Shot in the heartland - Has Arnold opened the door for urbanization of California farms?

newsreview.com ^ | 5/23/07 | Nicholas Miller

[ruination]

I’m on the let’s-slow-sprawl side. Every time I drive north from L.A. I get depressed seeing how much development has happened in the past 20 years. It’s heartbreaking to think what things may look like 100 years from now.

[Amerigomag]

Typical Austrian move. Remove your fingerprints from the crime.

The Austrian, again, saddles local government with the fiscal responsibilities of state mandates.

[tubebender]

Here is what is happening to the Williamson Act in Humboldt County. The county lost the original lawsuit and have filed a new one under a different stature...

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=24363

[passionfruit]

Yes, we do have water rights on our property. That is part of the reason that we got such a good deal on the property. The water rights were more than sufficient for the historic use of the land, i.e. as a ranch.

The previous owners had tried to turn it into a conference center to accommodate 500 people. 500 people can’t exist on 1300 gallons of water per day,and the State wouldn’t increase the gallons per day allotted so the conference center plans were never approved. The absentee owners continued to pay the taxes, but they let the ranch sit empty for 10 years. It was vandalized heavily. We found it one day and fell in love with it. We spent the next two years trying to talk the owners into selling it to us. They finally caved, because the place had been a huge loss and financial burden to them.

Water rights is the next big battle. When the State finances were run into the ground by Grey Davis, the Water rights board was told that they needed to self finance. So they started billing water rights holders for the water. For our place the bill is only $100.00 per year, but for the large farmers and ranchers, they can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, for the water they have a documented right to for free.