AGENDA BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, April 18, 2014 12:45 p.m., Peralta Oaks Board Room The following agenda items are listed for Committee consideration. In accordance with the Board Operating Guidelines, no official action of the Board will be taken at this meeting; rather, the Committee’s purpose shall be to review the listed items and to consider developing recommendations to the Board of Directors. AGENDA
STATUS TIME ITEM STAFF
12:45 p.m. 1. STATE LEGISLATION / ISSUES (R) A. NEW LEGISLATION Doyle/Pfuehler Plan Amendment 1. AB 1193 (Ting D-San Francisco) – New Class IV Bikeway Designation 2. AB 2193 (Gordon D-Menlo Park) – Habitat Restoration
and Enhancement Act 3. ACR 96 (Olsen R-Merced) – The 150th Anniversary of the California State Park System
(R) B. ISSUES Doyle/Pfuehler 1. Drought Relief 2. SB 1183 (DeSaulnier D-Concord) – Local Bike
Infrastructure Enhancement Act of 2014 3. SB 1086 (de Leon D-Los Angeles) – Park Bond effort
Doyle/Pfuehler (R) II. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / ISSUES
A. NEW LEGISLATION 1. S. 2016 (Feinstein) and H.R. 4239 (Huffman) – Western States Emergency Drought Relief Act 2. H.R. 956 (Kind D-WI) – Personal Health Investment Today (PHIT) Act of 2013
(R) B. ISSUES Doyle/Pfuehler 1. Land and Water Conservation Fund Competitive Grant Program 2. Outdoors Alliance for Kids 3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Healthy
Communities Program 4. Department of Labor 21st Century Conservation Service Corps 5. Child and Adult Care Food Program
III. DISCUSSION ABOUT LOCAL BALLOT MEASURES
IV. PUBLIC COMMENTS
VI. ARTICLES
(R) Recommendation for Future Board Consideration (I) Information Future 2014 Meetings:
(D) Discussion May 16, 2014 August 15, 2014 November 21, 2014
Legislative Committee Members: June 20, 2014 September 19, 2014 December 19, 2014 Doug Siden, Chair, Ted Radke, John Sutter, July 18, 2014 October 24, 2014 Whitney Dotson, Alternate Erich Pfuehler, Staff Coordinator
TO: Board Legislative Committee (Chair Doug Siden, Ted Radke, John Sutter and Alternate Whitney Dotson)
FROM: Robert E. Doyle, General Manager Erich Pfuehler, Government Relations and Legislative Affairs Manager
SUBJECT: Board Legislative Committee Meeting WHEN: Friday, April 18, 2014 - 12:45 p.m. Lunch will be served
WHERE: Board Room, Peralta Oaks ______
Items to be discussed: I. STATE LEGISLATION / ISSUES A. NEW LEGISLATION 1. AB 1193 (Ting D-San Francisco) – New Class IV Bikeway Designation Assembly Member Phil Ting has introduced legislation to add a new class of bikeways – Class IV (also known as ‘cycletracks’ or ‘protected bike lanes’) – which will require the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to develop minimum safety design criteria for bike lanes on or directly adjacent to existing roadways. Currently, Caltrans does not have standards or criteria for bike lanes to include physical barriers against traffic. Caltrans is responsible for establishing minimum safety design criteria for the planning and construction of bikeways and roadways where bicycle travel is permitted. These criteria are contained within the California Highway Design Manual (HDM). Because there are no criteria for physical barriers in the HDM, many California cities have refrained from developing protected bike lanes even though they are considered to be the safest design for cyclists.
Common in some parts of Europe, the construction of cycletracks is on the rise in the United States (U.S.). In 2011, there were an estimated 62 cycletracks across the country. That number has now risen to at least 102 in 32 U.S. cities, with over 100 more planned in 2013. Several California cities have installed cycletracks, including Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Long Beach's cycletracks in the downtown area have been open for nearly three years. The lanes were installed as part of a federal experiment on these types of facilities. According to the city, the lanes have been "remarkably successful.” Since installing the separated facilities Long Beach has seen a greater than 50% increase in the number of bicyclists using the street, a dramatic drop in the number of bicyclists riding on the sidewalk, and a dramatic decrease in the number of both bike and vehicle related crashes. The number of vehicle related crashes has dropped from nearly 100 per year to fewer than 50. Long Beach is confident this drop is due to the traffic calming associated with the installation of the separated lanes.
The California Bicycle Coalition is supporting this effort. District Trails Manager Jim Townsend supports the legislation, “we would be supportive of the formalization of the ‘cycletrack’ concept in the Highway Design Manual. Anything that encourages cycling as a transportation mode is good for us.”
Staff Recommendation: SUPPORT
2. AB 2193 (Gordon D-Menlo Park) – Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Act AB 2193 is intended to create a transparent and straightforward process for the permitting of voluntary watershed ecosystem restoration projects (i.e. not required for mitigation), small (less than five acres in total size) and environmentally beneficial. Each approved project must be shown to be consistent with state/federal species recovery plans or other scientifically accepted strategies for restoration.
AB 2193 removes barriers to entry for environmental restoration projects, making it easier for landowners to voluntarily restore habitats along streams without reducing the safeguards or assurances of existing environmental laws. This new process is modeled after successful streamlined permitting programs adopted by local ordinances which have demonstrated an increase in coastal watershed restoration projects that benefited declining fish populations.
Over 350 wildlife and plant species in California are considered threatened or endangered under state and federal law. California law and the Department of Fish and Wildlife would benefit from an accelerated pathway for providing the environmental permits necessary for urgently needed projects. The bill creates a Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Account within the Fish and Game Preservation Fund. Funding in this account would be used for restoration and enhancement projects. This fund could be beneficial to the District’s work on urban creek, Bay shoreline and Delta restoration projects. Land Acquisition Manager Liz Musbach helped bring this legislation to the Committee’s attention with a support recommendation.
Staff Recommendation: SUPPORT
3. ACR 96 (Olsen R-Merced) – The 150th Anniversary of the California State Park System This measure would recognize the 150th anniversary of the California State Park System and would urge all Californians to join in celebrating this important anniversary.
The first state park was conceived in California in 1862. Captain Israel Ward Raymond and California’s United States Senator John Conness wanted to have natural land areas at Yosemite set aside purely for the purpose of preservation and public enjoyment. At Raymond’s request, Senator Conness introduced a bill that quickly passed though both Congressional houses. President Abraham Lincoln signed The Yosemite Grant Act on June 30, 1864, which granted the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the State of California. Governor Frederick Low accepted the grant in September of that year.
California’s state parks contain the largest and most diverse natural and cultural heritage holdings of any state agency in the nation. The Department of Parks and Recreation currently manages 280 park units, which include: underwater preserves, reserves and parks; redwood, rhododendron, and wildlife reserves; state beaches, recreation areas, wilderness areas and reservoirs; state historic parks, historic homes, Spanish era adobe buildings, including museums, visitor centers, cultural reserves and preserves; as well as lighthouses, ghost towns, waterslides, conference centers, and off-highway vehicle parks. These parks protect and preserve an unparalleled collection of culturally and environmentally sensitive structures and habitats, threatened plant and animal species, ancient Native American sites, historic structures and artifacts, and demonstrate the best of California’s natural and cultural history.
Staff Recommendation: SUPPORT.
B. ISSUES 1. Drought Relief On March 1, Governor Jerry Brown signed two drought relief bills, SB 104 focused on policy and SB 103 focused on drought relief funding. The legislation includes over $650 million from previously approved bond measures and other sources of existing state funds. Some highlights include: $472 million for the Integrated Regional Water Management Program. At least $200 million of these funds would be expedited for immediate drought-related projects. $77 million for multi-benefit Central Valley flood control projects that provide water supply, water quality, or ecosystem improvements. $40 million from cap and trade auction revenues for local, state, and agricultural water/energy nexus projects. $2.3 million for emergency fish and wildlife conservation efforts. The part of the package of most interest to the District is probably the $13 million set aside for the California Conservation Corps and Local Conservation Corps for water use efficiency and fire fuel reduction programs. Another possible category of interest might be $20 million in AB 32 auction revenues for the Department of Water Resources to improve water use efficiency, save energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from local water management. District staff and consultants are looking into whether any of these funds could be used to install solar panels for water pumping.
Staff Recommendation: Look into funding opportunities
2. SB1183 (DeSaulnier D-Concord) – Local Bike Infrastructure Enhancement Act of 2014 SB 1183 would authorize local governments to impose, as a special tax, a point of sale tax on new bicycles. This bill requires the taxing agency to use the tax revenue exclusively for improvements to paved and natural surface trails, including existing and new trails, and for associated maintenance purposes. Bicycles with wheels under 20 inches in diameter are exempt.
