that credits workers for years of service. "This has been a hard fight," said William Schlitz, political and communications director with Local 3299 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The union's tactics included a five-day strike in July, pickets, TV commercials during Cal and UCLA football games, and noisy demonstrations at meetings of the UC Board of Regents.
UC estimated that average hourly pay for its service workers will increase from $14.35 to $18.39 over the contract.
"We are very pleased to have reached what we believe is a fair agreement," said Shelley Nielsen, UC's chief negotiator.
The union's ratification vote will take place through Feb. 12.
Los Angeles Times
California's EPA waiver
With a push from Obama, the state's effort to regulate greenhouse gases may finally bear fruit...Judith Lewis, environmental journalist and contributing editor to High Country News.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lewis29-2009jan29,0,3723,print.story
Fran Pavley was one week into her term in the California Assembly in 2001 when she took up the cause of two environmental organizations -- the Bluewater Network and the Sierra Club -- and pioneered a landmark law to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from the tailpipes of cars and trucks. Within 18 months, the bill had cleared the Legislature; in 2002, it was signed into law by the governor. Environmental leaders applauded the state for making the first national foray into regulating pollutants that cause climate change; state regulators swiftly drew up the rules to meet the law's requirements.
And then, for seven years, the Bush administration dragged its feet, ultimately denying California the right to enforce Pavley's law.
With President Obama's announcement Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency will reconsider that decision, Pavley's long battle to implement the law she wrote may finally be over. And that's a good thing, not just for California but for the country.
California, with its peculiar geography and heavy reliance on motor vehicles, has always led the nation in cleaning up the air. In 1967, California passed the Mulford-Carrell Act, establishing a state agency to monitor air quality and regulate motor vehicle emissions. Three years later, President Nixon -- a Californian -- created the EPA. And it was the California Air Resources Board's "technology-forcing regulation" in 1970 that inspired a miraculous invention called the catalytic converter, which turns carbon monoxide and smog-forming nitrogen oxides into harmless gases. Once automakers began installing them to meet California's emissions requirements, they became standard across the country.
California has not been the only innovating state on environmental law -- New Jersey was the first to force airlines to reduce emissions from jet engines; Minnesota in the early 1970s required its sole nuclear power plant to release far less radioactivity than federal law allowed. But no state rivals California when it comes to fighting smog. In a series of famous hearings on air pollution led by Sen. Edmund Muskie in 1970, nearly every speaker invoked California's example, often with passion. "The Congress of the United States must untie our hands!" demanded Herbert Fineman, the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and "authorize [the federal government] to issue motor-vehicle emission standards that are as stringent as the state of California's."
Until George W. Bush was elected, California was consistently granted permission to enact more rigorous anti-pollution statutes than those of the federal government. Over the last 40 years, the agency denied the state the right to set its own rules only once -- in December 2007, when then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson refused to grant the state a waiver to enforce Pavley's greenhouse gas law.
Johnson said he denied the waiver because new fuel-efficiency standards in the 2007 federal energy bill would accomplish the same end. Of course, that was ridiculous. California's law requires a 30% reduction in greenhouse gases from tailpipes by 2016, and the energy bill's rules don't even kick in until 2020 (not to mention that they say nothing about methane, carbon dioxide or halogenated gases that cause global warming).
But by equating California's new tailpipe emissions law with mileage standards, Johnson was signaling the administration's allegiance to the auto industry, whose lobbyists had argued that California's greenhouse gas law was in fact a thinly disguised fuel-efficiency standard, which the state had no authority to set. What's more, said Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, California's law would put in place "a patchwork quilt" of regulations, causing confusion in the already beleaguered auto industry.
In his speech Monday, Obama, tellingly, referred to a "patchwork" too. But by using the metaphor to the opposite effect, he stood firmly on California's side. The EPA's denial of California's waiver, he said, "risks the creation of a confusing and patchwork set of standards that hurts the environment and the auto industry."
