In the 1930s two crises hit the Great Plains at once – 50 years of overfarming marginal lands had destroyed the topsoil and created what we know as the Dust Bowl, and at least twenty years of economic pressure to overfarm (to pay debts and make up for collapsed prices) had created an untenable financial situation for the farmers. Either one was going to end in disaster – the land would give out or the overuse of credit would end in deflation and ruin. As it happened, the crises both occurred at exactly the same time, producing a social catastrophe from which several states have still not recovered.

California now faces the same problem. For 60 years we have based our economy on the production and consumption of sprawl. This worked well enough until the late 1970s, when those who had prospered the most from this model decided to stop reinvesting profits in the state and in society, and took their ball and went home. The next 30 years were dominated by even more sprawl, financed by massive amounts of debt and by eating the state’s seed corn by slashing the government programs that built prosperity in the first place.

This was always bound to end in disaster, and as we are well aware, that disaster – in the form of economic depression and government bankruptcy – is now here. But the massive sprawlconomy binge had another set of costs whose bill is now coming due – water.

California had an unusually wet 20th century, and we exploited that to the fullest. To have a society built on sprawl and consumption, we needed to siphon as much water as possible to give not just to the new housing developments, but to the sprawling farms. Sprawl is a farming phenomenon as well – wasting land and water resources on resource-intensive crops grown to enrich shareholders, instead of sensibly using land and water to grow crops for subsistence and food security. California was in a water bubble, just as the state was experiencing a financial bubble. We have been living well beyond our means.

Ultimately the water bubble was going to burst. And just as in the 1930s Great Plains, it is bursting at the same moment as the economic bubble. For the least year or so you could drive down the backroads of the Salinas Valley, Salad Bowl Of The World, and see shuttered warehouses and laid off packing workers.

Now that water is less available the agricultural recession is shifting into higher gear. The highest unemployment rates in California are in our agricultural counties – 22.6% in Imperial, 14.3% in Tulare, 13.7% here in Monterey County. (Note: those stats are for nonfarm jobs, and yet the correlation between ag and the rest of the county economy is obviously very strong.)

The water crisis is now about to come to the rest of California. Sitting here in Monterey, in summer-like weather in January, I am inclined to believe the claims that this is the worst drought ever in the state’s recorded history:

California teeters on the edge of the worst drought in the state’s history, officials said Thursday after reporting that the Sierra Nevada snowpack – the backbone of the state’s water supply – is only 61 percent of normal.

January usually douses California with about 20 percent of the state’s annual precipitation, but instead it delivered a string of dry, sunny days this year, almost certainly pushing the state into a third year of drought.

The drought exacerbates the problems caused by our overuse of water resources. To prevent a total environmental collapse in the Delta massive reductions of water flows will be required. And for those of us who live in counties that don’t get our water from the Delta – places like Sonoma, Marin, and Monterey – the situation is going to be worse. Water managers in those counties are planning to 50% cutbacks in urban water use, which is an amount that will dramatically change how we live. We could let every lawn die and stop hosing down every driveway and still not get anywhere close to 50% reductions.

The Monterey Peninsula has been under Stage 1 water rationing for ten years now. You rarely see water wasted here, and new development has been at a standstill (how many towns have vacant lots and abandoned homes within a mile of the beach as we do?). But a 50% cut will force dramatic changes in how we live, as it will around the state.

Those changes ARE coming. There is no way around the fact that the way California was organized in the 20th century – politically, economically, and especially in terms of our land use and water use – is over. Done. Gone.

The question for us now is will we try to actively transition California to a more sustainable future? Or will we do nothing and let the chips fall where they may? The first option at least allows us a chance of rebuilding widely shared prosperity by funding local food, sustainable farming, and urban density. The latter would produce widespread immiseration while allowing a small aristocratic elite to enjoy a semblance of the 20th century lifestyle.

The choice is up to us.

(It was disappointing, but not particularly surprising, to see Arnold axe AB 2386. It should have been signed. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

We need to share some very disappointing news with you and then ask you to e-mail Gov. Schwarzenegger and let him know how you feel. Last week, the Governor vetoed AB 2386, a vital bill to reform secret ballot elections for farm workers. With this single stroke of his pen, the governor denied farm workers the tool they need to protect themselves. While we are disappointed with the Governor’s veto, sadly we are not surprised.

When the governor vetoed a bill with similar goals last year, his veto message said:

“I am directing my Labor and Workforce Development Agency to work with the proponents of this bill to ensure that all labor laws and regulations are being vigorously enforced, and to make it absolutely clear to all concerned that my veto is premised on an expectation that agricultural workers receive the full protections of the law.“

Tragically this has not happened. During the black summer of 2008, as many as six farm workers died due to heat-related causes.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s enforcement has not saved lives. And his administration has not “rigorously enforced” the law. In May of this year, 17-year old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez died of heat illness, working for Merced Farm Labor. The Associated Press reported that the state ignored collecting the fine on Merced Farm Labor for not complying with heat regulations back in 2006.

