I don’t make
suggestions that I don’t follow. So after sending in my prior commentary I
tried to email Loni Hancock and others on the State Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water and was not allowed by some of them. This is the message I
received in the original red: Address is not in District. Please contact your
District Representative. Apparently even I am naïve about the shredding of our
democracy. The lights are out in the city on a hill. I cannot email a State
Senator who is sponsoring a bill detrimental to my future and that of the
county I love.
So I wrote via snail mail every Senator on the committee who
would not accept emails from non district residents and said the following: “I
am an Amador County Mokelumne
River
While this is vital issue for myself and my county, I am
prevented from emailing you directly because I do not live in your district.
Email is the most common place, affordable and convenient means of contact. Not
allowing those directly affected by the actions of the Committee on Natural
Resources and Water to email you is an affront to democratic process that I
find offensive. Undoubtedly, there are reasons, or rationales, for this policy.
Probably limiting the volume of emails and a process by which my senator
contacts your office are among them. But are these, and probably others,
sufficient to preclude email access and its negative effect upon citizen
democracy?”
The following State Senators on the Natural Resources and
Water Committee did accept emails from me: Anthony Cannella (R), Noreen Evans
(D), Ricardo Lara (D) and Bill Monning (D).
Mark Bennett
Mr.Bennett you sound like a person who actually paid attention in your school government classes. This entire process of SB 1199 is a sham when it comes to honest, up and up,representative government. The Foothill Conservancy searched for a liberal state senator to do an end run around the county supervisors and water board directors who have repeatedly voted no on the "wild and scenic" designation for a river that is dam controlled upstream. This morning it was reported that the Calaveras Water Board also voted no.Those locally elected representatives know about all the ramifications that such a designation would bring when it comes to local control,future water needs, power needs, private property rights, ranching, agriculture, and you can even include the ugly word "growth".
ReplyDeleteSB 1199 is a gut and amend bill designed to go through the legislature quickly with a deliberately short time frame, and make opponents, including elected representatives, travel to Sacramento for what is probably a rubber stamp committee hearing. I'm waiting for Hancock or the Foothill Conservancy to say, "We have to pass the bill in order to find out what's in it.".