The City of Colorado Springs, CO levies a $4 bicycle tax which raises about $85,000 per year for the city parks and trails department. Proponents claim this tax provides seed money for grants and provides political credibility that cyclists pay their way.
Studies conducted by the District in support of the Green Transportation Initiative show bicycling has become a viable transportation alternative for commuters and students. Use patterns on paved trails tend to mirror those on adjacent streets and highways. The District’s extensive paved trail network began in the late 1970’s. While more and more cyclists use District trails, funding for maintenance and operation of aging infrastructure has not kept pace, leading to deferred maintenance issues that impact safety. For example, in 2012 the Contra Costa Canal Trail alone had Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 18, 27 and 30 in three key gaps. Overall, the District’s PCI was 63 in 2011 (a PCI of 85 is considered ideal for regular maintenance). To eliminate the District’s maintenance backlog, it would need to spend $15.3 million each year for four years – which would be approximately 15% of the operating budget – and not realistic. While the District has been successful at securing state and Federal funding to expand its trail network, those funds cannot offset increased maintenance costs.
In addition to paved trail funding needs, the District’s substantial network of over 1,000 miles of unpaved trails has seen a tremendous growth in use by mountain bikers. In the recent park land use plans for Pleasanton Ridge, the District included new trail construction of 17 miles of narrow, natural, surface trails as a response to input from the mountain biking community. The 2013 Master Plan revision recognizes the growing interest for the use of narrow trails by mountain bike riders, and it is now a key consideration for future land use plans. Additionally, to further support bicycle use in the East Bay, the District is recommending the development of a bicycle skills park in our land use plan for Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline. If successful – and more and more bike users learn new skill sets – bicycle market share will grow, but so will trail maintenance needs.
Additional maintenance revenue means additional jobs. From serious repair jobs along the Iron Horse Trail to summer youth crews which maintain mountain biking trails, the District would be employing additional workers. One focus would be to provide local at-risk youth trail maintenance jobs within our parklands in the summer – similar to the wildfire fuels management Civicorps crews.
Overall, this legislation presents an opportunity for regions like the East Bay to keep up with the growth in popularity of bicycle use. As bicycling modal shares continue to increase, additional support for the maintenance of paved and unpaved trails will be required. SB 1183 is a big step in allowing regional and local governments to secure that support.
The District is sponsoring the bill in support of Senator DeSaulnier.
3. SB 1086 (de Leon D-Los Angeles) - The Safe Neighborhood Parks, Rivers, and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2014 SB 1086, the placeholder for a new state park bond, passed the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife by a vote of 7 to 1 on April 8th. General Manager Robert E. Doyle testified in support. Doyle and Advocate Doug Houston will provide an update.
II. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / ISSUES A. NEW 1. S. 2016 (Feinstein) and H.R. 4239 (Huffman) – Western State Emergency Drought Relief Act On April 2nd, Senator Feinstein made major changes to her drought bill and formally introduced a new version (S. 2198) without the previously included $300 million in emergency funding. Her office decided to take out the emergency funding piece in order to gain Republican support and secure 60 votes to pass the bill.
The bill now includes federal funds to purchase water to keep Lake Mead at high levels and prevent cutbacks to users in Arizona, California and Nevada. It also includes authorization to increase the caps for the Drought Relief Act of 1991 and the Secure Water Act by $100 million each, to benefit all Western states in drought conditions.
It allows the Bureau of Reclamation to waive cost-share requirements for its WaterSMART grant program in emergencies and to prioritize projects that are most helpful during drought, including water purchases, conservation projects, groundwater wells and irrigation improvements.
The bill still targets environmental protections for fish, including instructions to manage the state and federal water projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to maximize pumping to farms and cities farther south.
Senator Feinstein has been moving closer to Republicans on drought legislation since February, when the House passed Rep. David Valadao's (R-Calif.) H.R. 3964, which would overturn environmental restrictions on water deliveries to the Central Valley. Feinstein, Valadao and other members of the California delegation recently asked the Commerce and Interior departments to ease rules that protect endangered fish in order to send more water out of the delta.
The original version of the bill, S. 2016, provided emergency funding assistance for: Conservation projects providing water supply benefits in the short term FEMA pre-disaster hazard mitigation grants to reduce harmful effects of the drought Emergency forest conservation efforts in response to drought and wildfire risks By removing the $300 million in emergency funding from the new bill, these allocations are no longer being contemplated.
Staff Recommendation: WATCH
2. H.R. 956 (Kind D-WI) Personal Health Investment Today (PHIT) Act of 2013 The PHIT Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a medical care tax deduction for up to $1,000 ($2,000 for married couples filing jointly or heads of household) of qualified sports and fitness expenses. One would be able to use pretax medical expenditure accounts known as Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Accounts on preventative physical activity fees, such as park sponsored recreation programs, youth camps, memberships at a recreation or fitness facilities, youth and adult sports league fees, exercise classes, etc. Currently, pretax medical accounts are primarily used for reimbursement of medical expense once you become sick. An investment of $1 in physical activity leads to $3.20 in medical cost savings. Physically active individuals save an estimated $500 per year in healthcare costs. This legislation is consistent with the District’s Healthy Parks Healthy People initiative and is supported by the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA).
Staff Recommendation: SUPPORT
B. ISSUES 1. Land and Water Conservation Fund Competitive Grant Program In addition to the traditional State Conservation Grants, the Fiscal Year 2014 omnibus funding bill provides $3 million for a competitive Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant program. . In 2011, General Manager Doyle testified before a House Appropriations Subcommittee in support of the LWCF competitive grant program. At that time, the NRPA testified in opposition of the program. The District would like to ensure that independent, special park districts are eligible to apply directly for the grants. The District would also recommend there be a reasonable time period between when the grants are awarded and when the projects are concluded, given LWCF funds will trigger the need for Federal NEPA clearance on successful grantees projects.
In conversations with the National Park Service (NPS), they strongly believe the District and all special districts are eligible to apply. May 1st is the targeted date for them to release a request for proposals. There will be a pre-application process, and if invited, a formal application process. NPS expects between six and ten projects will be selected and funded in the $250,000 to $500,000 range. To date, NPS has not decided what the required timeframe will be, but understand environmental reviews will be needed. Innovative projects that have some or all these pieces will be considered: a public-private partnership, infrastructure development, and land acquisition.
2. Outdoors Alliance for Kids In the meeting with National Park Service staff in Washington D.C., they recommended the District look into the Outdoor Alliance for Kids (OAK). OAK is a national strategic partnership of organizations from diverse sectors with a common interest in connecting children, youth and families with the outdoors. OAK’s members are brought together by the belief that the wellness of current and future generations, the health of our planet and communities, and the economy of the future depend on humans having a personal, direct and life-long relationship with nature and the outdoors.
OAK’s advocacy framework rests on three pillars – Outdoor Education: OAK supports initiatives that provide children and youth with opportunities to learn about — and in — the great outdoors. These initiatives provide experiences that are both in-school and out-of school experiential learning, are hands-on, and ultimately improve both academic skills and the practical skills, and create a well-rounded education that all kids need to thrive.
Community Health and Wellness: OAK supports initiatives and infrastructure that increase access and opportunity to engage in healthy, safe, and affordable outdoor places, networks and programs. By helping children and their families play and learn through outdoor recreation, the health of individuals and the broader community will be improved.
Environmental Stewardship: OAK supports initiatives and funding that provide young people with jobs, training, service and volunteer opportunities which connect them to the outdoors and recreational opportunities. These initiatives will help youth assume responsibility for the stewardship and preservation of America’s great outdoors and the healthy development of the next generation.
Members of the OAK Steering Committee are: NRPA, America’s State Parks, Outdoor Foundation, the North Face, REI, Children in Nature, Sierra Club, the YMCA, American Heart Association, the Corps Network, National Wildlife Federation, the Wilderness Society and the Izaak Walton League.
Staff and D.C. advocates are looking into the value of joining OAK. The financial commitment is minimal ($100 a year), and the time commitment seems manageable (participation in four conference calls a year).
3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Healthy Communities Program In the meeting with CDC staff in D.C., they suggested the District look into funding through the CDC's Healthy Communities Program. The Program works with communities through local, state and territory, and national partnerships to improve population-based strategies that reduce the burden of chronic disease and achieve health equity. Healthy Communities create momentum that assists people in making healthy choices where they live, learn, work, and play through sustainable changes which address the major risk factors – tobacco, physical inactivity, and unhealthy eating. Currently, 331 communities and 52 state and territorial health departments have been funded. CDC staff suggested Congress was appropriating an additional $80 million for Healthy Communities Program grants. To date the only open grant is a $250,000 program for New England, but staff will continue to track the status of future requests for proposals.