With that language, he affirmed what Pavley had known from the start: As California goes, so goes the country -- and even the world. According to the state Air Resources Board, 71% of the world's population lives in countries with vehicle emissions standards modeled on California's. If the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, grants California's latest waiver, 40% of the country will be driving cars that emit fewer greenhouse gases from their tailpipes, and other states are likely to follow the lead.
Nearly 80 years ago, in the depths of an earlier economic crisis, Justice Louis Brandeis remarked that "it is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."
Brandeis was opining about the right of a state to regulate who can make and sell ice. But he might as well have been talking about California's right to rid itself of smog. As one brave and idealistic legislator recognized in 2001, when it comes to saving the planet from pollution, only a state can change the world.
Native flower clings to life at fringe of Laguna Beach development
Big-leaved crownbeard endures despite controversial clearing and plans for homes...Susannah Rosenblatt
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-crownbeard29-2009jan29,0,2763114,print.story
The humble yellow flower isn't exactly a showstopper.
But to those who want to see development take root in the rugged hills of south Laguna Beach, the big-leaved crownbeard might be just that.
Unlike the spotted owl or the California desert tortoise -- threatened superstars with reputations for slowing development, the crownbeard is something of a bit player. It only grows in two places, neither of which would be confused with pristine wilderness or majestic national parkland.
In northwestern Baja California, the little plant grows on a fast-developing stretch of coastline south of Tijuana. And on the steep coastal canyons and slopes in south Laguna Beach, the plant blooms among mansions, next to a planned golf resort and in a dangerous fire zone.
Just a few thousand or so plants sprout from the rugged terrain, a sliver of Orange County as it once was. But in a region where progress rules -- often in the form of suburbs and strip malls -- the crownbeard endures.
"Just to think that there's this plant that [was] thought to be extinct just a few hundred feet from someone's backyard -- that's pretty neat," said Andrew Willis, district enforcement analyst with the California Coastal Commission.
Some of the shrubby plants grow on 326 acres of chaparral-choked land owned by luxury developer, the Athens Group, which hopes to eventually build eight homes near Driftwood Drive. The property is near the aging Aliso Creek Inn, which the firm plans to raze to make way for a new hotel, spa and upgraded nine-hole golf course.
But environmentalists say the Athens Group, which built the plush Montage Laguna Beach resort, already has a poor track record with the crownbeard.
In 2005, the developer violated the California Coastal Act by ripping out more than 1,300 square feet of crownbeard, a move that the company said was an accident. More recently, state coastal regulators and environmental advocates have complained that the Athens Group is stalling on fulfilling the commission's order to restore the plants; the developer was forced to pay a $500 daily penalty for more than two months until it sowed new crownbeard seeds.
"What they need to do . . . " said Mark Massara, director of the Sierra Club's coastal programs, "is quit monkeying around and wasting time trying to build mansions on top of these rare plants."
Fred Roberts, a rare-plant coordinator for the California Native Plant Society and a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service botanist, estimates that more than half of the local crownbeard has disappeared since 1980, and can no longer be found in neighboring Dana Point, where it once grew.
"It's actually some strange miracle that it hasn't been cleared more," he said of the plant, which is listed by the state and federal governments as threatened.
The Athens Group spokeswoman Joan Gladstone said that a biologist had flagged most of the sensitive areas, and that the 1,300 square feet were cleared inadvertently. Gladstone added that the company has cleared undergrowth in conjunction with Laguna Beach fire officials in response to residents' requests.
Willis, the coastal enforcement analyst, checks on the delicate little blossom periodically, and says that scientists working for the Athens Group have dutifully tagged the plants to ensure that crews leave a wide swath around them.
"Certainly there's always a chance of an errant Weedwhacker," he said. "I think good steps have been taken to avoid that."
