Contact the Board of Forestry

Earth First!
For immediate release, Tuesday, October 2nd, 2001
Contact:Shunka@North Coast Earth First! (707)825-6598 P.O. Box 28, Arcata, CA 95518

A letter was recently sent to the Board of Forestry, in Sacramento, California, addressing the issue of public access to corporate timberland. The California Department of Forestry(CDF) has a "Public Comment Period" as part of the approval/disapproval process for every Timber Harvest Plan(THP), yet the public is not legally allowed to even walk proposed THPs, for the purpose of making educated, unbiased, empirically based public comments. Without access to corporate timberland, what are we supposed to base our comments on? The industries' maps and surveys? Where is the accountability there?
If a member of the public has a proposed THP map, and is en route to that THP, he/she should not be harassed or arrested by the timber company employees, as long as they are well out of range of active timber harvesting. This was the proposal to the California Board of Forestry(BOF).

The following was the Board of Forestry's "official" response:
"Dear Mr. Public:
This is to acknowledge the receipt of your letter to the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection on August 27th, 2001.
While your letter was forwarded to all the members of the Board, your request to have it read aloud at the meeting could not be accommodated. The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act allows members of the public to address the Board on any issue not otherwise on the agenda that the Board may take an action on. Government Code 11125.7 states that: '…the state body shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the state body…' However, there is no provision addressing the reading of written comments submitted by the public.
If you desire to address the Board, you are encouraged to attend its next scheduled meeting and do so under the 'Public Forum' agenda item. Upcoming agendas may be found on the Board's website at:
http://www.fire.ca.gov/bof
Your interest in, and comments to, the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection are appreciated.

Sincerely,
Daniel R. Sendek, Acting Executive Officer"

So, instead of addressing the proposal, the Board of Forestry sent this non-answer, citing their laws as an excuse to not publicly address our concerns. When we attempted to access the website, we received only an error message and a blank screen. Evidently, only those members of the public privileged enough to travel all the way down to Sacramento get to have their voices heard in a public forum. Would it have hurt the BOF to read the letter during the "public forum," or to have written a letter directly addressing the proposal? No, and members of the public who cannot afford an expensive trip to Sacramento deserve to have their voices heard, and deserve an intelligent response to a real proposal, which would increase democracy in our so-called democratic system. Please write and/or call the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, at P.O. Box 944246, Sacramento, CA, 94244-2460, (916)653-8007, and ask them to consider this proposal.