4. Department of Labor 21st Century Conservation Service Corps In the meeting with Department of Labor staff in D.C., it was suggested the District look into the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps (21CSC) as a way to address job training needs. Their charter calls for it to develop “National Partnerships to support 21CSC.” The Partnership supports the development and implementation of the 21CSC to reach its goal of engaging 100,000 young people and veterans per year in conservation service. The Partnership’s members include key federal, state, local and non-profit leaders and stakeholders of the 21CSC.
21CSC has been promoted by Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell who is trying to raise private funds to support the program – including $1 million from American Eagle Outfitters and $100,000 from CamelBak (a Petaluma-based water bottle company). Other financial supporters are AmeriCorps and the Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs). They are looking for local land and water managers to engage in the 21CSC programs to complete projects – including the hiring of crews. Examples of 21CSC projects include: trail construction, tree planting, stream restoration, park construction, wildfire prevention, and invasive species removal. The District could be well positioned to participate in this program, but the Partnership assumes some contribution of regular maintenance and operational funds.
III. DISCUSSION ABOUT LOCAL BALLOT MEASURES Interagency Planning and Government Relations staff will provide a brief overview of a couple of local ballot measures impacting land use.
IV. PUBLIC COMMENTS
IV. CORRESPONDENCE AND ARTICLES
a. “California State Parks honors 150th anniversary, Gold Rush in Colma”, Sacramento Bee, April 7, 2014 b. “Unions pouring in money to help East Bay Democrat Tim Sbranti”, SF Gate, April 7, 2014 c. “Interactive map: the oldest and youngest Congressional delegations”, Washington Post, April 1, 2014 d. “Why the GOP could control Congress for a long time”, The Washington Post, April 1, 2014 e. “California Drought: After years of overpumping groundwater, state may be ready for reforms”, Contra Costa Times, March 30, 2014 f. “Congressman Miller takes national minimum wage campaign to Richmond”, West County Times, April 1, 2014 g. “Challenger in California Democratic House contest makes pension vow he can’t keep”, Environment & Energy Daily, March 26, 2014 h. “A big legal blow to Rails-to-Trails Movement”, Atlantic Cities, March 11, 2014 i. “Chris Lehane Out-Washingtons Washington”, The New York Times, February 26, 2014 Attachment 2.B.2
January 8, 2014
Jonathan Greenblatt Director, Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation Executive Office of the President 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Greenblatt:
We, the undersigned members of the Outdoors Alliance for Kids (OAK), write to express our full support for the development of the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps (21CSC), and to urge the President to make 21CSC a highlighted Presidential priority.
OAK is a national strategic partnership of businesses and organizations representing more than 30 million individuals from diverse sectors of the economy with the common interest in expanding the number and quality of opportunities for children, youth, and families to connect with the outdoors. OAK supports public policies and investments that expand environmental education opportunities, promote community health and wellness, and engage more citizens in environmental stewardship. A list of OAK's organizational members can be found here.
OAK broadly supports initiatives and funding that provide young people with jobs, training, and service and volunteer opportunities that connect them to the outdoors and recreation. Making 21CSC a priority will help to achieve these goals. The opportunities provided by 21CSC will encourage youth to assume responsibility for the stewardship and preservation of America’s great outdoors, and also to teach them basic job skills at a time when youth unemployment is near record levels and young people are missing out on critical early job experiences.
In addition, 21CSC programs will improve public health by helping young people develop and maintain active lifestyles. Studies show that younger Americans are increasingly leading sedentary lives, and spend 7.5 hours a day on electronic media. Nearly one in three children between the ages of two and 19 are overweight or obese, putting them at greater risk for chronic diseases and higher health care costs. At the same time, studies show that youth who spend time outdoors tend to be more physically active. Providing youth with opportunities to participate in 21CSC projects will help to connect them to the outdoors in a fun, educational, and engaging manner, increasing the likelihood they will live active lives that will improve their health and enhance their quality of life.
Implementation of 21CSC will also enable our public land and water management agencies to engage youth and young adults in the broader effort to address the substantial backlog of maintenance on our public lands. It will do so by expanding public-private partnerships that leverage existing federal investment and provide federal land and water management agencies critical services at reduced costs. A recent study by the National Park Service and the Public Lands Service Coalition showed that using conservation corps crews saves 65% of project costs when compared to agency crews, and 83% of project costs when compared to private contractors. Thus, investments in 21CSC provide significant financial benefits, in addition to the social and health benefits described above. With the maintenance backlog on our public lands growing each year, and the centennial of the National Park Service fast approaching in 2016, this is the time for decisive action.
The Partnership for the 21CSC has set a goal of engaging 100,000 young people and veterans in conservation service. OAK respectfully requests that President Obama publicly commit himself to helping the partnership reach this goal. Doing so will provide thousands of jobs and training opportunities for young people, complete huge amounts of high quality conservation project work with cost savings to the federal government, and develop a new generation of healthy, work-ready young people who are invested in the stewardship of America’s public lands and waters. If President Obama makes this commitment, he can be assured that the Outdoors Alliance for Kids will support the roll-out of the 21CSC and work with the White House to promote conservation service corps across the country.
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration of this request. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact OAK Chair Jackie Ostfeld at 202-548-6584 or [email protected].
Sincerely,
American Canoe Association National Fishing in Schools Program
American Heart Association National Parks Conservation Association
American Hiking Society National Park Trust
American Society of Landscape Architects National Recreation and Park Association
Appalachian Trail Conservancy National Wildlife Federation
Arizona Conservation Corps North American Association for Environmental Education
Big City Mountaineers Outdoor Foundation
Children and Nature Network REI
Choose Outdoors Sierra Club
Conservation Legacy Southwest Conservation Corps
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater The Corps Network
International Mountain Bicycling Association The Wilderness Society
Islandwood School Wilderness Inquiry
Izaak Walton League of America YMCA of the USA
Attachment IV Board Legislative Committee April 14, 2014
California State Parks honors 150th anniversary, Gold Rush in Coloma
By Sammy Caiola [email protected] Published: April 7, 2014 - 10:58 pm
A line of bonneted schoolchildren shuffled past the Coloma Post Office on Friday, kicking up dust with their laced boots as the blacksmith’s hammer clinked next door.
It was a page of history come to life at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where docents and rangers commemorated the 150th anniversary of California State Parks and broke ground on a new mill replica honoring James Marshall’s consequential find.
The five children attended the festivities as part of their home-school curriculum, immersing themselves in Sacramento’s Gold Rush history with period traditions like candle making and basket weaving.
“I’m really grateful they do this,” said Adele Painter, the children’s grandmother and home-school teacher in Placerville. “The history is presented in a way they can latch onto.”
It was on Jan. 24, 1848, while inspecting the tailrace of the sawmill he built with John Sutter, that frontiersman Marshall struck gold for the very first time on the south fork of the American River. Though the original mill fell apart, a replica was recreated in the 1960s for educational purposes.
When the first replica started to wear down, the state parks system made plans and sought funding to build a newer replica closer to the actual site of Marshall’s gold discovery. The California Parks and Recreation Commission in 2009 approved $1.9 million in parks bond money to build a new mill.
Construction of the new replica will begin next week and is expected to take about a year, said California State Parks Superintendent Jeremy McReynolds. The existing replica will remain standing until the new one is finished, and some of the old parts will be reused. Park officials held a groundbreaking ceremony and review of the project plans for the public Friday morning.
“The mill creates a sense of place for the park where people can imagine what it was like during the rush,” said McReynolds.
The day also marked a century and a half for the California State Parks system, which was born in 1864 with the founding of Yosemite, then a state park. When Yosemite became a national park in 1890, Marshall Park became the oldest state park in California. The few glimmering flakes found by Marshall ignited what park Interpretive Lead Ed Allen called the greatest mass migration in the Western hemisphere until that time, changing California from a string of shantytowns into what ultimately became the nation’s most populous state at a rapid and often dangerous pace.
Many of the thousands who traveled west to pan for gold died of hunger and illness, he said, but not before polluting the water, reducing the salmon population and cutting down trees without restraint.
“We learn about the future from our past,” said Allen, who adopted Marshall’s garb and persona for the day’s festivities. “A lot of mistakes were made here, and we need to learn what those mistakes were.”
Visitors on Friday panned for gold in a section of troughs filled with sediment, which docent Scott Kamen said is transported from the river and seeded with flakes. People used park-issued pans to sift through sand and rocks, learning to distinguish the genuine flakes, which are round and dull, from the sharper, shinier fool’s gold.
