If it needs to be explained...

Redwood Times

Posted: 03/26/2010 12:15:53 PM PDT

To the Editor:

This is an open letter to Clif Clendenen and whoever wants to debate the merits of widening Highway 101 through Richardson Grove.

I’d like to publicly thank the business owners who have made it possible for me to hardly ever need a reason to travel elsewhere to find cool retail. I don’t shop a whole lot but when I want to find a gift or clothes, or plants and seeds for food to grow, I never have to go far. I can shop for good healthy food every day of the week, if I choose. We are blessed beyond measure and surely have more at our fingertips than a large portion of the world’s population. Get closer to the big city and things get a little cheaper, it’s a trade-off. So is it not an honor to be able to live here with one another? What is lacking in the way of retail?

Anyone with a beating heart should (yes, I’m using the should word), anyone should sense the value of this corridor, the need to preserve it intact, as it is.

This is not intellectual comprehension: if it needs to be explained, it cannot be understood.

Awareness is felt as an experience, not described with intellect. If you’re one of these people who feels there might be just reason to widen the road through the grove, please go there. Go there quietly on a Sunday morning, try and get there early and drive through, then turn around and go through the other direction. Enter the park, get out of your car down by the river. Get out and walk, and get close to where we’re talking about making it wider, and just stand there for a moment. (Do you have the time?) Breathe in, and let it all go. It’s an experience, and if it has to be explained, it can’t be understood. Awareness of anything is like that, it’s not an intellectual explanation, it’s an experience. It’s actually quite clear, and although subjective, we can’t argue with someone about an experience they’ve had... having said that I’m reminded of another truth: one can’t preach a moral. So I’ll leave it at that. Because unless you are seriously severed from your own beating heart, I can’t imagine it possible that you could stand there and believe you even had a choice. Go try that. It should leave you feeling a whole lot better than a well-crafted debate, not to mention the clarity you’ll be gifted, free and direct, from some of the oldest living things we’ve got going on.

Sign me grateful for the way the big trees stand.

Cindy Reed

Piercy

A crime against Nature

January 2, 2009

Kim Floyd

Project Manager

Caltrans

P.O. Box 3700

Eureka, CA 95502

Re: Richard Grove Road Project

Dear Ms. Floyd:

My name is Kimberly Tays. My husband and I have been volunteers with Caltrans’ Adopt-a-Highway program for the past 2+ years. I have enjoyed getting to know some of Caltrans’ employees and, for the most part, believe Caltrans does an excellent job of keeping our roads safe and clean.

However, I am very troubled by the proposal to remove 87 trees and widen Richardson Grove to allow “longer trucks to safely travel through the area” (12-5-08 Times-Standard article). I believe the removal of so many trees would devastate this remarkable piece of landscape. I do not want to see this magical place turned into a fast-paced highway like we see in the rest of our state; we have too much of that already. When you get to this part of California, you actually want to slow down and take in the breathtaking scenery, including the big, beautiful redwoods and other trees that grace our natural environment.

As a society, we continue to value business and transportation needs over everything else—at the expense of our environment, at the expense of open space, at the expense of aesthetics, at the expense of biodiversity. Richardson Grove is one of those places that stood out in my mind the first time I visited Humboldt County—I just knew I had to come back and explore the area more because it was such an amazing place. In fact, I was so impressed with the natural beauty of Humboldt County, I moved here in 2003 and completed my degree at Humboldt State University. Richardson Grove is not just some annoying obstacle on the map to somewhere else; it is a destination for people from all over the world who come to visit our State Park lands to camp, hike and sightsee. This is what makes the Richardson Grove project all the more dreadful and incompatible in my mind. The fact that we would desecrate a national and international treasure for business and transportation interests is, in my eyes, a crime against nature. And what is even more ironic is that in your attempt to improve some business interests, you may actually destroy those businesses that cater to travelers who visit this area for its remarkable scenery and pace of life. And, you will destroy an amazing scenic roadway that is awe-inspiring.

I understand that some Humboldt businesses feel they are at an economic disadvantage because cargo from larger trucks must be offloaded onto smaller trucks to travel through this area. But we cannot ruin such a remarkable place for the interests of a few business owners; the stakes are too great and the worldwide public stands to lose an irreplaceable natural gem in our already over-built, over-desecrated and over-burdened planet.

