My mom used to say, “Judy Ann, if you can’t say anything nice about someone … .” You know the end of that sentence. I hope she will forgive me.
I landed my first real job when I was 15. I fried taquitos and made banana splits in El Monte, Calif. My first professional job did not come until I was in my early 30s, after three children and a degree from Humboldt State. I was a real reporter. The year was 1981; I could hardly believe someone would actually pay me to go to meetings of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday and, back at the office, write about anything I thought was important enough. I loved my job. And I’ve always loved politics.
Within the supervisors’ chambers, I’ve observed some of the best public servants over the years. On top of my list will always be Sara Parsons, representing the 3rd District. She was intelligent, skillful, pragmatic, witty and unfailingly gracious. I watched many times as she would gently coax her four male colleagues into doing the right thing. She could charm the cigar pipe out of the mouth of the curmudgeonly 1st District Supervisor Erv Renner, another of my all-time favorites. Then there were the feisty years (I rather enjoyed) between pro-business Danny Walsh, representing Eureka’s 4th, and lefty Arcatan Wes Chesbro.
County supervisors come and go. Public policy is made and remade. The board has been unbalanced before — 4-1 with the 3rd District being the outlier. But today’s board is different. Four members were put into office with a lot of money from a few individuals answerable to no one. One of those backers, Lee Ulansey, warrants constant scrutiny because he heads a shadowy, anti-government, libertarian-almost-Tea-Partyish group called the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights. After Ulansey helped his HumCPR executive director (now former employee) Estelle Fennell win a seat on the Board of Supervisors, she turned around and joined the majority in voting him onto the Planning Commission, not bothering to recuse herself on the vote.(She also appointed Bob Morris, another HumCPR executive, to the commission.)
Going into last week, it’s fair to say I was just unimpressed with this crop of supervisors. Now I’m angry. Last Monday, on a vote of 4-1, (3rd District Mark Lovelace the lone vote), they pulled off what was one of the most blatant abuses of power by a board I can recall in my 32 reporting years.
Let’s start with Fennell. I have good friends who are Fennell supporters. They love her radio persona, her libertarian streak, her blue eyes and curly hair. Her spirit. Go get ’em, Estelle! I’m sure she’s a wonderful, warm human being. I’d like her for a neighbor. She’s just unfit for the job if she thinks what she did was OK.
So let’s look at what she did:
On Wednesday, May 29, she decided all by herself — or in conjunction with her (cough!) advisers — that getting this damn General Plan Update done would sure be a lot easier if the guiding principles were a little more friendly to those of us special rural landowners. (If you think an organization’s mission statement and guiding principles are not all that important, you’re wrong. They are the reason any business, nonprofit organization or service club even exists.)
So, here we are 13 painful years into the General Plan Update guided since 2004 by a sound, written set of guiding principles, and one supervisor elected in a close race just last November decides to change them. How, exactly? Here are just two examples, but it doesn’t take a high IQ to figure out what’s going on.
Instead of “protect agriculture and timberland … using measures such as increased restrictions on resource land subdivisions …” (in other words, development where services already exist, not further encroaching on ag and timberland), Fennell wants to “encourage, incentivize and support agriculture, timber and compatible uses on resource lands” — or, Build, baby, build! And, all you renters out there? Second class, I’m afraid. Landowners are special. Fennell actually inserted a pledge to “honor landowners’ right to live” pretty much any place they want. I guess renters have to pay homage to the moneyed land barons whose housing rights are sacrosanct.
She unveiled this radically different set of guiding principles before the weekend, followed by a hearing and vote Monday afternoon. So we all had less than 24 hours times four days to consider her personal revisions and two of those 24-hour periods were the weekend.
If you, too, are not angry, you should be — at Fennell and three of her colleagues.
Fennell got Rex Bohn, elected last June, to agree with her plan. Again, I’ve written before, Bohn is a great guy, a tireless do-gooder for almost any community cause. But if Bohn (1) read the original guiding principles adopted after a long public input process in 2004, (2) compared those to Fennell’s changes, (3) didn’t think those changes were significant and (4) couldn’t see that her maneuvering was a blatant, preplanned power grab, then he is unbelievably naïve and seriously lacking critical thinking skills. He, too, is unfit to serve in the job he is paid to do.
That leaves us two supervisors elected in the previous election cycle — those up for re-election next year: Virginia Bass and Ryan Sundberg. They, too, voted yes on that infamous Monday to Fennell’s power grab, making no attempt to stop her.
