The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors today appointed the politically pugnacious property rights advocate Lee Ulansey to an at-large seat on the Planning Commission. In the pre-vote discussion, several supervisors alluded to concerns from county residents about Ulansey bringing an agenda to the commission. As chairman of the developer-friendly group Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights, or HumCPR, Ulansey has sought to ease zoning restrictions on rural land in the ongoing General Plan Update.
Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell, who served nearly three years as executive director of HumCPR, named Ulansey as her first choice for the position, as did Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass and First District Supervisor Rex Bohn. Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace voted no after arguing that the board should appoint someone less divisive. Fifth District Supervisor Ryan Sundberg named Ulansey as his second choice but abstained from voting.
Ulansey joins fellow HumCPR alum Bob Morris on the commission, which regulates land use in the unincorporated parts of the county.
This article appears in The Fireball.
Ulansey was an ass for getting into it with Lovelace, he had not even of been selected for a minute. He might not like Lovelace, but you still should respect the elected position of Supervisor. If that is the way he treats a Supervisor, how will he treat the public on the Planning Commission?
Ulansey is an ass, which is why he shouldn’t have been put on the planning commission in the first place, but the deep-pocketed developers in the area have bought and paid for the board of supervisors and planning commission that they wanted, everyone and everything else be damned.
For the last 40 years local media has reported the details of over-development: record fatalities of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, imperiled streams, polluted and depleted aquifers, sewer spills with decades of state-warnings and fines, building moratoriums, and our county’s abysmal 25% home-affordability rate with the increased poverty, crime and homelessness it brings.
They report every detail, and are careful to NEVER connect the dots.
Self-censorship and conspiracy share identical outcomes: the realities of public life remains a mystery to most people who, as a result, have no idea how to vote in their own interests.
The development community dominates local politics and appointed offices for reasons that are NEVER reported, using anonymous financiers that are NEVER investigated.
Their success ensures the continued transfer of public wealth to the wealthy, our resources, infrastructure and emergency services to facilitate high-profit subdivisions on granddaddy’s land far from downtown.
Who will tell the people?
Hyperbole Alert: “Their success ensures the continued transfer of public wealth to the wealthy, our resources, infrastructure and emergency services to facilitate high-profit subdivisions on granddaddy’s land far from downtown.” In your universe, is it even ok for a person to live outside of an urban center, have some land to grow a garden, or some chickens for fresh eggs and roasting hens? Just say it. Because that’s what this is by hook or crook, to get people out of rural lands, let the roads to those lands decompose, thus making access to those private lands impossible, thus cramming people into little “sustainable” boxes where inspiration and independence gets systematically crushed. Familes up here have owned large parcels of land for decades and decades, I don’t get why there is such a crushing fear of these lands being subdivided and developped when there is no growth of any legitimate industry here that would be bringing in huge influxes of people who would be able to buy and build homes on these lands.
Also:”The development community dominates local politics and appointed offices for reasons that are NEVER reported, using anonymous financiers that are NEVER investigated.” To this, seriously??? The GPU followed the guidelines laid out by private un-elected enitities that are likewise undisclosed (such as ICLEI). This is not just the case here in HumCO, but in most municipalities in CA. Where’s the transparency there?
Samantha – Equity refugees. We’re becoming a retirement community. So everything in development is about residences and retail. That’s the problem.
Re equity refugees: I know more than a few equity refugees, not one of them moved here to live on a small mixed use urban parcel. If anything, they escaped that and want to have their acres and access to it. One of them said it best: “I used to know when my neighbor was cooking fish. Not anymore thank god.”
Hyperbole Alert:
“Just say it. Because that’s what this is by hook or crook, to get people out of rural lands, let the roads to those lands decompose, thus making access to those private lands impossible, thus cramming people into little “sustainable” boxes where inspiration and independence gets systematically crushed.”
No Samantha, there’s nothing wrong with low-impact rural living.
However, the evidence is already here that we’re on the same trajectory that incrementally devastated the rest of California and much of the world.
Our rivers and tributaries are imperiled, polluted and depleted, and wildlife populations are collapsing as a result.
Denver Nelson is out because he has called for water carrying-capacity studies for decades.
No chance that science will intrude on Humboldt’s “rural homesteaders” as long as the curmudgeons are still in charge, and local media NEVER connect the dots between the development community’s dominance over local politics, what they get in return, and the negative impacts on infrastructure, home affordability, poverty, crime, drug abuse, et al.
I’ve been to dozens of planning commission hearings and not one “rural resident” who proclaims a “low-impact” lifestyle seeks to have low-impact living codified.
BTW, retirees and families are ecstatic to live in their new affordable “boxes” across the street from the Arcata COOP. Too bad the hundreds of other applicants were turned away.
“Inspiration and independence” are not reliant on the size of your parcel, but the content of your character.