Category — GOVERNMENT

The Spring 2011
Butte County Recycling E-Newsletter
has arrived !

It is available at :  www.RecycleButte.net

Spring has sprung!  Time to clear out the garage, get the yard in shape and clean up that cold weather grime that has collected over the last few wet weather months.  In this issue we will discuss lower impact ways to accomplish your annual spring cleanings tasks.  We can call it Greening your Spring Cleaning.

IN THIS ISSUE:

In the Home: Greening your Spring Cleaning.

Special Waste: Batteries, batteries and more batteries.

County News: Neal Road Recycling & Waste Facility update

Recycling Profile: The Habitat for Humanity RE-Store

Do you have an idea for a recycling subject?  Or would you like to submit an article for this E-newsletter?  Send in your ideas to: recycle@buttecounty.net.

Backyard Composting Guides are available upon request.  Email us at recycle@buttecounty.net or pick up a copy at the County Public Works office at 7 County Center Drive in Oroville or at the Neal Road Recycling & Waste Facility.

April 22^nd is the 41^st Anniversary of Earth Day. We can do a lot to make sure the Butte County portion of the earth (and beyond) is well cared for.  Locally, we can minimize the waste we produce and reuse or recycle what we can.  We can also adopt our favorite county road or volunteer to clean up some public space.  Contact us at recycle@buttecounty.net for information on Butte County cleanup programs.

Steve Rodowick
Butte Recycling Coordinator

After 20 years of legal presence in the United States, Green Transition Chico  initiator, independent documentary filmmaker and community environmentalist organizer GERARD UNGERMAN is threatened – due to a legal technicality – with a 10-year bar from re-entering the United States where he has his home, his family and his life.

Stacey Wear, his better half and himself have now contracted emergency legal counsel but they need to come up immediately with a $ 10,000 retainer.

Gerard and Stacey don’t have enough cash available.

Would you feel like you can contribute, if only $ 10. towards his safe return and the continuity of his community-oriented, environmental work,

PLEASE visit his website at:  www.FreeWillProd.com and see his PLEA 4 HELP.

Visit also his “HELP PAGE” and discover his current documentary projects.

You can make Checks out to him and mail them to:
Stacey Wear – 2626 Navarro Drive – Chico, CA 95973

You can also send PayPal donations to his user’s email address of:
< freewillprod@freewillprod.com >
Please, choose Personal, fee-free Payment.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH.

Log on to the Summer Butte County Recyling E-Newsletter  for information on how to keep Butte County clean and green.

This month newsletter deals with:
- RECYCLING ON THE TRAIL, in the boat or tubing on the river
- ONCE IN THE BIN, THEN WHAT ?   The path your curbside recycled materials take
- SPECIAL WASTE: recycling USED OIL & OIL FILTERS
- RECYCLING PROFILE: Chico State Assoc. Students Recycling program

Read the full newsletter at :  http://www.buttecounty.net/RecycleButte.aspx

Questions, comments, suggestions ?  E-mail us at < recycle@buttecounty.net

The Esplanade League announces an important public hearing on June 22. The Chico City Council and Planning Commission will meet to consider the land use and sustainability components of the 2030 Chico General Plan update. This hearing is THE BIG ONE – the public’s best chance to influence our city’s guiding policies for the next 20 years.

Please read the following information and support our concerns at City Council chambers on June 22nd between 2:00 and 9:00 PM. Public input time is most likely between about 3 and 7.
 
The proposed new Plan needs a strong showing of public support because it includes great new sustainability policies, based on a sound, healthy, realistic community vision. However, for all its vision, many of its proposals are soft, with little assurance that they will be implemented. The expanded growth area proposals rely on unfounded assumptions that past housing demands will continue unabated and that the public’s funds will allow greater spending on freeways, big box stores and parking lots, even with a battered economy, massive debt, the looming impacts of climate change, and the ending era of cheap oil.
 
But most of the new policy language is weak, emphasizing words like “encourage” and “should,” rather than firm commitments backed by “will” or “shall.” It’s a great vision statement without a lot of teeth. Painful past experience has shown that General Plans seldom produce the desired results if they don’t include strong, enforceable commitments. Our planet’s failing life support systems can’t tolerate much more compromise, so the Council and Commission need to hear that mere encouragement is insufficient and that policies need to include much more “shall do” language.
 
Another major weakness is the assumption that retail consumption and housing demand for the next 20 years will continue much like the last, in spite of stagnant wages, overextended credit, tightened lending practices, and deteriorating public wealth and natural resources. Thus, the Plan assumes we’ll need thousands more large lot homes than already planned, more sprawl, and more regional shopping centers to accommodate an ongoing spending spree.

a)     In retail, there’s a sharp contradiction between a) the draft Land Use Element’s proposal for more regional shopping south along Highway 99 and b) the Sustainability Element’s emphasis on convenient neighborhood shopping, less need for driving, and reduced consumption of energy and resources. High consumption is fundamentally inconsistent with long-term environmental and social sustainability. Instead, sustainability requires a shift away from an oil-dependent, imported goods/exported jobs, consumption-based economy and toward more efficient, locally based production of food and goods. We don’t need more regional shopping malls on 99.

b)     In home buying patterns, the land use plan assumes that future demand for large lot houses will require thousands of lots sprawling into the Bell-Muir agricultural area in the northwest and the Schuster-Brouhard land in the foothills. However, past growth patterns no longer reliably predict future needs, given the rising cost of land and construction, reduced buying power, tighter lending, and shrinking household sizes. The National Home Builders Association expects aging baby boomers and younger generations on tighter budgets to demand cheaper, smaller, and/or attached homes; which recent building trends and the record number of undeveloped larger lots already reflect. The Sustainability Element, in contrast with the Land Use Element, wisely calls for more affordable compact growth and careful infill, with less sprawl, reduced auto dependency, and lower public maintenance costs.
 
Strong public support is needed for the Sustainability Element, scaling back the foothill and agricultural sprawl proposed by the Land Use Element, and firmer “shall” language throughout the Plan.
 
The draft General Plan update can be found on a link near the top of a City website at http://www.chicogeneralplan.com/.

Sincerely,

The Esplanade League – Supporting a Carefully Chosen Path for the Future