I suppose I should answer my own very important question. I predict if the plan goes through, in ten years the local economy will be pretty much identical to the rest of the state. There will be more minimum wage jobs, but also more apartments for minimum wage workers to live in. I predict the same will happen if the plan doesn't doesn't go through, except people will be driving through Richardson Grove faster..there will be a little less of it and more garbage around it. Carve that in stone. If you support the plan, surely you have some sort of vision opposite the "grovies"...I'd love to read them. Jump at the chance to revisit this thread in the future and tell us grovies "I told you so!".
Are you paying attention, kids? Remember when you read Ernie's opinions, they are coming from someone who doesn't know anybody who earns less than $35k per year other than out of work loggers. But let's not get personal...the less we really know about the people who support this plan the better. What's it gonna be like in Humboldt County ten years from now because of this plan? What would it be like in Humboldt County ten years from now if this plan is scrapped? It's a very important question, really.
Humoring the game of "grovies" vs. "meisers" isn't accurate...at all. I'd like to see every supporter of the plan state their annual income. I guarantee the overwhelming majority of everybody in humboldt county earning less than $25k per year (the backbone of all enterprise) opposes the project.
Altering places like Richardson Grove in any way other than to strengthen their sacred status among us is complete insanity, especially in this age of proclaimed global awareness. They are as much treasures to Humboldt County as the pyramids are to Egypt. Failing to see how the government's demand to cut into Richardson Grove is small part of "actual, important, maybe life-or-death environmental issues" is willful ignorance...naive at best. Or did I forget that those problems happened overnight? It’s just plain stupid, Hank, to lump outrage toward the freeway project under a faceless Grovie label. I don't go for that tabloid-journalism "anger your readers" crap...your assertion is really dumb. People from all walks think the plan stinks, sharing an unspoken understanding that the mandate's supporters (most, like yourself, being just ho-hum about it) fail to grasp. If you spent half the time enjoying places like Richardson Grove that you do staring at a computer and living life like a neverending highschool yearbook on social networking websites, you'd feel differently about it too. If you see Grovies, then congratulations…you’re an Old Fart. From now until forever, it doesn’t matter how much clearcut logging companies benefited the local economy back in the day. More old growth forest would be good for everybody living here right now…economically and otherwise. Who’da thunk it would take 500 years to grow back a 500 year old tree? Richardson Grove is priceless. The Richardson Grove Improvement Project is a government order, neither conceived nor delivered by anybody from Humboldt County. It won’t “improve” the grove itself at all. The same happy, well spoken PR reps and project managers who choose not to call it the Richardson Grove Freeway Mandate have already injected some locals with the idea that we will only lose financially if the government doesn’t have their way. It’s what they’re paid to do…but all their numbers and statistics supporting the freeway are irrelevant in light of what’s clearly visible to anybody anywhere. What has every previous plan of the exact same nature brought us? It is ass-backwards thinking that more of the same will fix the problems the status quo has already delivered. If you argue it as a matter of jobs, realize there could be just as many jobs being created in environmental repair and maintenance…positions of real long-term employment that benefit everybody. It’s a no-brainer. Don’t be fooled: Caltrans serves the interests of the government at large, not the people of Humboldt County. Richardson Grove is their speedbump, not ours. Do not support the concrete jungle! Here's an idea: If you can't fit through Richardson Grove heading north, do Humboldt a favor and stay out. If you feel you can no longer squeeze enough of yourself through Richardson Grove heading south, you're getting too big for your britches…it’s time to reevaluate what's really important in life for everybody.
Re: “Roads and Redwoods”
I'm ashamed at how distracted I've quickly become as I continue to read all this nonsense. One would think the heart of the matter is bigger trucks and jobs and the future of our whole economy...like it's all or nothing riding on Caltran's bulldozers. Screw the rhetoric. Everything that needs to be known has been said, and it is the heart of the matter. It's about widening the freeway through an old growth forest. Today...in the year 2010...after decades of collectively lucid mainstream awareness of increasing population, spreading urbanization and diminishing resourses, whatever your opinions of them. That's why the project is a very very VERY stupid thing to approve of.