Associated Press – 5/29/08

A division official said Jimenez’s employer, Merced Farm Labor, had been issued three citations in 2006 for exposing workers to heat stroke, failing to train workers on heat stress prevention and not installing toilets at the work site.

The Atwater company has not paid the $2,250 it owes in fines, said agency spokesman Dean Fryer.

Sacramento Bee – May 30, 2008

The labor contractor that employed a teenage farmworker who died after working hours in a hot vineyard was cited in 2006 for failing to provide employees with training to avoid heat stress, Cal-OSHA records show.

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health also cited Merced Farm Labor contracting services in 2006 for not having an injury-prevention plan for its workers or enough toilets for them to use, agency spokesman Dean Fryer said Thursday.

The company was fined $750 for each of the violations and was told to fix them by December 2006.

Company representatives told Cal-OSHA it had corrected the problems, and staff members “felt comfortable the abatement was done and didn’t make an actual field visit,” Fryer said. “That’s not unusual. Usually, we get great cooperation from employers.”

Consequently, young Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez died while working at a company that provided no shade, did not have adequate water, and had no emergency plan in place. All due to the same type of negligence Cal-OSHA had fined the same company for in 2006.

After Maria Isabel’s death, the Governor boasted that enforcement was at its highest level. Yet sadly, the lives of five more farm workers were lost this past summer.

In last week’s veto message, the Governor says he can enforce the laws.

As I indicated last year in my veto of SB 180, I remain committed to ensuring that agricultural workers receive all the workplace protections that our labor laws afford. To that end, I am calling for the creation of a dedicated funding source to facilitate enhanced oversight and education in the agricultural industry. I am directing my Labor and Workforce Development Agency to work with the proponents of this bill and all stakeholders to develop a proposal which will create such a program in a fiscally responsible way, for the ultimate benefit of both agricultural employees and employers.

Gov. Schwarzenegger words ring hollow after he promised simular things in his veto message last year and still as many as six farm workers died due to heat-related causes.

The support of poor farm workers means so much less to him than the support of big money agricultural interests. We also know that had it not been for the Governor’s fundraising agenda, or had we been a rich organization the Governor may have been willing to sign a bill for farm workers.

Please e-mail the Governor today!

Well, that's it, I guess California can be bought off for the right price.  California produces vast amounts of produce, but most of it doesn't fall under the subsidies of the farm bill. Most of that goes to making sure that corn syrup is vastly underpriced so that Coca-Cola can continue to rot our teeth.  Well, to get concessions on the farm bill, some of the big farm bill legislators have tossed California a bone: 

Senate Democrats announced a breakthrough in a long-stalled farm bill Wednesday that would provide billions of dollars for California fruit and vegetable marketing, farm conservation and food stamps – but would maintain costly, traditional crop subsidies for corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybeans. (SF Chron 10/18/07)

  All well and good, but it doesn't really go to the heart of the issue. Flip.

I think orangeclouds115 and farmbillgirl know more about the farm bill than I. But what I do know, is that no real reform is happening. We continue to subsidize corn, mostly because that's what we've always done. It doesn't make sense financially, and it certainly doesn't make sense agriculturally. Yet we persist:

But it was unclear whether the deal would appease the unusual left-right alliance of reformers hoping to change the 70-year-old system of crop subsidies that they contend has speeded farm industrialization, harmed the environment and contributed to the nation's obesity epidemic. Fruit and vegetable growers said they might not be happy, either.

*** 

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he has broad support on his committee, a bastion of traditional farm interests, and plans a vote as early as next Wednesday. The deal fended off powerful opposition from subsidy supporters in both parties from the South and Midwest who threatened to thwart any compromise that reduced their subsidies. Harkin conceded that the agreement was not a big break with the past. “Farm programs don't take sharp turns, but we do try to bend the rails a little bit,” Harkin said.

No, sharp turns are for wimps. We persist in our mistakes! 

(The more I look at this post, the more I like it. I think I want to go learn more about the farms of our state. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Last week, I spent a few days working on an organic farm. I should admit right now, I use the word “work” loosely. I was probably more of a pest than a help, even though my intentions were good.

When I first got into blogging about food, I was primarily concerned with the foods we eat and how they affect our health. It was a bit of a revelation to me that our food actually comes from a farm, not a factory, and it grows in dirt, not plastic wrap. Agricultural policy is never something I thought I would care about, but I’ve learned that you can’t separate issues of food consumption from the issues of food production. This is especially true in California, where we produce a large percentage of the food for the entire country (particularly “specialty crops,” i.e. not commodity crops like corn and soy).

Since I’m painfully aware of my ignorance when it comes to farming, I was eager (and a bit nervous) to spend a few days working on a farm. The opportunity presented itself when an organic farmer named Phil at my local market told me he participated in the WWOOF program (Willing to Work on an Organic Farm). He provides room and board in exchange for labor. After exchanging a few emails, the plans were in place.

