County keeps safety on DA rifle request
John Driscoll and Chris Durant
05/31/2007 The Times-Standard

Humboldt County's chief administrative officer won't approve the purchase of assault rifles requested by the district attorney's office at least until a dusty use of force policy and training protocols are updated.

Loretta Nickolaus said she was satisfied that those policies are being updated after meeting Wednesday with District Attorney Paul Gallegos, his Chief Investigator Mike Hislop, Assistant District Attorney Wes Keat, Assistant County Counsel Wendy Chaitin and Risk Manager Kim Kerr.

Nickolaus said, for now, she won't allow the district attorney's office to buy the eight AR-15 rifles Gallegos is seeking, citing concerns that the county could be held liable if there was an incident involving the guns before the protocols were modernized.

”It's on hold,” Nickolaus said. “Let's see what they come up with.”

Hislop said the meeting was positive and he provided a training syllabus and a draft of the district attorney's office updated use of force policy.

”I answered all their questions,” Hislop said.

After the meeting Wednesday, Hislop delivered a copy of the district attorney's use of force policy to the Times-Standard. The paper had asked Gallegos for the policy through a California Public Records Act request on May 18, after Gallegos said the document was not public and refused to turn over a copy.

Gallegos said in an e-mail that he forwarded the request to Hislop, who was on vacation last week.

Hislop said he receive the paper's request on his Blackberry on the way back from Baja California. Hislop said he had already finished working on the policy before the Times-Standard requested it, and has since given it to county counsel for analysis.

”This is still under review,” Hislop said.

The policy Hislop provided is more limited in scope than those of the county Sheriff's Department and the Eureka Police Department, which are nearly identical to each other. It appears to be more specifically geared toward using firearms for defensive purposes, and does not address more police-related activities of less-than-deadly force or pain compliance techniques that might be used during arrests.

The district attorney's training protocol previously called for district attorney investigators to qualify with their firearms once a year, Hislop said, while he plans to increase that training to four times per year -- a provision now contained in the use of force policy.

District attorney investigators have not discharged a firearm in the course of duty for at least four years, Nickolaus said, if not longer.

She said she's convinced that the DA investigators -- several of which recently came from police or sheriff's departments -- want the assault rifles for defensive purposes.

”They feel like they're not safe unless they have those rifles,” she said.

But while the policy is being revised, Nickolaus said she wouldn't approve their purchase, and voiced concern that the county, or even her as the purchasing agent, could be held liable if they were approved before the use of force policy was updated.

TS - Enough secrecy in the DA's office

Enough secrecy in the DA's office
The Times-Standard Editorial Article Launched: 05/25/2007 04:29:32 AM PDT

The chief prosecutor of Humboldt County has us scratching our heads with his waffling over making his office's “use of force” policy available to the public.

The issue arose when District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his new investigator, former Eureka police Sgt. Mike Hislop, proposed to beef up their firepower with the purchase of eight AR-15 semiautomatic rifles. This triggered questions from Loretta Nicklaus, Humboldt County's administrative officer, who wondered whether the DA had the need, training and policies in place for such an arsenal -- a use of force policy, in particular.

While working on a story about the new weapons, two Times-Standard reporters sought a copy of the DA's policy. Gallegos initially said he would get them a copy, then changed his mind and wouldn't even let them view the document. The Times-Standard then made a formal request a week ago under the state Public Records Act. Gallegos has 10 days to release the use of force policy, or to explain his legal reasons for withholding it.

Since then, Gallegos has offered these comments about the issue, via e-mail:

* “I never said that the information was not available under the Freedom of Information Act. Quite the contrary, I informed you that our use of force policy is not a public record.” To throw around some legal Latin, that's a non sequitur. A FOIA request is the federal equivalent of the California Public Records Act, and is a tool used to pry PUBLIC records out of reluctant PUBLIC officials.

* “I have some reluctance to make use of force policies public information . . . especially when there is no claim that anyone (in the DA's office) has unlawfully used force.”

That has no bearing on whether a policy is public or not. But perhaps Gallegos and his team are being overly sensitive to community polarization about four shooting deaths involving Eureka police officers, going back to Cheri Lyn Moore more than a year ago. DA investigations and findings on three of those deaths are pending, including Moore's.

* “I also informed you that, if you heard from others that (our use of force policy is a public record), to let me know and I would consider others' determinations.”

The Eureka Police Department and the county sheriff's department say their use of force policies are open to the public, as does the DA in San Diego County. So do two open-records experts we checked with -- attorneys who said the law is clear: The public not only has a right to view use of force policies, but to receive copies.

Also, the California Peace Officers' Association says such policies are important in creating public confidence in law enforcement. To do that, of course, the public must know what the policy is.

We have to wonder: Why all this bobbing and weaving, especially by somebody who should know the law? If the DA's office has a use of force policy, let's see it. If it does not, then it should 'fess up and create one (the California Peace Officers' Association has a sample you can adapt). Then put it online, so everyone can see it. That should free up time to produce the long-overdue report on Moore's death.

Related stories:
DA under fire over assault rifles
Humboldt County Board of Supervisors AGENDA March 6, 2007 Consent Calendar Item c-5
New questions arise after Gallegos' answers about rifles
Concerns raised over DA investigator weapons

Other Blogs discuss:
DA's office requests hand grenades...
Eric - Gallegos wants guns
Fred - DA's Office Follows Vroman's Lead

Read BOTH Salzman's nearly identical My Words

Crocodile tears for hire on housing crisis
My Word by Richard Salzman
Article Launched: 05/27/2007 04:26:22 AM PDT

How often is the Times-Standard going to subject its readers to the repeated rants of Sacramento's professional spin doctor, Kay Backer? Her suggestion (”Housing crisis needs to be addressed,” May 16) that the city and county is somehow at a fault for defending itself whenever her billionaire boss decides to file a lawsuit is as absurd as the suggestion that the developers and land speculators she works for would actually want real estate prices to do go down (never mind that local housing prices are linked to prices statewide, so that no increase in local inventory will lower prices).

Since she insists on repeating her worn-out arguments, please let me remind your readers that Kay Backer is hired by local developers to badger county government and bamboozle the public. She feigns concern for our families by shedding crocodile tears about so-called affordable housing here in Humboldt County.

It's ridiculous that she is even treated as a legitimate voice in our local affairs just because Rob Arkley and HELP summon her to town for a meeting or to send off an e-mail full of accusations and threats to the media. She represents nothing other than a handful of developers.

It's absurd that those who pay her (they call themselves HELP but really should be called HELP Yourself) are implying that the reason they want to build more houses is because they want to see home values drop. When has any developer ever wanted to see any housing prices drop? Do you want to see the value of your home decline?

In the Sacramento area, where Ms. Backer lives, homes are being built at an astounding rate. Strangely enough, housing prices there are still shooting up and now routinely cost over half a million dollars. Is that what Ms. Backer's backers have in mind as affordable housing?

Now Arkley is using his money -- and another front group called Humboldt Sunshine -- to sue the county because our planning officials won't buy into HELP's fabricated projections of housing needs. Isn't that called blackmail?

I have no objection to developers making money off constructing houses. But it's an outrage to be told that the reason they want permission to build more -- and forever change the essentially rural character of Humboldt County-- has anything to do with stopping people from moving out of town, lowering home prices or anything other than their search for higher profits.

Where will Kay Backer's concern for our community be the day after her paychecks stop coming in? Will she still be shouting HELP or just go on to her next lucrative public relations campaign?


Richard Salzman lives in Sunny Brae, where he represents commercial artists, works as a freelance political consultant and gives of his time as a general rabbl -rouser. He can be reached at www.richardsalzman.com.


Opinions expressed in My Word pieces do not necessarily reflect the editorial viewpoint of the Times-Standard.


HELP is of no help to Humboldt
My Word by Richard Salzman
Article Launched: 04/13/2006 04:27:25 AM PDT

In response to Kay Backer's My Word of March 22, “Getting Humboldt leaders to lead”: Kay Backer is a paid professional spin doctor from Sacramento. Hired by local developers, she is paid to badger county government and bamboozle the public. She feigns concern for our families by shedding crocodile tears about so-called affordable housing here in Humboldt County.

It's ridiculous that Kay Backer is even treated as a legitimate voice in our local affairs just because Rob Arkley and HELP summon her to town for a meeting, or to send off an e-mail full of accusations and threats to the media. She represents nothing other than a handful of developers. Are there even five people who will admit to being a member of HELP?

It's absurd that those who pay her (they call themselves HELP but really should be called HELP-Yourself) are implying that the reason they want to build more houses is because they want to see home values drop. When has any developer ever wanted to see any housing prices drop? Do you want to see the value of your home decline?

In the Sacramento area, where Ms. Backer lives, homes are being built at an astounding rate. Strangely enough, housing prices there are still shooting up and now routinely cost about half a million dollars. Is that what Ms. Backer's backers have in mind as “affordable” housing?

Now Rob Arkley is threatening to use his money to sue the county unless planning officials buy into HELP's fabricated projections of housing needs. Isn't that called blackmail?

I have no objection to developers making money off constructing houses. But it's an outrage to be told that the reason they want permission to build more -- and forever change the essentially rural character of Humboldt County -- has anything to do with stopping people from moving out of town, lowering home prices or anything other than their search for higher profits.

Where will Kay Backer's concern for our community be the day after her paychecks stop coming in? Will she still be shouting HELP or just go on to her next lucrative public relations campaign?

Richard Salzman, who represents commercial illustrators, has also been involved in local politics and quality-of-life issues. He lives in Trinidad.

The opinions expressed in My Word pieces do not necessarily reflect the editorial viewpoint of the Times-Standard.

Discussion at:
watchpaul - Hysterical! (with links)
Fred's Humboldt Blog - Shut her up?
Eric's SoHum Parlance - Time for a Salzman come back?

And, there was a response to Salzman's My Word:
Shining a light on the need for housing, jobs
Author: My Word By Jim Furtado
Publication: Times-Standard (Eureka, CA) Date: April 29, 2006
I take offense to Richard Salzman's My Word of April 13, “HELP is of no help to Humboldt.”

I am a member of HELP and a developer who started back when one could start a home-building business with not much capital and building lots were readily available.

My first experiences with construction were extremely fulfilling because it was possible to provide a nice new home to local people with a typical Humboldt County job. Mr. Salzman... It is available on The Times-Standard archives

May 5, 2006 Public Records Act Request granted

Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 11:03:38 -0700
To: "Gallegos, Paul"
"Modell, Linda"
From: [Rose Welsh]
Subject: Fwd: RE: PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST re GRANTS
Cc: "County Administrator Office"
"Falor, Tammy"
"Hendry, Richard" ,
"Keat, Wesley"
Glenn Franco Simmons

May 5, 2006

To: Paul Gallegos
Humboldt County District Attorney's Office
825 Fifth St.
Eureka, CA 95501

Mr. Gallegos:

According to the Government Code cited below, you cannot refuse to give me the information on all of the grants received by your office. That information has nothing to do with pending litigation, as grant information if prepared for the grantors, not for pending litigation. The pending litigation provision under section 6254(b) has no applicability to the domestic violence and statutory rape information. 

You are already in violation of the public records act requirements, as this information should have been delivered to me by April 28th 2006.

Failure to deliver the complete information requested by Monday, May 8th, 2006 at 10:00 am will result in litigation.

Under the "pending litigation" exemption from the disclosure of public records, a document is protected from disclosure only if it was specifically prepared for use in litigation. City of Hemet v Superior Court (1995, 4th Dist) 37 Cal App 4th 1411, 44 Cal Rptr 2d 532.

"Pending litigation," which focuses on the purpose of the document, serves to protect documents created by a public entity for its own use in anticipation of litigation. Fairley v Superior Court (1998, 2nd Dist) 66 Cal App 4th 1414, 78 Cal Rptr 2d 648.

A document is protected from disclosure under the pending litigation exemption only if the document was specifically prepared for use in litigation County of Los Angeles v Superior Court (2000, 2nd Dist) 82 Cal App 4th 819, 98 Cal Rptr 2d 564.

Rosemarie Welsh
cc:
"County Administrator Office"
"Falor, Tammy"
"Hendry, Richard"
"Keat, Wesley"
Glenn Franco Simmons

***
Subject: RE: PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST re GRANTS
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 16:51:39 -0700
From: "Modell, Linda"
To: "Rose Welsh"
Cc: "County Administrator Office"
"Falor, Tammy"
"Hendry, Richard"
"Gallegos, Paul"
"Keat, Wesley"

Ms. Welsh - The documents you have requested are available for you to pick up at the District Attorney's Office. There is a total of 1,454 pages @.25/pg totalling $363.50. Please make your check payable to the Humboldt County District Attorney - General Fund.

