No answer to Cease & Desist Letter
How many weeks does it take to cite the legal authority for confiscating signs?
The Brown administration is continuing its strange war on the First Amendment as it continues to confiscate signs throughout the Delta - and has to date refused to show what legal authority Caltrans has to remove signs opposing the peripheral tunnels from private property.
"Two weeks have passed without an answer to Local Agencies of the North Delta’s (LAND) demand for the legal authority Caltrans relies upon to confiscate signs, according to a statement from Restore the Delta.
Moreover, Caltrans has indicated that it will take two additional weeks for them to pull together a response to a public records act request regarding who ordered the confiscation of the signs.
RTD also reports that they continue to hear from supporters that Caltrans has also confiscated signs from county roads which they do not maintain, and that scenic highways signs previously posted by the State on Hwy 160 have also been confiscated.
"It is as if Caltrans is attempting to erase the Delta’s identity through its sign confiscation efforts," said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta.
"Restore the Delta rejects Caltrans’ assertion that the signs are illegal. We renew our call upon Gov. Brown to stop using Caltrans to silence critics of his proposed Peripheral Tunnels, and to order Caltrans crews to cease removing the signs from private property. It’s been two weeks since we demanded that Caltrans cease trampling private property and free speech rights," said Barrigan-Parrilla. "Now, they say they need two more weeks to get their story straight."
Here are Caltrans’ various explanations to date:
1. The signs violate the Outdoor Advertising Act and must be 660 feet from the roadway. Caltrans told a fifth-generation Delta farmer they would fine him $10,000 if he replaces the sign.
2. The signs violate Caltrans right of way and must be 14 feet from the roadway. Caltrans apparently feels the 2 x 3 foot signs are a threat to public safety.
3. It was all a "misunderstanding." How is trampling on someone’s property and confiscating their sign a "misunderstanding"?
"Caltrans did not follow the required process about notifying people to move signs if Caltrans believed they were not located properly.
"Caltrans does not enforce these same requirements up and down Hwy 99, H146, and I-5, where the water-takers post signs about wanting even more water at the expense of the Delta. They do not enforce the same sign posting laws in on Hwy 1 in Marin County and I-5 in Shasta County. The law is not enforced equally throughout the state -- one standard for the Delta, one standard for mega growers in Westlands, Semitropic and Kern County water districts.
"This unequal treatment of Delta residents under the law mirrors how water quality and quantity laws for the Delta are ignored by the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Water Resources, and the Delta Stewardship Council -- all to benefit Westside San Joaquin Valley mega-growers.
"Who decided that our signs needed to be confiscated? Is the Delta now fully under the ‘control’ of the State of California that they can dictate speech rights to private land and business owners?" said Barrigan-Parrilla.
Restore the Delta is a 10,000-member grassroots organization committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. Restore the Delta works to improve water quality so that fisheries and farming can thrive together again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
http://www.restorethedelta.org
Background: Brown continues and expands Schwarzenegger's terrible environmental policies
The rush to build the peripheral tunnels, in spite of widespread opposition, is not the only abysmal Schwarzenegger administration environmental policy that the Brown administration has continued and expanded. Brown continued and expanded the massive water exports and fish kills at the Delta pumps that the Schwarzenegger regime became notorious for.
The Brown administration authorized the export of record water amounts of water from the Delta in 2011 – 6,520,000 acre-feet, 217,000 acre feet more than the previous record of 6,303,000 acre feet set in 2005 under the Schwarzenegger administration.
Brown also presided over the "salvage" of a record 9 million Sacramento splittail and over 2 million other fish including Central Valley salmon, steelhead, striped bass, largemouth bass, threadfin shad, white catfish and sturgeon in 2011. (http://www.counterpunch.org/...)
In addition, Brown and Natural Resources Secretary John Laird continued the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative started by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2004. The conflicts of interest, failure to comprehensively protect the ocean, shadowy private funding, incomplete and terminally flawed science and violation of the Yurok Tribe's traditional harvesting rights have made the MLPA Initiative to create so-called "marine protected areas into one of the worst examples of corporate greenwashing in California history.
In a huge conflict of interest, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called "marine protected areas" in Southern California. Reheis-Boyd, the oil industry's lead lobbyist for fracking, offshore oil drilling, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the evisceration of environmental laws, also served on the MLPA task forces for the North Coast, North Central Coast and Central Coast.
Other environmental policies of the Schwarzenegger administration that Brown and Laird have continued include engineering the collapse of six Delta fish populations by pumping massive quantities of water out of the Delta; presiding over the annual stranding of endangered coho salmon on the Scott and Shasta rivers; clear cutting forests in the Sierra Nevada; supporting legislation weakening the California Environmental Water Quality Act (CEQA); and embracing the corruption and conflicts of interests that infest California environmental processes and government bodies ranging from the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to the regional water boards.
Now Brown has apparently expanded his war on fish, rivers, the ocean and the environment to the First Amendment as he confiscates signs of those who oppose the peripheral tunnels. What will Caltrans do next - start pulling bumper stickers off the vehicles of peripheral tunnel opponents?