Phil’s farm plants on Mon, Tues, Wed and harvests the end of the week. He suggested I visit on a Wed, Thur, Fri so I could see both sides of the job, but my schedule limited me to just Thursday and Friday. I assumed I’d be picking tomatoes or something.

Thursday morning, I tried to pry my butt out of bed at 6am so I could make it to Phil’s farm somewhat early. I figured that farms aren’t known for getting a late start and if I was really going to work for 2 full days, I better show up by about 8am.

Well, 6am wasn’t happening. After getting gas, picking up breakfast, and taking care of all sorts of cat stuff (Raiden, my lovely black kitty, ate a piece of jewelry that day), I got on the road. It was nearly 10am. An hour and fifteen minutes later, I pulled into a driveway next to a few horses and parked my car among a bunch of large SUVs, vans, and trucks. (I wanted to get a pic of this – it was pretty hilarious. All these big vehicles and my little Corolla with its liberal bumper stickers.)

When I got out of the car, a rooster crowed. I was really on a farm! I walked up to the front door, which a small Mexican woman answered promptly. I found out later that her name is Nelly and she’s from Acapulco but I found out immediately that she doesn’t speak a word of English.

Here, you don’t need any English. Phil is fully bilingual, as is his wife Juany. Several men (all Mexican) and Nelly take care of the day to day farm work while Phil works a full-time job from his home office in addition to farming.

Nelly invited me inside and Phil’s son Justin came over and introduced himself. As he did so, I was attacked by two dogs: Chalupa, the little chihuahua poodle mix, who was determined to protect his house from me, and Thor, the pit bull, who showered me with kisses.

Thor, the extremely affectionate pit bull

Nelly told Chalupa to quiet down, and I recovered enough Spanish to tell her that I spoke “poquito Espanol.” The truth is, I studied Spanish for 4 years in high school. I did so at a very white high school in suburban Chicago and I remember watching a kid puke all over my best friend in Spanish class far better than I actually remember Spanish.

Phil was out fishing, taking advantage of a rare day off work from his two jobs, so I sat with Justin for an hour while waiting for him to return. Justin told me how his dad first bought the property in 2001 for Justin to practice dirt bike racing. The land that now exploded with fertility was entirely barren back then. Once Justin stopped racing, his dad (who already had a garden) just kept planting, turning the land into a successful farm little by little.

A shot of part of the farm

Montanas de Tomates
Phil returned and (after taking care of a major crisis that arose in his absence) introduced me to his team – Cesar, Manuel, Max, and Antonio. For my first job, they had me slice tomatoes for drying. Phil’s tomatoes were the reason I began talking to him in the first place. Many stands at my farmers’ market offer tomatoes, but Phil’s are the best – best quality, and best variety.

Heirloom tomatoes to be sundried

Washing tomatoes

Slicing tomatoes

Sheets of tomatoes, ready to dry

The end result – Sundried tomatoes

After doing that for a few hours (blissfully in the shade, since the temperature was in the 3-digit range), I asked Manuel “Tienes trabajo para mi?” (Do you have work for me?) He instructed me to help him grade the fresh-picked tomatoes. The largest, prettiest ones (the #1s) go to stores like Whole Foods, the ones with a blemish or two (the #2s) go to the market, and the aguado (mushy) ones get sundried.  The irony is that the store demands only #1s but pays a lower price than going rate for #2s at the farmers’ market. For a consumer, the market provides a discount, because the stores sell #1s for about $4.99/lb (and by that point, the tomatoes are rather aguado anyway).

La Cena y La Noche
When work was done for the day, I joined the family for dinner. I can’t imagine a nicer reward after working outdoors all day (not that I either worked all day or worked that hard). Nelly had black beans simmering in a crock pot, two kinds of homemade salsas, and guacamole, which she served buffet style alongside tortillas and some kind of meat. Since I didn’t eat meat, she also offered me salad made from fresh picked salad mix, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers. I’m not much of a salad person, but those were the best cucumbers I’ve ever eaten!

For dessert, they offered me homemade sweet tamales (I don’t even know what was in them, and I can hardly begin to describe how good they were) and some watermelon. Phil said the coyotes had been getting into the watermelons, leaving very few for human consumption. He wasn’t thrilled with the situation, but when I asked him what he was going to do about it, he said his farm plants enough for all of the animals and all of the people. I’m glad he doesn’t plan on solving his watermelon problem with a gun.

Phil and Juany left to do a walk around the farm, doublechecking everything before getting in bed for the night, and Nelly offered to show me around so I could take some pictures.

One of the horses

This horse is a camera hog. I’ve got several more pics just like this, and none of the other horse.

Dewy, their pet goat (children’s book material?)

The pigs. Soooo cute, but they smell GREAT.

The cow, who REALLY wanted to lick the camera

After I saw all of the animals, Nelly led me around to see some of the plants, including the tomatoes that I’d spent so much time with all day.