The records do not contain documents from the Spousal Abuse Prosection Program or the Statutory Rape Vertical Prosecution Program. These documents are the subject of pending litigation and per advice of County Counsel and Government Code section 6254(b) we are not able to disclose at this time. We will be happy to provide them once the lawsuit has resolved. Please let us know if you wish them to be provided at that time.

Two programs that the District Attorney is not the grantee of, and therefore we do not have complete information on, can be requested from the agencies that administer them. They are the Marijuana Suppression Program administered by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office and the NC3TF administered by the Marin County District Attorney's Office.


-----Original Message-----
From: peoplearefunny [mailto:peoplearefunny@cox.net]
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 9:35 AM
To: District Attorney
Cc: County Administrator Office; Falor, Tammy
Subject: PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST re GRANTS

April 3, 2006


To: Paul Gallegos
Humboldt County District Attorney's Office
825 Fifth St.
Eureka, CA 95501



PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST - TIME SENSITIVE

Please provide me with the following records in your possession:

REGARDING GRANTS RECEIVED BY THE D.A.'s OFFICE:

Please provide the following records in your possession:

Copies of all records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, including but not limited to:


1.) The records regarding all grants in the areas of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and the breakdown of how those funds were ALLOCATED AND SPENT including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each grant for each of the named years

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee

e.) the TOTAL BREAKDOWN of how each grant was actually spent and the name of the source, person or entity that received the funds



2.) The records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office in the areas of CHILD ABUSE for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, and the BREAKDOWN of how those funds were spent, including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each individual grant for each of the named years,

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee




A. This is a request made under the California Public Records Act. [Government Code 6250-6277].

B. By law you have 10 calendar days in which to respond to this request. [Government Code 6253(c)].

C. The Public Records Act mandates that public records be open to inspection and that every person has a right to inspect any public record unless the record is specifically exempt from disclosure. Unless exempt, upon a request for a copy of records that "reasonably describes an identifiable record or records" you are required to make the records promptly available to any person upon payment of fees covering costs of duplication. [Government Code 6253].

D. In the event that there is any uncertainty as to the identity of any record sought, you are affirmatively required to assist the requesting party in better defining the request so that the records can be located and made available. [Government Code 6253.1].

E. You are required to justify in writing the withholding of any record. [Government Code 6253]. The burden of establishing an exemption is on the public agency. [Vallejos v. California Highway Patrol, 89 CA3d 781, 787 (1979)].

F. The Public Records Act does not limit access to a public record based upon the purpose for which the record is being requested, if the record is otherwise subject to disclosure. [Government Code 6257.5].

G. Agencies are not permitted to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records. The notification of denial of any request for records shall set forth the names and titles or positions of each person responsible for the denial. [Government Code 6253(d)].
H. If a reasonably segregable portion of a record is exempt by law from production, that portion shall be deleted and the balance of the record shall be provided for inspection. [Government Code 6253(a)].

I. The legislative policy behind the Public Records Act favors disclosure. [Berkeley Police Assn. v. City of Berkeley, 76 CA3d 931, 941 (1977)].

J. Any authorized fees will be paid to you on delivery, pursuant to an itemized invoice.

Rosemarie Welsh
CC:
Loretta Nickolaus, CAO
Tamara Falor, County Counsel

May 4, 2006 Public Records Act Response/Refusal

From: "Modell, Linda"
To: Rose Welsh
Cc: "County Administrator Office"
"Falor, Tammy"
"Hendry, Richard"
"Gallegos, Paul"
"Keat, Wesley"

Ms. Welsh - The documents you have requested are available for you to pick up at the District Attorney's Office. There is a total of 1,454 pages @.25/pg totalling $363.50. Please make your check payable to the Humboldt County District Attorney - General Fund.

The records do not contain documents from the Spousal Abuse Prosection Program or the Statutory Rape Vertical Prosecution Program. These documents are the subject of pending litigation and per advice of County Counsel and Government Code section 6254(b) we are not able to disclose at this time. We will be happy to provide them once the lawsuit has resolved. Please let us know if you wish them to be provided at that time.

Two programs that the District Attorney is not the grantee of, and therefore we do not have complete information on, can be requested from the agencies that administer them. They are the Marijuana Suppression Program administered by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office and the NC3TF administered by the Marin County District Attorney's Office.  


-----Original Message-----
From: Rose Welsh
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 9:35 AM
To: District Attorney
Cc: County Administrator Office; Falor, Tammy
Subject: PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST re GRANTS

April 3, 2006

To: Paul Gallegos
Humboldt County District Attorney's Office
825 Fifth St.
Eureka, CA 95501

PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST - TIME SENSITIVE

Please provide me with the following records in your possession:

REGARDING GRANTS RECEIVED BY THE D.A.'s OFFICE:

Please provide the following records in your possession:

Copies of all records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, including but not limited to:

1.) The records regarding all grants in the areas of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and the breakdown of how those funds were ALLOCATED AND SPENT including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each grant for each of the named years

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee

e.) the TOTAL BREAKDOWN of how each grant was actually spent and the name of the source, person or entity that received the funds

2.) The records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office in the areas of CHILD ABUSE for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, and the BREAKDOWN of how those funds were spent, including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each individual grant for each of the named years,

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee


A. This is a request made under the California Public Records Act. [Government Code 6250-6277].

B. By law you have 10 calendar days in which to respond to this request. [Government Code 6253(c)].

C. The Public Records Act mandates that public records be open to inspection and that every person has a right to inspect any public record unless the record is specifically exempt from disclosure. Unless exempt, upon a request for a copy of records that "reasonably describes an identifiable record or records" you are required to make the records promptly available to any person upon payment of fees covering costs of duplication. [Government Code 6253].

D. In the event that there is any uncertainty as to the identity of any record sought, you are affirmatively required to assist the requesting party in better defining the request so that the records can be located and made available. [Government Code 6253.1].

E. You are required to justify in writing the withholding of any record. [Government Code 6253]. The burden of establishing an exemption is on the public agency. [Vallejos v. California Highway Patrol, 89 CA3d 781, 787 (1979)].

F. The Public Records Act does not limit access to a public record based upon the purpose for which the record is being requested, if the record is otherwise subject to disclosure. [Government Code 6257.5].

G. Agencies are not permitted to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records. The notification of denial of any request for records shall set forth the names and titles or positions of each person responsible for the denial. [Government Code 6253(d)].
H. If a reasonably segregable portion of a record is exempt by law from production, that portion shall be deleted and the balance of the record shall be provided for inspection. [Government Code 6253(a)].

I. The legislative policy behind the Public Records Act favors disclosure. [Berkeley Police Assn. v. City of Berkeley, 76 CA3d 931, 941 (1977)].

J. Any authorized fees will be paid to you on delivery, pursuant to an itemized invoice.

Rosemarie Welsh
CC:
Loretta Nickolaus, CAO
Tamara Falor, County Counsel

April 14, 2006 Public Records Act response

From: "Modell, Linda"

Cc: "Hendry, Richard"
"County Administrator Office"
"Gallegos, Paul"
"Falor, Tammy"

Due to the volume of records in your request and shortage of staff necessary to comply, we are invoking our right to an additional 14 days in which to respond to your request.

-----Original Message-----
From: District Attorney
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 8:32 AM
To: Modell, Linda
Subject: FW: PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST re GRANTS


-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 9:35 AM
To: District Attorney
Cc: County Administrator Office; Falor, Tammy
Subject: PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST re GRANTS

April 3, 2006

To: Paul Gallegos
Humboldt County District Attorney's Office
825 Fifth St.
Eureka, CA 95501

PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST - TIME SENSITIVE

Please provide me with the following records in your possession:

REGARDING GRANTS RECEIVED BY THE D.A.'s OFFICE:

Please provide the following records in your possession:

Copies of all records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, including but not limited to:

1.) The records regarding all grants in the areas of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and the breakdown of how those funds were ALLOCATED AND SPENT including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each grant for each of the named years

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee

e.) the TOTAL BREAKDOWN of how each grant was actually spent and the name of the source, person or entity that received the funds

2.) The records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office in the areas of CHILD ABUSE for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, and the BREAKDOWN of how those funds were spent, including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each individual grant for each of the named years,

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee


A. This is a request made under the California Public Records Act. [Government Code 6250-6277].

B. By law you have 10 calendar days in which to respond to this request. [Government Code 6253(c)].

C. The Public Records Act mandates that public records be open to inspection and that every person has a right to inspect any public record unless the record is specifically exempt from disclosure. Unless exempt, upon a request for a copy of records that "reasonably describes an identifiable record or records" you are required to make the records promptly available to any person upon payment of fees covering costs of duplication. [Government Code 6253].

D. In the event that there is any uncertainty as to the identity of any record sought, you are affirmatively required to assist the requesting party in better defining the request so that the records can be located and made available. [Government Code 6253.1].

E. You are required to justify in writing the withholding of any record. [Government Code 6253]. The burden of establishing an exemption is on the public agency. [Vallejos v. California Highway Patrol, 89 CA3d 781, 787 (1979)].

F. The Public Records Act does not limit access to a public record based upon the purpose for which the record is being requested, if the record is otherwise subject to disclosure. [Government Code 6257.5].

G. Agencies are not permitted to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records. The notification of denial of any request for records shall set forth the names and titles or positions of each person responsible for the denial. [Government Code 6253(d)].
H. If a reasonably segregable portion of a record is exempt by law from production, that portion shall be deleted and the balance of the record shall be provided for inspection. [Government Code 6253(a)].

I. The legislative policy behind the Public Records Act favors disclosure. [Berkeley Police Assn. v. City of Berkeley, 76 CA3d 931, 941 (1977)].

J. Any authorized fees will be paid to you on delivery, pursuant to an itemized invoice.

Rosemarie Welsh
CC:
Loretta Nickolaus, CAO
Tamara Falor, County Counsel

April 3, 2006 Public Records Act Request re: Grants

April 3, 2006

To: Paul Gallegos
Humboldt County District Attorney's Office
825 Fifth St.
Eureka, CA 95501

PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST - TIME SENSITIVE

Please provide me with the following records in your possession:

REGARDING GRANTS RECEIVED BY THE D.A.'s OFFICE:

Please provide the following records in your possession:

Copies of all records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, including but not limited to:


1.) The records regarding all grants in the areas of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and the breakdown of how those funds were ALLOCATED AND SPENT including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each grant for each of the named years

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee

e.) the TOTAL BREAKDOWN of how each grant was actually spent and the name of the source, person or entity that received the funds

2.) The records regarding ALL GRANTS received by the District Attorney's Office in the areas of CHILD ABUSE for the years 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, and the BREAKDOWN of how those funds were spent, including but not limited to:

a.) the TOTAL AMOUNT RECEIVED for each individual grant for each of the named years,

b.) the CONDITIONS upon which each grant was approved to be spent

c.) the NAMES of each of the district attorney's office employees that were paid using money from these grants, in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full by these grants

d.) the amount ACTUALLY SPENT on each employee


A. This is a request made under the California Public Records Act. [Government Code 6250-6277].

B. By law you have 10 calendar days in which to respond to this request. [Government Code 6253(c)].

C. The Public Records Act mandates that public records be open to inspection and that every person has a right to inspect any public record unless the record is specifically exempt from disclosure. Unless exempt, upon a request for a copy of records that "reasonably describes an identifiable record or records" you are required to make the records promptly available to any person upon payment of fees covering costs of duplication. [Government Code 6253].

D. In the event that there is any uncertainty as to the identity of any record sought, you are affirmatively required to assist the requesting party in better defining the request so that the records can be located and made available. [Government Code 6253.1].

E. You are required to justify in writing the withholding of any record. [Government Code 6253]. The burden of establishing an exemption is on the public agency. [Vallejos v. California Highway Patrol, 89 CA3d 781, 787 (1979)].

F. The Public Records Act does not limit access to a public record based upon the purpose for which the record is being requested, if the record is otherwise subject to disclosure. [Government Code 6257.5].

G. Agencies are not permitted to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records. The notification of denial of any request for records shall set forth the names and titles or positions of each person responsible for the denial. [Government Code 6253(d)].
H. If a reasonably segregable portion of a record is exempt by law from production, that portion shall be deleted and the balance of the record shall be provided for inspection. [Government Code 6253(a)].

I. The legislative policy behind the Public Records Act favors disclosure. [Berkeley Police Assn. v. City of Berkeley, 76 CA3d 931, 941 (1977)].

J. Any authorized fees will be paid to you on delivery, pursuant to an itemized invoice.

Rosemarie Welsh
CC:
Loretta Nickolaus, CAO
Tamara Falor, County Counsel

On PRA Req re: Domestic Violence Grant (5/o6)

DA's slow response on information request criticized by Dikeman volunteer
by Glenn Franco Simmons, 5/9/2006

A Worth Dikeman campaign volunteer said a dispute she had over the release of District Attorney’s Office records has been resolved, but not before she felt the DA’s Office and county counsel used delay tactics in the release of that public information.