But sometimes efforts to trim around the crownbeard can be harmful; the plants generally need brush shading to grow. Cutting down nearby vegetation "has a really significant degrading effect on habitat, even when you try to do it sensitively," Coastal Commission ecologist John Dixon said.
In Laguna Beach, more than three-quarters of the plants grow on private land. You can spot a few, marked with fluorescent orange tape, through a rusty chain-link fence marking Athens property. Most grow in Baja, where development also looms, and, according to Roberts, there is little environmental oversight.
"It's sort of the epicenter species," Roberts said. "This is like the classic example of the conflict that we have of species that occur on the urban fringe."
After the devastating wildfires of 1993, Laguna Beach officials reestablished a historical firebreak in the hills above town, using machines and goats to trim the brush. More recently, scientists were brought in to make sure that work crews and goats didn't destroy any endangered or protected vegetation.
"There's no sensitive stuff being cut down," Frank said. "There are no rare endangered species being touched -- that's why there's a monitor out there."
But ever vigilant, environmental advocates accuse Laguna Beach officials of enabling the company by clearing land in the name of fire safety. They cite photographs of cleared brush piles as evidence.
At a Coastal Commission meeting earlier this month, Commissioner Sara Wan questioned whether the city's brush clearance was an attempt to evade the commission's regulations. Frank expressed confidence that the city's brush clearance was legal.
But the irony of widespread clearance, one commission official said, is that it can eliminate the fire-resistant native plants and allow more flammable, invasive species to flourish.
"Any time vegetation is being removed from areas of chaparral and coastal sage scrub, we have to look at this through the lens of fire protection," Willis said.
Curt Bartsch, 66, who lives in a home that is against the brushy hillside, puts the wildfire issue more bluntly.
"This is about life and death," the retired automotive marketing executive said. "If that Santa Ana wind catches and goes over the hill, the Fire Department has validated that we're in a world of hurt if we don't do fuel modification."
Before the crownbeard -- a cousin of the sunflower that's largely dormant in the winter -- prepares to bloom come summer, the commission hopes to reach an agreement with the Athens Group to remove some sandbags from the property, originally graded in the 1960s.
Coastal Commission officials also hope to potentially forge a compromise regarding a lawsuit the developer has brought against the commission, which argues that the company has the right to alter the land.
The legal and environmental skirmishes and haggling over hotel plans will probably roll on. At the center of it all is a humble yellow flower, hanging on.
"Nature," said Lisa Haage, the Coastal Commission's chief of enforcement, "is sometimes more resilient than we have any reason to hope."
CNN Money
Banks working to prevent foreclosures
Lenders intervened to help stop 239,000 foreclosures in December - 4th straight month above 200,000...Les Christie
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/29/real_estate/Hope_Now_
foreclosures_easing/index.htm?postversion=2009012912
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a sign that banks are stepping up their efforts to combat foreclosures, lenders intervened to help prevent 239,000 foreclosures last month, according to a report released Thursday.
Hope Now, a coalition of lenders, investors in mortgage-backed securities and community advocacy groups, said that December marked the fourth consecutive month that its members had arranged more than 200,000 mortgage workouts.
For all of 2008, the number of interventions approached 2.3 million, Hope Now said.
More importantly the number of homes lost to foreclosure has been on the decline. In December, lenders repossessed 55,608 homes, down from 69,000 homes that were repossessed in November, and 77,000 in October. In 2008, a total of 917,964 homes were lost to foreclosure.
"The December results demonstrate that Hope Now members are moving aggressively to do what's needed to avoid preventable foreclosures," said Faith Schwartz, Hope Now's director.
She adds that says that fewer homes were lost to foreclosure in December thanks also to seasonal factors, since lenders tend to ease up on repossessions during the holidays, and to foreclosure moratoriums implemented recently by some lenders, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500).
She also credited very low mortgage interest rates, with helping people refinance and stay in their homes. "That's very helpful for homeowners who have good credit and are not underwater," she said. "They can refinance into more affordable loans."