Tomatoes on the vine

We ran into Phil and Juany on our way back to the house and Phil said I’d be sleeping in Nelly’s room. Hmmm, how to say that to Nelly in Spanish? “Puedo dormir contigo?” (“Can I sleep with you?”) That wasn’t going to work. I asked Phil to ask Nelly for me, and he phrased it MUCH better, asking her if I could sleep in her room.

I showered to get all of the doggy kisses and sunblock off me, put my jammies on, and climbed under the blankets set out for me on Nelly’s floor. She was crocheting a shawl and we chatted for a few minutes while she did that, then turned off the lights and went to sleep.

Qui-Quirri-Qui
I woke up at 5:30am the next morning. No one roused me from bed to get to work or anything. It just so happens that roosters make excellent alarm clocks. The roosters on Phil’s farm follow a very clever CYA strategy. They aren’t exactly sure when dawn occurs, so they crow all damn day to make sure that they were definitely crowing at the exact moment the sun came up. (As everyone else spoke Spanish, I can only assume they were saying the Spanish version of Cock-a-doodle-doo, Qui-quirri-qui.)

I wandered into the kitchen to check my email and I was soon joined by Justin. He (bless him) started brewing the coffee and cutting up fruit (all grown on their farm) for a breakfast fruit salad. One by one, everyone else woke up, so I went back to Nelly’s room to get dressed.

Las Cebollas
Outside, Manuel, Cesar, and a few others were packing up boxes for the day’s deliveries. They were good-natured as I got under their feet to take a few pictures:

Butternut squash

Enormous onions

See how big they are? Almost the size of my head!

Patty pan squash

Phil noticed that I was looking for work and he asked if I wouldn’t mind weeding the onions. Sure! I agreed. He gave me directions to the onion field, uttering one of my least favorite southern California expressions: “Look out for snakes.”

While wandering off towards the onions (and looking VERY carefully for snakes), I noticed how much was growing in all kinds of unlikely places. Next to some large rocks, there was a pomegranate tree and a tiny little pear tree with one lonely pear hanging from its branches.

Pomegranates

I had to pass through the grapevines to reach the onions, and I noticed chives and rosemary growing near my feet, right among the grapes. (By telling me to look for snakes, Phil also guaranteed I wouldn’t step on his herbs because I was SO intently looking at the ground!)

Chives

Grapes

Rosemary

Once I made it past the grapes without any snake incidents, I saw the project that lay ahead. Phil had planted neat rows of onions in beautiful raised beds, feeding them the finest worm poop available, and the field was entirely taken over by thieves and trespassers.

Weeding the onions – my “before” pic

I knelt over the field in a row that didn’t look too challenging and got to work. At first I was pulling a weed with round leaves that didn’t put up much of a fight. As I continued down the row, I reached a grass-like weed that hung on for dear life with roots continuing several feet under the soil, connecting bits of grassy weed along the way.

With one row done, I began to wonder what I was damaging more: the weeds or my hands? I finished up one more row and decided that the real professionals were going to have to do the rest.

Weeding the onions – my “after” pic

I found Manuel and asked him for more “trabajo.” He started leading me back to the onions and I protested “No mas cebollas! Me duele las manos!” Los manos? Las manos? Whatever, he got the point. My hands hurt and I wanted nothing more to do with onions. He told me I’d be doing something different.

Manuel set me up in the shade among several crates of harvested onions (including one he nicely turned upside down for me to sit on). He showed me how to snip off the stem, remove the hairy roots at the bottom, and remove the dirt-encrusted papery outer layers of onion. I sat there doing that until my stomach told me it was time for lunch. I was beginning to see how work could never be done on a farm. I still sat among the same number of crates and I only had a few clean onions to show for my work.

Almuerzo
I wandered back to the house and munched on the intoxicatingly delicious sundried heirloom tomatoes Nelly was removing from the dehydrator while waiting for some guidance on what I could have for lunch. To make things easy, I asked for leftover “frijoles” from the night before (and one of those amazing tamales!).

Juany and Phil joined me, and Phil and I chatted a bit about the farm. Phil enjoyed gardening as a kid, and as an adult his hobby spilled over into a farm and just kept going. It’s easy to see that he loves his “day job” too, and he plans to keep doing both – so long as he can find a way to get a day off every so often.

He told me he gets pretty attached to his animals, but takes comfort in knowing he’s providing them a better life than they would have in a feedlot. The pigs and the cow don’t have names – they are food. I haven’t had a chance to personally visit a feedlot, but if even a fraction what I’ve read is true, Phil and his family are some of the most ethical omnivores in existence.

Both the pigs and the cow live in fairly large pens and they eat better than many Americans (sad, but true). The cow doesn’t wander in pasture to graze, although I haven’t seen any graze-worthy pasture since I moved here (to quote Austin Powers, “I was just thinking how the English countryside looks nothing like Southern California”). The flies around the cow remind me of Joel Salatin‘s method of allowing his chickens to feast on fat, juicy fly larvae in his cows’ manure. I suppose that’s not possible if you aren’t in the rotational grazing business. Other than his sadness at not being permitted to lick my camera, the cow looked pretty content to me (and I think the pigs were actually smiling).