District Attorney Paul Gallegos told The Eureka Reporter that all information requested by Welsh was submitted by his office to the County Counsel’s Office, which houses the county’s legal team. Gallegos said that office was the decision-maker as to whether the requested information could be released to the public.

“We (the DA’s Office) had no concern about releasing (the information),” Gallegos said. “When we got the request, we talked to county counsel, like we would do for anybody. County counsel gave us some advice.”

When asked if this was the usual process for responding to such a request, Gallegos said, “Absolutely.”

Welsh doesn’t buy Gallegos’ answer. In fact, she said it was The Eureka Reporter’s e-mails to county officials requesting information about her request that prompted the release of all the information.
Gallegos said that Welsh is incorrect.

Welsh has requested information relating to government grants the DA’s Office has received. Welsh said she is attempting to determine what is grant-funded in the department and what isn’t, so she can determine whether Gallegos is properly disbursing the grants’ resources.

Gallegos said he is confident that he has done a good job with disbursing the grants and allocating resources mandated by the grants.

“With grants, if there are issues associated with them, I need to make sure that I’ve done my job,” he said.

At the same time, he realizes that it’s election time and that any decision he has made will be analyzed in what is becoming a heated political campaign, such as the one he currently is involved in.

According to information presented by Welsh to The Eureka Reporter, she requested records of grants in the categories of domestic violence “and the breakdown of how those funds were allocated and spent including, but not limited to:

+ “The total amount received for each grant for each of the named years.

+ “The conditions upon which each grant was approved to be spent.

+ “The names of each of the District Attorney’s Office employees who were paid using money from these grants; in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full, by these grants.

+ “The amount actually spent on each employee.

+ “The total breakdown of how each grant was actually spent and the name of the source, person or entity who received the funds.”

Welsh also requested all child abuse grant records received by the DA’s Office for the period of 2002-2005. Again, she also requested “the breakdown of how those funds were spent, including but not limited to:

+ “The total amount received for each individual grant for each of the named years.

+ “The conditions upon which each grant was approved to be spent.

+ “The names of each of the District Attorney’s Office employees who were paid using money from these grants; in other words, which positions were funded, in part or in full, by these grants.

+ “The amount actually spent by each employee.”

Welsh, who made her request a formal one by invoking a California Public Records Act (www.thefirstamendment.org/publicrecordsact.pdf) request of the DA’s Office, said the county initially balked at complying fully with her request. The reason? The DA’s Office said pending litigation was the reason for the non-release of some of the documents requested by Rose, so those records were going to initially be withheld from Welsh.

DA’s Office employee Linda Modell wrote to Welsh, saying the 1,454 pages requested by Welsh would cost $363.50.“The records do not contain documents from the Spousal Abuse Prosecution Program or the Statutory Rape Vertical Prosecution Program,” Modell said. “These documents are the subject of pending litigation and per advice of County Counsel and Government Code Section 6254(b), we are not able to disclose at this time.”

Welsh also asked for information about how the grants have been spent on personnel — benefits and salary.

She also requested information about former Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen.
Per those requests, the county sent her the following from Personnel Director Rick Haeg in an e-mail:

“I have asked our county payroll department to review your request for records. They have advised me that no totals for all benefits are readily available. The information would have to be researched and compiled per benefit item. Because the Public Records Act … does not require that a responding agency create a record to meet the specifications of the request when no such record presently exists, we are unable to comply with your request.”

Welsh fired back an e-mail that stated she was also seeking the amount the county paid to employ the controversial Stoen: “… Unless you (Haeg) are telling me that all benefits associated with his position were included in his salary, the cost of benefits is in addition to his salary. Benefits will normally follow some formula — and I find it incomprehensible that the county does not have this information readily available for all employees.

“In order to speak accurately about the cost of his employment, I need accurate and complete information. That is the reason I filed this Public Records Act request in the first place.”

Welsh was prepared to sue the DA’s Office for not complying with the state’s Public Records Act, which allows for certain government information to be turned over to the public and/or media when such information is requested.

The county’s response to The Eureka Reporter came in the form of an e-mail from Deputy County Counsel Richard Hendry, who stated that Welsh ”requested information on all grants received by the District Attorney’s Office for the years 2002 through 2005. That information was made available to her, except for a grant involving the Spousal Abuse Prosecution Program, which was initially thought to be exempt under the ‘pending litigation’ exception.

“Upon further review by this office,” Hendry said, “it was determined that the material could indeed be released. Ms. Welsh has been notified that all the requested information is being disclosed. …”

Welsh picked up the material on Tuesday.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

RS - Trial underway in '03 Bridgeville killing

Trial underway in '03 Bridgeville killing
Karen Wilkinson/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 05/22/2007 04:26:33 AM PDT

EUREKA -- As a family watched a new “Simpsons” episode along with a friend in 2003, Thomas Arthur Applegate entered their Bridgeville home and shot two of them, killing one, District Attorney Paul Gallegos told a jury Monday.

During opening statements, Gallegos said there's evidence that Applegate, 45, used methamphetamine before traveling from Ukiah to Bridgeville, where he allegedly shot and killed Joey Patrick Church, 36, and wounded Church's friend, Ross Condemi.

Applegate has pleaded not guilty to one count of homicide, one count of attempted murder, one count of assault with a firearm and four special allegations -- three for personally discharging a firearm and another for personally inflicting great bodily injury.

Applegate's attorney, public defender Kevin Robinson, didn't make an opening statement.
The victim's daughter, Brandi, became visibly upset as she took the stand and described the day.

The 11-year-old girl, who was 7 at the time, said she returned home from a friend's house on May 4, 2003, and spoke with her father in their living room shortly before he was shot twice in the abdomen.

She testified about how she climbed out the front window of the house after her father was shot.

Gallegos said Applegate entered Church's home and asked if it was for sale. When he was told the whole town was for sale, he left, only to return later in the day, enter the house, ask the same question and open fire.

Applegate was arrested the next day after he beat and tried to kidnap a woman in a San Luis Obispo restaurant parking lot. He entered guilty pleas to the Southern California charges and was returned to Humboldt County in the summer of 2004.

When Applegate's home was searched May 8, 2003, Gallegos said bullets were found that matched those used on both victims. Also, five shells were found beneath a sofa the man slept on the night of the killing, Gallegos said.

Applegate was identified in a lineup by witnesses in Bridgeville. Robinson could not be reached for comment by deadline.

Related/Updated:
Insanity phase of trial begins
Jurors find Applegate guilty
First-degree murder off table
Jury deadlocked in murder trial
ER - Jury begins deliberating in Bridgeville murder trial today 6/6/2007
ER - Bridgeville murder trial enters third week of testimony
ER - Murder trial continues with evidence technician's testimony
ER - Witness testifies about Bridgeville murder
ER - Sheriff's detective takes stand in murder trial
ER - Father of man accused of murder given immunity
ER - Testimony in murder trial reveals meth use, witness of handgun
ER - Acquaintances of man on trial for murder testify
ER - Surviving shooting victim takes stand in second day of murder trial
ER - Children of slain man take the stand in his murder trial
TS - Trial underway in '03 Bridgeville killing
ER - Jury selected for Applegate trial
TS - Jury selection under way in trial of suspect in 2003 homicide
ER - 2003 murder case goes to trial

ER - Children of slain man take the stand in his murder trial

Children of slain man take the stand in his murder trial
by Kara Machado, 5/21/2007

The girlfriend and two children of a murder victim testified Monday, the first day of Thomas Arthur Applegate’s trial.

Applegate, 44, has been charged with the May 4, 2003, murder of Joey Patrick Church, 34, with a special allegation that he did so with a firearm; the May 4, 2003, attempted murder of Ross Condemi, 48, with a special allegation that he discharged a firearm during the commission of the crime; the May 4, 2003, assault of Condemi with a firearm with a special allegation that he used a .44-caliber pistol and another special allegation of great bodily injury.

Humboldt County Public Defender Kevin Robinson said Applegate has entered two pleas: First, Applegate pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, as well as entered denials to all special allegations; and second, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

In Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos’ opening statement to jurors, he painted a time frame from the days leading up to the killings to the day Church was killed and Condemi was injured.

On Thursday, May 1, 2003, Gallegos said, Applegate told his employer he would be going to Mexico for four days. The following day, he stayed with his father in Paso Robles.

On Saturday, May 3, 2003, Applegate drove one hour south to the San Luis Obispo airport, where he parked his black Jeep and rented a gold Kia.

He then returned home to get a .44-caliber handgun that he would eventually bring up to Humboldt County, Gallegos said, and told his girlfriend he would be going to Mexico for four days.

Applegate soon ended up in Ukiah, where he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. The next morning, he called some friends and asked them to go with him to Bridgeville to look for property.

Prior to going home to have Applegate meet them there, one of Applegate’s friends saw the .44-caliber handgun on a nightstand.

At the friends’ house, Applegate allegedly participated in the ingestion of methamphetamine, Gallegos said, before the group left for Bridgeville.

At about 4:58 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, 2003, the gold Kia arrived in Bridgeville for the first time, Gallegos said.

Then, at 6:22 p.m., Applegate allegedly arrived at Church’s house, where he asked Church’s girlfriend, Carrie Erickson, if the house was for sale. Erickson told him no.

At 6:29 p.m., Applegate left the Bridgeville area, Gallegos said. His friends wanted to go home, but Applegate asked them to call their son to pick them up at a gas station.

“(Applegate) told them when he got back from Bridgeville (again), he would drive by the gas station to see if they were still there,” Gallegos said, “(and, if so,) he would pick them up.”

At 8:06 p.m. the gold Kia went back to the Church household, where two of Church’s three children — then-7-year-old Brandi and then-10-year-old Alexander — Erickson and Condemi were watching “The Simpsons” on television.

“Either he opened the door, the door was open or he forced it open, (but) he is (somehow) in the (doorway’s) threshold and asked if the house was for sale (or the town),” Gallegos said. “Church said no; Applegate said, ‘Kids, go to the room’; he pulled out the .44-caliber (handgun and began shooting).”

Gallegos said Church was first shot in the left shoulder. The bullet went through his chest and lodged under his armpit.


Condemi, Gallegos said, pulled his legs up to his body and was shot in the leg, “shattering the bone.”

As Church attempted to run, Applegate allegedly shot him in the hip. The bullet from that shot went into his leg. Church then collapsed and died, Gallegos said.

During Brandi’s testimony, she said just prior to the shooting, she had come home from a friend’s house and was telling the household about her day.

“‘The Simpsons’ just came on and about 10 minutes later (the shooter) came in,” Brandi said.

When asked where everyone was sitting prior to the shooting, Brandi said she didn’t know and broke into tears.

She later said she remembered someone knocked on the door and he was let in.

Brandi, Alexander and Erickson all testified they identified Applegate as the shooter in a past photo lineup, but he looked different in court Monday.

Erickson — who sobbed during most of her testimony — said she only knew Applegate as the person who “shot my baby’s father” and Condemi.

She said when Applegate asked if the house was for sale again, during the second visit to Church’s home, Church said the town was for sale, not just the house.

Applegate, Erickson testified, was wearing a black and white checkered button-up flannel, pants and a T-shirt.

The gun he allegedly drew on the household came from his left side, Erickson testified.

During the shooting, Erickson said she and the children ran into her and Church’s bedroom. When they thought the shooter left, they climbed out a window and ran to a neighbor’s house.

Both Brandi and Erickson testified they saw the first time Church was shot.

Alexander said on the way out the bedroom window, he grabbed his father’s .22-caliber rifle “as protection.”

Erickson said she left the children at the neighbor’s house and came back to the house to check on Church.

“Joey was in the house on the floor laying next to the bathroom and he wasn’t breathing.”

Erickson is scheduled to resume her testimony today at 9 a.m. in Humboldt County Superior Court Judge John T. Feeney’s courtroom.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

Related/Updated:
Insanity phase of trial begins
Jurors find Applegate guilty
First-degree murder off table
Jury deadlocked in murder trial
ER - Jury begins deliberating in Bridgeville murder trial today 6/6/2007
ER - Bridgeville murder trial enters third week of testimony
ER - Murder trial continues with evidence technician's testimony
ER - Witness testifies about Bridgeville murder
ER - Sheriff's detective takes stand in murder trial
ER - Father of man accused of murder given immunity
ER - Testimony in murder trial reveals meth use, witness of handgun
ER - Acquaintances of man on trial for murder testify
ER - Surviving shooting victim takes stand in second day of murder trial
ER - Children of slain man take the stand in his murder trial
TS - Trial underway in '03 Bridgeville killing
ER - Jury selected for Applegate trial
TS - Jury selection under way in trial of suspect in 2003 homicide
ER - 2003 murder case goes to trial

ER - Retrial for man accused in Orick woman's death moved back a month

Retrial for man accused in Orick woman's death moved back a month
by Kara Machado, 5/22/2007

Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Cissna decided Monday to move Joseph Pierre Rollin’s trial from June 8 to July 9.