Last year I wrote one of my columns, an update on the Bay Trail, commending Bass’ leadership as chair on a trail vote the week prior. With pro-trail Jimmy Smith absent, she was facing a 2-1 vote (Clif Clendenen and Mark Lovelace supporting vs. Ryan Sundberg, who for some bizarre, unexplainable reason was opposed). She said out loud that if she joined Sundberg, a 2-2 vote would mean failure. So she quickly started a fast tap dance, modifying language, enough to finally sway Sundberg, and we got the aye trail vote we needed. Last Monday Bass came up far short on leadership. And Sundberg? Forget it. Like Fennell and Bohn and Bass — nice people all around. Just not up for the job.
What can we do? The job of supervisor pays more than $80,000 annually. The commitment is for four years. At your next book club meeting, at the farmers markets and in grocery stores, when you go to church, when you play cards or golf or go running — start a discussion with your friends and neighbors. Do you think what Fennell and her fellow board members did was OK? At our First Friday potluck in Fieldbrook last week, I can report the answer was a resounding no. It was not right.
Who else in the 5th and 4th Districts are willing to step up and run next year, to challenge Sundberg and Bass? We need better leadership. Let’s have that discussion now. And Fennell? Boy, do I miss Clif Clendenen.
Note: This article has been modified from a previous version to reflect the correct month of Bohn’s election and Ulansey’s position as an at-large member of the Planning Commission.
This article appears in Humboldt, The Book.
The no growth in HumCo political forces have been in power for so long that the system needs a complete recalibration. You seem frightened, almost paranoid, by the natural pendulum swing of power. Your perspective is too far to the left for you to be objective. Do you think that the land owners of HumCo should be relegated to having no representation on the board? [edited] Who is the violent radical here? What do you know about the about the Tea Party that makes it more dangerous than that comment?
— “One of those backers, Lee Ulansey, warrants constant scrutiny because he heads a shadowy, anti-government, libertarian-almost-Tea-Partyish group called the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights.”
It is apparant that you only know what you’ve been told by other far left sources, and have not done enough real research to to give a valuable opinion. The Tea Party is not anti-government, it is less government. And just like jean doran, there are crazys in both camps, obviously.
Growth is life, stagnation is rot. There isn’t enough interest in this county for there to be a huge burst of condo highrises any time soon. But I do know that those that own land would like to be able to use it, a house, maybe a barn or an in-law unit. We already have greenhouse, etc. going like gangbusters. Why do you fear a bit of growth? Change is good, yes?
People need to stop the fear mongering. Whipping up the BS with your scary nonsense about Ulansey and his group is predictable and weak. He is an easy enemy because he represents something you emotionally don’t like, and don’t want to know anything about.
Do you think that the previous county supervisors didn’t do shady, back room maneuvers similarly in the 70’s and 80’s to pull the power towards the left? then to the far left? You were probably applauding their clever victories back then. Now the tables have turned and it frightens you.
In regards to the “back to the land movement” and the County of Humboldt allowing the building of unpermitted structures for all those years established a context of an individuals “rights” that has already been defined by our recent history since the 1960’s in the grand experiment we all called the “back to the land movement”. How we treat the earth is an individual decision. How we relate to the earth is in context to how place based we exist in this place we have come to call home, Humboldt County. The social context has changed much since I have lived here beginning in 1953. Every wave of immigrants to this area brings new ideas and social change. Waves of change since the arrival of the first ones arrived so long ago, well before my European English speaking ancestors arrived in this place not so long ago in the 1880’s. How we see the world is defined by our language and being a European language group also defines how we share this view of place through our written texts, like the General Plan. The times are always changing with our social perspectives, like taking fire out of the normal way we manage our home for food and fiber that was based on the one’s that came before the influx of us Eurpean speakers that took this place from those that came before, destroyed their language and relationship with place developed over thousands of years. Reservations, boarding schools, imposed our Middle Eastern Religions and so on. The “back to the landers” of which I am part of set up the grand and new experiment in this place we have now inhabited. How we move forward with our European based General Plan is pretty interesting. Change. The only thing certain in life and we all feel threatened by Change in how we relate to this place. A new influx of people are now moving into this place and defining our collective relationship with this place. It’s all pretty interesting how we English based linguists see this place. You are defined by your language and I speak European based dialect.
The issue at hand is pretty cut-and-dry:
“After Ulansey helped his HumCPR executive director (now former employee) Estelle Fennell win a seat on the Board of Supervisors, she turned around and appointed him to the Planning Commission and did not bother to recuse herself on the vote.”