The crisis continues
Still, other housing experts still see plenty of trouble ahead.
"There's an overwhelming preponderance of data that confirms that these voluntary loan modifications simply don't work," said Jim Carr, COO for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an advocacy group whose members do foreclosure-prevention counseling.
A recent report issued by the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency found that 53% of borrowers who had their mortgages modified in the first half of 2008 were already at least two months delinquent again.
"The redefault rate is growing, home prices are tumbling, repossessions may be down but the projections for future foreclosures are going through the roof," he said.
Carr pointed out that a Credit Suisse report forecasts that as many as 8 million homeowners could face foreclosure over the next five years.
"We're way beyond voluntary modifications now," he said. "This is an unemployment-induced foreclosure problem and it will swamp Hope Now's efforts. Their staff is working so hard, but it's not anything they can control."
When homeowners are unemployed it matters little whether their lenders modify their loans. Without any income they simply can't afford any mortgage.
The December statistics also revealed the changing face of troubled borrowers. Previously, most mortgage workouts reported by Hope Now involved subprime borrowers. In the second quarter of 2008, for example, 62% of the group's workouts involved subprime loans.
In December, that percentage had fallen to 54%, a proportion that is likely to drop further this year. More prime borrowers are running into mortgage payment problems as the economy declines. Unemployment is now the main driver behind mortgage delinquencies.
Meanwhile, the number of problems caused by unaffordable mortgages -- such as hybrid adjustable rate mortgages, the so-called "toxic" ARMs -- have declined, since many of these loans have already failed and lenders no longer issue them.
 
1-29-09
Meetings
2-2-09 Merced City Council Redevelopment Agency agenda...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=6998
 
2-3-09 Merced County Board of Supervisor meeting...10:00 a.m.
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/BoardAgenda/
Agendas are posted 72 Hours Prior To Meeting
 
2-3-09 Merced County General Plan...2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. 
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/DocumentView.asp?DID=1515
JOINT BOARD OF SUPERVISORS/PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION
As part of the Merced County General Plan Update, the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission will be holding the fifth of five joint study sessions to be held on February 3, 2009, to discuss the Growth Alternatives described in the Alternatives Report. The General Plan Consultants, Mintier Harnish, will make a presentation regarding the Alternatives Report. The Consultants will provide an overview of the General Plan Update process and four Growth Alternatives, summarize the feedback that they received from the six focus groups and Community Workshop participants, and discuss next steps. After a questions and answers session and discussion of the benefits and tradeoffs of each alternative, the Board and Commission will be asked to choose a Preferred Growth Alternative at the end of the Study Session, which may include one alternative or a hybrid of several alternatives. The Preferred Alternative, along with the Policy Options, will become the basis for the General Plan Policy Document. If you have any questions about the Study Session, please contact Bill Nicholson, Assistant Development Services Director, at 209.385.7654 or bnicholson@co.merced.ca.us.
EVENT: Joint Board of Supervisors/Planning Commission Study Session
TOPIC: General Plan Alternatives Report – Growth Alternatives
DATE: Tuesday, February 3, 2009TIME: 2:00 to 4:00 pm
LOCATION: Board of Supervisors Chambers, Merced County Administration Building, 2222 M Street, Merced, 3rd Floor
 
2-4-09 Merced City Planning Commission meeting...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/depts/cityclerk/boards_n_commissions/
planning_commission/2009_planning_commission/2009_planning_
commission_agendas.asp
Agendas are posted the Monday before a Wednesday Planning Commission Meeting.
 
MCAG
2-5-09 Technical Planning Committee Meeting...10:00 a.m.
http://www.mcagov.org/tpc.html
2-6-09 Citizens Advisory Committee Meeting...8:30 a.m.
http://www.mcagov.org/cac.html
 
Merced County Hearing Commission meeting...not posted at this time
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/index.asp?NID=1263