The request to push the trial over one month was brought before Cissna by Rollin’s attorney, Humboldt County Deputy Public Defender Mike Eannarino.

Eannarino said he needed more time to prepare for trial by acquiring the services of expert witnesses.

As of Monday, Eannarino said he was closing in on possibly two expert witnesses.

Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos did not object to the continuance. However, he commented in court that the defense was “sparse on details” about why it needed its expert witnesses or “what the purpose (would be for) its expert witnesses.”

After Cissna vacated Rollin’s previous court dates and set new ones, he recommended Eannarino get his expert witnesses posthaste so there wouldn’t be a need for another continuance.

Monday’s decision was made a week after Eannarino initially brought up the request for a continuance. Rather than make a decision then, Cissna opted to hold off on a ruling on the continuance until Monday in order to give Eannarino more time to come up with a time frame.

Rollin’s case is being retried after being overturned on appeal — he was previously convicted in connection with the 2002 death of Orick resident Joi Henderson Wright.

According to past reports, Rollin’s conviction was overturned in December due to Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos using Rollin’s non-Mirandized denial of responsibility as evidence against him.

During his court appearance Monday, Rollin sat in the back section of the courtroom’s jury box, his left wrist cuffed to another inmate.

Rollin, who typically wears wire-rimmed glasses with dark lenses during court proceedings, is a tall, lanky man with curly, bushy salt-and-pepper hair.

Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

ER - Sentencing continued in statutory rape trial

Sentencing continued in statutory rape trial
by Kara Machado, 5/21/2007

Nate Robin Garza’s sentencing was continued Monday in order for his attorney to properly communicate Garza’s probation report to him.

Garza’s attorney, Humboldt County Chief Conflict Counsel Glenn Brown, initially told Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Cissna on Monday that he was requesting a one-week continuance for a couple of reasons.

One of the reasons, Brown said, is that the defense “received the probation report and I did go over (to the jail) to discuss it with Mr. Garza.”

“He had received a copy, but could not read it,” Brown said.

For more than an hour one day, Brown said he slowly read a portion of the report but could not finish it.

Due to Brown’s other new cases, he said, he has not had time to go back and finish reading the report to Garza so Garza could fully understand it.

Also, Brown said he has received several letters written in support of Garza.

Due to a conflict with Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Schwartz’s schedule, Cissna ultimately continued Garza’s sentencing until June 4.

Garza was arrested Feb. 19, almost one year after being arrested in connection with the March 2006 Whitethorn kidnapping/rape case.

His recent case stems from “consensual” sexual relations with a then-16-year-old girl — referred to as “Jane Doe” — between Dec. 20, 2006, and Jan. 5, Schwartz said.

Initially, Schwartz said, Garza was charged with — and pleaded not guilty to — nine counts of felony sodomy with a person under 18, eight counts of felony unlawful sexual intercourse and two counts of oral copulation with a person under 18.

At the end of April, Garza, 22, accepted a plea agreement on new crimes that ultimately violated probation he received from the Whitethorn case.

Schwartz said Garza pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sex with a minor — “which is commonly known as statutory rape” — one count of unlawful oral sex with a minor and also admitted his probation violation.

When sentenced, Schwartz said, Garza faces a maximum prison sentence of “four years, four months” or a “minimum penalty of probation.”

At Monday’s proceedings, Kenneth Campbell, an uncle of Doe’s, spoke before the court, as he was not able to return to speak at the continued sentencing date. He asked Doe to leave the courtroom prior to speaking.

An emotional Campbell said Doe was “very open” about what occurred between her and Garza and described Garza as “a danger to society, particularly to females.”

“Mr. Garza would humiliate (Doe) to lower her self-esteem to satisfy his perverted sexual desires,” Campbell said. “Even after (she) said she didn’t like anal sex (he continued).

“He would pull on her hair while sodomizing her, relishing in her pain.”

Campbell — who said Garza has not taken responsibility for his actions, blaming the sexual occurrences on Doe’s wanting — said the most recent exam conducted on Doe last week showed bleeding in her rectum.

Campbell pleaded for the court to “protect society” by sending Garza to prison and to have him additionally register as a sex offender.

Cissna thanked Campbell for his statements and told Brown and Schwartz to give him written points and authorities by Friday with regard to why or why not Garza should register as a sex offender and what, if any, restitution should be given to those other than the victim.

A third issue, with regard to rejecting the plea, was dropped from the points and authorities request because — although probation recommended rejecting the plea, Cissna said in court — Schwartz said he spoke with the victim’s family last week and they are “behind the deal” and “just want to move on with their lives.”


“The mother and victim are satisfied with the plea,” Schwartz said. “The probation department didn’t have the most recent information at the time the report was written as to the recent feeling of the victim and her mother.”


Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

Lawyers, Guns and Money

transcript of Thursday night's Humboldt review
Kevin Hoover guest hosting for Hank Sims

KH - On Wednesday, the Eureka Reporter newspaper featured a front page banner headline that read "DA under fire over assault rifles." The story by Heather Muller detailed a budget request by Humboldt County District Attorney office for more than $30,000 for some fairly heavy duty weaponry and related equipment. Included in the arsenal that Paul Gallegos would like to acquire, according to the Eureka reporter, are eight AR-15 assault rifles costing $1,920 each, ten 500 round boxes of .223 caliber hollow point bullets $198.50 per box, eight sets of body armor at $550 each, plus vests, parkas, pants, polo shirts, DA investigator patches and tailoring costs all adding up to $33.060.37.

Well, on the line now we have Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos.

KH - Paul, welcome once again to Humboldt Review.
PG - Hey
KH - Hey Paul
PG - Hey
KH - First I'd like to ask you, was the Eureka Reporter story accurate with regards to the material you'd like to acquire?
PG - Ummm ___________yes?
KH - ok, and this was for, what's the proper term for it - is it the DA investigator unit? What's the term for it?
PG - uh - the, uhh ---unintelligible---
KH - I'm sorry Paul, could you repeat yourself, please?
PG - Yes that is our unit, the DA investigators unit.
KH - What do these folks normally do? I'm not so sure that people know you have in house miniature sort of police force and they are police, with full police powers. I only know this because I know of an Arcata officer who went on to join it and I know one of your folks was at the recent event at D St, Linear Park helping with the enforcement there...
PG - They weren't helping with the enforcement with the Arcata, they were actually independent observers with the Arcata.
KH - But they are police with full police powers? Am I correct, Paul?
PG - Uh, Absolutely - actually they, uh, well, they are law enforcement officers, they have the authority of law enforcement that emanates from MY office. I'm a constitutional officer, umm, so they have more jurisdiction than standard law enforcement officers.
KH - what do they normally do? What's their day to day activities?
PG - Oh - - wide range - - -- they investigate cases, they assist in preparation of cases for trial, uh, they uhhhh ____________ do sweeps, probation sweeps, gang task force sweeps, various meetings, - - broad spectrum.
KH - and then they assist the other local law enforcement agencies in various capacities, too?
PG - Uhh, absolutely.
KH - Ok, and how many folks are in the unit
PG - Uh, eight, right now...
KH - Eight people. Ok and
PG - ...that's what we asked for, eight guns.
KH - and where are they stationed at Paul?
PG - They're stationed at my office.
KH - now why do they need this heavy duty armament and protection?
PG - uh, because they're law enforcement officers and when they're out on the street, they have to be adequately provided for.
KH - well, they wouldn't be wearing this stuff in just everyday...their everyday duties. I mean you didn't go out in the world with assault rifles and dress in the full regalia...
PG - well they would wear it whenever
PG - hey guys -
PG...whenever they, ummm, are out doing things like gang force task sweeps
PG - hey, dude@ -
PG - hold on -
PG - ('m on the phone. I have ummmm - I
PG - ...all those sorts of things that they have to do so absolutely they would...
KH - OK and, are they wearing them on the street
PG - No
KH - Have they uh, had occasions, have there been occasions when this sort of material would have been useful for them to have?
PG - They're law enforcement officers - it's like any officer, it's like.... the answer is "yes." The hope is that it's never used, ummm, but they have to be supplied...
PG - You know what, Kevin? I'll tell you a couple of things that were interesting to me about that story. First of all - uh - the request for money, that came from money that WE received from forfeiture money - - - uh - - Then, the approval of the money was unanimous from the Board of Supervisors... so the Board of Supervisors approved the money - um - these were standard issue - we actually already have automatic rifles - all we're doing is getting new rifles because our existing rifles are old.
KH - What are the existing rifles? What types of rifles are those?
PG - We already have the armament.
KH - How many do you have?
PG - We currently have ONE...we have two semi-automatic rifles, they're semi-automatic rifles.
KH - OK, and you're
PG - That's why we need to have 'em for our people...
KH - Umm, Paul, you said we'd - - - unintelligible - Paul, you said there have been situations where these weapons would have come in handy?
PG - Ummm, I don't think I did say that. I said that our officers have to be adequately armed. The hope is that they would never have to use them but that doesn't mean that you don't - - (arm them) - -
KH - Sure. There's a suggestion in the story that this is a fairly extraordinary level of armament for a DA investigators unit, do you, how, do you have any comment on that?
PG - Umm, yeah, you can suggest anything in a story and it's just not accurate. Umm, many, many DA's offices their investigators units are similarly armed, and you know even San Francisco, those guys have AR-4s which are more modern... and they're fully in the - - unintelligible - -
KH - OK, and your guys, uh, are they all, uh, I'm calling them guys, are they all men?
PG - Right now, yes.
KH - Are they all trained up in use of this sort of weaponry?
PG - Absolutely!
KH - Ok. Now, would they coordinate, for example, with, um, other police units of similar stature that are mentioned in the story - the SWAT Team and Sheriff's Unit that are similarly armed?
PG - Uh, I'm not sure I understand your question.
KH - Would they work together with them? I know that the two existing units, the SWAT Team and Sheriff's Unit... they are aware of each other and have mutual aid and protocol agreements...
PG - Of course we have all of those, but we are an independent agency and we don't have to give notification. But - - interrupts - okey doke - anything you need to know? - unintelligible interruption - -
KH - Folks, you need to know that Paul is actually picking up his kids from school or something or some activity, that's why he seems a little distracted. OK, Paul are you back with us?
PG - Yes, yes.
KH - I'm sorry, but the story seems to indicate that those agreements aren't in force at this point. Would that be something that yo're working on? the uh, protocols for cooperation with the Sheriff's and Eureka Police?
PG - Ummm, would that be something that I'm working on? NO. Those are things that are already in existence and they have been in existence. This is not a - chuckles - new thing. We actually have MOUs with law enforcement already...and, ummm, we're always the understood fallback when we're out there, and in any capacity if there's a need for backup, and we're there, our people always have to provide that backup...
KH - OK. Well, that seems to contradict, maybe you can help me resolve this, something in the Eureka Reporter story - They quote EPD Chief Garr Nielsen as saying that, uh, none of these prorocols and agreements have been established or even discussed with the DAs Office. Is that inaccurate?
PG - Uhh, I think... OK. OK. You know, I don't know what the question was to the Chief. As I read that they seemed to be saying we're trying to do SWAT???!?...
KH - Right...
PG - ...with them?
KH - Right.
PG - Which we're not trying to do SWAT with EPD - that's, that's - perverse - ummm so if he was asked if we have this guidelines to do SWAT?? With them, that's absolutely accurate. We are not trying to team up to do SWAT sort of raids or activities with the Eureka Police department.
KH - OK. Would the uh, would your unit when they have this equipment, would they also be called on to do courthouse security? I vaguely remember there's a plan to step up the security around the courthouse...
PG - Ummm, that's the Sheriffs, I read that, too, and that's not our goal. Certainly, if there's a need for backup, um, our people would be there to help, uh, we're always there to help if necessary, but that's the Sheriff's jurisdiction and we're not really too interested in taking on the Sheriff's responsibilities because the Sheriff does a good job doing that himself.
KH - Alright. OK. The County Administrative Officer, Loretta Nickolaus, she, uh, forwarded some questions here in response to your request for funds, a couple of which were. Does the DA's Office have a Use Of Force Policy and or training programs... But do you have a Use Of Force Policy with regard to this level of weaponry?
PG - Yes, and we've had one in place way before I was there, too. All my guys carry weapons...
KH - Right. What are they normally armed with, just handguns I take it?
PG- Umm - ee - it depends on what they're doing, um, certainly standard when they're walking around the office, the courtrooms, they've got their handguns, um, or sidearms, if you want to refer to them that way, um, but they also have, umm, their, just like with these, their, they shoot long guns...
KH - Sure Paul, we need to wrap...
PG - either a shotgun...
KH - Paul, we need...
PG - or semi-automatic rifle...
KH - OK. We need to wrap it up, just wondering where this is at in the process with regards to your...
PG - It's already been authorized?
KH - It's been authorized, are you awaiting...
PG - It was authorized WAY before this happened.
KH - OK. You're awaiting delivery of the rifles at this point?
PG - Say what?
PG - What?
KH - My question is - what do you not have and when are you going to get it?
PG - Umm,. the Board authorized this way before the story came out...
KH - I know. But...
PG - they already authorized the purchase of the rifles...
KH - My question is, what do you actually have, what are you still waiting for an when are you going to get it?
PG - Uh, You know what? - - long pause - -
KH - What?
PG - Frankly, I haven't pulled the purchase orders to see what we've received or not. I might have to talk to my Chief Investigator...
KH - Ok, Paul...
PG - But we;ve received partial, the stuff, but you know it's always basically what happens with any government thing, it goes out to bid, then there's the purchasing process...
KH - Fair enough. DA Paul Gallegos, Thank You very much for making the time to appear on Humboldt Review.
--ok - - unintelligible - -

TS - Concerns raised over DA investigator weapons

Concerns raised over DA investigator weapons
Chris Durant The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 05/19/2007 04:29:32 AM PDT

The proposed arming of district attorney investigators with semiautomatic rifles is raising some questions about whether that unit of the district attorney's office should act as a police force.

