REPORTED TO US:

Greg Sarris, 61, Graton Rancheria Tribal Chief on 11/3/2013 at meeting of North Bay Organizing Project in Santa Rosa said:

“… last night the tribe opened its casino.  That casino is currently employing 2,500 people all of whom have medical, dental and retirement and wage above the minimum…and I love walking around and seeing all the brown faces and hearing all the Spanish in that building.  We’re also—you hear a lot about the casino—but we also have 250 acres aside from it.  We are planting those 250 acres in organic vegetables and with us we are going to hire low risk prisoners and undocumented workers.  All of that with a living wage with medical, dental, and retirement.”

And he also said:

“So we want to make a difference. And it’s not just in the environment and in jobs but in social justice.  We know that there are public officials here today and that you better listen.  You better start coming over to our side of town over there listening to what we have to say because now I’ve got what you’ve always had…it's called money. Listen carefully each of you. Until you come out and talk to us and listen to us and answer to what happened, I will take my money and run a spotted chihuahua and try to win.  And I mean it.”


This month the 1,300-member Graton Rancheria tribe will open its Graton Resort & Casino, an $800 million development with 3,000 slot machines and 144 gambling tables spread out over 340,000 square feet is expected to generate revenue of more than $530 million a year by 2016. Just beyond the parking lot is 250 acres of undeveloped land.  It is currently being discussed as the site for vegetable farming but the tribe has also said it eventually plans to add a hotel.

Here is the audio file with the introduction of Sarris beginning after approximately three minutes.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0pKAcmsTRI5TFJYbHlMQ00tLVk/edit?usp=sharing

North Bay Organizing Project--what is it?
Our Mission: Unite people to build leadership and grassroots power for social, economic, racial and environmental justice.

From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat Watch Sonoma webpage: Comments on this story: http://www.watchsonomacounty.com/2012/09/cities/compromise-reached-on-coddingtown-zoning-plan/

Eric Newman
September 19, 2012 at 3:15 pm
The vote on the North Santa Rosa plan by the city council is good evidence of why we need a progressive majority on the council. The Chamber pawns on the council voted to throw the public good under the bus by catering to the demands of one large commercial property owner. The public be damned if even one demand be made on the sacred personhood of a national corporate operator.

This the root dysfunction in modern America: government does not operate in the interests of the entire community, but on behalf of an arrogant ownership class who think that they above the law and the social contract.

Through the sycophantic service of their political enablers, their word is the law!

We can turn back this tide of the corporate overlords, starting right here with our city council. Vote for Julie Combs, Caroline Banuelos, and Erin Carlstrom if you want a city government that is responsive to real people, not the bogus and inflated corporate “persons” who have bent us to their will.

 4  thumbs up     23 thumbs down

Kay Tokerud

1. September 20, 2012 at 8:42 am
   “Arrogant ownership class”? Wow, Eric, your class warfare attitude is showing. According to you, people shouldn’t be allowed to own property at all but rather the government should feed, clothe, and house everyone. I think that has been tried before and it didn’t work out too well.
   
   They re-zoned 1,390 properties that are all non-conforming now. I wonder how many property owners really understand what has happened to them. As bad as the plan is, it would have been a lot worse had the progressives been in the majority on the City Council. The progressives don’t care one wit about the property rights of the people although property owners pay the majority of taxes which go to support all the public welfare programs. Without private property ownership there would be little money for schools,infrastructure, etc.
   
   The re-zonings have crippled development rights for the current property owners but once these properties are sold to big developers they will make out because there will be huge subsidies for smart growth style development coming from federal transportation funds, via One Bay Area. Other subsidies include low income housing tax credits, HUD grants, infrastructure financing district subsidies, and New Development subsides through the IRS.
   
   I hope the current property owners hold out for a big price for their land because the new zoning allows for a large number of housing units to be built. The unsavvy owners may sell for bargain basement prices because they don’t know about their new zoning. The upzoning has actually increased property values. However, the current use of the properties may be disallowed resulting in losses for current owners and businesses.
   
   The big problem is that we are in a major recession that could become far worse soon. We certainly don’t need more housing to exacerbate the oversupply we have now. All of the Specific Plans being developed will have the effect of crowding out any free market development which could have occurred and instead we will only have subsidized government controlled development. This plan paves the way for One Bay Area which seeks to cram all new housing development into these small transit villages for years to come.
   
   The private property rights of Americans are being systematically eliminated through these Specific area plans which of course is by design. I’m afraid some of our elected officials don’t even know exactly what they are doing but rather are being pressured by Planning Departments that tell them that they must make these plans. Where are these plans really coming from? From the highest levels of the Federal Government and from International policies from the United Nations, World Bank and the IMF among others.
   
   The Deciders, the Controllers, whatever you want to call them have decided that Americans have too much space, use up too many resources, have too much money, etc. and it’s time to shrink us down to a level more consistent with the rest of the world. Sounds good to them, how about you?
   
    11  thumbs up   1  thumb down

DID YOU GET THAT EXCHANGE?  JUST IN CASE YOU THINK IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO GETS ON CITY COUNCIL THIS TIME...THINK ABOUT IT.
We do NOT support Combs, Banuelos, Wysocky, or Carlstrom.

If you read that headline and guessed that you knew what this post was going to be about---you're wrong.  In the 'Stranger Than Fiction' category of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development manipulation, the Santa Rosa, California City Schools are getting a look behind the mask.  Here's the beginning of the article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:

'Santa Rosa City Schools has run afoul of California Department of Education regulations because of an imbalance in the racial and ethnic makeup of the students in a particular special education category.