For the public record, as a resident of Trinidad and Humboldt County, I ABSOLUTELY OPPOSE the Richardson Grove Road Project.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Tays

National Geographic Puts the North Coast on the Map

National Geographic Puts the North Coast on the Map
New “Geotourism” Campaign Rolled Out in Scotia

By Cynthia Elkins

National Geographic launched a new tourism product for the North Coast last week, holding the rollout event in Scotia on March 11 and calling it a landmark project that will boost sustainable tourism in southern Humboldt and throughout the region.

The “geotourism” project covers 6 counties, from Marin to Del Norte, and is one of only 14 similar projects National Geographic has worldwide. But it is also the first of its kind, in that it is focused around an interactive map guide and website instead of being print-based.

Geotourism is described as “tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place – its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.”

In an interview in Scotia, Jim Dion, Associate Director of the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, said geotourism “takes the concept of ecotourism and applies it to all aspects of ‘place-based’ tourism,” including things like arts and crafts, sightseeing, local cuisine and cultural history.

The website allows people to suggest additions to the map by nominating a place, activity or event – such as a public trail, a boat launch or an annual festival. Each map entry is accompanied by an individual webpage that describes them, and users of the website can add them to their “favorites” to help plan their trip.

People involved with the project said there are already more than 1,000 nominations for the map. Approximately 400 entries are included so far, and though there are a number in southern Humboldt, the map is still fairly sparse in the local area as compared to most places in the region.

There is now just one entry for Garberville – the Trees Foundation – and there are none for Redway. Other current local map entries include Richardson Grove, the King Range and Sinkyone Wilderness Areas, the Benbow Inn and Riverbend Winery.

The effort builds on other new projects and work that have emerged in the area. Explorer Mike Fey and Humboldt County resident Lindsey Holm recently completed a 400-mile transect of the redwood range, which was featured in a cover story of National Geographic in October 2009. A new coalition called Redwood Futures followed, with a workshop in Redway last Saturday that was focused on creating new economic opportunities from conservation and restoration of redwood forestlands.

Supervisor Clif Clendenen and Southern Humboldt Community Park representative Steven Dazey were among the agency, conservation and political leaders from throughout the region who attended the Scotia event. After a tour of the town and a reception, several speakers gave presentations on their work, including Art Harwood of the Redwood Forest Foundation. Explorer Mike Fey was the keynote speaker.

Marcia deChadenedes, Outreach Coordinator with the federal Bureau of Land Mangement, told the audience that the project “... is precedent-setting because it was the first one that recognized the power of the internet and started with an internet map guide.” deChadenedes added, “70 percent of all visitors who travel look online first and do all of their planning online.”

According to deChadenedes, less than 50 percent of all tourists are geotourists, but geotourists spend more than 75 percent of every dollar generated by tourism. “Those are the people that you want here, and we did it with this map ...” she said.

The speakers extolled the virtues of the region, saying the rugged coastline, small towns and unique culture are a natural draw for travelers. But the ancient redwoods of Humboldt and Del Norte counties are what Ruskin Hartley, Executive Director of Save the Redwoods League, said set the region apart from any other.

Hartley said the Redwood Coast has “incredible resources,” listing wine, whales, beautiful towns and organic beer as examples. “But you get all those things in almost every single other place in the world. What you don’t get [anywhere else] is primeval redwood forests,” Hartley said, adding, “That’s what you’ve got going. And that’s what will bring the tourists to this place.”

Dion told the Independent that National Geographic’s other geotourism projects were launched within the last few years, making it too early to have much data or information on how effective they are at increasing tourism. However, he said the success is proven in hard numbers in one project, in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, which is being tracked under a rural enterprise development grant.

He said the region had very little tourism outside of the ski season before the geotourism project was established in 2006, but the off-season has seen a 425 percent increase in tourism since then, generating 128 new jobs in the region in the meantime. He also said that no other tourism promotions began or increased during that time, making it likely that the geotourism project is responsible for the change.

The federal Bureau of Land Management was a primary partner and leader in developing the project, which Dion said is also a first. More than two-dozen entities are also supporting the project, including the Garberville Chamber of Commerce, the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau and North Coast Redwood Interpretive Association.

deChadenedes described the Scotia event as “... just the end of the building to the launch. The most important thing that’s going to happen now,” she said, “is you all are going to continue to make it a better tool by adding to it, changing it, putting on sound files, video, all kinds of exciting things that are going to keep people coming here.”

