Editor:
To understand why county government has failed to effectively regulate land and water use, ask their supporters who partnered with developer's special interest group, "Humboldt Coalition for Property rights." Together, they won political support for deregulation of restrictions, fines and fees that apply to thousands of formerly illegal structures, described as, "a boon for rural development" (HumCPR newsletter, Fall of 2015).
Rural residents like Peter Childs now find themselves pleading to deaf ears for "fines and fees," and an ordinance "banning industrial marijuana" ("Overlooked," Sept. 14). Mr. Childs blames county staff for wanting to evict rural residents, yet, it's the supervisor majority won by HumCPR and Childs that is legislating in support of Childs' narrow linkage between the "rural lifestyle" and deregulated rural structures. The quality of rural life is being threatened by the deregulatory activists elected to the board of supervisors.
Instead of focusing on solutions, Mr. Childs "green-baits" critics with claims that cities have greater environmental impacts than "hill dwellers," an assertion requiring willful ignorance of the "economy of scale." Childs goes further in calling himself an "original hill dweller," insensitive to the actual original hill dwelling natives who once demonstrated the critical necessity of living life in balance with nature, long before catastrophic climate change and biodiversity collapse amid the current sixth largest extinction event in life's history on earth (primarily due to habitat loss and clean water depletion).
Whether it's Wall Street's political allies quashing well-known alternative energy development and distribution, or local developers and rural resident's political allies quashing water carrying-capacity certification for all land use, the consideration of posterity, science and history are no match against greed and ego that demand doubling-down on mistaken judgments, once again leading to inevitable corruption and violence over land and water despite history's repeated warnings.
George Clark, Eureka
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