But they still have to PAY 2012 – 2013!

CAL FIRE Corrects SRA Maps 12,000 Acres Removed From CAL FIRE Protection Tax Billing #CALFIRE #CaFire

Posted: 11 May 2013 09:37 AM PDT

May 10, 2013 – On May 8, the California Board of Forestry approved changes proposed by CalFIRE that remove more than 12,000 acres of land from the State Responsibility Area (SRA).

Spurred by the numerous petitions for redetermination from structure owners billed for the SRA fee, CalFIRE and Board staff began an in-depth, focused review process late in 2012 to investigate and possibly change the official boundaries of the SRA. During this review process, CalFIRE took input from various stakeholders – including RCRC – at Board of Forestry committee meetings to ultimately propose several changes to the current SRA lines.

As a result of the review, approximately 4,660 acres of land will be added to the SRA, while 17,502 acres will be removed, for a net of 12,842 acres subtracted from current SRA lands. The most common reasons for removal of lands from the SRA were cited as greater population/home density, conversion to agricultural uses, and incorporation of some areas.

 The new SRA boundaries will be used to determine SRA fee billing for the 2013-14 fiscal year, and owners of habitable structures in the land removed from the SRA will not receive a bill in 2014. The proposed changes were unanimously approved by the Board.

To view the changes to SRA lands, visit CalFIRE’s website:

http://frap.fire.ca.gov/projects/sra_review/sra_review_2013.html

PNP comment: This is plain ol’ sick. — Editor Liz Bowen

                      Assembly Bill 1266 passed out of the Assembly floor on a party-line vote this morning.  AB 1266 forces all California schools to allow students to participate in sex-segregated school programs, activities, and facilities consistent with his or her gender identity.

“This bill allows children of any gender to participate on any sports team, and enter into locker rooms, showers and bathrooms of their choice based on that student’s private sense of their own gender regardless of their biological gender at birth,” said Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute.

“By imposing this radical policy on all schools in California, the Legislature seeks to take away local control from the school districts, parents, and communities. What this bill is saying is the rights of a few students supersede the rights of all other students. AB 1266 will bring many unintended consequences for students, school districts and communities,” said England. “No student should be forced to share bathrooms or change clothes in front of members of the opposite sex.  AB 1266 mandates San Francisco values on all California schools.”

AB 1266 will now move to the California Senate.

Read AB 1266

PNP comment: I will wager that no one has or ever will read the 20,000 plus pages of this document.  This is another example of bamboozeling the taxpayer out of an awful lot of money.  Dam removal, and digging tunnels under the Sacramento Delta are the environmental scams of the century.  Please help us to stop this type of madness. 

It would be cheaper to build every single fish in the Pacific ocean his own hotel. 

We could buy them all helicopters to get back and forth from the rivers. 

Still cheaper than what these fiscal crazies want to do.  The environmental movement is positively out of control with the people’s purse. 

How can we stop this madness?– Scott Valley Protect Our Water President Mark Baird.

PNP comment: Maybe our California hounds will be moving to Oregon! — Editor Liz Bowen

Popular Today

May 10, 2013

By Mark Freeman

Mail Tribune

State Sen. Alan Bates believes a bill that would allow counties to opt out of 18-year-old bans on sport-hunting cougars and bears with hounds and baiting bears likely will get a public hearing in a Senate committee this session amid heavy lobbying both to air it and to quell it.

If so, then House Bill 2624 would become the first such House bill to get a Senate hearing since Measure 18′s passage in 1994 enacted the statewide baiting and hounding bans.

“We haven’t really decided but my sense right now is we’ll probably give it a public hearing,” said Bates, D-Medford, a member of the Senate Environment and Natural Resource Committee, where the bill currently sits.

But whether it makes it to the full Senate for a vote is “up in the air,” Bates said. “It could go either way.

“It’s a volatile issue here in Oregon,” he said. “Talk about a rural-urban divide question. It’s right there.”

The bill would allow a county to opt out of Measure 18′s bans if voters in that county approve either an initiative petition or a referral to voters by county commissioners.

The bill passed April 23 out of the House by a vote of 40-19, barely over the required two-thirds majority. It was referred to the Senate committee May 1.

Since then, committee hearings have been scheduled out to next Wednesday without HB 2624 on any committee agenda, records show.

Committee chairwoman Sen. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, did not return telephone calls or emails seeking comment on whether she supported a hearing.