I also got a sense of Phil’s pride in his amazing vegetables as we chatted. He encouraged me to try some buttercup squash that Nelly had cooked the night before. As I told him, I’m a convert. He gave me one to take home. (Later, when I sliced it open to bake it, I noticed it gave off a fragrant melon-like smell.) Then he stumped me with a pop quiz. Guess what this is? (Pic below)

Guess what this is? (If you can’t see ’em, there are thin, green, vertical stripes on it)

My first try: A tomato. My second try: A pepper. The correct answer? An eggplant. NO JOKE. I brought one home to try it and it tastes slightly different from your run of the mill purple globe eggplant, but it’s definitely eggplanty! If you still harbor any doubts, I saw them growing on the vine, right next to the purple kind I’m used to seeing.

Eggplant

I had a few minutes left to wait before Cesar, etc, came back from lunch, so I strolled around and tried to think of ways to make myself useful. Over by the chickens, I noticed six eggs laying in a box lined with hay. I don’t know if I was being a pain in the butt or helping out by gathering ’em up, but I carefully let myself into the penned chicken area and collected the eggs – two white, two brown, and two green.

Chickens

Ensalada Para La Vaca
Cesar and Manuel returned, carrying a box of tomatillos, putting the finishing touches on an order Justin was going to deliver soon. They weighed it and Manuel went off to get more tomatillos since it was underweight a bit. He had me follow him, and set me up cutting the leaves off a loooong row of Swiss chard plants while leaving the plants intact. A pest had gotten into the Swiss chard and they were good for no one but the cow now, but he assured me the leaves would regenerate after I cut them.

A long row of Swiss chard

Swiss chard close up

I started thinking about veganism as I worked on the Swiss chard. I don’t think I can really justify it any more. In this case, the Swiss chard would have been wasted, but the cow will turn it into beef instead. Even if you have ethical concerns about eating an animal, you could feed the chard to a dairy cow or a goat. (Another thought here: all living things die eventually, and animals slaughtered humanely – if you can get over the oxymoron – meet their ends in a way that’s not altogether that bad, given that it’s ultimately inevitable anyway.) One can argue that without the cow, the chard could be composted, but the cow will also produce fertilizer (in addition to beef).

Of course, I don’t think I will go treat myself to a meat pig-out after this revelation, because most animal products are not produced in such a sustainable manner. Consider the ratio of manure to farmland on Phil’s farm. He can use it as fertilizer (instead of commercial fertilizer), and he’ll never set up a factory farm-style manure lagoon to pollute the environment with. For that matter, Phil’s system requires very little oil, since he uses fruit and veggie waste to feed his animals, and they in turn produce both food and fertilizer.

After gathering up a gourmet (if pest-infested) salad for the cow, I carried it over to the walk-in fridge and said my good-byes to get on the road. As much as I enjoyed working outdoors in 100 degree heat, I felt a headache coming on and I didn’t want to get caught with a bad headache while I still had a long drive ahead of me.

Swiss chard for the cow

After only experiencing Phil’s style of ethical food production for a few days, I could already see first-hand the many ways it was superior to the industrialized system we’ve adopted instead. Phil provides full-time jobs to several people and while I didn’t inquire about the details of the arrangement, it’s easy to see the mutual respect they all have for one another. He treats his workers, his animals, the environment, and his customers well; it’s not a zero sum game, where one wins when the other loses.

Once all was said and done, I returned home VERY sore. After spending Saturday in bed, I got up Sunday to go to the farmers’ market and get a massage. The massage therapist laughed when I told him I messed up my neck by weeding a field of onions. He asked if I learned much about gardening during my time on the farm. I replied, “I learned how much damn work goes into my food!”

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed.

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Budgets Are Moral
Documents; We’re Still Wondering What California Republicans ARE

