WolfeNotes.com

Open Space Proposal Would Divert $32 Million/Yr Dedicated To Parks & Recreation

Public Parks Pay for Private Land

Urban Underinvestment Exacerbated

The Assembly votes today on the open space funding issues.

So, as a followup to yesterday’s post about why we think the current proposal is a bad idea, we thought we’d add one more point that has gotten little attention, as far as I can see.

I find it almost incomprehensible that an issue of this magnitude could remain under the radar and not a matter of public debate.

It is no secret that, even as attendance climbs, NJ’s State Parks are crumbling and in need of significant investments to address deferred maintenance.

It is also no secret that NJ’s urban areas and urban populations are under-served and lack adequate parks and recreational areas.

Those urban areas have not been allocated an equitable share of parks or open space funds. This is another example of environmental injustice.

So, I was curious if Assembly Democrats were aware of the fact that the current proposal would cut $32 million per year dedicated for parks and recreation and divert that money to open space purchases?

[Update: a reader notes that the Assembly version of SCR84 (ACR130) was never heard in an Assembly Committee!)

This shift in funding would compound gross inequities in the geographical distribution of both the State Parks and Open Space funding for urban area and parks, which are located in primarily Democratic districts.

Instead, that money would flow to the Open Space program – and that program has its own equity problems with respect to the geographic allocation of funds.

Perhaps even worse, public parks funding would be shifted to “stewardship” grants, including the payment of administrative costs of private elite conservation organizations, groups with little or no history of acting in the public interest, and with little transparency or accountability to any community or to implement any community vision or publicly endorsed plan.

(Do you think Audubon will conduct a lot of urban community outreach to work on designing a community park or garden? Do you think residents of an urban community would have more influence on City Council or the Board of NJCF when it comes to making funding decisions about open space and parks development?)

See table below, where that $32 million parks cut is hidden and dishonestly partially described – conveniently leaving out the word “parks” – as “recreational land development”, but here is there language on parks from the Senate Budget Committee Statement regarding fund allocations under current law:

15% for financing improvements and facilities for recreation and conservation purposes on parks and other preserved open space lands.  …

Further, under the current constitutional dedication, on January 1, 2016 the 17% allocation for diesel air pollution control programs (#4 above) expires and the moneys are reallocated to supplement the 15% dedication for financing improvements and facilities for recreation and conservation purposes on parks and other preserved open space lands, thereby increasing the dedication allocation for that purpose to a total of 32% 

Assembly Should Not Be Strong Armed – Reject Plan Now on the Table

The Sky Will Not Fall And There Are Better Alternatives

Austerity is not a policy we can live with

In an amazing case of brinksmanship, the NJ Assembly – in an emergency session called by Gov. Christie to address bail reform – will consider how to fund open space on Monday.

The Gov. and Legislators have known for a long time that the open space fund is broke, but Monday is the last day for getting a question on the November ballot to authorize a Constitutional amendment  – in this case, to divert existing revenues that were previously dedicated by voters to specific environmental programs.

Although the Gov. promised to create a stable source of funding to renew the Garden State Preservation Trust (Green Acres, Farmland Preservation, Historic Preservation) during his 2009 campaign, he has reneged on that promise, at one point even twisting the arms of fellow Republican Legislators to defeat a prior Senate plan.

Because of the Governor’s intransigent ideological opposition to signing any legislation that would create new revenues or additional debt (“Read my lips, no new taxes” – or is it Grover Norquist’s No tax pledge?), the Legislature has been forced to bypass his veto blockade via passing Resolutions to present the issue directly to voters.

Even at this critical moment, as he appeases right wing zealots who form the base of  the Republican Party in search of the Presidential nomination, the Gov. remains mute on the open space funding question.

And it is no accident that funding of DEP regulatory programs would be sacrificed to transfer resources and influence to a private property subsidy program – a twofer for the right wing worldview.

So, this is not some minor debate about open space – it is really an ideological showdown – a debate about fundamentally different views of policy, finance, and government.

Are environmentalists going to collaborate in the destruction of the regulatory and political accountability model that has been protecting public health and the environment for decades? Will they be co-opted by a divisive Rob Peter to Pay Paul strategy that pits land conservation against environmental quality? Will they abandon aggressive political accountability and give Gov. Christie a pass for betraying his commitments to them?

