Chock Full of Info: Letter to Jerry Brown from Barbara Kennedy

To Humboldt County Supervisors:

It should be obvious that Highway 101 traverses land that is geologically sensitive. The Franciscan formation underlies our area - it is porous, allowing water to penetrate and loosen its soil and rocks - as a result, it slides. CALTRANS is barely able to keep Highway 101 open. I refer not just to the slide north of Redway but also to the large slipout north of Redcrest that has taken years to repair, and the huge slide along the Ridgewood grade between Willets and Ukiah. This is a highway that is prone to failure and will continue to fail.

In spite of these facts, CALTRANS is embarked on a multifacted project to widen and straighten the major arteries (199,197,299 and 101) leading to and from our area to allow access by STAA trucks, thus creating a network of alternate routes to I-5. Although CALTRANS claims that more truck traffic will not ensue, this flies in the face of reason - millions of dollars have been allocated to these projects for this very purpose.

STAA trucks are not only unlimited in length but they will be heavier as well if the trucking industry succeeds in its lobbying efforts in Congress to increase the weight limit from 80,000 lbs. to 97,000 lbs.

STAA trucks will not stay exclusively on the highway - they will leave the highway on terminal access routes and service access routes - in other words, into our neighborhoods and onto our local roads. The cost of maintenance of our local roads is borne by Humboldt County taxpayers, not the Federal or State governments.

The County is presently unable to maintain the local roads. The condition of these roads approaches those of an undeveloped, third world country. Yet, in spite of all these obvious facts, Supervisors remain in lock-step as to their approval of the Richardson Grove and 197/199 projects as communicated to CALTRANS in a Consent Calendar agenda item without any public opportunity for comment on September 9, 2008 and vigorously reiterated ever since.

Highway 101 is NOT Interstate 5. We do not need, want, or can afford larger, heavier trucks on Highway 101, in our neighborhoods, or on our local roads. It is time that the Humboldt County Supervisors stand up for the best interests of the citizens of Humboldt County and oppose the CALTRANS projects.

Very truly yours, Barbara Kennedy

Road Widening: Cutting Ancient Trees, Replacing Local Jobs With Outside Corporate Interests

Soon, Richardson Grove Action Now will be putting out a new info pamphlet focused on more lies from CalTrans, in particular about its plan for ancient trees in Richardson Grove State Park. Maps from CalTrans fail to show some of the large, old trees that would need to be cut for the road widening.

We ask: Have you seen Richardson Grove? Do YOU believe that road widening can happen without CUTTING BIG TREES?

There are several places where the road is so tight between the trees, CalTrans would have to cut the ancient trees in Richardson Grove State Park to make the road the size it wants. Measuring between two huge old trees on either side of the road, there is only 22.8 feet right up to the trees. STAA truck road, what the feds and CalTrans want, is 28 feet wide! CalTrans needs 24 feet of "traveled way" (road) and two feet of shoulder on each side-even without shoulders they don't even have that much room! The road would necessarily cut right into the trees. Also, there are "fill" and "cut [roots] lines on the CalTrans maps which go right through big trees in the Grove!

In addition, CalTrans, according to its Final Environmental Impact Report, can still cut whole areas of forest on private property to build a retaining wall. The retaining wall is still listed on the CalTrans website charts. CalTrans would have to steal the Singing Trees property through 'eminent domain' to do that. CalTrans has a practice of lying to the public and to the property owners from whom it plans to take land and homes for its highway expansions.

Not ONLY about Ancient Trees

Several local trucking companies, including Gosselin, Customer Truck Service, and Altos Brothers will be forced to fire truck drivers and support personnel if CalTrans does its plan through our old growth redwoods and allows super trucks and trailers into our communities.

At a minimum, six to twelve jobs will disappear from just those Humboldt County companies if CalTrans gets its way. We’re talking $500,000 in lost annual payroll. And that's just three companies. And that's without considering all of the big businesses that will come in and force out local trucking contracts and businesses in time.


Here are links to Richardson Grove Action Now literature. Please distribute! If you need hard copies to give people and can't print them yourself, call (707) 602-7551 and we'll get you some!

Pamphlet for printing: http://www.box.net/shared/3kstv8flz7

Pamphlet for reading on the computer: http://www.box.net/shared/6xyyml02vu

CalTrans Lies Booklet: http://www.box.net/shared/j9bygxbgn3

Letter to Humboldt Board of Supervisors (March 8, 2011): http://www.box.net/shared/rv8qpyh5q3

General Flier, 1-sided: http://www.box.net/shared/jmthnd8da5

Letter To Board of Supes from Chief Thomas Dostou

Dear Sirs and Madame:

It has come to my attention by way of an American Indian associate of mine in Northern California that there is a question concerning the destruction of old growth Redwoods in the Richardson Grove area .

I am presently visiting American Indian communities around the Nation with the intention of coordinating actions related to various other attempts on the part of private or/and public entities to encroach on or destroy natural environments which we in the American Indian community view as having a spiritual as well as a cultural importance for our People.

I am quite sure that you all are aware of the terrible genocide and exploitation that has occurred to American Indian people across this land over the past 500 years. And I am also sure that you are also aware in the particular of the massacre of the Wiyot peoples in 1860 by white settlers.