• California Progress Report: Schrag – California Water
  Policy, Dams, and the Delta More Important than the State Budget
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/schrag_californ.html
• California Progress Report: The Importance of the
  California Environmental Quality Act to Global Warming: Why Changes
  Should be Rejected in the Budget Battle Today
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/the_importance_3.html
• D-Day: California Republicans Set Their Budget Priorities
  http://d-day.blogspot.com/2007/07/california-republicans-set-their-budget.html
• Working CaliforniansGOP Proposes Massive Budget Cuts,
  Arnold Digs It
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/07/25/gop_proposes_massive_budget_cuts_arnold_digs_it
• Erik Love: GOP Budget For California Found In President
  Bush’s Colonoscopy
  http://www.eriklove.com/newblog/2007/07/25/gop-budget-for-california-found-in-president-bushs-colonoscopy/
• California Progress Report: Senate Republicans Propose
  Abandoning Voters’ Drug Treatment Program in California
  Budget Fight
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/senate_republic.html
• California Progress Report: California Republican Senators
  Target Kids of Welfare Recipients and Public Transit for Biggest
  Proposed Budget Cuts
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/california_repu_8.html
• The California Majority Report // Perata Calls on
  Republican Senate Budget Blockaders to Put Up 15 Votes for Cuts
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2107
• The California Majority Report // Sen. Runner Says
  Low-Income Moms without Jobs Have “Gold Plated System”
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2108
• The Liberal OC » And Ackerman fires
  back…
  http://www.theliberaloc.com/2007/07/25/and-ackerman-fires-back/
• California Progress Report: Behind California’s Budget
  Delay – Republican Senators Want Attorney General Brown to Delay
  Enforcing California Global Warming Laws Until 2012
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/behind_the_cali.html
• Working Californians: GOP Budget Cuts: Environment, Parks,
  Dentists and Welfare
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/07/26/gop_budget_cuts_environment_parks_dentists_and_welfare
• California Progress Report: California State Budget Crisis
  – Many Programs and Services Won’t Be Paid, Including Those for
  Seniors, Children and Adults With Disabilities
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/california_stat_11.html
• California Progress Report: : The Smoke and Mirrors Behind
  California Budget Proposals to Cut Transit to the Core
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/the_smoke_and_m.html
• The California Majority Report // Important Research
  Institute Under Attack by GOP Senators
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2112

Land and Energy

• California Progress Report: PPIC Poll Shows Californians
  Very Concerned About Global
  Warming and Air Pollution and Want Stronger Action by State Government
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/ppic_poll_shows.html
• California Policy Inbox » Environmental Issues
  Increasingly Important to California Voters
  http://inbox.berkeley.edu/?p=360
• Working Californians: Voters Say Do More, Talk Less Re:
  Environment
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/07/26/voters_do_more_talk_less_re_environment
• The People’s Vanguard of Davis: Commentary: Rhetoric
  Continues to Fly Between County and Davis
  http://davisvanguard.blogspot.com/2007/07/commentary-rhetoric-continues-to-fly.html
• happening-here?: I need hills…
  http://happening-here.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-need-hills.html
• Berkeley Bubble » U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Irvine to
  Test Two Plug-in Hybrid Toyota Prius Cars: Resurrecting the Electric Car
  http://www.berkeleybubble.org/2007/07/26/uc-berkeley-uc-irvine-to-test-two-plug-in-hybrid-toyota-prius-cars-resurrecting-the-electric-car/
• California Progress Report: California Leafy Green
  Industry’s Marketing Agreement Will Not Ensure
  Nation’s Salad Bowl is Safe
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/california_leaf.html
• The Progressive Connection: Tomorrow’s The Day for the Farm
  Bill
  http://www.theprogressiveconnection.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=114
• Badlands Journal » California Sportfishing
  Protection Alliance lashes Valley agricultural pollution
  http://www.badlandsjournal.com/?p=359
• Badlands Journal » Conservation groups’
  letter to the Governor in defense of CEQA
  http://www.badlandsjournal.com/?p=358

Voting Security

• The BRAD BLOG: New Details on the Release of CA’s Landmark
  ‘Top-to-Bottom Review’ of E-Voting Systems
  http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4870
• The BRAD BLOG: “California Election Clerks May Choose to
  ‘Ignore’ Upcoming Findings of CA Sos Bowen’s ‘Top-to-Bottom’ Review”
  http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4867

Potpourri

• The Ojai Post: Ojai Peace Coalition to create annual Noble
  Peace Prize
  http://www.ojaipost.com/2007/07/ojai_peace_coalition_to_create.shtml
• California Progress Report: California Needs to Create a
  Judiciary that Reflects its Rich Diversity
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/california_need_5.html
• Cannonfire: Cindy Sheehan is a Right-Winger
  http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/07/cindy-sheehan-is-right-winger.html
• California Progress Report: Will the California PUC Provide
  All Telephone Consumers Equal Protection on Friday?
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/will_the_califo.html
• The California Majority Report // No Controlling Legal
  Authority?! [ed.
   In which Garry South confuses the age-old problem of con
  artists with “the Internet”]
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2106
• The California Majority Report // PPIC: Republicans,
  Schwarzenegger Take Hit in PPIC Poll
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2109
• . . . Surf Putah: Random Jottings – 7/26/07
  http://surfputah.blogspot.com/2007/07/random-jottings-42607.html
• LAist: DEA Bust More Los Angeles Marijuana Dispensaries
  http://laist.com/2007/07/26/fda_bust_more_l.php
• LAist: California Pols Love Clinton
  http://laist.com/2007/07/26/california_pols.php
• California Policy Inbox » State Health Insurance
  System in “Frail” Condition, According to New Report
  http://inbox.berkeley.edu/?p=362

(Surf Putah, which you will find in the California friends of our blogroll, is a great site for Yolo Cty. politics. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Well, I’ve made the cut, having been linked in the “Yolo Blogs” category over at Republican Yolo County Supervisor Matt Rexroad’s new website (which looks quite nice, really). Along with the link (a good web resource for Yolo County in its own right), Rexroad gave this site this little introduction:

If you want to know what the people at the far end of the spectrum in Davis are doing….surf Putah.  I really can’t explain this stuff. Generally, if you find an opinion expressed here Matt Rexroad will be on the other side.