Will they passively acquiesce to the “austerity” worldview and simply accept claims that the public is NOT willing to pay for environmental and public health protection? Abandon that fight completely? What are the implications of that?

(If environmentalists won’t fight for new funds on easy lifts like open space, how are we ever going to get a price on carbon? Or pay for heavy lifts like funding to pay for multi-billion infrastructure deficits? Or clean water?)

Yet somehow, despite these facts and implications, the “Keep it Green” coalition (KIG) and the media have blamed the Legislature, more specifically, Assembly Democrats, for the problem, while giving the Gov. a pass.

The proposal under consideration would divert over $100 million per year  in existing revenues currently dedicated to water resources programs and projects, polluted site cleanups, underground tank removal and cleanup, air pollution equipment for diesel engines, and improvements to parks.

(and they have the Orwellian gall to call it “pay as you go” – when it’s really “take as you go”.)

That’s right – for the first time, so called environmentalists are actively supporting the diversion of environmental funds – a practice that they have vehemently fought for over 20 years and something that was opposed overwhelmingly by NJ voters by a Constitutional amendment back in 1997 explicitly designed in response to diversions.

There are far better alternatives, including, in order of preference:

1) asking voters to actually pay for the popular open space program with a new source of funds, an option that has been blocked from consideration by Gov. Christie – for his own political benefit – and rejected by Legislators as politically infeasible.

2) asking voters to fund the program by authorizing new bond debt, the traditional way of financing large capital projects, which is something they have approved many times by large majorities for 4 decades.

3)  as a last resort, if diversion of existing revenues is the only option, then diverting funds from other program areas, such as corporate subsidies or environmentally damaging economic development schemes.

The LAST place that conservationists should support sterling money from to pay for open space is environmental programs – Robbing Peter to pay Paul never makes sense, and it is an extremely divisive and selfish approach.

4) abandon the current approach, let the Fund go broke, rely on federal Sandy funds as a stopgap, hold Governor Christie accountable, and focus on building political support for a better option next year.

Governor Christie has diverted well over $1 billion of environmental funds to pay for over $2 billion of his corporate tax cuts and subsidies.

That theft includes $1 billion from the Clean Energy Fund, which was designed to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy; $40 million in Passaic River dioxin cleanup funds;  and many millions more from the State Recycling Fund, Landfill Closure Funds; toxic site cleanup funds, pollution prevention Fund, Right To Know Fund, and others, e.g. see:

• Raids on Dedicated Funds Climb Under Christie

But that’s not all – the State level diversions do not include millions more in raids by local governments on environmental infrastructure monies managed by local authorities – like water and sewer systems. This alone is outrageous in light of multi-billion dollar infrastructure deficits.

At the same time, Gov. Christie has blocked any new revenue sources.

And his fiscal and budget attacks are part of an even larger withering assault on environmental regulations and on DEP as an institution.

When does it stop?

Where has the Keep It Green Coalition been while all this has been happening for the last 5 years?

Why would they join the raid on environmental funds?

If they were going to raid existing funds, why not raid environmentally damaging EDA funds or corporate subsidies?

• A Brief history

Christie is by far the worst offender in stealing environmental money and the only one to block all attempts to raise new revenues.

But he is not the only Governor to divert taxpayer funds that were supposed to be spent on environmental projects.

By the mid 1990’s, Governors Florio and Whitman had stolen over $500 million of environmental funds.

Whitman exacerbated the impacts of those diversion by slashing DEP budgets by 25% or more and cutting DEP staffers work week by 20%, from 40 to just 32 hours.

At the same time, like Christie, Whitman embarked on an assault on environmental regulations and DEP as an institution, under her pro-business “Open For Business” and “STARR” (Strategy for Regulatory Reform) initiatives.

The Christie version of this is his “Common Sense” regulation Executive Orders, designed to slash “job killing Red Tape” and provide “regulatory relief” to business and industry.

But that across the board Whitman attack prompted environmental leaders to fight back.

Environmental groups realized that adequate funding, strict regulations, and a healthy DEP institution were vital to protection of public health and the environment and they were willing to join forces, form a unified agenda, and fight to defend them all.

There were no attempts to divide and conquer or pit the traditional environmental quality regulatory model against a private voluntary land acquisition model.

It is not easy to win a major policy battle against a NJ Governor, given the strong powers the Governor possesses under NJ’s Constitution.