This is unethical at best, and does not befit an elected official. That fact is not changed by whether previous supes did it or not – if they did, they acted unethically as well. I think it’s especially egregious when a campaign or organization drapes itself in the flag and invokes the founding fathers at every opportunity. It shows a kind of cynicism that is rotting out the democratic process from the local to the national level.
Speaking of undermining democratic process, Supervisor Fennell led the charge to chuck out years of robust public process that shaped the guiding principles of the GPU and created their own set behind closed doors. In doing so, they stripped out forest and agricultural land protection references and abandoned critical infrastructure funding guidelines. Why? To protect the interests of Fennell’s biggst funders: Eureka Readymix, Kramer Investment Corp, Hooven & Company, Hilfiker Pipe Company, O&M Industries, and ReProp Financial (among others). In other words, she is representing the interests of a small block of developers, large property owners, and realtors that were pivotal in her election – all at the expense of her other constituents and the county at-large.
My favorite line from this whole pathetic affair was this gem from Alan Bongio when he was appointed to the Planning Commission with the other HumCPR guys: ”One of the problems has been that people have had too many agendas,” Bongio said. So, agendas are bad. Never mind that you can look up the HumCPR agenda online, and they are very proud of it. The whole thing reminds me of the Dukes of Hazzard, and we should all get ready to get bled dry by this crew or by the legal fees they will cost us. Folks like Tracy are the driving force behind this stuff, and they just never seem to be able to do their development under the rules, it’s just too hard or too complicated, so they actually believe taking over a board and just plain doin’ their way, with all the decisions made behind the scenes, is peachy. And the folks talking about ethics in relation to the Bohns, Basses, Ulanseys, and Fennels of the County are incredibly naive.
An extremely one-sided hatchet-job. I know of very few land-barrons out here in the hills, but I do know many small land-owners whose humble, often not “permitted,” cabins are threatened by Code Enforcement under a general plan that sought to concentrate us all into the cities – what I call “sidewalk environmentalism.” We thought we won this fight back in the 70’s with United Stand and AOB housing codes, but the forces of control never surrender. They held umpteen hearings – and then completely ignored us. What kind of democracy is that? There needs to be a balanced approach that recognizes the rights of residents and allows for responsible rural living. I still support Estelle.
So, building codes and community planning is bad? Uh, I’ve been to Mexico and Arkansas where they have almost no building codes, and I don’ think those areas represent “progress” or “utopia”, sorry anon. The bad ol’ gummint inspectors are actually there for our safety, and to prevent us from buying dangerous shacks from developers. If you want to see what a place looks like with no planning, it’s very easy to travel to Lake County where they were “free” to build anything anywhere for the first 70 years of the 20th century. Just because you are not in compliance with a law doesn’t indicate that the law is unjust.
Good Golly, Miss Moly! I didn’t advocate for NO restriction or regulations on rural housing and development – just that they should be tailored to a rural context. What may rightly apply to an urban dwelling in a dense city setting, may not apply or be unnecessary to an owner-built and occupied home in the country. I did say, “responsible rural living.”
Thank you for removing [edited reference to apparent call for violence or perhaps just poorly chosen sarcasm]
Judy, please observe what your rabid jingo-journalism creates in those unfortunates who rely on you for information: cultural rabies. Obviously [edited: name of removed commenter] isn’t responsible for herself–but you are. Shame on you.
Holy Moly1,
“Folks like Tracy are the driving force behind this stuff, and they just never seem to be able to do their development under the rules, it’s just too hard or too complicated, so they actually believe taking over a board and just plain doin’ their way, with all the decisions made behind the scenes, is peachy.”
Not true at all. I am not one of those “folks”. The law and the rules need to be applied to every one equally. Maybe what I intended was that Fennell’s methods may be legal, and they may not be moral. I did not mean to imply that taking over the board “just to do it our way” regardless of the law was a positive method, and it is most certainly not MY way. The methods of all politicians should be scrutinized and they should be called on it. But in the same light, the previous members have done their fair share of glad-handing, also to the detriment of the community as a whole.
My point was mainly that— it’s all good when the power is in your direction, and then all bad when it shifts. Making one man or one group the focus of your fear is simple minded thinking.
Slapping a label on someone is easy, making your readers fear and then hate the label is easy. The hard part would be to see the complexity of the situation from more than one comfy perspective. Its easy in HumCo to hate growth. Everybody is of that “kind” of thinking, right? NO Its more difficult to think of responsible growth, conserve- able advancement of our community. The environmental laws and regulations are there to guide intelligent planning. Did not even suggest that we throw them away to zip through planning for growth at any cost!
