I say we make it a hunting preserve... I'll take the Democratic Leadership with me.
Posted on 02/13/2006 6:55:45 PM PST by NormsRevenge
GORMAN, Calif. — A coalition of environmental groups says it will withdraw its opposition to development of the sprawling Tejon Ranch if the builder agrees to set aside about 380 square miles in the Tehachapi Mountains as wilderness.
The coalition hopes its offer persuades developers to scale back their plans on the 270,000-acre site and to more than double the amount of land to be preserved.
The coalition now wants to save 245,000 acres — a swath of land bigger than Chicago and Philadelphia combined.
Tejon Ranch officials dismissed the new proposal as unreasonable but left open the possibility for more discussions with environmentalists over the fate of the tableau of mountains, grasslands and twisted oaks 60 miles north of Los Angeles.
One thing is clear: The proposal marks yet another juncture in the long-running debate over development of Tejon Ranch.
Just eight months ago, Tejon Ranch Co. and a national land trust hailed an agreement to sell more than one-third of the ranch for use as a nature preserve as the most significant conservation project this decade in the West.
But that failed to satisfy the Tejon Natural Heritage Park Committee, a coalition of 12 conservation groups, including the Wildlands Conservancy, Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity. The committee's proposal would require a rare alliance of state and federal wildlife agencies, county governments, developers and environmentalists — as well as hundreds of millions of dollars that would be raised mainly through bond measures — to buy the natural landscape, which has few roads.
Committee spokesman Dan York sees the proposal as a means of protecting a patchwork of ecological systems and endangered species worthy of state or national park status.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
If the land is owned by the people who want to develop it, then the environmentalists are not in any position to "negotiate."
Here's some background from last May
CA: Parts of Tejon Ranch safe from development
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1409533/posts
Dick Cheney had the right idea, shoot a lawyer
But they only want 245,000 acres out of the 270,000!
Site of one of the worst earthquakes in CA history.
As I recall my California history. I think the Tejon ranch was owned years ago by the same corporation that owned the LA Times. The Chandler family? Now I know the Times is owned by some conglomerate now, but I dont know about the ranch. But seems to me over 100,000 acres preserved out of 200K some is a good plan. Developers should now say. Forget the enviromentalists and develop the whole danged thing! LOL!
The MOB has nothing on these guys.
I say we make it a hunting preserve... I'll take the Democratic Leadership with me.
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