In 2011, a similar bill reached Dingfelder’s committee and it died without a hearing.

This round, supporters and opponents of the bill have lobbied committee members as well as other senators and representatives over the bill itself and the merits of a hearing.

“We are confident (Dingfelder) will handle the bill as she has in the past,” said Sally Mackler of rural Jacksonville, who is the Oregon carnivore representative for the group Predator Defense. “It has no more validity today than it had the numerous times when similar bills were introduced and died.

“It’s strictly an attempt to override state wildlife law and tactics Oregonians abhor,” Mackler said.

The Medford-based Oregon Hunters Association, which has sought repeals of all or parts of Measure 18 since its inception, has launched what state secretary Duane Dungannon called perhaps the most organized effort to get its members to weigh in on the bill. The OHA sent Web-based legislative updates to about one-third of its roughly 10,000 members asking them to lobby on behalf of the bill and a committee hearing on it, Dungannon said.

Supporters argue that rural counties that didn’t support the bans would get what they believe is a necessary tool for curbing livestock damage and human-safety concerns.

“Nine of 36 counties approved Measure 18, with mostly urban counties favoring the bans and rural counties opposing them,” Dungannons said.

“Eighteen years ago, nine counties dictated predator management for all 36 counties,” Dungannon said. “We want to look back at something 18 years later to see if it’s working.”

A similar bill allowing counties to opt out of part or all of Measure 18′s restrictions died in the Legislature’s 2011 session after passing out of the House in bipartisan fashion, with far more support from rural representatives than urban ones.

But it never gained a Senate committee hearing.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates the statewide cougar population now at 5,850 animals, almost twice the estimate when Measure 18 was enacted.

At the same time, total cougar deaths in Oregon have risen from 204 in 1994 to 524 in 2012. The sport season is year-round but the state is broken into zones and with specific quotas.

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470, or email at mfreeman@mailtribune.com.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130510/NEWS/305100335/-1/rss01

PNP comment: In this article by the “progressive” Common Dreams, we see that some individuals are coming full-circle with their thought process and now believe that small farms are being destroyed by government agency over-regulations. Amazing how your beliefs change, when you are the one being persecuted. — Editor Liz Bowen

Published on Saturday, April 20, 2013 by Common Dreams

PNP comment: This article may not be true. I trust Before Its News, but have not verified this. So, please take it with a grain of salt. — Editor Liz Bowen

Tuesday, May 7, 2013 11:57

(Before It’s News)

by Ken Larive

Barack Hussein Obama had served 14-State Governors in the United States, National Security Letters (NSLs) warning that the Governor’s actions in attempting to form “State Defense Forces” needs to be halted “immediately” or they will face arrest for the crime of treason. The employment of NSLs was authorized by the Patriot Act introduced by George W. Bush. Contained within the section related to these letters, it is forbidden for anyone receiving a NSL warning to even acknowledge the existence of said communication.

Obama is angered by the several State Governors who have reestablished “State Defense Forces.” These forces are described as: “State Defense Forces (also known as State Guards, State Military Reserves, State Militias) in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are not regulated by the National Guard Bureau nor are they part of the Army National Guard of the United States. State Defense Forces are authorized by state and federal law and are under the command of the governor of each state. State Defense Forces are distinct from their state’s National Guard in that they cannot become federal entities.”

Mr. Obama is fearful of these State Defense Forces, in that he does not have control of said forces, and with the U.S. Military stretched to near breaking from multiple deployments and theatre actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, these State military forces would be under the direct command and authority of the Governors in which states have said forces. In essence, the Governors would have “de facto control” of the United States.

The two Governors leading this move are: Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota; and Rick Perry, Governor of Texas. Both of these State Governors stated they have: “…deep fear the President is destroying their Nation.” Governor Pawlenty’s fear of Obama is that since Obama took office he has appeased America’s enemies and has shunned some of America’s strongest allies, especially Israel. Governor Perry has declared that Obama is punishing his State of Texas by dumping tens-of-thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants into the cities and small towns of Texas. Governor Perry further recently stated: “If Barack Obama’s Washington doesn’t stop being so oppressive, Texans might feel compelled to renounce their American citizenry and secede from the union.”