With this and more in mind, I am sure that you understand that we as Native people are very concerned when we hear that people are wanting to again destroy our lands because we never voluntarily gave up our lands but were forced to cede these lands at the point of a gun or sword. No treaties were signed by the coastal tribes of California giving up the trees, rivers, lakes etc. So basically, you and your government accordingly are an illegal body as per the United Nations Charter of Human Rights and the World Court of the Hague.

What right do you have to decide what will be done with the lands which your ancestors took illegally ?

Thank you .

Chief Thomas Dostou

Nabesse Pishum ( Tom Dostou )

Humboldt Board of Supervisors Targeted in Direct Action Campaign to Stop Highway Expansion Through Richardson Grove State Park

Tuesday, March 8th: “No Road Widening Through Richardson Grove” activists sang to the Board of Supervisors at the weekly meeting this morning.

http://www.archive.org/details/AH-bos-am_3-8-11

See BELOW the letter given to the Board of Supervisors for the record from Richardson Grove Action Now.

Six people who are opposed to the plan to widen the road through Richardson Grove State Park were arrested for expressing their dissent to the abhorrent decision the Supervisors made when they gave a green light to the plan, seemingly without hearing or caring about the opinion of the people whom they claim to represent.

This proposed project would have far reaching and devastating effects socially, ecologically, economically, and spiritually. We currently have the potential to build our own economy and wealth as working class people. This project would only leverage more control and wealth for the “owner” class by making it easier and more lucrative for “big box” stores to invade our communities, thereby leaching much-needed local dollars from the North Coast. We know that the Highway 101 expansion is supported by U.S. military and so-called defense agencies who wish to have greater access to and control of the people and natural resources of this region. Respecting the old growth forest in a protected park trumps any value that could come from widening the road. Just as all life has the inherent right to survive with a healthy level of autonomy, we also demand our right to survive and determine for ourselves, rather than be forced to accept, what passes through our lives or covers the landscape of our home.

Richardson Grove Action Now is committed to stopping the Federally funded CalTrans highway expansion through Richardson Grove. “We know that this plan will ruin our local economy, will bring increased militarization, will interfere with a state park, will irreparably damage the root systems of ancient trees, and will change forever our way of life” says Richardson Grove activists.

The letter below was handed out to the Board of Supervisors and other meeting attendees this morning.

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Clerk of the Board of Supervisors
Room 111 of the County Courthouse
825 5th Street
Eureka , CA 95501

March 8, 2011

To Humboldt County Board of Supervisors,
Jimmy Smith, Clif Clendenen, Mark Lovelace, Virginia Bass, Ryan Sundberg

This morning several people representing opposition to Caltrans’ 10+million dollar plan to widen Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park demonstrated during your morning meeting. You have failed in your ability to work for the people due to your allegiance to special interests. You have refused to protect our communities now and for future generations. Many of your constituents have requested, formally and repeatedly, that you hold a public forum to discuss this issue- the road widening project and its myriad consequences; we have asked that you put this significant item on the agenda;we have asked for your assistance, and you have blatantly and openly disrespected and ignored us. You should not be permitted to continue “business as usual” when your business is short-sighted, corrupt, and detrimental to our lives.

The Board of Supervisors is an elected position. Your failures and refusals to adequately represent and defend your constituents and your failure and refusal to fight for a significant State Park in Humboldt County have been obvious through your rubber-stamping of this and other contentious CalTrans projects, through your ignoring of the will and well-being of your constituents, through your prioritization of transnational interests over local economy, through your approval- without our consent- of a plan that will endanger our safety on the road, through your complicity with unlawful plans to damage a State Park for purported economic benefit, through your brazen disregard for the sanctity of Richardson Grove to the First Nations people in this region and your perpetuation of the genocide that began several generations ago. We have a voice, and we demand that you listen, lest you will continue to find it more and more difficult to conduct what you call “business” and what we call CRIME.

You have misappropriated thousands of dollars from the Headwater's Fund to promote CalTrans' proposed highway expansion through Richardson Grove. In addition to paying for television, radio, and print media to promote the CalTrans project, you used over $10,000 from the Headwaters Fund to: pay six public figures to submit “My Word” letters to the Eureka Times-Standard; to pay for editing those letters; to provide instructions and propaganda for businesses on how to publicly promote the CalTrans project; and to fund many county staff hours for project lobbying. Then, $25,000 more in county public funds were pilfered by Kirk Girard, director of Humboldt County Community Development, to promote the highway expansion through Richardson Grove. This is not only an outrage, it is a special interests racket.

These are glaring violations of the public trust and gross acts of collusion with special economic interests, at the behest of the future and well-being of our region. You have not only failed to oppose the project, you have failed to seek legal recourse against CalTrans for interfering with the State Park and failed to investigate the adverse and long-term affects of the project. In reality, you have actively and unethically propagandized this CalTrans project (and others) and, to our detriment, done everything to advance an imperialist agenda.


Sincerely,
Richardson Grove Action Now
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Afternoon Public Comments to Humboldt Board of Supes, Tuesday March 8, 2011:

http://www.archive.org/details/AH-bos-pm_3-8-11