“It’s hard work,” said Kamen. “I think people’d be better off looking for aluminum cans.”
With indigenous music and traditional jewelry, the event also paid tribute to the Native Americans who were displaced during the Gold Rush.
“We try to tell their side of the story,” said McReynolds. “We’re trying to put our best foot forward and show the people that we care about our parks.”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/24/6099841/california-state-parks-honors.html#storylink=cpy
Unions pouring in money to help East Bay Democrat Tim Sbranti
Posted on Wednesday, April 2 at 5:28pm | By Carla Marinucci
Teachers unions, service employees and other labor groups are pouring cash — $335,000 to date — into independent expenditure efforts backing Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti in his primary race for an East Bay Assembly seat against fellow Democrat Steve Glazer, spending statements show.
Glazer, an Orinda city councilman and longtime adviser to California Gov. Jerry Brown, has thrown down with unions in his campaign, and his latest pitch in a campaign brochure explains it all: “Steve Glazer stood up against the BART strike. He’ll fight for us in the state Assembly.”
And now Glazer, in an editorial board meeting at The Chronicle on Wednesday, said unions are targeting him with false “push poll” attacks made this week in phone calls to 16th Assembly District voters.
“We need a person who represents our district — who we can trust stands for us not his big- moneyed clients,” the calls say. Callers are told that “for years, Glazer has worked for developers and companies like Chevron, PG&E and Monsanto.”
Glazer told the editorial board that he’s never worked for any of the companies. He did say, however, that campaign finance records show Sbranti has received a $1,500 contribution from PG&E and three contributions totaling $1,800 from Chevron.
Glazer said he has received a $1,000 contribution from Monsanto.
Assembly candidate Steve Glazer
Michelle Henry, spokeswoman for Sbranti’s campaign, said she was unaware of the polling by union-backed independent expenditure committees and could not comment on their activities. By law, such committees cannot coordinate their actions with a candidate’s campaign.
We also sought a comment from the California Teachers Association, which is helping to fund the poll, and will post when we receive a response.
A disclaimer at the end of the calls notes that the two-question poll is “paid for Californians for Economic Prosperity to Support Tim Sbranti for Assembly 2014, sponsored by the California Teachers Association and the California State Council of Service Employees. Major funding by the California Teachers Association Independent Expenditure Committee and California State Council of Service Employees Political Committee.”
Sbranti, until recently, chaired the teachers union’s political involvement committee.
Glazer’s stand against BART strikes, a popular one in his commuter-heavy district, is only part of the the reason he’s angered labor activists in the Democratic ranks.
The California Labor Federation put him on a “do not patronize” list in 2012 after he worked as Democratic strategist for JobsPAC, the California Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee. To the displeasure of Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, the group worked to elect moderate Democrats over more liberal incumbents.
Democratic grassroots and labor activists at last month’s state party convention in Los Angeles voted overwhelmingly to endorse Sbranti.
Glazer’s campaign has highlighted a bellwether race between labor and business interests in the 16th Assembly District, which stretches from Orinda to south of Livermore.
The district tilts to the left, but not overwhelmingly so — Democrats outnumber Republicans by 40 to 34 percent, with 22 percent of voters declining to state a preference.
The seat is now held by Democrat Joan Buchanan, who will be termed out next year. Also running are Republican attorney Catharine Baker and Danville Mayor Newell Arnerich, a Democrat.
The race has spotlighted key changes in the state’s political landscape — including legislative districts newly redrawn by an impartial citizens commission rather than Democratic or Republican leaders, and a primary system under which the leading two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Glazer said labor’s efforts to attack him as a “business Democrat” illustrate the “narrow view” of special interests in the state — even in his own party. “I have a long record of being a progressive Democrat in many things,” Glazer told the editorial board. “If it means that I’m sensitive to economic development, over-regulation and job creation, then that’s a badge of honor…and I have a proven record of taking on special interests.”
Interactive map: the oldest and youngest Congressional delegations
By Christopher Ingraham April 1 at 2:52 pm
Comments Earlier today I looked at trends in average Congressional age over time and found that relative to everyone else, Congress is actually getting younger. It's also interesting to look at the age of Congressional delegations at the state level for the 113th Congress.
Alaska can lay claim to the oldest House delegation, at 80 years. But Alaska's "delegation" consists solely of Don Young, who has held that state's lone House seat since 1973. If we exclude similar single-representative states like Vermont, the prize for oldest delegation goes to West Virginia, who's representatives average 64 years.
At the opposite end of the age spectrum, South Dakota's Kristi Noam is the youngest House delegation at 42 years. But again excluding single-representative states, the 46-year-old Kansas delegation is the youngest.
One thing that stands out in the map above is the swath of young delegations from states in the middle of the country. We normally associate youthful dynamism with coastal metropolitan areas, but as far as the House is concerned that energy seems to be coming from the heartland. On the Senate side, Democrats can lay claim to both the oldest and youngest delegations.
California's Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer average out to 76.5 years, the oldest delegation, while New Jersey's Cory Booker and Robert Menendez are the youngest at 52.
Most states' Senate delegations are older than their House delegations, but there are a few notable outliers. Texas' Senators average out to a youthful 52.5, while its 36 representatives are 61 years old on average. That latter number is bolstered somewhat by Representative Ralph Hall, who at 90 is the oldest member of the House.
Christopher Ingraham is a data journalist focusing primarily on issues of politics, policy and economics. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center. He's on Twitter.
Why the GOP could control Congress for a long time
By Aaron Blake April 1 at 1:57 pm
The U.S. Capitol dome is silhouetted by the sunrise. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
While much has been written in recent weeks about the GOP's improving chances to win the Senate in 2014 -- and, to a lesser extent, the Democrats' chances of winning it back in 2016 -- a look at the Senate map as a whole tells us this: Regardless of what happens in the next few years, Republicans have a distinct advantage in the battle for the Senate (along with the House) for the foreseeable future. In the House, Republicans are favored to hold the chamber thanks, in large part, to their success in gerrymandering districts. Some have suggested Democrats won't be able to win back the majority until the next round of redistricting after the 2020 election.
In the Senate, the GOP also owes its advantage to a kind of gerrymandering. But it's natural gerrymandering rather than the political kind.
To illustrate this point, let's look at the 2012 election. President Obama won 26 of the 50 states -- a bare majority. But he needed to win basically all of the swing states (every one except North Carolina, in fact) in order to win that majority. That's because there are many more solidly red states than solidly blue states, and Democrats need to win the vast majority of the ones in the middle.
In the below chart, we take the 2012 election results in each state and adjust them slightly to show where each state might stand in a completely neutral political environment (that is, rather than Obama winning by four points, he and Romney tied).
Here's that breakdown (with a big tip of the hat to Dave Wasserman's 2012 election results page):
As you can see, there would be 23 states that favored the GOP by double digits and just 13 that favor Democrats by double digits.
Of those 23 double-digit red states, the most vulnerable ones are Georgia, Arizona and Missouri -- not exactly fertile territory for Democrats to compete.
In other words, Republicans, if they just win in the states where they have a clear partisan advantage, should have at least 46 Senate seats -- nearly half the chamber -- in the bag. (More on that later.)
On the Democratic side, the 13 states where the blue team is ahead by double digits give them essentially 26 seats as "gimmes." And even if you throw in nominally blue states like Oregon, Michigan and New Mexico, that gets the party to 32 seats.
So before we even talk about states that should be competitive at the federal level, Republicans have a double-digit advantage, as the map is constructed today. Democrats, to their credit, have overcome this natural gerrymander in recent years by winning in red states. They have done this thanks to 1) those states' lingering Democratic affections, 2) running conservative Democrats for those seats and 3) by having incumbents who were able to hang on thanks to their incumbency. Democrats have even won some open seats in solidly red states like Indiana and North Dakota, thanks in large part to flawed GOP candidates but also because they ran Democrats who fit the states. As it stands, Democrats actually control 11 of the 46 seats in these solidly red states -- undercutting what should be the GOP's inherent advantage.
As the electoral environment becomes more and more nationalized (and polarized), though, Republicans have a better chance to win back many of these seats. In fact, they can feasibly win six of the 11 back in 2014 alone. And if/when the GOP wins these seats back, it will become harder for Democrats to compete for them and -- by extension -- for the Senate majority. If Republicans can take over the majority of those 11 seats in the next few elections, Democrats will have to dominate in the swing states just to hold on to a bare majority. Now, none of this is to say the GOP is guaranteed to take over the Senate eventually. Not hardly. And the good news for Democrats is that a strong majority of swing states do lean slightly blue.