But some king of growth is needed. Health and Human Services is the largest employer in the county. Does this county want that kind of growth? Your govt does, but the people here can’t afford that kind of growth.
Without some development, some building, some kind of industry, (legal), we will continue to attract people who live on the govt. money system. So we must stop hating the solutions offered simply because of the people offering them. The people listed by Christopher Escarcega, Eureka Readymix, Kramer Investment Corp, Hooven & Company, Hilfiker Pipe Company, O&M Industries, and ReProp Financial (among others), are not to be placed on “The Enemy List”. They provide for this community in legal ways, including employment.
Stop with the good guy bad guy nonsense. Green is good, controlled growth is good, sensitive politicians are good, having attentive citizens is good. Find a way to guide this debate for the good of the entire community, not just your group.
Sorry fellas, but the idea that our county’s zoning and planning laws are primarily “urban” is another one of those strange myths that circulate through the talk radio crowd even though they make no sense. How exactly did rural Humboldt end up with San Francisco zoning and planning? Oh, supposedly there was a time when the hippies and tree-huggers had their way to do anything they desired here, right. Guess what? Zoning and planning classifications and definitions are fairly universal, and no one made them up here.
And this: “But in the same light, the previous members have done their fair share of glad-handing, also to the detriment of the community as a whole.
My point was mainly that— it’s all good when the power is in your direction, and then all bad when it shifts.” Please point out when this has happened before in this General Plan update process. That should be easy enough for you, since it’s obvious, right? And could you please remind me of when one of our local Good Ol’ Families proposed “responsible growth” that was not approved by the County?
So this whole fight is over small Mom and Pop cabins? Puhleeeeez. Those would involve fairly inexpensive solutions in most cases, and if you believe that is the issue that drew the rich folks like flies to the General Plan process, you are even more naive than I thought, anon.
Apart from the excellent post by Christopher Escarcega and some bits and pieces in other posts what I am seeing in the comments is a lack of understanding of the broader issues and a serious lack of comment on the ethical/moral issues involved in the actions of Fennel and Company. This is not just about whether a MIL or a little cottage can be built here and there, this is about a free for all that can and will negatively impact critical areas such as watersheds, ag lands, forests and the like. We cannot afford on this damaged earth we live on to continue to allow the greed and grab mentality to dominate and what Fennell represents is just that. HumCPR is realtors, developers, etc, not some little Mom and Pops who want to do a little something here or there. The new Guiding Principles totally slant the story to a radical direction and they should be completely tossed out. Then if people want some revisions let it be a public issue with fullsome input, not something cooked up behind closed doors and foisted on the public before anyone even had a chance to know about it. Ethically and morally what Fennell and Company did is WRONG. It was done in a dishonest, sneaky manner and represents a take over of the county government. She should be recalled and I told her so on Tuesday at the Board of Sups.
Judy Hodgson should be lauded for her editorial and the guts to tell it like it is. Thank you Ms. Hodgson.
I think that if people want their comments to be taken seriously they should be willing to sign their names.
Sylvia De Rooy
As I see it. The change is going to result in low quality, high density housing developments in areas that were originally zoned for single family. Rural or open parcels nearing existing sewer, will be allowed to subdivide and develop for high density. The result… Cheap houses where there used to be horses. Doesn’t really make me too happy.
Judy’s just jealous of Estelle. Judy’s got no way to be political but running hit pieces in the Northcoast Jeraldo that she’s made into a yellow journalism rag. Estelle’s in office, has political power Judy does not so we have Judy’s hit pieces. We can expect more from Judy as she spirals out of control like Heraldo did as well because when you have nothing but negativity as your political philosophy there’s nothing to do but bitch and moan while others actually create community. Progs are history and Judy doesn’t seem to be aware of it..
FYI: http://news.yahoo.com/census-rural-us-lose…. So, our Supervisors are approving a plan for more lots, in a “rural” county, with no targeted funding for infrastructure and essential services for the people who aren’t coming here?
Thank you for your article. I couldn’t agree more on what’s going on and appreciate your the added historical context from someone who has been paying attention for years.
Many focused on the property-rights side of this issue like Growley Tracy characterize those favoring rightful governmental activity on regional planning issues as no growth. This is a well-chosen canard. No-growth in this context of this argument is absurd. Having said that it is just as absurd to place the lever of power on planning issues in the hands of the property owners. I think the term that characterizes the position of most serious people who would support robust regional planning would be “smart growth”.