The map guide and other related information can be found at www.visitredwoodcoast.com.

The terminal illness of Developmania

Photo link

Letters to the Editor

Posted: 03/18/2010 06:21:50 AM PDT

Did AVATAR remind you of Humboldt too?

The lovely people of Pandora, like us, have vital relationships with their thriving forests and waters.

Where else are there magical forests with rare, precious creatures so vividly imitated in the film? In Humboldt, we still have our exquisite beauty and interdependent ecosystems with life-affirming sweet, clean air and water. Salmon still spawn in our streams and, if we care enough, may one day thrive again.

Unfortunately for the Pandorans, their magical forests covered precious Unobtainium which the humans coveted. The Pandorans were united in their understanding and love for what they had, but they were up against angry men who had already killed planet Earth and who were threatening the same to Pandora.

In Humboldt's Pandora, we had gold, timber, and salmon. Now, we have Developanium under our former forests and verdant pastures, and Developmaniacs want it.

With broad government support, but little public input, Caltrans is close to realigning the magical Richardson Grove -- home to salmon, murrelets and interconnected giant redwoods -- to allow north-south STAA truck access to our County.

This unnecessary boondoggle will open Humboldt County irrevocably to the Developmaniacs and their smelly, noisy, destructive traffic.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to meet our commercial needs that do not risk our magic.

Please in the upcoming elections for Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, let us
vote only for those candidates who don't exhibit the terminal illness of Developmania. Once we lose it folks, it's gone forever.

Meighan O'Brien

McKinleyville

Petition to Supervisors

The Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG), has just received a regional Blueprint Planning Grant from the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) to engage in public outreach to select a community preferred growth “blueprint” for the future to balance transportation planning with land use planning and other planning issues in order to achieve more sustainable regional growth patterns affecting the quality of life in our region.

The project emphasizes the importance of community involvement and ensures that public input becomes the driving force and that information gathered is translated accurately into a community vision. All these objectives have been lacking in the current CALTRANS planning for the Richardson Grove “Improvement” Project.

Click here for petition

Citizens of Humboldt County! Break out your checkbooks!

Sacramento budget virus spreads the infection to counties; legislative advocate lays out bleak road ahead as state crisis deepens

John Driscoll/The Times-Standard

Posted: 03/10/2010 01:27:19 AM PST

California's counties are losing guarantees of state funding for transportation and conservation but remain on the hook to pay for road projects and land tax agreements, a Humboldt County legislative advocate told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The state's $19 billion deficit continues to bleed counties, even prompting a gas tax switch that eliminates constitutional protections to cover transportation costs. State funding for the Williamson Act -- which offers tax incentives to landowners to keep land in agricultural production -- didn't get past the governor this year despite urging by lawmakers.

Karen Lange of Peterson Consulting, Inc., laid out a largely bleak fiscal outlook for the Board of Supervisors, saying it appears that Sacramento is so focused on solving its own financial problems that it's indifferent to how it affects local governments.

”Seemingly, they just have very little sympathy for you,” Lange said.

Rest of Article

Suit Forces Walmart to Slash Greenhouse Gas Pollution

From the Center for Biological Diversity

Settling lawsuits filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, late last week Walmart agreed to adopt significant anti-global-warming measures in constructing two new Supercenters in Southern California. The settlement requires the nation's largest retailer to install three 250-kilowatt rooftop solar facilities and incorporate cutting-edge efficiency measures at planned stores in Perris and Yucca Valley, as well as to start a refrigerant audit and improvement program to reduce emissions at certain existing California Walmart stores. Walmart will also contribute $120,000 to the Mojave Desert Land Trust for land-conservation purposes. The big-box chain agreed to employ similar CO2-reduction measures for a proposed Supercenter in Riverside.

The settlement adds to the Center's list of successes in upholding California's premier environmental and land-use law, the California Environmental Quality Act, to improve new development, reduce greenhouse gas pollution, save energy, save money, and promote a vibrant green economy. In the words of Center Senior Attorney Matt Vespa, "If big-box stores are to be built in California, measures like the installation of solar-power systems must be adopted to minimize the projects' greenhouse gas pollution."

Get more from the Los Angeles Times.