Humboldt County Administrative Officer Loretta Nickolaus asked District Attorney Paul Gallegos earlier this month to explain the proposed purchase of eight AR-15 rifles.

Nickolaus laid out a series of concerns in an e-mail and questioned whether the weapons were “outside their course and scope of work” and whether it would create a conflict if investigators were at the scene of a standoff or hostage situation as backup.

”Does the DA's office have a use of force policy, and or training programs or policies for any of this stuff?” she wrote in an e-mail to Gallegos. “There are many questions, and I need answers before I can approve these purchases.”

A meeting between Nickolaus and the district attorney's office is scheduled for May 29.
In a series of interviews this week, Gallegos said his investigators are like any other police officers and need to be well-equipped because they sometimes act on their own in remote areas without police backup.

He said his office has a use of force policy, but refused to turn over a copy to the Times-Standard, saying it's not public record.

The Eureka Police Department and the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department said their use of force policies are public record. The EPD immediately faxed over a copy.

The San Diego County district attorney's office also said its use of force policy is public record.
The weapons request came soon after chief investigator Mike Hislop moved over to the office from the Eureka Police Department earlier this year.

”I want my guys equipped just as much as the other officers,” Hislop said.

He gave a recent example of investigators accompanying an attorney to check out an old homicide scene in Weitchpec without any other police presence. DA investigator Tom Cooke, who this week assisted other agencies in a large marijuana bust on public lands where an AK-47 was found, said he was the only officer on the scene without a rifle.

Investigator Wayne Cox said he has accompanied witnesses, attorneys and victims to crime scenes in remote areas without other law enforcement.

”And backup is a long way away,” Cox said. “I don't want to get in a gunbattle with a pistol against someone with an AK-47.”
A small survey of other district attorney's offices in rural areas found rifles weren't unique, but other similarly sized offices were not armed to the degree Gallegos is proposing.

Dan Kartchner, chief investigator for the Shasta County district attorney's office, said there are three assault rifles available for his investigators to use on a check-out basis. The rifles have been used in fugitive pursuits and to patrol remote areas during natural disasters such as fires, Kartchner said

Ed Kanutsen, chief investigator with the Napa County district attorney's office, said his office does not have assault rifles but would buy them if he had the resources.

The request has come to the attention of other North Coast law enforcement officials.

”From my perspective, I'm a little puzzled by it,” said Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen. “But it's up to the district attorney to use his resources as he sees fit.”

Nielsen, who just moved to the area from a Sheriff's Department in Oregon, said when he worked with district attorney investigators in Oregon, they were more in a follow-up investigation role.

Gabe Harp, a senior consultant for Police Officer Standards and Training, said DA investigators do engage in special investigations and he noted there is a lack of backup in remote areas.

”Because of the types of investigations they might get, a little handgun can seem impotent at times,” Harp said.
As for the number of weapons requested, Hislop said each rifle's sights would be adjusted to an individual investigator who would have to qualify with their weapon at a range every three months.

”If they don't qualify, they don't get the rifle,” Hislop said.

Five of the eight investigators were police officers in local departments before coming to the district attorney's office.
Hislop added that if another agency requested assistance from his investigators, and they were able, they would respond and assist.

The $12,000 being used to purchase the weapons comes from the District Attorney Asset Forfeiture trust funds which Hislop said can only be used to purchase equipment.

The DA's office has two similar but older rifles. Investigator Mike Losey has been with the office for 10 years and said there were plenty of times he armed himself with one of the rifles during an investigation.

Hislop said he's scheduled to meet with Nickolaus to talk about the concerns.

”I have an answer to all her questions,” he said.

Staff Writer John Driscoll contributed to this story.

Chris Durant can be reached at 441-0506 or cdurant at times-standard.com.

Comments on TS site:

If they have 2 I don't think they need a further 8. It sounds like they do have use for some rifles, though maybe not AR-15s. Gallegos should stop being a weirdo and hand over their use of force policy.
Max | 05.19.07 - 5:27 am | # |

I am beginning to really dislike the arrogance of Gallegos. What next? I think all social workers should be heavily armed. You never know when they will have to clear out a room.
Bill the Chimp | 05.19.07 - 7:36 am | # |

With some in the community questioning the impartially of the D.A's Office investigating major police incidences and calling for the formation of a Citizen's Review Board, the intended acquision of AR-15 rifels by the D.A. Investigator's office under the guise of being ready to assist local agencies in drug raids and swat type situations does nothing to put those questions to rest. The D.A Investigators would do well to remember that they are an investigative unit...not Rambos
John | 05.19.07 - 8:54 am | # |

Is there something mentally wrong with this guy? Bribes, plagiarism, mismanagement, one failed prosecution after another, and now he wants his own assault team. Shouldn't we run the moron out of office BEFORE we pay a small fortune to arm him to the teeth?
anonymous | 05.19.07 - 9:14 am | # |

OH OH!! Don't sound good...........
D Jones | 05.19.07 - 9:30 am | # |

"Rambo"?___The "Terminator"? [What's the diff?]
DtB | 05.19.07 - 9:38 am | # |

Oh my ! Arming law enforcement officers ? The DA investigators are law enforcement officers by the way.
Has the Arcata syndrome infected everybody in Humboldt County ? Maybe we should get rid of all their guns & give them peace symbols instead.
Jim E | 05.19.07 - 9:57 am | # |

Did anyone check out some of the prices?

$1900 per rifle is pretty high for a AR-15, even with a red dot halo site and a couple of extra mags.

And the ammo cost must be a misprint, $198 would buy about 800-1000 rds, not a 20 rd box.
Anon12345 | 05.19.07 - 9:58 am | # |

No one questions whether DA investigators should have guns, Jim. Of course they have them, and this is proper. What they should not have is an in-house assault team commanded by a rogue cop who answers to an incompetent attorney. It's unnecessary, it's unprecedented and it's just plain wrong.
Ronald | 05.19.07 - 10:31 am | # |

Somebody needs to take a close look at the conflict-of-interest issues here. Loretta Nickolaus raised the question, and it needs to be answered. The second the DA's office begins to conduct its own raids and sweeps, it can no longer impartially investigate those incidents. More important, it can no longer operate with legal immunity for these voluntarily assumed duties, which opens the county up to enormous liability. If you think paying off Tammy Falor was expensive, wait until one of the DA's gun nuts shoots someone.
ReedJ | 05.19.07 - 10:38 am | # |

I wonder if anyone has told Paul's traditional SoHum supporters that he wants the weapons and other equipment to augment his asset forfeiture efforts. I would think that might make a few growers rethink their generous cash contributions to his next campaign.
Ronald | 05.19.07 - 10:41 am | # |

Regarding the comment by Bill The Chimp: "What next? I think all social workers should be heavily armed."

Have you ever stood in line or had to be at the local social services/welfare office? That is where all our tweakers and crackheads are! (Sorry to the few minority of people that REALLY are there for deserving reasons...). Anyways, I bet you ask a few social workers, they would agree with your meant to be sarcastic comment! That place gets petty freaky!

But back on the subject...Maybe those used-to-be-cops should have stayed cops and should accept their new job for what it is.....I think they should have a few rifles on hand, but stay out of the standoffs, that's what the police officers are for.
- | 05.19.07 - 10:52 am | # |

Seems to me that Hislop came over to the D A' S Office from gestapo minded epd (I hope the new chief and it sounds like he will change epd"s attitude they have towards the public)with no supervisory experience except car crashes.. Now lets see the smoker Gallegos hires him to be the chief investigator, which is supposed to be in charge of all investigations for the district attorney. Seems just like another "smoked uped" decision to hire hislop by Paul. Now hislop wants assault weapons. come on what are you two smokin. they do not need assault guns, After all how many arrest have they made in the past 25 years.
annon | 05.19.07 - 11:17 am | # |

The local media should be ashamed of itself for this tabloid atmosphere in which it shrouds every story. This is a non-story, and he will get his guns. You guys will have your story if they are ever used. Since when have the local papers turned into God, determining which law enforcement officers get to have what equipment?

The local news media is toxic.
Anonymous | 05.19.07 - 11:57 am | # |

Yes, while they are sworn officers with a badge and a gun, they have elected to leave the "streets" and step into an investigative unit. Most often crimes are investigated after they have occured. And we have police officers and deputies on the streets and in the courthouse to handle incidences as they arise. I'm assuming that they are qualified to do their job or they would not have been hired... big assumption I know. Therefore, there should be no reason for the DA investigators to "come to the rescue" of other officers who are trained, equipted and competent to do the job they signed up for. Ya know, for as long as I have lived here, EPD has had the reputation of being egotistical big fish in a small pond. Not that I believe all of them are, but in my opinion, these investigators helped EPD get that reputation in the first place and have not yet let go of it... their ego that is.
Tami | 05.19.07 - 12:08 pm | # |

Gotta love it folks! When the "right" crowd whacks out, the "left" crowd becomes suspicious of everything. Hehehe! Sound familiar?

Look at it this way... big guns are big guns. Bad guys have big guns too. So, there needs to be balance.

Arming DDA's with artillery is much less expensive then hiring a new police officer. More money left over for those all important social services that never end.

You all have more to gain by obeying the laws. It ain't a football game, don't ya know?
Mike | 05.19.07 - 12:26 pm | # |

Yea, Mike we all know life isn't a football game! However, everyone has a role to play.. ie: Police Officers for the city streets, Sheriff's Deputies for the county areas and the D.A Investigators for INVESTIGATIONS.. get it?
John | 05.19.07 - 12:33 pm | # | Report this comment for offensive material


Hey! I have another idea! Why not sponsor a fund raiser!

Raise money for the purchase of those assault weapons by selling arts and crafts and perhaps some of your dope behind the tent? Raffles are always a winner, too!

Door prizes... get out of jail "free" cards!

That'll work! Community involvement!
Mike | 05.19.07 - 12:37 pm | # |

Just a thought. The investigator is investigating a 2 strikes doper for meth production out in the middle of nowhere. Investigator is looking for sites, and runs across the doper. The Investigator has a 9mm pistol, the doper has an ak. The Investigater is now in trouble. Remember there are bad people, many have multiple felonies. With a Carbine the Investigator has a much better chance of survival.

Is it because the rifle in question is an AR 15 that some are upset? As for mutual aid, if a Ferndale cop is in trouble and calls for assistance, the theory seems to be that the DA's investigator can't respond. That's ****.
tj | 05.19.07 - 1:13 pm | # |

If a Ferndale cop needs help, the Sheriff's Office or Fortuna PD would respond.

The Hislop/Gallegos connection is troubling. Hislop replaced Jim Dawson. Dawson is Hislop's father-in-law. How is it that Dawson was allowed to handpick his unqualified son-in-law to replace him? Wasn't there a background investigation into Hislop's cloudy past?

Dig deeper folks. There's a rotten smell coming from the DA's Office and it started when Hislop got hired. Its going to get worse.

Ask questions about the EPD shootings and find out what role Hislop played in them and what role he'll have investigating them. Now there's a conflict, eh?
Annon | 05.19.07 - 1:47 pm | # |

Can either the Times-Standard or Eureka Reporter discuss these issues without such blatant animosity towards the DA? I have a feeling if you guys sniffed some sort of controversy over the DA's office NOT having enough AR-15's for the officers you would run with that story!
Anonymous | 05.19.07 - 1:49 pm | # |

HC - 'IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN'

Aug. 25, 2005
'IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN' A low-key victor after a huge win
Maxxam chief Hurwitz matter-of-fact after prevailing in court over government
By TOM FOWLER Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Steve Ueckert/Chronicle

Charles Hurwitz says his company was hampered by the government's legal case against it, which U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes called "arbitrary, dishonest, exploitative."