Environmental leaders recognized the nature of the Whitman attack and fought back effectively against a powerful and popular Governor.

The environmental community was unified and organized: traditional conservation groups like Audubon and NJ Conservation Foundation and local watershed groups,  along with the public health, pollution, and environmental quality focused Trenton based groups, like NJ Environmental Federation, NJPIRG, and Sierra Club.

They collectively pursued a rarely used creative legislative strategy – requiring only simple majorities in both houses – to bypass Whitman and put the environmental funding question directly to voters  as a ballot question.

The Ballot question asked voters to amend the NJ Constitution to dedicate 4% of the Corporate Business Tax (CBT) revenues to specific DEP environmental regulatory programs.

From a fiscal perspective, at the time, the economy was booming and state budget revenues were increasing, so the $100 CBT dedication was no raid on funds for other programs, nonetheless DEP programs. The assumption was the CBT money would supplement existing General Fund revenues allocated to DEP, not reduce them.

I am proud to say that I was one of the leaders that crafted that strategy, helped forge that unified coalition, and fleshed out the substantive policy content supporting the Legislative Resolution and Ballot question.

And I am equally angry and disgusted by the betrayal and failure of leadership of our current environmental groups, who now actively betray that legacy in pursuit of selfish narrow agenda that robs the regulatory Peter to pay the open space Paul.

• The Question on the table

Now, instead of fighting back against a powerful Republican Governor, the environmental community capitulates.

They have not even tried to over-come or criticize the Gov.’s absolute veto on new revenues or “austerity” policy.

Instead of defending DEP as an institution, protecting regulatory programs  and assuring funding for DEP programs, they willingly join the raid on them.

Instead of fighting for new revenues, they are actively supporting the same raids on environmental funds – and the attack on regulations and DEP as an institution that those funds support – that they so strongly opposed during the Whitman era.

Adding insult to injury, they are doing all this damage by using taxpayer dollars to buy land that – in almost all cases – could be protected by local zoning, regional planning, and State environmental regulations.

So, it really kills me, having done all this good work during the Whitman era, to see it all unraveled, and with the support of mostly self serving environmentally groups who will benefit financially from the program they are advocating (should we be cutting DEP programs to fund “stewardship”? Should those “stewardship” funds go to private groups?)

The policy reversal and cowardice are sickening.

I’ve written about why the Keep It Green Green Acres funding proposal is a huge upward transfer of wealth and unfair and why Legislators should Fix it before they fund it.

Things might be different, had I seen just a shred of evidence, like:

• one press release by Keep It Green Coalition criticizing Governor Christie for all this instead of Assembly Democrats,
• a legitimate effort to work to build public support for better options, or
• a pledge not to receive or benefit any of the funds, abandoning the “Stewardship” funding, and supporting program reforms

I really hope the Assembly kills this KIG betrayal on Monday by not approving SCR 84.

But Don’t Worry – The Christie DEP Is On A “Barnegat Bay Blitz”

[Update below]

What, with all the recent good news about the EPA Beach Bacteria Monitoring Guidelines, the Christie DEP’s Barnegat Bay Blitz,  and all the coastal group opposition to climate change research (aka “The Seismic Smokescreen”) perhaps you missed this story.

I certainly don’t recall seeing it in NJ news reports.

No biggie – it’s just about 2 recent cases and the increase of an outbreak of potentially fatal flesh eating bacteria that live in polluted, nutrient rich, warm coastal waters and bays near you.

Last week, CBS news reported (watch) “Experts Warn About Flesh Eating Bacteria in Chesapeake Bay“

Reuters now reports a second DC case:

(Reuters) – A flesh-eating bacterial disease has infected another Washington, D.C.-area man, local media reported on Thursday, just days after a man was released from a hospital following a near-deadly bout with the germ.

Joe Wood of Stafford, Virginia, said he was swimming in the Potomac River near the town of Callao earlier this month when a scratch on his left leg became infected with vibrio vulnificus, an aggressive bacteria that feeds on flesh, Washington D.C.’s WTOP radio reported.

I don’t want to be an alarmist – and I certainly wouldn’t want to scare away any tourists, which is Taboo in Trenton no matter what the science says! – but vibrio bacteria are found in warm nutrient pollution enriched NJ waters, particularly Delaware Bay and Barnegat Bay.