But it's also clear that the House isn't the only chamber in which the map is quite favorable for the GOP's hopes of controlling Congress for years to come.
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Aaron Blake covers national politics at the Washington Post, where he writes regularly for the paper’s Post Politics and The Fix blogs. A Minnesota native and graduate of the University of Minnesota, Aaron has also written for the Minneapolis Star- Tribune and The Hill newspaper. He joined the Post in 2010. Aaron, his wife, Danielle, and his dog, Mauer, live in Northern Virginia. Follow him on Twitter at @AaronBlakeWP.
California Drought: After years of overpumping groundwater, state may be ready for reforms
By Paul Rogers [email protected] POSTED: 03/30/2014 04:29:51 PM PDT | UPDATED: A DAY AGO
Inspecting a groundwater pump in San Lorenzo, Calif., 2007. (Bay Area News Group) For nearly 50 years, California has passed sweeping environmental laws that limit private property for the common good -- from the nation's toughest automobile pollution standards to curbs on clear- cutting forests to rules requiring that developers keep beaches open to the public. However, when it comes to preserving one of the state's most critical and politically divisive resources -- billions of gallons of groundwater that are vital to farms and cities -- California lawmakers and voters have done almost nothing.
Now, driven by the historic drought and new pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown, the chances of reform appear better than ever.
Decades of intense pumping have dropped water tables dangerously low in places such as the San Joaquin Valley and Paso Robles. Scientific studies show that the ground is sinking in some places and that aquifers are at risk of running dry.
"Some people have had the attitude that our groundwater will be here forever," said John Garner, who grows rice and walnuts on 600 acres in Glenn County, 80 miles north of Sacramento. "But now they realize that 'Holy crow, we could have an impact here and to protect ourselves -- although not everybody is there yet -- they realize they probably really should start better management.'"
Over the past six months, farmers, environmentalists and urban water districts have been holding workshops, hearings and private meetings in Sacramento to discuss how to preserve the state's depleted groundwater.
In years past, the Farm Bureau and other powerful agricultural groups fought nearly every attempt at statewide rules.
"Opponents have attacked it as an attack on property rights," said Lester Snow, former director of the state Department of Water Resources. "But the irony is that you need rules to protect property rights. Today there is a whole different tone in this conversation."
Now, for the first time, some farm groups are open to discussing measures to require landowners to report the amount of groundwater they pump, probably to local agencies. The rules could require installing meters on some wells and even limiting how much water is taken out of the ground.
Depending on what bills emerge in the Legislature this summer, counties and local water districts also may be given the authority to collect fees, or "pump taxes," from farmers and other well owners to pay for programs to restore groundwater basins.
Santa Clara County has had a pump tax in place since 1964. Because of farming and population growth, the water table fell 175 feet from 1915 to 1965. Since then, after years of the Santa Clara Valley Water District putting water back underground in wet years, the water table has returned to where it was a century ago.
Statewide, the details are complex. But the basic problem is simple.
California is largely arid. Most of the state, including San Jose, Los Angeles and much of the Central Valley, receives only 15 inches of rain a year on average, the same amount as Casablanca, Morocco. So far this year, those places have received only 4 or 5 inches of rain.
Although reservoirs, creeks and rivers provide the bulk of the state's drinking and farm irrigation water, groundwater provides 30 percent of the water for farms and cities in most years, and as much as 60 percent in dry years such as this one. When reservoirs run low, farmers and cities furiously pump more water from the ground.
However, in many parts of the state, they don't put any back. Overall, California pumps out about 2 million more acre-feet a year than is recharged, according to state estimates. That's enough water for 10 million people a year.
"It is similar to federal budget deficits, except that the government cannot print more water, nor can we borrow it from Chinese banks," said Jonas Minton, with the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group in Sacramento.
California uses more groundwater than any other state. Other dry Western states, such as Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, require property owners to obtain a permit from the state to pump groundwater, and make data on well pumping public as a tool to manage aquifer levels. California does not.
Many California farmers remain wary of any new controls, however.
"For farmers down here, there is a lot of concern," said Ryan Jacobsen, whose family grows grapes on 640 acres south of Fresno.
"It's no secret that groundwater is what allows farmers to get through these critically dry years. And when you start talking about what could be some very substantial regulations and restrictions, that's going to hamper their operations."
Jacobsen, who is also executive director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, said that for any rules, local oversight is key, as is building new reservoirs to help store more water.
Ironically, it may be a change in the type of crops grown that could lead to reforms. In many areas, expensive permanent crops, such as almond orchards and wine-grape vineyards, are replacing row crops and pasture land that can be fallowed in dry years.
"It's in the economic interest of these high-value crops to make sure there is enough groundwater to get through droughts," said Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. With farmers all over the Central Valley spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to drill deeper wells, often competing with their neighbors for the same water, pressure is mounting.
"I have people come up to me all the time and say, 'You guys have got to do something, just don't tell anyone I told you that,'" said Felicia Marcus, head of the State Water Resources Control Board.
Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN.
Congressman Miller takes national minimum wage campaign to Richmond
By Robert Rogers Contra Costa Times POSTED: 04/01/2014 06:36:14 AM PDT
RICHMOND -- Less than two weeks after the City Council made headlines by approving a $12.30- per-hour minimum wage, U.S. Rep. George Miller came to town this week seeking support for his bill to hike the national minimum wage.
"We're all here because we believe no one who works full time should have to raise their family in poverty," Miller, D-Martinez, said during a panel discussion he hosted Monday in the council chambers. "We know that increasing the minimum wage will strengthen families, strengthen the wage base of those families and put more customers on Main Street."
Miller, along with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, co-sponsored HR1010, a bill to raise the national minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25 to $10.10 in three years and index it to inflation thereafter¿. Miller hosted Monday's meeting in a city that has bolted to the forefront of the debate. On March 18, the Richmond City Council voted 6-1 to become only the third city in the state, after San Francisco and San Jose, to establish its own minimum wage. The ordinance, expected to be formally adopted this month, would gradually raise the minimum wage in the city to $12.30 an hour by 2017.
Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, said after the City Council vote that Richmond is set to become the 10th city or county in the nation to pass a higher minimum wage. Monday's meeting was attended by more than 100 people, and featured Rep. Mike Thompson, D- St. Helena; state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord; California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski and other labor leaders and academics.
Several speakers Monday cast a minimum-wage increase as a stimulus program that would vitalize local economies by putting more money in the pockets of workers who are likely to spend extra income on goods and services. Speakers also contended that economic growth in the last decade has favored the top income ranges, as productivity growth has benefited corporations and stockholders but failed to spur wage growth among most of the workforce.
Nikki Fortunato Bas, executive director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, noted steep wage increases have not dampened growth in San Jose, which has one of the highest minimum wages in the country.
"Unemployment there fell from 7.6 percent to 5.8 percent in 2013, and local businesses saw 3 percent growth," she said.
Richmond's minimum wage would be a significant increase over the current state rate of $8 per hour. Other Bay Area cities are taking a similar course: San Francisco's $10.74 minimum wage is the region's highest; San Jose's rate is $10.15.
Berkeley and Oakland are also mulling minimum wage increases, and President Barack Obama has urged raising the minimum wage nationally -- it is currently $7.25 -- but Republicans in Congress are opposed.
"What's happening in Richmond is happening elsewhere in California and across the country," Miller said. "Mayors, county governments and governors are deciding they can't have a vibrant, thriving state if it's built on the backs of poor underpaid individuals."
Miller's bill, called the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current $7.25 -- in three steps of 95 cents each -- then provide for annual increases linked to cost-of-living changes.
The bill was unveiled in March 2013, a few weeks after President Obama urged minimum wage increases in his State of the Union address. At the federal level, there has been some division among Democrats over how high to raise the minimum wage, and lack of Republican support has helped stall the bill in Congress. The National Restaurant Association is among the business interests that oppose Miller's bill.
Meanwhile, momentum to raise the minimum wage has grown at the local and state level as the ranks of minimum wage workers increase, wages stagnate and unemployment remains persistently high.
But there could be negative effects stemming from a hike in the federal wage to $10.10. A Congressional Budget Office report released in February estimated that total employment could fall by about 0.3 percent, or 500,000 workers, while bolstering the earnings of about 16.5 million workers.
Many economists have particular opposition to minimum wage hikes at the local level, noting that employers can more easily avoid the laws by setting up shop in nearby cities where they can offer goods and services for less.
The federal minimum wage has lost more than 30 percent of its buying power since its peak in 1968, said Sylvia Allegretto of UC Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor & Employment, and would be about $10.56 per hour today if it had kept up with inflation.