For a man who just won $72 million from the government, Charles Hurwitz hardly seemed to be in the throes of celebration Wednesday.

Rather, the Houston financier was low-key and matter-of-fact in discussing the decision by U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes to penalize the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for what the judge called an "arbitrary, dishonest, exploitative" lawsuit against Hurwitz.

"We never want the government to have another one of these lawsuits like this that lets them, just on a punitive basis, go after people without having a good background to do so," Hurwitz said. "It shouldn't happen."

Hurwitz and the companies he controls, Maxxam Corp. and Federated Development Corp., were accused by the FDIC in 1995 of furthering the $1.6 billion collapse of a Texas savings and loan in 1988. The suit, and another by a sister agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, were filed despite warnings by internal and external counsel that the cases would not hold up in court.

Both suits were later dismissed, with Hurwitz paying just $206,000 in one case.

He filed a countersuit against the FDIC claiming the legal battles were really an effort to force the company to give up thousands of acres of old-growth redwood forests in Northern California.

Hughes ruled in his favor last year and issued a lengthy and spirited opinion against the FDIC on Tuesday, ordering a $72 million payment to Hurwitz for legal costs and interest.

FDIC officials described Hughes' decision as "one of the most imaginative and colorful opinions in banking law that has ever been written," and said the agency plans to appeal.

Spokesman David Barr noted that the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned two decisions of Hughes' related to the case, namely his allowing the unsealing of two documents.

"We're confident that history will repeat itself," Barr said.

Hurwitz seemed to doubt if the FDIC would do so, however.

"I know that's what they're saying, but we'll see," Hurwitz said.

Maxxam is a holding company for a variety of businesses, ranging from lumber to high-end residential construction to horse and dog racing parks.

The company is a majority owner of bankrupt Kaiser Aluminum, and has been in other industries, including energy, sugar and one that made women's dress patterns.

Hurwitz is a majority owner of Maxxam.

Shares of Maxxam closed up $2.56 on Wednesday to $29.01.

Hurwitz said the decade-long case took its toll on him personally, saying it was " ... pretty heavy duty to be sued by the government for $1 billion."

Maxxam was also hampered by the legal actions.

"I think it's changed the way I thought about running a company for a while because we had this big $1 billion potential liability from the government," he said. "And that limits certain things one can do. We've been a lot quieter in the last few years than we were before."

Despite efforts to remain low-key, controversy seems to find Hurwitz companies.

Kaiser Aluminum has had labor strife as it struggled under the burdens of asbestos litigation.

And his Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage Hotel California was built in 1988 only after a fight with environmentalists and wealthy neighbors.

When Maxxam purchased Pacific Lumber in a leveraged buyout, Maxxam increased its tree harvest rate when it realized the company's holdings were much larger than original estimates.

Environmental groups accused the company of irresponsible practices and waged a bitter and personal war against Hurwitz. The Web site www.jailhurwitz.com was just one example of the intensity.

Hurwitz defended the company's operations, saying that after it sold a huge stand of old-growth forest to the state of California for preservation, it agreed to follow very tough environmental practices.

"We certainly would like for them to appreciate more of what we're doing," Hurwitz said of his opponents in Northern California. "We feel pretty good about the way we run our businesses. We're a long-term investor, and we've invested a lot of money in these companies. I think we've done well over the years."

The Rose Foundation pressures Maxxam, and look at the list of lawsuits... guess who is behind them...

Not fully cleaned up yet but - A very important piece of the puzzle
http://www.secinfo.com/d111wf.5w.htm
Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders · DEFC14A · Maxxam Inc · On 5/9/00

Filed On 5/9/00 · SEC File 1-03924 · Accession Number 1083040-0-26

5/09/00 Committee of Concer..Shareholders DEFC14A
1:29 Maxxam Inc
Definitive Proxy Solicitation Material -- Contested Solicitation · Schedule 14A
Filing Table of Contents
Document/Exhibit Description Pages Size
1: DEFC14A Definitive Proxy Solicitation Material -- 29± 95K
Contested Solicitation
Document Table of Contents
Page (sequential) | (alphabetic) Top
Alternative Formats (RTF, XML, et al.)

Reasons for Electing Independent Directors
Revocation Rights
Solicitation
Supporting Statement
Voting Rights
1 1st Page
4 Voting Rights
6 Reasons for Electing Independent Directors
9 Supporting Statement
14 Revocation Rights
" Solicitation
DEFC14A 1st "Page" of 18 TOC Top Previous Next Bottom Just 1st

SCHEDULE 14A INFORMATION

Proxy Statement Pursuant to Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Amendment No. )
Filed by the Registrant [ ]
Filed by a Party other than the Registrant [ x ]
Check the appropriate box:
[ ] Preliminary Proxy Statement
[ ] Confidential, for Use of the Commission Only (as permitted by Rule 14a-6(e)(2)
[ X ] Definitive Proxy Statement
[ ] Definitive Additional Materials
[ ] Soliciting Material Pursuant to (S) 240.14a-11(c) or (S)240.14a-12

MAXXAM INC.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
(Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

THE COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS
----------------------------------------------------------------
(Name of Person(s) Filing Proxy Statement,
if other than the Registrant)
Payment of Filing Fee (Check the appropriate box):
[ X ] No fee required
[ ] Fee computed on table below per Exchange Act Rules 14a-
6(I)(1) and 0-11.
(1) Title of each class of securities to which transaction
applies: ________________________________________________________
(2) Aggregate number of securities to which transaction applies: ________________________________________________________
(3) Per unit price or other underlying value of transaction computed pursuant to Exchange Act Rule 0-11 (Set forth the amount on which the filing fee is calculated and state how it was determined): ____________________________________________________
(4) Proposed maximum aggregate value of transaction:______
(5) Total fee paid:_______________________________________
[ ] Fee paid previously with preliminary materials.
[ ] Check box if any part of the fee is offset as provided by Exchange Act Rule 0-11(a)(2) and identify the filing for which the offsetting fee was paid previously. Identify the previous filing by registration statement number, or the Form or Schedule
and the date of its filing.
(1) Amount previously paid:_______________________________
(2) Form, Schedule or Registration Statement No.:_________
(3) Filing Party:_________________________________________
(4) Date Filed:___________________________________________
DEFC14A 2nd "Page" of 18 TOC 1st Previous Next Bottom Just 2nd
PROXY STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS IN CONNECTION WITH A SHAREHOLDER SOLICITATION REGARDING THE ELECTION OF TWO INDEPENDENT COMMON DIRECTORS AND THREE SHAREHOLDER PROPOSALS RECOMMENDING THAT MAXXAM INC.
(1) PERMIT CUMULATIVE VOTING IN THE ELECTION OF COMMON DIRECTORS,
(2) DECLASSIFY ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS SO THAT GENERAL DIRECTORS ARE ELECTED ANNUALLY AND
(3) PROVIDE THAT A MAJORITY OF ALL BOARD MEMBERS ARE INDEPENDENT OF MAXXAM MANAGEMENT

May 9, 2000

The Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders (the "Committee") furnishes this Proxy Statement in connection with the solicitation of proxies for use at the Annual Meeting (the "Annual Meeting") of shareholders of Maxxam Inc. ("Maxxam" or the "Company") to be held at 8:30 A.M. on Wednesday, May 24, 2000, at The Power Center, 12401 South Post Oak, Houston, Texas, or at any postponement or rescheduling thereof. Copies of the Proxy Statement and form of proxy are being mailed by the Committee to shareholders on or about May 9, 2000.

Members of the Committee are The Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment (the "Rose Foundation") and the United Steelworkers of America ("USWA"). They, along with Abner J. Mikva and Paul Simon, the independent candidates for Common Director, may be deemed participants in this solicitation, and they collectively hold 0.016% of the common stock and 0.008% of the common and preferred stock, aggregated together for voting purposes (see "Solicitation" and "Voting Rights" below).

DEFC14A 3rd "Page" of 18 TOC 1st Previous Next Bottom Just 3rd

Dear Fellow Maxxam Shareholder:

The Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders is seeking your support because the Committee believes that Maxxam is a company in trouble.

Maxxam reported net losses of $57.2 million in 1998. In 1999, Maxxam posted an operating loss of $51.5 million and would have shown an overall net loss for a second straight year, but for a one-time $239.8 million gain on the sale of Headwaters Timberlands, as well as a pre-tax $85 million gain on insurance proceeds collected following the 1999 explosion of an alumina production facility operated by Kaiser Aluminum Corp. ("Kaiser"), a Maxxam subsidiary.

Maxxam's stock price dropped 43% over the year ending March 31, 2000, during which period the S&P 500 index rose 16.5%. Over the past year Maxxam also underperformed its industry peers. This 43% decline compares unfavorably with a 56.9% increase in the S&P aluminum index, a 7.4% increase in the S&P paper and forest products index and a 6.7% percent decline in the S&L real estate investment trust ("REIT") index over the same period.

Poor performance has been a problem for more than the past year. The table below summarizes Maxxam's performance over the last one, two, three, four and five years, compared with the performance of the S&P 500; the S&P aluminum index (Kaiser
Aluminum Corp., Maxxam's 63%-owned subsidiary, accounted for 88 percent of revenues in 1999); the S&P paper and forest products index (Maxxam's forest products subsidiaries, Pacific Lumber Co. and Britt Lumber Co., accounted for eight percent of 1999 revenues); and the S&P REIT index (Maxxam's real estate operations accounted for 2% of 1999 revenues), which index began in 1997.
[Download Table]
MAXXAM SHARE PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO THE S&P 500 AND INDUSTRY PEERS
S&P Paper and S&P S&P Forest S&P 500 Aluminum Products REIT
Maxxam Index Index Index Index
1 Year Return -43.4% 16.5% 56.9% 7.4% -6.7%
2 Year Return -53.5% 36.0% 58.6% -1.7% -32.8%
3 Year Return -37.0% 97.9% 55.1% 21.5% -25.0%
4 Year Return -43.0% 129.2% 66.2% 19.5% n.a.
5 Year Return -1.3% 199.3% 122.7% 24.7% n.a.
Source: Bloomberg News Service. Notes: Data as of market close, March 31, 2000. Returns summary takes into account share/index price return, but does not include dividends issued to shareholders.

Thus, a $10,000 investment in Maxxam on March 31, 1995 would have been worth $9870 on March 31, 2000. A comparable investment (exclusive of dividends) in the S&P 500, the S&P aluminum index, and the S&P paper and forest products fund would have been worth $29,929, $22,272 and $12,470, respectively.

In two consecutive rankings, BUSINESS WEEK listed Maxxam
on its roster of "The Worst Boards of Directors" in America. In
its December 8, 1997 issue, Maxxam's board was voted the 10th
worst and called a "tiny board with little business experience
dominated by CEO" Charles Hurwitz. In its January 24, 2000 issue,
Maxxam's board was ranked the 12th worst and described as a
"small, cozy board dominated by CEO. Makes repeat showing on
worst list." FORTUNE magazine, in its April 17, 2000 issue
placed Maxxam on its list of the six worst boards, citing the
Company's "depressing performance" and poor corporate governance
practices. The magazine CORPORATE BOARD MEMBER (Autumn 1999)
named Maxxam's board one of five "Lollapa-losers." (Consent of
authors and publications not sought or obtained.)

The Committee believes that concentration of control in the
hands of Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz and a small number of
Maxxam's preferred stockholders may result in policies that
depress the value of common stock and threaten Maxxam's long-term
financial success. The Committee also believes that any
resolution of Maxxam's many problems will require the
participation of truly independent "Common Directors" -- those
directors elected solely by the

2

DEFC14A 4th "Page" of 18 TOC 1st Previous Next Bottom Just 4th


holders of Maxxam common stock who are committed to
representing the long-term interests of Maxxam common
stockholders and to increasing the value of Maxxam common stock.

To this end, the Committee proposes the following:

1. Electing Abner J. Mikva and Paul Simon, both independent
nominees, to serve on Maxxam's board as two of the three
directors chosen by the holders of common stock.

Abner J. Mikva is currently a visiting professor at the
College of Law at the University of Illinois. He was previously
Counsel to the President of the United States, Chief Judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit and a Member of Congress from Illinois.

Paul Simon is currently director of the Public Policy
Institute at Southern Illinois University and a professor of
public policy and journalism. He also serves on the board of
directors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and of Penn-America
Group, Inc. He served two terms as a United States Senator from
Illinois and was also the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois and a
Member of Congress from that State. He previously built a chain
of 13 newspapers in southern and central Illinois.

2. Adopting three shareholder proposals:

(a) a resolution requesting that the board of directors
provide for cumulative voting in the election of Common Directors
(the "Cumulative Voting Proposal");

(b) a resolution requesting that the board of directors
provide for the annual election of the "General Directors," i.e.,
those directors who are elected by the holders of Maxxam common
stock and preferred stock, voting together (the "Declassified
Board Proposal"); and

(c) a resolution requesting that the board of directors take
steps to provide that a majority of all board members shall be
independent of the Company (the "Independent Board Proposal").