Ancient groves along U.S. 101 offer respite from buzz saw of urban life

By Gary A. Warner
Orange County Register
Posted: 02/22/2010 10:56:16 AM PST
Updated: 02/22/2010 10:56:16 AM PST

"If you want perspective to smack you up the side of the head, go to
the redwoods. No, smack isn't the right word. The trees that seem to rocket out of
sight don't offer a rude awakening, but a gentle, beautiful reminder.
Life is shorter than you imagine. Mountains may be forever. But
redwoods are alive. They grow, they live, they die — it just might
take a thousand years or so. All the books of Zen meditation bring me less peace
than I feel while sitting among the redwoods at Richardson Grove State Park
on a quiet afternoon, with nothing but the sound of the wind through the
branches.

There are the young redwoods rising from the ferns; the mature kings
of the stand scarred with black swaths where lightning struck; the
toppled old giant gathering moss on the forest floor. Many years ago,
my then-preschooler son, surveying the scene, turned to me with a
comment worthy of a wise man...
Rest of Article
...On my last visit, I was alone. It was spring and few cars were on the
highway. It was wet, muddy, empty and silent except for the occasional
woodpecker or roar of a SUV speeding by. But most of the time, the
peacefulness was there amid the ancient trees. From childhood to
middle age to whatever later years bring, I know the places are there.
I can return again and again. The redwoods will be waiting."

I sure do hope so, Gary...

Opposition to Richardson Grove realignment growing

Mary Anderson, Redwood Times

Posted: 03/03/2010 12:35:04 PM PST

More than 70 people turned out for a community forum on the Caltrans proposal to realign and widen a stretch of Highway 101 through Richardson Grove. The forum was held on Wednesday evening at the Garberville Veterans building. A week earlier, 200 or so people attended a similar forum held at the Bayside Grange in Arcata.

Weott resident Barbara Kennedy, who has been an active opponent to the widening project, introduced the panel of speakers. These included Kerul Dyer of EPIC, Dr. Ken Miller of McKinleyville and Fire Commissioner Jeff Hedin from the Piercy Volunteer Fire Department.

Dr. Lauren Oliver moderated the question and answer period.

Dyer spoke first, calling the project a “really important issue” and said that EPIC would use “every single tool we have” to stop the widening. She said that although Caltrans prefers to call what they plan a “realignment” of the road, the result will be a wider highway through a short section of the grove. EPIC favors a “no build” alternative, Dyer said, and has been handing out postcards in favor of that option to people who are concerned about the fate of the grove. So far, she said, they have handed out over 2,000 postcards.

Dyer said that in the draft EIR for the project, Caltrans wanted the wider highway so that two STAA federal standard trucks, which are longer than California’s legal limit, to be able to pass each other going in opposite directions without crashing into each other.

Greater safety is one of the reasons given for the widening, but Dyer said that she had reviewed CHP accident reports and found that for a five-year period, there had been six accidents in the project area and only one of those involved a truck. No accidents in the project area involving trucks have occurred since June 2005, she said.

A handout at the meeting suggested that the trucks themselves are dangerous. Trucks represent less than 3 percent of vehicles, but are involved in 13-14 percent of fatal crashes and 98 percent of fatalities in car vs. truck accidents are automobile passengers.

Dr. Miller addressed the economic rationale behind the project, which is supposed to be a boon for North Coast businesses. Miller said that while some businesses will benefit from the larger trucks, other businesses will be hurt by them.

Miller suggested that there is a larger plan at work in the realignment proposal and that plan is to “breach the buffer between the I-5 highway and the coast. He said the work being done to create an overpass at Alton is part of this plan to open up the coastal region to more STAA trucks. He said this will inevitably mean an increase in very large truck traffic in this area, with a goal of more urban development on the Northcoast. He said the move isn’t being made for Humboldt County businesses but for outside development interests. The plan is for development all along US 101, Miller said, starting with the Willits bypass, which is expected to be completed soon.

Miller said he favored a different approach to moving goods on the coastal areas. Short-sea shipping development would create a maritime highway from Seattle to San Diego.

”Times have changed since the project was conceived,” he said, making sea transport more economical than land transport. He called short sea shipping the most efficient kind of transport and said there’s nothing we import that couldn’t be put on a barge and brought here by sea. Another advantage of switching to short sea shipping would be reduced traffic congestion on local highways.

He noted that 40 percent of our greenhouse gases are generated by the transportation of goods and that short sea shipping would be better for the environment and better for the local economy. He said that Caltrans had failed to consider the economic value of a localized economy.