"This is a modest bill," Allegretto said of the $10.10 minimum wage proposal. "It would basically get you back to where you were in 1968."
Thompson said a minimum-wage increase is no panacea for widening income inequality and sluggish growth but would be effective as part of a larger economic plan.
"The people who complain about this (minimum wage increase), I have a challenge for them," Thompson said. "Try living on $8 per hour."
Contact Robert Rogers at 510-262-2726 or [email protected]. Follow him at Twitter.com/SFBaynewsrogers. E&E Daily
17. CAMPAIGN 2014: Challenger in Calif. Democratic House contest makes pension vow he can't keep
Jennifer Yachnin, E&E reporter Published: Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Silicon Valley lawyer Ro Khanna (D) released the first television spot in his bid to topple Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) -- but it includes at least one promise Khanna won't be able to keep.
The former Commerce Department official -- who offers an anti-incumbent sentiment in the 30-second spot, criticizing "business as usual in Washington" -- has vowed to reject the "gold-plated pension" provided to House lawmakers for at least five years of service.
There's just one problem: House lawmakers can't actually opt out of the retirement program.
Khanna isn't the first candidate, or even House lawmaker, to incorrectly assume that the pension program is something members can reject out of hand.
Criticism of the pension -- managed under the Federal Employees' Retirement System for all lawmakers elected after 1984 -- was a common theme among conservative Republicans in the 2010 election, when newly elected-Reps. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.) and Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) made similar promises.
But while House lawmakers were once able to decline enrollment, the chamber decided in 2003 to mandate the program for all lawmakers.
Since that change, all lawmakers elected in 2003 or later are now automatically vested in FERS -- which includes Social Security payments, a monthly pension based on pay history and the Thrift Savings Plan, which is similar to private 401(k) accounts -- after serving five years in office.
According to the Congressional Research Service, a former member with at least five years of service - - including other civilian federal service outside of Congress -- could begin drawing a full pension at age 62. Other options allow former lawmakers to take a reduced pension starting when they are as young as age 50 if they served in at least nine sessions of Congress.
As of October 2012, 527 former lawmakers received federal pensions based in part or fully on their congressional service, CRS noted in a report.
Among the 215 lawmakers who draw payments from FERS -- the other 312 members receive payments under an earlier system known the Civil Service Retirement System -- average annuity payments totaled $40,560, not including Social Security payments. CRS also reported that the retirees, with an average age of 71, served an average of 15.7 years in the federal government, not including military service.
A Khanna spokesman declined to confirm whether the statement was made in error, pointing instead to a six-point plan Khanna has pitched for reforms to Congress -- including increasing the revolving-door lobbying ban to five years for former lawmakers and ending the pension program. In statements on his website, Khanna has asserted that he will work to end the pension program and has vowed to donate any benefits to charity if he is unable to do so.
Khanna is making a generational pitch to voters in California's 17th District, paying tribute to Honda but arguing that it's time for the 72-year-old congressman, who is twice his age, to move on (E&E Daily, Oct. 23, 2013). Focusing on congressional pensions may be a subtle way of reminding voters how old Honda is.
While Congress made some modifications to the pension program last year -- raising the amount that members and other federal employees who enroll in FERS beginning in 2014 must contribute to 4.4 percent of their pay -- it is unlikely that the pension program will disappear entirely.
While Republican Reps. Kevin Yoder of Kansas, Tim Griffin of Arkansas and Mike Coffman of Colorado have sponsored various bills to eliminate the benefit, none has cleared committee since their introduction last year.
Similarly, a measure by Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) -- the only current House lawmaker to have declined participation in both the pension program and TSP -- that would extend the vesting period to 12 years has languished since its introduction.
Democratic Rep. Steve Israel of New York is also the sponsor of a measure that would curtail pension benefits for any former lawmakers who report incomes of more than $1 million from lobbying activities.
A Big Legal Blow to the Rails-to-Trails Movement SARAH GOODYEAR MAR 11, 2014 S
Bryce Hall/Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
You can find them in every state of the union, from Maine to Hawaii, from Alaska to Florida: old railroad rights of way that have been or are being converted to trails for biking, hiking, and other recreational uses. As many as 1,400 such trails covering perhaps 15,000 miles have been built since a movement to repurpose such land began in the 1960s, and about another 1,100 are in the planning stages.
But a decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday could endanger those trails, many of which have become integral to the economies and communities where they are located.
As many as 80 such cases are before courts in the United States today.
The court ruled decisively, 8 to 1, in favor of a southern Wyoming landowner named Marvin Brandt, whose father once ran a sawmill making railroad ties on the family’s 83-acre piece of land, now contained within the Medicine Bow National Forest. Brandt had contested the United States Forest Service’s right to use a half-mile-long, 200-foot-wide rail right of way going through his land as part of a 21-mile-long trail that runs along the former rail tracks.
His case against the United States, which claimed that the government had lost the right to use the old rail line for anything other than a railroad as part of a land deal his family made in the 1970s, was defeated in two lower courts. But he emerged victorious from the nation’s highest court, which ruled on the basis of an act of Congress dating back to 1875 and a 1942 Supreme Court case that concerned the Great Northern Railway.
The abandonment of the railroad, the majority wrote, terminated the easement that governed it when the trains were running, “leaving Brandt’s land unburdened.” The opinion was hailed as “an important victory for property rights” in a blog post by the libertarian Cato Institute, which added that “if the government wants to turn rails into trails, they can pay for the land, just like anyone else.”
What effect might the ruling have on the trail you and your family enjoy near your home? Right now, that is the multimillion-dollar question. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only dissenting opinion in the Brandt case, writing, "The court undermines the legality of thousands of miles of former rights of way that the public now enjoys as means of transportation and recreation. And lawsuits challenging the conversion of former rails to recreational trails alone may well cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars."
As many as 80 such cases are before courts in the United States today.
The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit that had filed a friend of the court brief in support of the government’s position in Brandt, issued a statement reiterating its position:
It is our belief that the original intent of the 1875 legislation was that these linear public spaces should remain of, and for, the people. Just like our national parks, these former rail corridors are public assets in which we all share and benefit. …
This erosion of protections for these public lands in the Supreme Court not only may block the completion of the Medicine Bow Rail Trail through the former rail corridor, but also threatens existing rail-trails, mainly in the West, that utilize federally-granted rights-of-way and are not railbanked. …
Our legal team is taking a closer look at the decision—and its implications for other rail-trails—to determine next steps. This decision is likely to result in more litigation over rail-trails in federally granted rights of way.
One reality that emerges from the case is that despite the wide popularity of rail trails among recreational users, there are many property owners who do not take kindly to the idea of strangers hiking and biking through their land. Not only might these people potentially litter or relieve themselves along the way, they also represent a threat to privacy.
Brandt himself has been quoted as saying he would have no problem with trains running through his piece of Wyoming as was provided for in the original easement, but people on bicycles were another story: "We traded for the land with a right of way on it for railroad uses," he told E&E Greenwire last year. “They want to bring a train through here, that's fine. We never expected and we never agreed to a bicycle trail." Brandt also claimed in the interview that the section of trail he could view from his house ruined his view, although he also said he had only seen 60 or 70 people riding bicycles there since the path opened in 2007.
Justice Stephen Breyer, himself a bicyclist, raised the specter of an onslaught of bicyclists crashing through the homes of unsuspecting property owners: "For all I know, there is some right of way that goes through people's houses, you know," Breyer said during oral arguments on the case back in January, "and all of a sudden, they are going to be living in their house and suddenly a bicycle will run through it."
As hyperbolic as Breyer’s argument might seem, it reflects a very real undercurrent of anxiety in the American psyche. Private property is sacred in the United States in part because so many Americans do want to be buffered from random human interaction. According to that thinking, having a noisy, diesel- powered multi-ton train run through your land – even one potentially carrying toxic chemicals or explosive fuel – is not nearly so threatening as the prospect of another person on foot or on bike, whose face you can see, and who might even say hello.
Magazine Chris Lehane Out-Washingtons Washington
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
FEB. 26, 2014
Chris Lehane, the Democratic strategist with his own extreme brand of performance politics. Credit Jeff Minton for The New York Times
On a hot Sacramento morning, Chris Lehane burst into a conference room filled with trial lawyers, lobbyists and one aggrieved mother, and laid out his battle plan: How to force California to raise its 40-year-old ceiling on medical-malpractice awards. Lehane, who is 46, spent six years working in the Clinton White House, battling the ethical scandals that seemed to confront the administration every day — typically by discrediting the accuser or leaking a document to undercut an impending news story critical of the president or the first lady. Now Lehane uses similar strategies — opposition research, attention-grabbing antics, the crafty manipulation of old and new media — for groups like this one, the Consumer Attorneys of California. The campaign to raise the cap on damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice suits, which was set at $250,000, might have been handled legislatively, but much high-impact law in California is made at the ballot box, in the form of well- publicized voter initiatives. Influencing voters with his own extreme brand of performance politics has become Lehane’s specialty.