Of the 5,244 white students in the district's general education middle and high school enrollment in 2010-11, 1.4 percent were classified as emotionally disturbed. In the same year, just .4 percent of Latino students — 16 out of 4,418 — were in the same category.'


Yes, you read that right.  Not enough students of color have been identified as emotionally disturbed, so the Santa Rosa School District has to pay out of general funds to 'remedy the problem.'


Social equity.  Gotta love it.
Read the rest of the article here. 

We received a letter from a local Santa Rosa cyclist and have included it for you here.  We hope that this is evidence that Santa Rosans will not allow their clubs, groups, non-profits, or government to continue to indoctrinate them in UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development principles while using their own money to do it.  More and more clear-thinking Americans will join with this independent cyclist in refusing UN Agenda 21:

Landpaths will be speaking at the Santa Rosa Cycling club on Wednesday evening at the Round table Pizza on Occidental Road in Santa Rosa.

Below is my (the cyclist's) email to the board. Hope you or someone else informed can come to awaken some folks. Details below.

To many,

I for one will not attend tonight or supply any future dues to further this cause. Landpaths, although it sounds all wonderful and good is aligned with the Wildlands project and Sustainable Development which I DO NOT support. The implications go far beyond what your eyes seem to see.

I cannot support the club getting involved in politics

Maybe you folks just don't get it.

Here is a very brief, unbiased summary. Don't spend my dues on anything remotely political, please. I joined a bicycle club, not a COALITION.

from the Wildlands Project Revealed website
* The goal of the Wildlands Project is to set aside approximately fifty (50) percent of the North American continent (Turtle Island) as "wild land" for the preservation of biological diversity.
* The project seeks to do this by creating "reserve networks" across the continent. Reserves are made up of the following:
o Cores, created from public lands such as National Forest and Parks
o Buffers, often created from private land adjoining the cores to provide additional protection
o Corridors, a mix of public and private lands usually following along rivers and wildlife migration routes 
* The primary characteristics of core areas are that they are large (100,000 to 25 million acres), and allow for little, if any, human use.
* The primary characteristics of buffers are that they allow for limited human use so long as they are "managed with native biodiversity as a preeminent concern."
* Moral and ethical guidelines for the Wildlands Project are based on the philosophy of Deep Ecology.
* The eight point platform of Deep Ecology can be summarized as follows:
o All life (human and non-human) has equal value.
o Resource consumption above what is needed to supply "vital" human needs is immoral.
o Human population must be reduced
o Western civilization must radically change present economic, technological, and ideological structures.
o Believers have an obligation to try to implement the necessary changes. 
* The Wildlands Project itself is supported by hundreds of groups working towards its long-term implementation. Implementation may take 100 years or more.
* The Wildlands Project has received millions of dollars in support from wealthy private and corporate foundations such as the Turner Foundation, Patagonia, W. Alton Jones Foundation, Lyndhurst Foundation, etc. 

Conclusion:
The Wildlands Project exist within legal boundaries, however that should not prevent us from being concerned. At the very least, it advocates an extreme manifestation of environmental and public policy. Therefore, any claim the Wildlands Project makes toward public policy must be debated, and ultimately decided, in the public arena. Yet to date it has existed almost anonymously; beyond the knowledge of the wider public. It must be examined out from behind the cover of more general environmental concerns, held up for public scrutiny, and either accepted or rejected by a public fully aware of its implications. Failing to do so could have dire consequences, for as John Adams once wrote, "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge by the people."

July Club
Meeting
July 11 2012
The July club meeting is scheduled for 6:30 Wednesday evening at the Round Table Pizza on Occidental Rd, just west of Stony Point. There will be the usual round of business items and discussions of topics of importance to the club. 
This will be followed by a presentation by Craig Anderson, the Executive Director of LandPaths. LandPaths is one of the organizations that has been receiving support from SRCC's year-end donations. 

Chick-fil-A wanted to open a store in Santa Rosa across from the Junior College.  A drive-thru.   They're even planning to build a brand new building.  Where?  At the site of an old Burger King that has been vacant and pushing up weeds for a few years.  Owned by the bank since one of the town's big real estate guys went belly up.

So?  So, Jenny Bard, the Junior College Neighborhood Association president (again--she's like Vladimir Putin, she keeps coming back) objected to Chick-fil-A opening a drive-thru where there had been one before. 

Why?  Because she's a paid lobbyist for Smart Growth.  She's working for the Californina Lung Association as their 'advocate' for Smart Growth.  People in the neighborhood don't know that, however.  In fact they don't know much of anything because she only sends emails to people who agree with her, according to those who tell us they've been kicked off the neighborhood association email lists for not going along.

Anyway, Chick-fil-A has a business model that includes a drive-thru.  But Jenny, the Smart Growth advocate, thinks that drive-thrus are bad because they encourage people to use their cars.  Hmmm, maybe a bike thru?  She didn't think of that.  So objections were raised to the Planning Commission from 'the neighborhood' and Chick-fil-A didn't get their approvals.  They had to appeal to the City Council.

Wonder how much time and money that cost them?

Business-friendly Santa Rosa finally said ok.  They didn't lay an egg on that one.  Jenny has a car.  So does Susan Gorin.  So does Marsha Vas Dupre.  They both voted against Chick-fil-A (they're on the council).  Susan is grandstanding since she is running for county supervisor.  She's the 'Sierra Club's Choice."    

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat wrote a story on Chick-fil-A at Council and, even though Kay Tokerud, Steering Committee member of the Santa Rosa Neighborhood Coalition, attended the Council meeting and spoke in favor of Chick-fil-A's appeal, the newspaper misrepresented the proceedings and said that the neighborhood was against it.  We'll have the video of the meeting for you soon.  

What a town.  Full of feathers, signifying nothing.