The Committee urges all shareholders to attend the meeting
in person. If you are unable to attend in person and wish to
have your shares voted, please sign and date the enclosed BLUE
proxy card, and return it in the postpaid envelope as promptly as
possible. By returning the enclosed BLUE proxy card,
shareholders will be able to vote on the nomination of Abner J.
Mikva and Paul Simon to serve as two of the three Common
Directors, to be elected by the holders of common shares in lieu
of two of the three individuals nominated by the Company.
Shareholders will also be able to use the BLUE card to vote on
the Cumulative Voting Proposal, the Declassified Board Proposal,
and the Independent Board proposal.

PLEASE SIGN, DATE AND RETURN TODAY THE ENCLOSED BLUE
PROXY CARD TO:

COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS
c/o Ellen Philip Associates
P.O. Box 1997
New York, N.Y. 10117-0024

VOTING RIGHTS

The Company's board of directors has fixed the close of
business on March 31, 2000 as the record date for determining the
shareholders of the Company entitled to notice of and to vote at
the Annual Meeting and any adjournment thereof. Only holders of
record of the 6,913,951 shares of common stock (the "common
stock") and the 668.510 shares of Class A $.05 non-cumulative
participating convertible preferred stock (the "preferred stock")
are entitled to vote at the Annual Meeting. Each share of common
stock is entitled to one vote, and each share of preferred stock
is entitled to ten votes on such matters as may properly come
before the Annual Meeting or any adjournments thereof. The
holders of common stock, voting separately as a class, will also
be entitled to elect three Common Directors.

3

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PRIOR SOLICITATIONS BY CERTAIN COMMITTEE MEMBERS

In 1999, the Committee conducted an independent proxy
solicitation on behalf of Mr. Mikva and another candidate and in
favor of resolutions similar to the Cumulative Voting and
Declassified Board Proposals being offered this year. In
addition the Rose Foundation (a Committee member), along with
Jill Ratner, its president, and Thomas W. Little, its executive
director, were sponsors of a cumulative voting resolution similar
to the one submitted this year by the As You Sow Foundation and
John C. Harrington, who were also sponsors of that 1999
resolution. In 1998, Ms. Ratner and Mr. Little, along with the
California Public Employees Retirement System ("CalPERS"),
sponsored the Declassified Board Proposal that Brent Blackwelder
has submitted for consideration by the shareholders this year.
In 1997, Ms. Ratner, Mr. Little, and the As You Sow Foundation
conducted an independent proxy solicitation on behalf of two
other independent candidates for Common Director, as well as a
shareholder resolution asking the Company to sell or trade its
properties within the 60,000 acre Headwaters Forest area in
northern California to a government agency or conservation
organization for appropriate consideration.

ELECTION OF DIRECTORS (ITEM 1)

The Company's Restated Certificate of Incorporation
currently provides for three classes of directors having
staggered terms of office, with directors of each class to be
elected by the holders of the Company's common stock and
preferred stock, voting together as a single class, for terms of
three years and until their respective successors have been duly
elected and qualified. The Company's Restated Certificate of
Incorporation also provides that so long as any shares of the
preferred stock are outstanding, the holders of common stock,
voting as a class separately from the holders of any other class
or series of stock, shall be entitled to elect, for terms of one
year, at each annual meeting, the greater of (I) two directors,
or (ii) that number of directors (rounded up to the nearest whole
number) to be in office subsequent to such annual meeting.

The Company currently has two categories of director:
General Directors, who are elected by the holders of common stock
and preferred stock, voting together, and who are elected to
three year terms, and Common Directors, who are elected solely by
the holders of common stock to one year terms.

Until recently, the board of directors had five members,
consisting of three General Directors, one of whom is elected
each year to a three-year term, and two Common Directors, both of
whom are elected annually to one-year terms. In March 2000 the
Company increased the size of the board of directors from five
members to seven so that henceforth there will be four General
Directors and three Common Directors. All five incumbents remain
in office, and the Company has nominated one additional General
Director and one additional Common Director for election by the
shareholders. The shareholders are thus being asked this year to
elect two General Directors (one incumbent and one new nominee)
to serve until 2003, as well as three Common Directors (two
incumbents and one new nominee) to serve until 2001. As newly
configured, a majority of the board of directors will be elected
each year (three Common Directors plus one or two General
Directors).

The Committee's members have nominated Abner J. Mikva and
Paul Simon to serve on the board of directors of Maxxam Inc. as
two of the three Common Directors to be chosen by the holders of
common stock, because the Committee members believe that Maxxam
needs effective independent voices at this time. Messrs. Mikva
and Simon were also nominated by investment advisor Alan Russell
Kahn, although Mr. Kahn is not a participant in the present
solicitation within the meaning of Item 4 of Reg. 240.101
promulgated pursuant to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934,
as amended. Both nominees have consented to serve if elected.

The Committee believes that Messrs. Mikva and Simon would be
the type of independent, effective directors that Maxxam needs
now more than ever. Committee members have nominated them
because of their experience, judgment and integrity, as well as
their commitment to protecting shareholder interests and
increasing shareholder value, as we explain more fully in the
following section.

Abner J. Mikva has a broad range of experience as a lawyer,
an elected representative, a judge and a mediator. He served
five consecutive terms in the Illinois legislature and then
served as a Member of Congress from 1969 to 1973

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and again from 1975 until 1979, when he was appointed to be a
judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit. He served on that court until 1994, including
service as Chief Judge from 1991 to 1994. He then served as
Counsel to the President of the United States from October 1,
1994 until November 1, 1995. Judge Mikva, 74, is currently a
visiting professor at the College of Law of the University of
Illinois and a senior fellow at the Institute of Government and
Public Affairs at that University. He also engages in
arbitration and mediation with JAMS/Endispute, a national dispute
resolution firm. His address is 815 Van Buren Street, Suite 525
(MC-191), Chicago, Illinois 60607. He is beneficial owner of
50 shares of Maxxam common stock, purchased on March 17, 2000 and
held in street name.

Paul Simon served in the United States Senate from 1985 to
1997, where his committee assignments included the Budget and
Judiciary Committees. Prior to his election to the Senate, Mr.
Simon served ten years in the United States House of
Representatives, one term as Lieutenant Governor of the State of
Illinois and fourteen years in the Illinois legislature. Senator
Simon currently serves on the board of Penn-America Insurance and
also serves on the board of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He
has extensive experience in the publishing industry, where he
began his career as an editor and publisher and built a chain of
thirteen newspapers throughout southern and central Illinois
before selling the chain in 1966. Senator Simon, 71, is the
founder and director of the Public Policy Institute at Southern
Illinois University, and a professor of public policy and
journalism. His address is 1231 Lincoln Drive, Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901. He is the beneficial
owner of 100 shares of Maxxam, Inc. stock, purchased on March 20,
2000 and held in street name.

For the reasons stated more fully in the following section,
the Committee believes that Messrs. Mikva and Simon should be
chosen by the holders of common stock as our Common Directors in
lieu of any of the three nominees presented in the Company's
Proxy Statement for these three positions (Robert J. Cruikshank,
Stanley D. Rosenberg and Michael J. Rosenthal). The Company's
2000 Proxy Statement (incorporated herein by reference) sets
forth the names and ages of these nominees for Common Director
and of J. Kent Friedman and Ezra J. Levin, the board's nominees
for General Director, and describes the principal business
experience of each, as well as the year each first held Company
office and/or served as a director, the number of shares each
beneficially owns, and the percentage of outstanding shares owned
by each nominee. Information is also provided concerning the
committees of the board of directors.

REASONS FOR ELECTING INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS

The Committee believes that Judge Mikva and Senator Simon
offer precisely the kind of experience and judgment that holders
of Maxxam common stock need to enhance the value of their Maxxam
investment. Judge Mikva has a broad range of experience as a
lawyer, elected representative, judge and mediator, with
high-level service in all three branches of the federal
government. Senator Simon had a successful career in business
before devoting himself to public service, and he currently
serves on the board of directors of the Chicago Mercantile
Exchange and Penn-American Group, Inc., a company traded on the
New York Stock Exchange with its primary operations in insurance.
The Committee believes that this experience would be very helpful
at a company that has been surrounded by controversy for years on
various fronts.

The past year has seen the following events:

On July 5, 1999, an explosion destroyed much of Kaiser's
Gramercy, Louisiana alumina facility, injuring 29 workers and
leaving six severely injured, including one who is now blind.
The explosion covered workers in boiling lye and showered the
surrounding community with asbestos, lye and red mud. Kaiser had
been operating this plant and four other plants using replacement
workers after it decided to lock out 2900 workers represented by
the USWA in January 1999.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration
("MSHA") levied $533,000 in fines against Kaiser for 21 civil
violations, including operating the plant beyond its limits, lack
of worker training and "management's failure to identify
hazardous conditions and unsafe practices and to initiate actions
to correct these conditions and practices." The fine is the
largest ever assessed by MSHA for a non-fatal accident. THE WALL
STREET JOURNAL reported in March 2000 that MSHA has launched a
probe into whether the company should be charged with criminal
violations as a result of the

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explosion (permission of publication and author neither sought
nor obtained).

Owing to the extensive damage to the facility, Kaiser
expects production to remain completely curtailed until some
partial production begins in the third quarter of 2000. Full
production is not expected to resume until the first quarter of
2001 at the earliest.

Since Kaiser's labor dispute began, Kaiser's Mead plant in
Spokane, Washington has been fined $169,200 by the State of
Washington's Department of Ecology for violations of state air
emission and water quality laws.

Maxxam's Pacific Lumber subsidiary remains a focus of
controversy and litigation:

-- Three pending lawsuits claim that Company logging operations
have damaged neighboring property and property values; these
suits seek unspecified monetary damages, and ask the court
to enjoin certain future timber operations of the Company.

-- A wrongful death suit, filed in September, 1999, seeks
unspecified damages based on allegations that Pacific
Lumber's conduct and policies led to an incident in which an
employee killed a young man by felling a tree on top of him.

-- The Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection
Information Center ("EPIC")
have sued to block logging on a piece of Company property
that is surrounded
on three sides by the newly created Headwaters Reserve,
alleging the modifications in the plan
did not receive appropriate environmental review.

-- On March 31, 1999, EPIC and Sierra Club sued to stop
implementation of the
Pacific Lumber Sustained Yield Plan ("SYP"), the Company's
comprehensive plan for logging operations over the next
120 years, claiming that the plan
violates both California's Environmental Quality Act and
Endangered Species Act.

-- Also on March 31, 1999, Don Kegley and the United
Steelworkers of America filed a separate lawsuit challenging
the SYP on the grounds that it fails to provide for
sustained timber production and harvesting over time.
Additional information on this action is supplied below in
the "Solicitation" section of this proxy statement.

-- EPIC and Sierra Club have also filed a Notice of Intent to
Sue challenging the
Company's Habitat Conservation Plan, on the grounds that it
does not meet the requirements of the federal Endangered
Species Act.

No determination has been made at this time as to the merits
of any of these cases, and in each instance a final judgment will
be determined in a court of law.

The Committee also believes that electing these independent
candidates is important, given the Company's failure over the
past year to capitalize on the so-called "Headwaters Agreement."
Under this Agreement, into which the Company entered on March 3,
1999, Maxxam received an extraordinary payment of $380 million in
cash and property from the United States and the State of
California, as payment for the sale of 5,600 acres of forest land
owned by Pacific Lumber Company in northern California. But
despite Maxxam's recognition of a $239 million gain in the
Headwaters transaction, shareholders have seen relatively little
benefit from the Headwaters Agreement. The Company reported
significant operating losses and a relatively small amount of net
income, and, approximately one year after consummation of the
Headwaters Agreement, Maxxam stock price is where it was five
years ago.

Similar opportunities may come along in the near future.
The California legislature has authorized an expenditure of $79.7
million for additional Pacific Lumber properties in the
Headwaters area of northern California, and the legislature has
allocated an additional $20 million towards the purchase of even
more property. The Committee questions whether, based on the
experience to date, the board would use those resources to
maximize shareholder value.

Unfortunately, Maxxam's problems go back for more than just
the past year, and some long-standing issues that were unresolved
last year are still unresolved.

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Maxxam faces potential liabilities in two separate legal
proceedings based on the failure and subsequent $1.6 billion
bailout of United Savings Association of Texas, a savings and
loan association that Maxxam is alleged to have controlled.

