Watching PCWA, I’d almost missed that my old friend Bruce Kranz is up for reelection.

Bruce always was against the Middle Fork sharing arrangements where 50% of the moneys go into the County General Fund. But when it came down finally to 9 to 1 in favor – as it was in the second Supervisors meeting - eventually he had to go along.

Otis Wollan has said that changing the Middle Fork agreement and having ALL the revenues going to infrastructure would take too many Supervisors and PCWA Board members. This is more Kool-Aid. It’s simply needs political will backed up by your votes.

But there are two huge problems standing in the way of that.

The first is fervent resistance at the County staff level. That’s because they know the Middle Fork, even without a license, could raise moneys for them – ESPECIALLY NOW. I explained it to them. Unlike financing environmental studies, as long as you pay fair value for the asset – it’s normally a piece of cake. A personal jet would work fine - no one would need a credit card anymore.

Secondly Bruce unfortunately is still pushing “asphalt” uphill.

Take your minds back to Bruce’s first days in office in January 2005 and Teichert and Chevreaux – the “diesel empire”.

Meadow Vista residents, used to choking on smoke from wood burning fires since childhood, felt suddenly threatened by diesel fumes from the most advanced clean asphalt technology on the planet, to be located at the Chevreaux quarry – in existence almost since the Donner party.

Well the facts are different. The reality was that the Combie Road crowd, home to the losing Supervisor Rex Bloomfield in 2004, was feeling lost at sea without their captain.

How do I know this?

Conspiracies are very difficult to organize but I was accidentally invited by e mail to join the Bloomfield inspired exclusive private DISTRICT5 Yahoo discussion Group. On discovering I was not a co-conspirator, they vanished like cockroaches in a New York apartment when you switch the light on. But not before my inbox was full.

The e mails below are just a smattering of what went around in JANUARY 2005 and the full list of members is long and quite telling. Read carefully and you’ll see Stewart Feldman was absolutely OK with the asphalt plant at first but – within days – it became a chance to make political mischief. Bloomfield’s e mails clearly show that he was already campaigning for next Tuesday 4 years ago – in the shadows!

And look how much that whole saga cost Meadow Vista.

I had my occasional arguments with Bruce, but trust was never an issue and things were always out in the open. I can remember walking down to Talk of the Town in Meadow Vista the morning after the 2004 election and thinking the air smelt a little fresher. Little did I suspect there was still something wafting in the air.

So maybe on Tuesday it’s time to clear away the smell of asphalt - for good.

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Emails from District5Yahoo Group members, January 2005

Stewart Feldman wrote

All: The FREEWAY REPAIR PROJECT will have significant impact to Meadow Vista, but it appears to be adequately permitted and legal, based on the 1972 asphalt batch plant permit Chevreaux has on file.

Though the meeting had a contentious start, responding to the opening comments of our new Supervisor, the Chevreaux-Teichert contract issue was handled really well by their representatives. We'll see how they operate when trucks start rolling in April...To those who attended, thanks for all your comments last night. Stewart Feldman (530) 878-7123 phone & fax aex@garlic.com

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On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:49:36 -0800 Rex Bloomfield wrote

More than supporting each other and itemizing our concerns, the group needs to take an activist role. Unless we're willing to live with his authoritarian prodevelopment regime for many terms, we must be relentless in our outspoken criticism of Kranz's actions. Letters to the editor should inundate the papers whenever he takes a misstep. Unless we expose Kranz for what he is, he'll have enough money next time around to once again convince the gullible public that he fights for open space, loves hiking in the canyon, and supports our environment.His silencing of any opposition on the MACs is just one example how Kranz will ignore basic democratic principles, keep us unaware of things happening in our neighborhoods, and force his extreme politics on our district. In a democracy, our representatives should listen to us, but Kranz believes the public needs to listen to his political philosophy and be able to work with him. Kranz's assault on the MACs destroys their true purpose of providing a voice for the community. These townhall forums bring participatory democracy back to the many communities in District 5. If only people, who agree with his prodevelopment agenda, get appointed, there is no reason to hold MAC meetings because they'll ignore the concerns of their neighbors in order to rubberstamp Kranz's wishes. We need to fight back now and not wait until Kranz has a stranglehold on the district.

************************************************************A message from Robin Yonash

The District 5 Forum group is open to folks who are opposed to the way Bruce Kranz operates. The intention is to provide us with a discussion forum and also a way to quickly let everyone know when we need to take public action, as we did with the MAC item on the BOS agenda today. Another topic we may want to explore in the future is identifying and funding someone to oppose Kranz in the 2008 election. I hope you will join the group. BTW, after today new group members must be sponsored by an existing member.

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Stewart Feldman wrote

Meadow Vista Neighbors,

We are trying to organize a group that will try to change the proposed asphalt plant project that will affect Meadow Vista. For this first meeting, we would prefer to have a small group of people who will keep our activities confidential until we are ready to mobilize others. Thank you for your interest in our community! Contact: Stewart Feldman 878-1129

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Robin Yonash wrote: From: district5forum@yahoogroups.com

Date: 01/30/05 14:45:44

The District 5 Forum is intended to be a resource for all of us. Please respond to this message with your ideas of how we can use the Forum to curtail Kranz's potentially negative impact on representative government, and also to build a case against him for the 2008 election. To start things off, one idea I have is for us to watch the BOS agendas and advise the Forum of items that are specially important for us to rally support for or opposition against. To that end, I will distribute a list of the BOS meeting dates in a separate message. Over to you. Robin

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Robin Yonash

Kranz's reach is way beyond our MACs and what happens in this committees need to be brought to the public's attention. There is a full article about the appointments of the various supes at www.auburnjournal.com/articles/2005/01/30/news/top_stories/03superviso

rs.txt. I have extracted the Kranz-specific data below. We need to make sure that we have coverage of these committees. Please let me know which one(s) you can cover. "Coverage" doesn't necessarily mean attending all meetings. Most of them have e-mail lists for the agendas, and/or post the agendas online.

Thanks, Robin

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From: "cmalward"

To:

Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 6:43 PM

Subject: [district5forum] Re: How Shall We Use the District 5 Forum?

Robin and all

We should not wait to oppose Bruce "Krams" in 2008. Now is the time to start a recall of this extremist. The voters are starting a similar move against the extremists on the Sierra College Board and I think it is time we do the same. I also like the idea of tracking the Board of Supes agenda and packing the meetings and providing public comment against ANYTHING "Krams" brings up.

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On Sun 2/20/2005 2:33 PM Rex Bloomfield wrote

John - I'm phasing out this email address.