This is difficult for people to absorb in our deconstructionist national dialog but sometimes government can act better in the interests of all of us than we can individually. For example, how concerned is that property owner about those who inhabit the land after her? What about the extra mileage the next occupants will have to drive to work? Homes and property lines are going to be around for generations. We need government to be interested in and able to produce regulations that take these future concerns into consideration.
This is not about no-growth vs jobs or rural vs urban(ish), this dialog is about money, real estate and short term development issues vs. a pattern of growth that benefits today’s and tomorrow’s population.
Having said that, as Karen Brooks brought up at the June 3rd Board of Supervisor’s meeting, why don’t we take advantage of a ostensibly law-and order (when it concerns property owners) Board of Supervisors and make strong zoning requirements with local enforcement teeth to address the invisible environmental catastrophe happening on our watch? (weed of course) I think this would hurt the support of the “smart growth” v “property rights” side more in support (my own side), but I think it is the right thing to do and we have the Supervisors who could do something about it.
I am grateful for Ryan’s serious journalism on this topic, and for Judy’s brave stance. I am deeply disappointed, but not surprised, by Fennel and company’s putsch regarding the general plan. I am disappointed that my fellow Humboldt County voters could select folks like Fennel and Bohn. With industrial-scale pot growing running rampant in the county, I suspect that the developer – pot grower coalition is becoming stronger and stronger.
A generation or two ago the growers were hippies with a land ethic who built institutions like KMUD, the Mateel, and so forth. Now too many growers have no land ethic and will vote for whomever will let them do whatever they damn well want to do. As this political agenda is fully aligned with the landed gentry and developer crowd, and as both the big growers and the landed gentry have lots of $$ to donate to political campaigns, I see this coalition as having a great deal of political power in Humboldt County in the future.
We are at another critical decision point — who are we? Are we a moderately progressive county (per our usual voting patterns for state/national candidates), similar to Mendocino and Sonoma, or are we a more right-wing county similar to Siskiyou or Modoc? If its the former, then maybe its time for voters to look beyond their narrow pecuniary interests and give some thought to the common good.
The comment by “Common Sense…” is a good illustration of why the phrase “common sense” is an almost meaningless expression of optimism and has no place in the language of the general plan.
Judy sells advertising. She attains advertising revenue by circulation. If Judy or her staff wrote boring vanilla stories or focused on boring issues, revenues would plummet. So Judy embellishes. She speaks in half-truths to non-truths (“because he heads a shadowy, anti-government, libertarian-almost-Tea-Partyish group called the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights. ” What???). She is nothing more than a provocateur. She knows the readership she sucks up to. She’s merely pitting the poor renters against those nasty wealth land barons, and government, in this case County government, are the white knights in shining armor. Judy doesn’t care about the truth. Se cares only about telling her “majority market” exactly what they want to hear. It’s all about revenue and nothing about truth.
We are going to hell — let the realtors all decide what’s right. They have the money, they must know more than the rest of us. This isn’t about that lone cabin in the woods, this is ab about putting infrastructure throughout the county for unbridled development. We will all pay the price. Thanks Lee. Thanks Estelle. Thanks Rex. Thanks Virginia. See you in hell.
Re my previous, now questionable comments–Was it a coup?that is in the eye of the beholder [edited]- i believe in the power of the vote including recall >
If being a Democrat makes me “crazy”I am–in the eye of the beholder–and I put my name on my posts,Raging Granny–Jean Doran
I emailed Ryan Sundberg and voiced my displeasure with the changes to the guiding principles and the lack of adequate public input. His response was it was a “straw vote”. I then responded that’s not what was being reported and could he please clarify what he meant by a straw vote……no response back. Several months ago I sent Ryan comments regarding the Circulation element of the GP, never heard back, not even a, “hey thanks for taking the time to read the chapter and write some comments”……..guess this is his way of doing business if he doesn’t agree with your point of view………hope he’s a one-termer.
If anyone in this thread believes the “pot stirring” alarmist nonsense, put forth by Judy Hodgsen regarding these (OMG ! ) heinous changes in a largely symbolic document, is worth starting a conversation about, then you just must need more of her company “WHINE”… Imperfect as we all are, these Supervisors are democratically elected people who defeated her “clique” and have begun to push back on ALL the nonsense zero sum games which have been the hallmark of her so-called “Progressive” political group. And recommending that Cliff Clendenon to return, is like asking for bullwinkle reruns. The sky is not falling, Judith, and you SHOULD have caught your mothers advice,…but she was the catcher, not you – YOU THE SLINGER ! Throw another party and good luck with the next round of “sling”.
“…nonsense zero sum games…”?