Jeff Hedin said that the economy of Piercy once provided 200 jobs. That number is down to eight, he said, and two of those are threatened by the project. The Piercy Volunteer Fire Department responds to accidents as far away as Laytonville. Of 213 calls, he said, 114 were vehicle accidents, only seven of which were in the boundaries of the project area. Hedin said he thought the realignment would create blind spots and encourage “risk taking.”

Hedin called for “stopping all highway expansion now!” and got a round of applause. He also called for “firing every politician who can’t make it happen.”

Other issues raised by those in the audience included the use of Headwaters Fund money to pay for the Richardson Grove study.

Miller said that the Headwaters Fund paid for a “one-sided campaign” to sell the project and that they had the backing of the Board of Supervisors and Kirk Girard in his role as head of Economic Development. The big trucking industry is being subsidized with Headwaters money, he said, whereas the opposition to the project is paying their own way.

Miller said also that State Parks had written a “strong comment letter” raising a number of issues concerning the trees and wildlife. The EIR acknowledges that marbled murrelets inhabit the park but they don’t intend to survey for murrelets until after the project is completed.

Businessman Dan Baleme, who owns a business in the Richardson Grove area, said that he and his fellow business owners in the area are very much opposed to the project. He said that when Caltrans, without notice to the businesses, spent a day taking core samples in the area, his business dropped 90 percent.

Baleme also complained about the lack of responsiveness to local businesses.

”They’re not talking to local businesses and not telling them what they’re going to do.” He likened Caltrans to a steamroller.

”I never had a Caltrans representative talk to me before something that will affect my business,” Baleme said. “Just getting somebody on the phone is impossible.”

He said that the project will have a significant negative impact on the grove businesses and “we’re opposed to it.”

Supervisor Clif Clendenen was at the forum. He took notes but didn’t speak. However, when someone in the crowd demanded to know “where is our supervisor?” Clendenen stood up and received polite applause.

In response to a question regarding possible legal action, Dyer said that no action can be taken until the final environmental document is released. There were people in the audience who stated their willingness to engage in civil disobedience to stop the project from going forward.

An open letter to our representatives

Redwood Times

Posted: 03/03/2010 12:34:00 PM PST

To the Editor:

I am writing about the proposed widening of the road through Richardson Grove. I am a Piercy resident and a Garberville small business owner, who deals with receiving truckloads of merchandise. We had a slight learning curve, figuring out how to arrange for smaller trucks that could come up our highway. We figured it out fairly easily and things have flowed smoothly ever since. We, as a business in Humboldt County, do not see the sacrifices to our beautiful grove as being worth it. There are many reasons I do not want to see our beautiful and sacred Richardson Grove altered.

1) Most of the people of Southern Humboldt do not want this. We live here. My kids walk in that state park. We love our grove exactly as it is and do not want to see it destroyed. I realize there are people making money off of this deal but they do not live here and should not be able to sell off something so precious to our community.

2) Climate change. Our planet Earth is asking us to consume less, localize, plant more trees and keep the trees we have. Redwoods sequester CO2. Bringing in more big trucks and more big box stores is going directly against the direction we should be moving in to ensure our children inherit a planet that is livable.

3) Support local small businesses. More big box stores, which are inevitable if you open up this highway, will put our small businesses out of business. We love our small businesses. They are the heart and soul of our communities and we support their continued existence.

4) Our treasured way of life. We choose to live in this rural area because it is rural. We like not having to deal with a lot of traffic and big trucks on our roads. We enjoy the slower pace of our community. We do not want the “progress” this road widening will bring. Try speed bumps instead.

5) The tourist industry. People come from all over the world to see our beautiful redwoods. Richardson Grove lets them know they have arrived. I follow these tourists cars through the grove every day making my commute to work and I see how slow they drive, how amazed they are at the size and beauty of these trees. The stretch through Richardson Grove is one of the most beautiful in the world. People post videos of it on You Tube because they love it so much. Every tourist remembers and loves Richardson Grove. Its beauty makes an impact. Once you cut these trees down they can never be replaced. Our businesses depend on the tourist industry, which depends on the slower pace, less traffic, rural feel of our area. Change this and you kill our local businesses.

6) Stability of the remaining trees. Once you cut the roots of these trees down you are going to endanger the entire forest. Other trees may become unstable and fall or die. Animals may be affected. It will throw the balance of life in the grove off and devastation may follow.