Obama fearing a revolution against him by the states, has moved swiftly by nationalizing nearly all National Guard Forces in multiple states; Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina – to name a few. The Governors of the Great States of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia still have under their Command-and-Control the State Defense Forces to go against U.S. Federal forces should the need arise. Also important to note: There are NO U.S. laws prohibiting National Guard troops from also joining their State’s Defense Forces. This dilemma occurred during the Civil War with many “citizen soldiers” choosing to serve their states instead of the Federal Government.

This is a fluid and still developing situation that warrants close attention.

http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2013/05/obama-serves-14-state-governors-with-warnings-of-arrest-and-why-is-this-not-front-page-news-2636456.html

May 2, 2013

Press Release from CA. Dept. of Water Resources

Contacts:

Ted Thomas, Information Officer (916) 653-9712 tthomas@water.ca.gov

Elizabeth Scott, Information Officer (916) 712-3904 Elizabeth.Scott@water.ca.gov

Snowpack water content only 17 percent of normal

SACRAMENTO –

Snow surveyors today reported that water content in California’s snowpack is only 17 percent of

normal, meaning below average water supply this summer.

After a record dry January and February in much of the state, DWR currently projects it will only be able to deliver 35 percent of requested amounts from the State Water Project (SWP).

The 29 public agencies that purchase SWP water requested just over four million acre-feet of water for this calendar year. Collectively, the agencies supply more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated agriculture.

In addition to the light snowpack and extended periods of little rainfall, pumping restrictions to protect Delta smelt and salmon are another reason for the low water delivery estimate.

November and December were unusually wet, but between November 1 and February 28, fishery agency restrictions prevented DWR from pumping more than 550,000 acre-feet of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to store in San Luis Reservoir. Today San Luis – a summer supply pool for both the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project – is only 54 percent full.

“This is the kind of conflict we are working to resolve through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan would reduce harm to fish from altered stream flows caused by the south Delta pumps serving the SWP and Central Valley Project. Pumping there at times causes reverse flows which may disorient or entrain fish. The comprehensive plan’s large-scale habitat restoration would also improve Delta conditions for fish and wildlife.

The November and December storms built California’s snowpack water content to 134 percent of normal by January 2, when DWR and cooperating agencies conducted this season’s first manual survey. Manual surveys and electronic readings have recorded the water content decline since dry weather set in. Statewide, the season’s second manual survey on January 29 found the snowpack water content at 93 percent of normal for the date. On February 28, the season’s third manual survey found the snowpack water content at 66 percent of average On Mach 28, about the time

the snowpack is normally at its peak, its water content was recorded at 52 percent of normal.

Snow normally provides about a third of the water for California’s homes and farms as it melts into streams, reservoirs and aquifers.

Results of today’s manual snow survey readings by DWR off Highway 50 near Echo Summit are as follows:

Location

Elevation

Snow Depth

Water Content

% of Long Term

Average

Alpha

7,600 feet

2.6 inches

1.2 inches

5

Phillips Station

6,800 feet

no snow

no snow

no snow

Lyons Creek

6,700 feet

7.1 inches

3.3 inches

15

Tamarack Flat

6,500 feet

not reported

not reported

not reported

Electronic readings indicate that water content in the northern mountains is 16 percent of normal for the date, and 11 percent of the April 1 seasonal average. Electronic readings for the central Sierra show 23 percent of normal water content for the date and 18 percent of the April 1 average. The numbers for the southern Sierra are 9 percent of average for the date and 7 percent of the April 1, full-season average.

DWR and cooperating agencies conduct manual snow surveys around the first of the month from January through May. The manual measurements supplement and check the accuracy of the real-time electronic readings from sensors up and down the state.

Despite the dwindling snowpack, most key storage reservoirs are near normal levels for the date thanks to November and December storms, San Luis being an exception.

Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s principal storage reservoir, is at 103 percent of its average level for the date (86 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity). Shasta Lake north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is at 95 percent of its normal storage level for the date (83 percent of capacity).

(An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, enough to cover one acre to a depth of one foot.)

Reservoir storage will meet much of the state’s water demand this year, but successive dry years would create drought conditions in some areas.

The final SWP allocation for calendar year 2012 was 65 percent of requested deliveries. The initial delivery estimate for calendar year 2011 was only 25 percent of requested SWP water. However, as winter took hold, a near record snowpack and heavy rains resulted in deliveries of 80 percent of requests in 2011. The final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008, and 60 percent in 2007. The last 100 percent allocation – difficult to achieve even in wet years because of pumping restrictions to protect Delta fish – was in 2006.