The  vibrio bacteria blooms and disease outbreaks from exposure are associated with warm summer water temperatures, just when people are swimming, recreating and eating potentially contaminated shellfish – a phenomenon sure to get worse as pollution increases and climate change warms coastal waters.

So, I thought I provide some important information.

Here is the Center for Disease Control website.

Here is scientific research on Barnegat Bay vibrio population dynamics, where researchers found (these are verbatim quotes):

• occurrence of vibrio [has been] linked to temperature, salinity, and nutrient status of water
• Vibrio community size was strongly correlated with temperature
• analysis showed that Vibrio populations are present year round in Barnegat Bay, with elevated population sizes during summer.
• These warm-ocean populations contain sequences closely related to noted pathogens of humans and marine fauna.
• populations dominating the summer Vibrio community of Barnegat Bay are highly related to tropical strains
• [vibrio strains] includ[e] campbellii & the noted food-borne human pathogen parahaemolyticus, & Vcarchariae, an agent of disease …& human wound infections

A 2009 Report from our friends at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation warned:

 Reversing Prohibitions, Marinas Allowed To Destroy Sensitive Ecosystems – Riparian Restaurants

BREAKING NEWS: DEP WON’T ALLOW BUILDINGS ON DUNES!

The Department of Environmental Protection’s Larry Hajna clarified that this does not apply to wetlands or other protected areas.

“We’re not talking about building on dunes, or building in environmentally sensitive areas, we’re talking about basically infilling areas on the islands that have not been developed,” Hajna said. ~~~ WHYY Newsworks 7/31/14 (a must read story!)

The Governor & DEP Commissioner  simply need to read the sea level rise and hazard assessment in the Department’s own 309 Coastal Assessment Report. ~~~ Bill Wolfe

This one is so bad, even the DEP press office can’t spin it.

DEP knows they’re in deep shit when they have to announce – as if it’s some kind of accomplishment – that they won’t allow building on dunes, something that is insane and has been prohibited for a long time in NJ.

What’s next, a press release taking credit for not allowing – to paraphrase an anti-environmental industry attack line – the slaughter of whales in a wetland?

But hey, the DEP did reverse a prior prohibition on allowing marinas and restaurants to be built in shellfish habitat, so I guess under Gov. Christie, everything really is up for grabs.

WHYY Newsworks reporter Carolyn Beeler probes all that while on the ground, in a great piece on Gov. Christie’s reckless promotion of growth at the shore, while ignoring climate change and sea level rise, causing local governments to struggle alone with massive problems, see:

• Lacking statewide-strategy, NJ shore towns prep for climate change

In an otherwise superb piece, the only thing I would take exception to is the headline and underlying premise, which are completely wrong.

The Christie Administration does have a statewide strategy on coastal development and climate change.

That strategy was announced by the Governor virtually the day after Sandy struck – I have dubbed it: “Rebuild Madness”.

The Governor’s statewide strategy on climate change, sea level rise, and the need for an adaptation based regional land use plan for the coast is called: denial, defunding, and obstruction or veto of all measures intended to do so.

We’ve written about that here dozens of times, so I won’t even waste the effort to garner all the links to the posts.

Most recently, the Governor’s strategy was implemented by DEP’s massive proposed rewrite of coastal land use rules – a massive rewrite of rules readopted without change just last year, months before the election.

We testified at public hearings opposing that proposal and have urged that the proposed rules be vetoed by the legislature as “inconsistent with legislative intent”.

As we and others have written extensively about that DEP coastal development rule proposal, let’s let subject matter expert John Miller explain the fundamental flaws of Gov. Christie’s strategy: (from Newsworks):

In the face of rising seas, he argues putting more people in low-lying areas near the coast will make it harder to evacuate them, or reach them with emergency services.

“When you are moving structures closer to the water, when you are increasing densities, when you are changing what are called water-dependent uses, you are now starting to get more and more development into high-risk areas, and that is our concern,” said Miller, who testified at a public hearing on the rule changes for his role as the legislative committee chair of the New Jersey Association for Floodplain Management.

Yes, I feel on solid ground by calling all that “Rebuild Madness”.

Just another day in Gov. Christie’s NJ.

So, let’s hope that FEMA, EPA, NOAA, the banks, or the insurance industry can rise up and block the DEP move as a result of conflicts with FEMA and Federal Flood Insurance Program requirements.

