WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA ~ A STATE PARK

By John Spencer

It all began for me one early morning while lying in bed (much before time to get up) thinking about our great State of California and what it has become.

My close proximity to the land development field and involvement in politics has given me a perspective not possessed by many others. I’ve seen the environmental movement come alive and have sat through many a public hearing acting on development projects. I’ve followed elections and have seen what the continued ratcheting up of regulations has done to our economy, and I think we have gone too far.

So while lying there I had this idea and thought it was so great I rolled over and awakened my wife to tell her what a great idea I had. When hearing all about it she said, “that’s perfect," now go back to sleep!

Since the time the environmental movement attacked the logging industry and ran a bunch of them out of business, I have watched with dismay how environmental activists (thinking the earth is more important than people) could have the power to destroy a whole community. From then on they had my attention. I think everyone knows what the program is, it is limited or no development, their kind of development, and none at all would be best. The movement doesn’t want YOU to do what you want to do, you need to check with them first, and the more regulations the State has, the better. The environmental movement is not a regulatory agency, but acts like one.

Everyone contributes in the form of taxes. From these taxes slush funds are created for activists to go get some in the form of grant funding. This funding keeps them alive even if they decide to turn around and sue the State or others (they don’t like) in an effort to put their agenda in play. Liberals have achieved a majority in the State house, and activist agendas are their road map. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” If anything is going to happen in this State it needs to happen THEIR way, with your tax money. So they always need more of YOUR money to pull this off, and there is no upper limit. If you are anything other than Liberal you have a problem, and the best thing would be if you just left the State and didn’t bother them anymore.

So here is where my idea comes into play. Liberals like to control everything, they like big government and they are no-growth, protect the environment, and don’t care how much it costs. The only way this can be achieved (where they own everything and can control everything) is for the State to buy up all the property in California (except those properties owned by Liberals). Once the State owns most of the property, they simply turn the whole State into a State park (thereby protecting it). At all of the State highways entering California there would be a big arch structure saying “Welcome to California – a state park.”

Now before you cry out “this man is crazy,” give it some thought. Once this is done, Liberals would own the State, Republicans would move to another state, others not subscribing to Liberal tax and spend ideology would also move. Everyone left would become a State employee, everyone would have a pension and health insurance provided by the state, and tourism would be the main business, tourism is healthy and green. There would be no more “money grubbing” developers or construction projects to deal with, no more logging, everything could be fully protected, and environmental activists could finally retire. No more dams, existing dams could be taken down with careless abandon, the fish and rivers would run free, and there would be no need for any new water projects, reservoirs, or (wait for it) oil wells. No more bipartisanship problems. No more expansion plans for cities, all of the shops doing tourism-related activities could change into “period” clothing, THIS PERIOD. We would look a lot like Williamsburg, Virginia. Housing (properties) purchased by the state could be advertised as places to stay for tourists. This would of course create a booming market for travel agents.

To implement a plan like this will be very costly for a State that is already in trouble. The Liberal community (thinking taxes are way too low anyway) would bravely step forward and pay for it. Everyone knows the Republicans created this budget mess, with them and all the other dissenting groups out of the way the economy could return to (Liberal) normal. Liberals would be free to get the tax structure where it should be to enable them to do what they want. Cap and tax could be fully implemented, and the air and water would finally be clean again. Think of it, California could be the first State to be set free, leaders of the new generation.

John Spencer is a licensed surveyor who owns Spencer Land Surveys and is a former Nevada County Supervisor living in Grass Valley.