Since I’ve been identified as the far end of the spectrum, I figure that it’s as good a time as any to lay out what us inexplicable far-out Davisites are thinking about Yolo County. Ironically enough, I find myself to the center, or at least in a slightly different direction, from many self-defined “progressives” here in Davis, especially on the issue of development, the axis which city politics seems, rightly or wrongly, to revolve around. Mostly, though, I find that the perpetual battle over political labels to be a fairly useless one, since it assumes a coherent binary political debate, when in fact things tend to be far more complex in real life. I believe that governments ought to balance their budgets responsibly, instead of borrowing and spending with bond measures; am I a conservative? I believe that people generally ought to mind their own business, and that government and religious beliefs are best kept separate where neither can mess the other up; am I a liberal? I believe that all people are created equal, and ought to be treated as such; am I a progressive?

So for the benefit of both Rexroad and those who might follow his link to my site I’ll toss out where this inexplicable far-left blogger would like to see Yolo County headed:

1. Making it possible for Yolo farmers and ranchers to make a decent living, so that they can grow crops instead of subdivisions. The reasons why it is getting harder and harder for small farmers and ranchers to get by are complex, and the roots of the problem more often than not lie well outside of Yolo County. And yet, preserving a healthy and locally-rooted agricultural industry is something that should be central to any vision of a future Yolo County. Protecting farmland from development by easements, or buyouts is one way to help curb development pressure on productive ag land, but it is perhaps more important to ease the market pressures of falling agricultural commodity prices and rising fuel and other operating costs. Encouraging fuel-intensive or alternate fuel usage, aided by ag research over at UC Davis, might help to insulate Yolo agriculture from rising gas prices. Requiring school lunches to preference local farmers and ranchers might help to provide more demand for those products. Teaching gardening in elementary school, as they do at Fairfield Elementary school out in the county, might help to diminish the urban-rural split as well, and give our kids more appreciation for the folks who grow their food.Encouraging new agricultural industries in the county to replace the loss of all those closed tomato canneries in the past decade would help too.

Ultimately, reversing the decades-long national policy of free trade deals that flood domestic markets with foreign imports, and national policies that encourage overproduction are the real key to saving the family farm. Food is one thing, like military technology, that is a bad idea to rely on foreign imports for. We shouldn’t be flying walnuts in all the way from China when we can grow them out perfectly well in Winters.

2. Keeping development off the floodplain, and strengthening the flood control measures where we have already built close to rivers. The Yolo Bypass is a sound approach to the long-term pressures of river systems and seasonal flooding, and Yolo County has been smarter than many counties in this regard. Woodland desperately needs some way of guarding against winter flooding on Cache Creek, and hopefully some hydraulically sound solution will be found in the next couple of years, whether it be stronger levees or some bypass channel upstream of town. While the pressure for more housing is and will continue to be acute because of population growth (more on that below), we need to be steadfast about avoiding Natomas-style floodplain sprawl, because the moment any houses are built there we will collectively be liable for paying for their protection, indefinitely. In places such as West Sacramento, where flooding will always be a problem, we need to make sure that their levees are hardened to withstand severe flooding.

3. Providing adequate housing so that the children of Yolo residents can afford to actually live in their hometowns. This is one area where I part ways with many Davis progressives, in that I do not believe that a no growth or even slow growth model is either smart or just. When a town limits its housing stock like Davis has done, it might preserve the population size of ther town, but the nature of the community cannot but change with the skyrocketing housing prices. As long as people continue to have children, as long as the university increases its student and professorial population (which it will, since it is tied to state demographic growth), and as long as people want to move into this county of ours, we are going to have to have reasonable housing options. Yolo County has both one of the higher rates of growth in the state as well as one of the higher birthrates. All those people are going to have to find somewhere to live.

My sense is that we’d be better off encouraging the cities of Yolo county to start urbanizing in their downtown cores, close to the highways and train stations, to at bare minimum a level of density that our cities reached at the turn of the 19th century (the tallest buildings in most Yolo towns are perversely often the oldest ones). Build up a couple stories, get some people in those downtowns, and then get the downtowns built up along walkable, new urbanist lines, so that people don’t have to drive everywhere just to go about everyday life. This will allow more housing to be efficiently defended by floodwalls where floods threaten, and it should make room for many Yoloites who are currently priced out of even renting here anymore, let alone own houses. Additionally, when suburban housing is built, aim for smaller lots and smaller two story houses the way you used to see in the 20s and 30s, instead of the spread-out ranch tract housing that uses land as if it’s still cheap. Land is expensive, and denser housing makes better and more economical use of that land. And enough already with the huge luxury mcmansion developments for out of towners.