7) Stability of Hwy 101. The stretch of road directly before and after Richardson Grove is not exactly stable. The highway butts right up alongside cliffs above our river. Just what will be the impact of more traffic and bigger and heavier trucks on this unstable road? What will be the impact to the river below it? The road by Legend of Bigfoot slides -- or I should say sinks -- every year or so. They are constantly filling in to make the road level again. The huge turn at Legend of Bigfoot is dangerous and has a constant stream of tourists crossing the street. How will all of this be affected? Will you spend millions upon millions of dollars to destroy our grove and then end up with a highway that caves in to the stress of all the extra traffic and weight and become unusable?

8) Budget. California is in financial distress. To spend all this money on infrastructure that is short sighted and unwanted by our local community as well as a horrible move climate-wise and potentially devastating to our area is just stupid, regardless of who will get rich off of it.

I beg you to please take another look at this situation. The movement to stop this destruction of our beloved Richardson Grove is growing every day. We will not give up. Please listen to the people who live here, the people you represent. Thank you.

Talia Rose

Garberville

Widening project is short sighted

Redwood Times

Posted: 03/03/2010 12:34:36 PM PST

To the Editor:

Regarding Richardson Grove, one question: “how is it that ANY business, large or small, is allowed to determine the fate of a California State Park, land that belongs to everyone in the entire state?”

Why is a State Park, which is, by definition, held in trust for all the people of the State of California, being altered for the benefit of a small portion of one county’s business population?

The Humboldt County representative for Economic Development mentioned at the public forum (Wednesday, Feb. 17, Bayside), that there are fifteen Humboldt County businesses that need the road widened through the Grove so that they can have bigger STAA trucks. Apparently cutting the trees allows them to cut their business expenses and make more money. That’s nice for the businesses, but what about the rest of the people in the State of California?

Where does it say in our state laws that a State Park, such as Richardson Grove, can be rearranged to suit the business needs of any one particular section of the state? Does this mean that any State Park in California can be rearranged to suit the business needs of any local community? Think of all the State Parks you know and what it would be like if they are subject to the whims of the personal needs of any portion of the local population.

Richardson Grove is not a County Park. It does not belong only to the people of Humboldt County. It belongs to the whole State ... all the people of California, not just those who live in the northern half of the state.

No matter how desperate or deserving they are, local businessmen do not have the right to disturb trees held in public trust, just to better their own, individual profit/loss margins, particularly when their personal gain is the public’s loss. When these giants die because their roots have been severed in the attempt to widen the road, everyone in the state of California will be the losers.

Wake up county supervisors. This wrong-headed “proposed project” is not in the highest good for the greatest numbers. It represents the kind of short-sighted thinking that has, in the past, resulted in impoverishment for all.

Glenda Hesseltine

Eureka

Wake up, county supervisors!

Glenda Hesseltine/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 02/27/2010 01:30:16 AM PST

Regarding Richardson Grove, one question: “how is it that ANY business, large or small, is allowed to determine the fate of a California state park, land that belongs to everyone in the entire state?”

The Humboldt County representative for Economic Development mentioned, at a public forum (Wednesday, Feb. 17, Bayside), that there are 15 Humboldt County businesses that need the road widened through the grove so that they can have bigger STAA trucks. Apparently cutting the trees allows them to cut their business expenses and make more money. That's nice for the businesses, but what about the rest of the people in the state of California?

Where does it say in our state laws that a state park, such as Richardson Grove, can be rearranged to suit the business needs of any one particular section of the state? Does this mean that any state park in California can be rearranged to suit the business needs of any local community? Think of all the state parks you know and what it would be like if they are subject to the whims of the personal needs of any portion of the local population.

Richardson Grove is not a county park. It does not belong only to the people of Humboldt County. It belongs to the whole state ... all the people of California, not just those who live in the northern half of the state.

No matter how desperate they are, local businessmen do not have the right to disturb trees held in public trust, just to better their own, individual profit/loss margins, particularly when their personal gain is the public's loss. When these giants die because their roots have been severed in the attempt to widen the road, everyone in the state of California will be the losers.

Wake up, county supervisors! This wrong-headed “proposed project” is not in the highest good for the greatest numbers. It represents the kind of short-sighted thinking that has, in the past, resulted in impoverishment for all.

Glenda Hesseltine resides in Eureka.