Electronic snowpack readings may be found at:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/snow/DLYSWEQ

Electronic reservoir level readings are available at:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf

-30-

PNP comment: Not good! — Editor Liz Bowen

Political Blotter

Mercury News.com

By Josh Richman
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 at 11:06 am

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a Bay Area senator’s bill to use $24 million from gun background-check fees to boost a program that takes handguns and assault weapons away from those who aren’t legally allowed to have them.

This is the first gun-policy bill to make it to Brown’s desk this year.

SB 140 by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, gives a big boost to the state Justice Department’s Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS), which cross-references the state’s list of handgun and assault-weapon owners with ever-updated lists of newly convicted felons and mental-health commitments. APPS, launched in 2007, had developed a huge backlog; the new law is effective immediately because it was designated an urgency measure.

“While our state is the only one in the nation that has a system to track and identify persons who at one time made legal purchases of firearms but are now barred from possessing them, until now we have lacked sufficient resources to take back those weapons,” Leno said in a news release. “We know for the safety of our communities that these people should not possess guns, and our reinvestment in this tracking program gives us the opportunity to confiscate them.”

The Justice Department’s Firearms Bureau has identified about 20,000 Californians who illegally possess an estimated 40,000 handguns and assault weapons, and the list grows longer by 15 to 20 people per day. Attorney General Kamala Harris said the money will let her increase the number of agents who go out and seize these firearms.

Agents last year seized more than 2,000 firearms, 117,000 rounds of ammunition and 11,072 illegal high-capacity magazines in targeted sweeps.

Gun-rights and lobbying groups including the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the California Rifle and Pistol Association had opposed the bill, saying lawful gun owners shouldn’t pay the cost of such a program; any surplus background-check fee money should be returned or lead to a reduction in the fee, they said.

The Legislature’s final votes on SB 140 were 65-10 in the Assembly and 37-0 in the state Senate.

Gov. Jerry Brown signs law to fund gun seizures

California Farm Bureau Federation

http://www.cfbf.com/sra/

A law signed by Gov. Brown last year imposes an annual fee assessed to rural residents living in “State Responsibility Areas.” The charge per habitable dwelling is supposedly to cover fire prevention services. The California Farm Bureau Federation, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and other organizations believe that this fee places undue burden on rural residents.

Farm Bureau members are encouraged to visit the state website at www.firepreventionfee.com, where they can find information about the fee as well as a protest form, titled “Petition for Redetermination.” Within 30 days of submitting the fee payment, those who object to the fee should fill out the petition and submit copies to each of the following:

• Special Taxes Remittance Processing, State Board of Equalization, P.O. Box 942879, Sacramento, CA 94279-6199

• Fire Prevention Fee Service Center, Attn: Petitions, P.O. Box 2254, Suisun City, CA 94585

• Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, P.O. Box 944246, Sacramento, CA 94244

Cite the reason for protest as “Other.” The description can include the member’s concern about the fee and illegal taxation.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has filed a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the SRA fee. To learn more, visit  firetaxprotest.org.

Below is a sample letter for reference when protesting the fee:

Special Taxes Remittance Processing, State Board of Equalization
P.O. Box 942879
Sacramento, CA 94279-6199

Fire Prevention Fee Service Center
Attn: Petitions
P.O. Box 2254
Suisun City, CA 94585

Board of Forestry and Fire Protection P.O. Box 944246 Sacramento, CA 94244

RE: Strong Opposition to SRA Tax-Paying under Protest!

DATE

To Whom It May Concern,

We are only paying this tax (you call it a fee) under duress of a state tax lien and possible property confiscation.

We strongly oppose and protest paying any Fire Prevention Taxes issued by the State Board of Equalization (BOE) on behalf of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).

This is an unconstitutional tax because Article XIIIA of the California Constitution requires that new taxes be approved by two-thirds of the membership of both houses of the Legislature. Because the money from this charge will not be redirected to local jurisdictions proportionate to their direct charge, there is no way to ensure that I will receive any direct benefit from the payment of this bill. Thus, this charge is a tax, and because it has not been properly approved by two-thirds of the Legislature, it is illegal.  We intend to support any legal action(s) taken by any organization(s) opposing this illegal taxation.

Paid Under Protest,

NAME