4. Support more small businesses to fulfill city needs, avoid big box megastores. As I wrote during the Measure K debate last November, there is a need for more and better retail in Yolo County, especially here in luxury boutique-saturated downtown Davis, but that we ought to be encouraging small and locally owned businesses to fulfill those needs rather than inviting big box retailers in to suck up the whole market, and siphon that revenue out of the county to some out of state corporate headquarters. Far too often it is posed as a false choice between the status quo and big box megastores, when in fact a third way is possible. One of the problems is that commercial rent is far too high in Davis, but as best as can be done, the city governments and county government should work to ease whatever barriers to starting businesses exist for small local businesses.

5. While this might be seen by some as working at cross-purposes to #4, we really need a living wage for the county, to say nothing of the über-expensive city of Davis as well. People who work in town ought to be able to afford to live in the same communities, or failing that, in the county. While the statewide minimum wage hike of $7.50 goes partway, a hike to a living wage of $10 or higher would help a great deal, and lessen the class segregation that we get when rents get so rediculously high. Living wage ordinances in other towns have shown that they don’t destroy the local economy as predicted, and that the recipients of those wages tend to plough most of that money back into the local economy, creating a virtuous economic cycle. Finally, a living wage is simply the right thing to do, since anybody who works hard every day at a job, any job, deserves the dignity of being able to make ends meet.

6. Along with this, since the National and State governments seem incapable of getting universal health insurance passed, we need to find some way of at least covering children, from prenatal through delivery and child medical care. A significant number of the working poor in Yolo County either are children or have children, and helping to cover the often exorbitant costs of child healthcare would not only go a long way towards lessening that burden on those families (in effect, a net wage raise), it would also help to guarantee that those children got adequate health care, immunizations and so on. This in turn helps to limit problems for the county down the road dealing with epidemics and overtaxed emergency rooms. Disease does not recognize any difference between rich or poor, insured or uninsured, citizen or immigrant; we’ve all seen how quickly a cold or flu can move through an elementary school or a daycare.

Anyone who claims to be in favor of family values ought to be willing to help make sure that people don’t get bankrupted by the costs of giving birth, let alone raising a kid. It is in our best interest personally as well as as a societally to make sure that these kids are covered, at least until the state and federal government get their acts together and get something funded. Since Yolo is a fairly poor county government-wise, this will have to be a fairly bare bones plan without accompanying state funding, not unlike any serious levee solutions. Assemblywoman Wolk, we’re counting on you to help talk some sense into the Governor.

7. More state parks. We have in this county both beautiful hiking up in the hills to the west of us, as well as a beautiful river to the east. Why there aren’t more state parks or recreational infrastructure helping people to get to them is beyond me.

8. The reestablishment of the old interurban train network in the Central Valley. The Capitol Corridor has been a great success since its inception a decade ago, but relatively little work has been done to apply the same logic to the Valley itself, and try and link the cities and towns of the Sacramento Valley together like they once were abnout a century ago, before the rise of auto-fueled sprawl. The old train lines are still there, connecting most cities up and down the valley to Sacramento, and yet they sit virtually unused for commuter traffic. Fixing them up a bit and running basic commuter lines on them would help to take traffic pressure off the highway system, and help us to accomodate what population growth the region will see in the decades to come. It also uses a lot more fuel, which brings us to the next point:

9. Countywide efforts at conservation and alternative energy. As our populations grow, and global warming gives us hotter, dryer summers, we will see increased stresses on our water and electric usage. As peak oil runs hard into increasing global demands for fuel, gasoline and natural gas are going to persistantly rise in price, hurting commuters, farmers and businesses alike. We should be getting ahead of the curve by working to lower our communities’ water and energy footprints, and thus our exposure to price increases and shortages. Having UCD’s stellar environmental engineering research at the ready is a huge advantage; let’s take advantage of it.

10. A justice system that treats all Yolo residents as equal members of their communities, that serves and protects Black and Latino citizens as well as White citizens. Doug Paul Davis over at the Davis Vanguard has done such great reporting on this issue that I won’t try to duplicate it, but rest assured our police forces and justice system need serious revamping on the issues of racial profiling and how we combat crime in general. While gang violence is real, criminalizing an entire neighborhood, as was done in West Sacramento, seems to me to violate the rights of the very citizens that our justice system is ostensibly supposed to protect. Likewise, while out of towners commit crimes in town, treating huge swathes of our community as perpetual suspects does real and lasting harm to the community as a whole. We can do better.

—–

So there you have it, one Yoloite’s “far-left” take on things. While I expect that Matt and I disagree on several of these issues, i’m not sure that he and I are diametrically opposed on all of them. Statewide and nationally, however, I suspect that our political differences are clearer and less common ground possible to reach. I leave the question of whether the above opinions are way off the end of the spectrum up to the reader.

(originally posted at surf putah