‘Everyone has a game plan until you punch them in the mouth.’
Lehane, wearing a gray Italian suit, a wire dangling from his ear, glanced around the room, his eyes settling on the mother, Alejandra Gonzalez. In 2010, Gonzalez’s 6-week-old daughter, Mia, died from whooping cough. Doctors at a Los Angeles hospital failed to test her for it during a whooping-cough epidemic. Shyly, Gonzalez held up a photo of her daughter. “Wow,” Lehane said. “She is beautiful.” The child would be one of the faces of his campaign. Lehane wanted Gonzalez to walk the two blocks to the State Capitol and meet with legislators, clasping that portrait of Mia at her side. “Don’t be afraid to tell your story,” he said, leaning into her. “It’s very powerful. It’s very difficult for someone to look you in the eye and not do anything.” He wanted her shadowed by a videographer. “That’s going to create a little bit of buzz,” Lehane said.
This was the opening of a campaign that would include a mass mailing printed on mortuary toe tags as well as a call for random drug-and-alcohol tests for doctors — an explosive idea that came up, almost by chance, in a focus group of Pasadena women. “Everyone in the room was flabbergasted that they weren’t already tested,” Lehane told me later. What better way to counter the expected barrage of doctor-financed ads aimed at defeating malpractice suits than to include mandatory doctor drug-testing in the same initiative? Lehane had already commissioned a series of music videos that he planned to put on YouTube, with actors portraying police officers, firefighters and football players hoisting cups filled with a yellow liquid as they challenged doctors to “pee in a cup.”
Lehane glanced from his Blackberry to his watch, smiled in farewell at Gonzalez and took off. His earpiece back in place, he talked rapidly on his cellphone as he walked to his next meeting at the Sheraton, a few blocks away. He was trying to manage the uproar set off by an ad in Politico written as an open letter to President Obama, denouncing the Keystone XL Pipeline. It was drafted at Lehane’s instigation by a client, the billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer.
Lehane paused midconversation as he spotted Jim Brulte, head of the California Republican Party. “Hey, Big Bird,” Lehane shouted, before sinking back into his call. At the Sheraton, Lehane joined a lunchtime panel discussion recounting how Sacramento kept the N.B.A.’s Kings from leaving for Seattle, a campaign he helped run. From there, it was off to another meeting, to discuss yet another voter initiative.
Lehane makes a point of not spending the night in Sacramento, with its deceptively small-town feel and migrating colony of state legislators, lobbyists and reporters. So as darkness fell, he headed back to San Francisco, to his house in Presidio Heights, with its master bedroom overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. He has proved that you don’t have to live in the Beltway to play Beltway-style politics.
Lehane left Washington for California in the summer of 2001, eight months after the Supreme Court declared George W. Bush the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes. On the morning the ruling came down, he was standing on the steps of the Capitol when a text message popped up from Al Gore. “Don’t trash the Supreme Court,” it read. It was not an unreasonable request. Lehane, then Gore’s press secretary, spent the month after Election Day urging the campaign to stage protests outside board of elections offices; to send Gore to Palm Beach County to pose for photographs with Holocaust victims who thought they had voted for him; and to demonize Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state, whom Lehane dubbed Commissar Harris. His suggestions were rejected, and Lehane, who had imagined himself standing behind the lectern at White House daily press briefings — a senior counselor to the president at 33 — had to accept defeat in a battle that he thought they could win. That summer, when he and his wife, Andrea Evans, a lawyer, headed West, he had no idea where he would work or even live.
The Clinton White House, with its litany of scandals — Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, the selling of the Lincoln Bedroom — spawned a new class of political operatives, who came of age as politics took a particularly nasty turn. This was when deploying the branches of government to prosecute enemies took hold and newspapers and networks, once authoritative, gave way to a chorus of new voices that fed a round-the-clock news cycle. Many of those war-room veterans are now powerful members of the establishment, with offices overlooking the Potomac and K Street.
California, though, with its mix of personalities, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, citizen revolutions and, of course, money, proved fertile ground for Lehane’s brand of politics. His West Coast war room — Fabiani & Lehane, which he founded with Mark Fabiani, another former Clinton adviser — takes the relentless molding of public opinion and scorching tactics of the Clinton White House to a new extreme. This “warrior mode,” as Lehane calls it, befits our viral, 500-million-Tweets-a-day era. Organized leaks to The New York Times and The Washington Post, which Lehane once doled out from the White House, don’t cut it anymore. “He understands that it’s the combination of social media, quirky events, street theater and traditional public relations,” says Mike McCurry, the former Clinton press secretary who was the mature counterweight to Lehane in the Clinton White House. “It’s not about going out to lunch at the Palm with the bureau chief anymore.”
One afternoon in San Francisco, Lehane explained his operating principle this way: “Everyone has a game plan until you punch them in the mouth. So let’s punch them in the mouth.” A drug-test video that he created for the trial lawyer, for instance, was displayed on an electronic billboard on the side of a truck as it circled the Disneyland hotel where the California Medical Association met this past October. For his campaign against the Keystone pipeline, opponents showed up at a news conference with a vial of sludge from an oil spill and flooded the room with noxious fumes. Lehane had wanted to pass out gas masks to reporters but couldn’t assemble them in time.
“He is a rarity in carving out the kind of business model he’s created and pursuing it from California,” Al Gore told me. Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a Washington think tank, says Lehane benefited from escaping “the gravitational pull of the Beltway” to a place where few people did precisely what he did.
Yet Lehane has never been able to escape that pull entirely, or put the memory of that message from Gore behind him. “I saved that text message until my Blackberry blew up,” he said, an edge of defiance in his voice. “Gore was doing this as a matter of principle. To me, it was people trying to steal the presidency. You had to fight for it.”
At the White House, Lehane fought for those he saw as the good guys. These days, his roster of clients includes environmentalist billionaires and grieving mothers, but it also comprises people and businesses who are in trouble and a few whose interests are sometimes a little harder to defend. His first account, in 2001, was Gray Davis, then the governor of California, who faced an energy crisis that would lead to his recall from office. The next was Critical Paths, an early Silicon Valley email provider that was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He would later advise a champion cyclist who took performance-enhancing drugs (Lance Armstrong) and a large-scale medical-marijuana entrepreneur under indictment for drug trafficking (Matthew Davies).
When Lehane sent me a recent schedule, it was a mixture of public meetings on subjects like the Keystone project (“good for you,” he had written next to the calendar entry) and cryptic notations about private meetings he wouldn’t allow me to observe. “You are only seeing 10 percent of what I do,” Lehane said. The private clients have included Goldman Sachs, Michael Moore, the Weinstein Company and Boeing. One afternoon while leaving his home, I was about to use Uber to get a taxi when he stopped me. “No, no. Use Lyft. I help those guys out.”
And there was the city of Vernon. A few miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles, it has more than 1,800 businesses crammed into its cheerless 5.2 square miles. As of two years ago, the city had a population of just under 100, and nearly every resident was on the Vernon payroll, living in city-owned homes. With its low tax rates and permissive zoning and environmental regulations, Vernon was made for the kinds of businesses that most communities prefer not to have as neighbors — meat- rendering plants, toxic-chemical plants, battery-recycling factories. Vernon was also notorious for its municipal corruption; its city government operated like a club, effectively choosing its own electorate by controlling who lived there. Between 1984 and 2006, there were no contested elections in Vernon. One mayor served 35 years.
Vernon falls in the district of John A. Pérez, a Democrat and speaker of the California State Assembly, and one of the state’s three most powerful elected officials. A few years ago, Pérez, upset by the abuses in his legislative backyard, set out to abolish this “center of tremendous corruption,” as he called it when I wrote about Vernon in 2011. He introduced a bill that would officially disincorporate the city and put an end to this little-known gravy train for lawyers, consultants and politicians. “I’ve been frustrated with Vernon for a long time,” Pérez told me as we drove around the city. “How bad a neighbor it’s been. How shady its practices have been.” ‘There are people to this day who believe I am responsible for the weather.’
Some people in Lehane’s line of work might have passed on Vernon as a client. But when the counsel for the city and the city administrator approached him, he jumped at the job, tackling the project like a full-blown political campaign.