Or perhaps the Obama Administration (HUD, USACE, NOAA, FEMA, EPA)  or Congress might wise up and impose conditions of the expenditure of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, all to repeat an even greater disaster when the next huge coastal storm hits, a question of when, not if.

Or, of course, the NJ Legislature could exercise their Constitutional power to oversee the Executive Branch of State government and rise up and veto the DEP rule.

But that would require a bi-partisan Legislative effort – for once, in the public interest – to challenge not only the Governor’s madness, but the political power of the development lobby. It would also require a public campaign by the coastal environmental groups to get their memberships active. I see no evidence of any of that.

But somebody has got to stand up to the the Christie insanity.

[Technical PS to the DEP Press Office:  Take a look at sea level rise projection maps, note areas of complete or frequent inundation, even without coastal storms.

Then look at updated flood maps, use the 500 year storm or flood event.

Or simply read the sea level rise and hazard assessment in the Department’s own 309 Coastal Assessment Report.

The DEP is inviting development to these areas, and that is insane.

Then consider this provision of the DEP wetlands rules and think what a science based application of those rules would mean for inland and coastal areas mapped per above “high water episodes” – much of NJ land area is a transition zone!:

7:7A-2.5 General transition area provisions

(a) A transition area serves as:

1. An ecological transition zone from uplands to freshwater wetlands which is an integral portion of the freshwater wetlands ecosystem, providing temporary refuge for freshwater wetlands fauna during high water episodes, critical habitat for animals dependent upon but not resident in freshwater wetlands, and slight variations of freshwater wetland boundaries over time due to hydrologic or climatologic effects; and
2. A sediment and storm water control zone to reduce the impacts of development upon freshwater wetlands and freshwater wetlands species.

[Update: While we’re on a technical plane, let me note, something I’ve written and warned about BEFORE SANDY, that it is not technically accurate to say that the Christie administration “has no climate adaptation strategy”.

The truth is actually worse than that – worse than nothing.

The Christie administration has outsourced and privatized climate and adaptation planning, to a corporate funded front group called “Sustainable NJ”. (SNJ was involved in the “riddled with errors” Hazard Mitigation Energy Grant fiasco too)

You don’t have to take my word for that – here is DEP’s own 309 Coastal Assessment document submitted to NOAA:

 Confessions of A Planner and Environmental Regulator

This post begins my low brow, lame, and poorly written attempt at a series version of “The Education of Henry Adams”, a classic of ideals and principles dashed by industrial power (The Dynamo) and emerging political chaos.

I enjoyed that book many years ago in college history, but am just now beginning to realize the meaning of it from a personal perspective.

But my style and outlook may be closer to the more recent classic:  “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins.

So let me begin today and start to set the context not by any logic or chronology, but by sharing one true story that illustrates fundamental problems.

When I returned to DEP in 2002 at the invitation of Brad Campbell (nominated by Gov. McGreevey, but not yet confirmed as DEP Commissioner), one of my key projects was the “Category One Waters” (C1) initiative.

The idea for the C1 initiative originated in former DAG Tom Borden’s work in Clinton Township opposing the Windy Acres development project. Borden had petitioned the Whitman DEP for a regulatory reclassification of the South Branch of Rockaway Creek (SBRC) as a C1 water. Then DEP Commissioner Shinn denied that petition for rule making.

During the McGreevey Administration transition process, environmental groups convinced the Gov.’s Office and Campbell to grant that Borden SBRC petition and to promulgate new regulations to expand the C1 designation process statewide, as authorized by the criteria of current C1 regulations.

Historically, DEP had limited the C1 designation to trout production waters, despite the fact that the existing regulations allowed DEP to consider a broad range of factors, including exceptional ecological significance, exceptional recreational significance, exceptional water supply significance or exceptional fisheries resource(s) to protect their aesthetic value (color, clarity, scenic setting) and ecological integrity (habitat, water quality and biological functions).

There were also two virtually unknown C1 designation criteria related to the lands drained by the surface water:

1. Waters originating wholly within Federal, interstate, State, county, or municipal parks, forests, fish and wildlife lands, and other special holdings that have not been designated as FW1 at N.J.A.C. 7:9B-1.15(h) Table 6;
2. [.. ]
3. [..]
4. [..]
5. Other waters and their tributaries that flow through, or border, Federal, State, county, or municipal parks, forests, fish and wildlife lands, and other special holdings.

Historically, C1 waters were not protected by 300 foot wide vegetated buffers – that buffer amounts to 72.7 acres per stream mile! (600 ft) x (5280 ft/mile)/43,560 sq. feet/acre = 72.7  acres)

Historically, the land use impacts of the trout based C1 designation were site specific and narrow, mostly from triggering exceptional wetlands value classification and 150 foot wetlands buffers.

But C1 designations had huge potential for significant regional land use impacts because the “no measurable change in existing water quality” antidegredation standard made it very difficult and costly, if not impossible, for the DEP to approve a sewage treatment plants to discharge to a C1 stream. Large developments in rural areas or located outside existing sewer service areas required these package sewage treatment plants, often called COWS, for Community Onsite Wastewater Systems.

As Sierra Club policy Director, I was one of the leaders of environmental groups who had participated in the McGreevey transition process and recommended the expanded C1 initiative.

When I returned to DEP in early 2002, I was given the Commissioner’s support and free rein to establish a Department-wide working group to design and flesh out the C1 initiative.

DEP programs and staff were generally supportive of the initiative, but, surprisingly, I ran into some unexpected roadblocks. I got strong resistance – even flat out opposition – from two groups in DEP: 1) the Bureau of Freshwater Fisheries (BFF); and 2) The Green Acres Program.

I scratched my head: why would DEP units that protected fisheries and land be opposed to a program that would protect water quality and prevent the development of land?

The BFF historically had been the technical lead in C1 designations. They conducted stream studies to document the presence of reproducing trout and then those studies became the basis for C1 regulatory designations by the DEP Bureau of Water Quality Standards. The process typically took 3-4 years or more, and not all BFF recommendations were ultimately implemented through C1 designations, which require rule making.

But BFF was concerned about more than bureaucratic turf – their mission, I was surprised to learn was less about protecting freshwater fish than responding to fishermen, more specifically trout fishermen.

BFF viewed an expanded beyond trout based C1 program as a competitor for resources that would reduce the priority of or slow down trout waters designations.

It took me awhile to convince them that this concern was misplaced, and in fact the expanded C1 would enhance trout protections. They ultimately joined in supporting the program.

But Green Acres was another story entirely.

In working group meetings, they simply refused to cooperate.

I met one on one and explained that the criteria for designations included green acres properties.

So I asked them for maps (GIS data layers) of their lands with the stream network data layers to target C1 candidates.

I asked them for land acquisitions in the pipeline so we could integrate C1 designations, land use planning, and land acquisition.

They stonewalled and refused to provide the data.

They never even told me why, instead they went behind my back through their management chain to make their private case to Campbell.

But a Green Acres staffer explained the reasons to me thusly:

1. Green Acres needs to maintain good relationships with land owners.

2. Land owners HATE environmental regulations.

3. Green Acres often must negotiate development deals with land acquisitions. Typically, these developments are nearby the acquired lands.

4. If landowners thought that a Green Acres acquisition would trigger a C1 designation that would limit their development potential – and the appraised value of their land – many landowners would never approach the Green Acres program.

I found it outrageous that those policies and views were allowed to prevail and to shrink the DEP’s C1 planning.

• So, lesson learned?

Those that acquire land HATE land use planning and regulation of land use. It is too coercive and undermines their voluntary private property & market based driven corporate ideology and entire conservation framework.

They HATE transparency and public scrutiny, they prefer private deals. Landowners and corporations prefer the back room to the public hearing room. It might upset their money expectations or their political negotiations.

They DON’T CARE about the Big Picture, Science, or Planning – they prefer site specific deals.

They are GREEDY and SELFISH  and NARROW, ensconced in a BUBBLE OF PRIVATE INTERESTS, and could care less about THE PUBLIC INTEREST.

For self interested reasons that have nothing to do with environmental protection or the public interest, those that acquire land will do their best to undermine regulation, despite the fact that planning based land use regulation is a far more cost effective and environmentally sound approach – across an entire region – than the non-strategic piecemeal acquisition of single parcels that they call the Green Acres program.

Story told.

So, meet the dynamics now at play in the Keep It Green Coalition.

(Part II – What Ever Became of C1? And what’s the CBT got to do with it? – coming soon)