“You take a calendar,” Fabiani, Lehane’s partner, explained. “You say, ‘The vote is going to be here; let’s work back and figure out every week.’ ” The first step was to neutralize the corruption issue by recruiting an outside civic leader to review Vernon’s ethics problems. Lehane persuaded John Van de Kamp, a former Democratic state attorney general, to take the assignment. “Mr. Moral Rectitude,” Lehane later said, smiling. “He was out of central casting, right?”
Next, Lehane forced the fight onto the only politically winnable terrain — the threat of job losses. He collected warnings from business leaders saying that if they lost their only-in-Vernon benefits, they would flee the city, taking some 50,000 jobs with them. Finally, Lehane went after Pérez himself. As the former political director for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Pérez was a product of California’s labor movement. So it must have been galling when he turned up to testify for his bill at Los Angeles City Hall and was confronted with a parade of 18-wheelers circling the building, horns blasting, with banners that read, “John Pérez: Jobs Killer.” Less than three months later, California newspapers reported that Pérez, who allowed himself to be presented as a graduate of the University of California at Berkley, had in fact dropped out. And when “Battle: Los Angeles,” a movie about extraterrestrials invading Southern California, opened in theaters in Pérez’s district, previews included an ad produced by Lehane extolling the job-creating virtues of Vernon.
“I am laughing thinking about all of this,” Lehane wrote in an email to me. When the bill died soon after, people in Sacramento took note. “It was a monumental task,” says Kevin de León, a Democratic senator who is in line to become the next leader of the California Senate, “to defeat this bill, to defeat a speaker at the peak of his power.”
Political consultants have become celebrities in their own right, sometimes even eclipsing the men and women they work for. They get more credit and blame than they deserve — elections are almost always about the candidates — but they do influence the tone of political battles, often pushing fight- first, think-later evisceration, the destruction of an opponent or the willful distortion of an idea. And while they generally believe in the candidate for whom they are working, this anything-goes style is a big reason that politics has become increasingly trivial and alienating.
Lehane did not invent these tactics, but he was instrumental in creating the culture out of which they sprang. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he joined the White House in 1994 and almost immediately started gunning for Ken Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel. Lehane leaked stories that the prosecutor had given speeches at Republican fund-raisers, to show that he wasn’t so independent after all. It didn’t matter to him whether Clinton was lying or not. “It was put your helmet on and get into the game,” Lehane says. “When you are in a crisis situation, you just go into your warrior mode.”
During the Gore campaign, Lehane was widely suspected of orchestrating the final-hour disclosure of a police record showing that George W. Bush had been arrested, decades earlier, on drunken-driving charges in Kennebunkport, Maine, which happened to be right next to Lehane’s hometown, Kennebunk. Lehane has been coy about this for years, much the same way he will not say outright if he was behind the publicizing of Pérez’s academic record. “There are people to this day who believe I am responsible for the weather,” he says. “Once you’ve gotten into their head, it’s over.”
Having the luxury to choose their own clients can be tricky for people in Lehane’s business. (It’s not always as simple as turning down a tobacco company.) But when I asked Lehane if he regretted any of the clients he defended over the years, he demurred. What about Lance Armstrong? Lehane began representing him well before he admitted to doping, but remained with him afterward. “He used his fame to do something great,” Lehane responded, referring to his advocacy for cancer patients. “And he did something great.” And what about Vernon? Hadn’t Lehane shielded some bad actors? “No question that the city needed to be reformed,” he said. “But there was a way to reform the city without killing 50,000-plus working-class jobs at a time when unemployment in the state was in double digits.
“In most situations,” Lehane continued, “there are people who either have dirty hands or their own agendas. Whenever somebody complains that this stuff has happened to them, I say, ‘There’s a long line of people behind you.’ ” The comment reminded me of a scene from “Knife Fight,” a movie about a devious if ideologically grounded consultant — played by Rob Lowe — juggling a daily crush of client crises. The movie was based, not so loosely, on the life and times of Chris Lehane, who co- wrote the screenplay.
Lehane returns to Washington once every two or three weeks. At 6:30 on an unusually warm morning in December, his red-eye landed in plenty of time for Lehane, a man of many rituals, to go on his morning jog/conference call (he talks as he runs). His first meeting was at 8:30, a presentation to environmental leaders about the Tom Steyer-financed campaign in the Virginia governor’s race, which contributed to the defeat of Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative Republican and one of the country’s leading climate-change skeptics. It was meant to signal to candidates in other states that they, too, could get an infusion of Steyer’s money — he is willing to spend tens of millions this year, much of it on advertisements attacking lawmakers who oppose climate-change measures — along with Lehane’s political advice if they embraced environmental issues. Two Florida Democrats were waiting for Lehane in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Washington’s West End, to make the case that Steyer’s organization should turn next to defeating Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.
Seeing Lehane back in Washington, I couldn’t help wondering if he would ever be drawn back into presidential politics — perhaps with a return to the Clinton orbit, should Hillary Rodham Clinton run, or even for Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York governor for whom Lehane worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in the less likely event that Cuomo runs. Michael Feldman, who worked with Lehane in the White House and now runs the Glover Park Group, a communications firm, said he did not think Lehane misses Washington. “But that’s different from missing being involved in politics or public service at the highest level,” he added. “I think that is something he probably does miss.”
During the 2004 election, Lehane joined John Kerry’s campaign — “I felt there was some unsettled business there” — but lasted only four months. He jumped to the campaign of Wesley K. Clark, seeing in Clark’s military résumé a candidate who could take on Bush. (“He definitely holds a grudge,” says Matt Bennett, a colleague from Lehane’s Gore days.) That proved another miscalculation — candidates who begin their political careers running for the White House rarely succeed — and Lehane was soon back on the West Coast.
As he zipped from meeting to meeting that December morning in Washington, rolling his suitcase behind him, twitchy and distracted, I was reminded of a conversation we had in his home late one afternoon. Lehane reflected on the lessons he drew from his failures in 2004: “At the end of the day, you go work for a presidential campaign because you believe in every fiber of your body that the person you are working for is absolutely the best person to be the next president of the United States,” he said. “You shouldn’t work for a presidential campaign just because you think he’s going to win.”
For all its excesses, Lehane’s style of advocacy might be what it takes to break through in an environment where being noticed is the biggest challenge of all. “The question is, How are you going to get people’s attention?” Steyer says. “A lot of people feel it’s possible to change the status quo politely. That is probably not true.” When I asked Gore if he considered Lehane overly aggressive, he burst out laughing. “He’s not afraid of bold moves,” he said.
But they can cost him too. Lehane has certainly endured his share of missteps and losses. Matthew Davies, the medical-marijuana entrepreneur, was sentenced to five years in federal prison. In the Virginia gubernatorial contest, a spokesman for Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat who ran and won with Steyer’s support, publicly expressed dismay after the organization, at Lehane’s prompting, hired someone to act as an impersonator of Cuccinelli, portraying the Republican as a patsy of energy interests. But more often than not, his tactics lead his opponents to make a mistake, which, of course, is the point.
As the doctor-drug-testing initiative became public, Dr. Jeffrey Poage, writing a column for the website of the California Society of Anesthesiologists, dismissively addressed the question of whether physician impairment is really a problem. “Doesn’t matter,” he wrote. “Trial attorneys want voters to associate doctors with something bad and not think about lawyers trying to increase their portion of malpractice awards.” Clapping his hands in delight over the doctor’s unfortunate shorthand, Lehane said, “Can you imagine what that will look like on TV, radio, online, mail?”
Last spring, Lehane showed up in Ristorante Milano in Russian Hill in San Francisco, excited about his latest project — dissuading David and Charles Koch from buying the Tribune Company, which includes The Los Angeles Times. Lehane laid out a plan: urging subscribers to cancel their subscriptions if The Tribune sold to the “ultra-right-wing Koch Brothers” and organizing demonstrations outside Tribune newspaper offices from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Koch Brothers ultimately decided to step aside.
Over a glass of wine, the ever-animated Lehane relaxed a bit as he reminisced about his days with Clinton and Gore in the White House and talked about the coming presidential race. It would be hard to leave California. There is that house in the Presidio and his Mediterranean-style getaway in Calistoga, with a pool and a 4.5-acre vineyard. (Lehane produces his own limited-edition cabernet.) For Lehane, it might actually be better to stay away. “In Washington, you throw out an idea, and the initial instinct is to come up with ideas why it won’t work,” he said. “Out here you throw out an idea, and the initial instinct is: ‘That’s really cool. How can we make that work?’ ” And if a Lehane idea flops, there’s always another client willing to write him a check, another fight to fight, another story to spin or another culprit to pull out of the fire — or better yet, to push in.
Adam Nagourney is the Los Angeles bureau chief and a former chief national political correspondent for The Times.