Maxxam and Charles Hurwitz, the Company's Chief Executive
Officer and Chairman of the Board, are respondents in an action
brought by the Office of Thrift Supervision ("OTS"), an agency of
the United States Department of the Treasury, seeking
$821,000,000 in restitution. Maxxam has agreed to indemnify Mr.
Hurwitz and several other respondents in this action, which could
result in significant exposure for restitution and penalties.
That case is being litigated before an administrative law judge,
who is expected to rule later this year. No determination as to
the merits of this case has been made at this time, and a final
judgment will be determined in an appropriate administrative
proceeding (In the Matter of United Savings Association of
Texas).

In addition, Mr. Hurwitz is currently defending a
lawsuit brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
("FDIC"), which alleges that Mr. Hurwitz breached his fiduciary
duties in connection with United Savings Association of Texas, in
which both Maxxam and Mr. Hurwitz held substantial interests.
Among other things, the FDIC charges that Mr. Hurwitz engaged in
"a pattern of deceptive financial reporting and balance sheet
manipulation" (Complaint, FDIC v. Hurwitz, paragraph 16, filed
August 2, 1995 in the United States District Court for the
Southern District of Texas). The suit, which originally sought
damages in excess of $250,000,000, now seeks unspecified damages
relating to any amounts that OTS does not collect in the suit
described above from the Company or from Federated Development
Company, a New York business trust of which Mr. Hurwitz is
Chairman of the Board and CEO. According to Maxxam's filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, Maxxam may have to
indemnify Mr. Hurwitz for any or all restitution ordered or
penalties imposed in this action. No determination as to the
merits of this case has been made at this time, and a final
judgment will be made in a court of law. These suits and related
litigation have already been costly to the Company, which has
paid approximately $40,000,000 in litigation expenses, including
Mr. Hurwitz's expenses. (For an additional discussion of this
litigation, see "Solicitation" below.)

These are not isolated incidents, for allegations of
fiduciary lapses have surrounded Maxxam's CEO and Chairman, Mr.
Hurwitz, in other litigation as well. In April 1997 the Delaware
Court of Chancery ruled in a case brought by minority Maxxam
shareholders that Mr. Hurwitz had engaged in self-dealing in
connection with loans that were not found fair to the Company.
Following this finding of liability, the case was settled for
approximately $20 million, the plaintiffs having sought $27
million. In its April 1997 ruling for the shareholder plaintiffs
on liability issues, the Delaware Court found that the
defendants, including Mr. Hurwitz, had failed to show the
fairness of a 1987 loan that Maxxam made to Mr. Hurwitz's private
business trust. The Court also ruled that the defendants had
failed to demonstrate the fairness of a 1991 transaction in which
Mr. Hurwitz's trust sold to Maxxam the underlying collateral, and
Maxxam then forgave the loan (In re: Maxxam Inc./Federated
Development Shareholders Litigation).

There remains as well the fact that Maxxam's Kaiser Aluminum
Corp. subsidiary is embroiled in a serious labor dispute, the
longest in Kaiser's history. The Committee believes that this
dispute and the associated costs were avoidable.

On September 30, 1998, approximately 2900 workers
represented by the USWA, a participant in this solicitation, went
on strike at five plants operated by Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical
Corporation ("KACC"), which is wholly owned by Kaiser. The
strike began upon the expiration of the existing contract on that
date, with the USWA protesting what it viewed as unfair labor
practices by the Company, and with the parties unable to resolve
differences on various issues, including job security and
pensions. On October 14, 1998, the USWA filed an unfair labor
practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board
("NLRB"), alleging that KACC had violated its duty to bargain,
had bargained in bad faith, and discriminated against workers for
going on strike. On July 16, 1999 the Oakland Regional Office of
the General Counsel of the NLRB dismissed the above charge. On
September 23, 1999, the USWA appealed the Oakland Office's
dismissal to the General Counsel's Office of Appeals. On April
26, 2000 the NLRB General Counsel's Office of Appeals reversed
that dismissal in part and directed the Oakland Regional Office
to prepare a complaint charging KACC with violating the National
Labor Relations Act as a result of the lockout. A determination
by the NLRB that the lockout is unlawful could subject KACC to
potential gross back pay liability of as much as $3 million per
week from January 14, 1999. No adjudication of liability has
been made, and a final decision will be made by the NLRB, which
could be appealed to court.
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KACC continued to operate these plants since October 1,
1998 using replacement employees. On January 13, 1999, the USWA
made an unconditional offer to return to work. On January 14,
1999, KACC refused that offer, locked out its workforce at these
five plants, and chose to continue operating with replacement
employees. KACC has explained its refusal to accept the USWA
return-to-work offer on the ground that KACC is acting "in
support of its bargaining position," and KACC officials have
expressed concern that such a return to work would be under the
terms of the expired contract and that in the absence of a new
contract that contained a "no strike" agreement, KACC might be
susceptible to a strike. Kaiser Aluminum, which produced 88.4%
of Maxxam's 1999 revenues and accounted for approximately 71.5%
of its total assets as of December 31, 1999, reported a net loss
of $54.1 million for 1999 and a net loss of $38.9 million for the
4th quarter of 1998.

Negotiations regarding the labor dispute resumed in April
1999 and are still continuing. According to KACC, they have been
"constructive," and both parties "have agreed to continue meeting
on a regular basis to work toward a settlement," although no
collective bargaining agreement has been reached.

* * *

In the Committee's view, this history does not suggest that
Maxxam is a well-managed company whose affairs are overseen by a
capable, independent board of directors. The Committee believes
that the current problems justify the step of electing truly
independent directors, even if those candidates do not have the
current management's support. The Committee does not believe that
the current board of directors can be relied upon to exercise the
sort of effective oversight that is needed to adequately protect
the interests of Maxxam's holders of common stock.

The Committee notes too that in April 2000 the trustees
of the California Public Employees' Retirement System
("CalPERS"), which owns approximately 3.2% of Maxxam common
stock, announced that it voted to support the election of Judge
Mikva and Senator Simon to the Maxxam board. CalPERS is not a
member of the Committee and is not a participant in this
solicitation. In addition the New York State Common Retirement
Fund has endorsed Judge Mikva and Senator Simon; the Fund is not
a Committee member or a participant in this solicitation.

* * *

THE COMMITTEE THEREFORE ASKS THE HOLDERS OF MAXXAM COMMON STOCK
TO VOTE FOR ABNER J. MIKVA AND PAUL SIMON TO SERVE ON THE BOARD
OF DIRECTORS.

THE CUMULATIVE VOTING PROPOSAL (ITEM 2)

The Committee further urges that the shareholders of
Maxxam Inc. adopt the following resolution (which is accompanied
by the proponents' "Supporting Statement"), which is sponsored by
the As You Sow Foundation, a participant in this solicitation,
and John C. Harrington:

"RESOLVED: The shareholders request that the board of
directors take steps to provide for cumulative voting in the
election of those directors elected solely by holders of common
stock. Cumulative voting means that each holder of common stock
may cast as many votes as equal the number of shares held,
multiplied by the number of common directors to be elected. A
shareholder may cast all such cumulated votes for a single
candidate or split votes between multiple candidates."

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

Cumulative voting allows a significant group of stockholders
to elect a Director or Directors of its choice -- safeguarding
minority shareholder interests and bringing independent
perspectives to Board decisions.

In our view, cumulative voting for Maxxam's Common Directors
is needed because Maxxam's two-tier stock structure allows
preferred stock to outvote common stock ten to one. Maxxam's CEO
and affiliates control nearly all preferred stock and
approximately 37% of common stock, giving the CEO almost complete
control of Board elections and policy.

We believe that Maxxam suffers from excessive CEO control of
Board affairs. This year, Corporate Board

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Member magazine identified Maxxam's Board as one of the five
worst in America. We believe subsequent events demonstrate
increasing need for a minority shareholder voice on the Board.

Maxxam has shown operating losses for some time, with a 1998
net loss of $57.2 million, or $8.17 per share. We believe only
the recent consummation of the Headwater Agreement allowed the
company to report net profits in the first nine months of 1999.

This gain, moreover, may be short-lived. In 2000 the U.S.
Treasury Office of Thrift Supervision Director is expected to
issue an order on approximately $820 million in federal claims
against Maxxam, CEO Hurwitz and a Hurwitz business trust. Maxxam
is indemnifying Mr. Hurwitz in this case and has paid $40 million
in this and related litigation, including Mr. Hurwitz' expenses.

In our view, company operating practices continue to be
mired in needless controversy and expensive litigation.
Inability to secure regulatory approval for timber harvest plans
has adversely affected the company's forest products segment and
reduced net sales. Meanwhile, the Headwaters Agreements are
being challenged in court as allowing too much logging.

The Company's Kaiser Aluminum division remains troubled. An
expensive, and we believe avoidable, labor dispute began in
September 1998. Since then, Washington State fined Kaiser
$250,000 for air pollution violations. In July 1999 Kaiser's
Gramercy, Louisiana plant exploded, injuring employees and
showering caustic debris on the surrounding area. Numerous
property claims have been filed. The Gramercy plant remains
closed, with civil and/or criminal fines and penalties possible.
In light of these significant challenges facing the company, we
believe Maxxam's minority shareholders need cumulative voting to
protect their interests and give them a voice. Last year's
cumulative voting resolution received nearly 14% of the vote.

Safeguard your investment. Vote FOR cumulative voting.

* * *

The Committee notes that Maxxam's proxy materials term
"misleading" the statement in the proponents' Supporting
Statement that the Company has shown operating losses "for some
time." The Company states that it "has had operating income in
every year other than one since 1994." In response the Committee
would note that the Company suffered net losses in four out of
the seven years between 1992 and 1998 and would have shown an
overall net loss for 1999 but for the one-time $239.8 million
gain on sale of Headwaters Timberlands, as well as a pre-tax $85
million gain on insurance proceeds following the 1999 explosion
at a Kaiser plant in Louisiana, as discussed above.

THE COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS
RECOMMENDS A VOTE FOR THE CUMULATIVE VOTING PROPOSAL.

THE DECLASSIFIED BOARD PROPOSAL (ITEM 3)

The Committee further seeks your support for the following
proposal, which has been submitted by Brent Blackwelder and is
accompanied by the "Supporting Statement" submitted by Mr.
Blackwelder to Maxxam for inclusion in the Company's proxy
materials:

"RESOLVED: Maxxam, Inc. shareholders request that the Board
of Directors change the election of all directors who are elected
by the holders of common and preferred stock voting together
(General Directors), by providing that, at future Board
elections, such new directors be elected annually and not for
staggered terms. This declassification of General Directors
shall not affect the separate election of Common Directors as
provided in the Articles of Incorporation and shall be phased in
in a manner that does not affect the unexpired terms of Directors
previously elected."

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SUPPORTING STATEMENT

This proposal encourages the board to reorganize itself so
that each General Director would stand before the shareholders
for re-election annually. Currently, shareholders can only vote
on one-third of the board at any given time. We believe that
corporate governance procedures and practices, and the level of
accountability they impose, are closely related to financial
performance. In our view, when directors are accountable for
their actions yearly, they and the company perform better. We
believe that shareholders deserve a greater level of
accountability given Maxxam's disappointing financial
performance, and what we perceive as its poor stewardship of
critical natural and human resources. For example,

-- According to Institutional Shareholder Services,
"There is no dispute that [Maxxam's] performance has been
poor for many years relative to its peers." Seven out of
the ten S&P 1500 Paper & Forest Products Companies and
two-thirds of the S&P 1500 Aluminum companies outperformed
Maxxam in the five year period ending December 21, 1999.
Recently, Maxxam trailed the S&P 1500 Aluminum and Paper &
Forest Products Sector Scorecards for the one and two-year
periods ending December 21, 1999.

-- We believe that Maxxam's environmental, health and safety
practices continue to attract legal action and public
criticism, and contribute to lagging financial
performance. Maxxam's 1999 third quarter 10-Q mentions
four forestry-related
lawsuits, 96,000 pending asbestos claims, and 30 lawsuits
stemming from the explosion of Kaiser's Gramercy, Louisiana
alumina refinery.

-- We believe that Kaiser's troubled labor relations have
serious ramifications for its operating costs. Currently,
the Company buys discount power from Bonneville
Power Authority, which is reviewing its rates. Washington
Governor Locke has endorsed withholding power discounts
from companies with environmental, labor or
community problems. At full rates, power costs could
increase 50%, and could seriously reduce Kaiser's
competitiveness.

In light of such events, we believe that our Company's
leadership is in urgent need of greater accountability. Board
classification insulates its directors from immediate challenge.
We believe that requiring all directors to stand for election
every year is one of the best ways to hold the board and
individual directors accountable.

At the 1999 Maxxam annual meeting, approximately half of the
shares not owned or controlled by CEO Hurwitz and/or his
affiliates voted in support of annual election of the General
Directors. This year, we urge you to join us in VOTING TO
DECLASSIFY the terms of election, as a powerful tool for
management incentive and accountability.

* * *

The Committee notes that a classified board may prevent
the occurrence of certain transactions, including acquisitions,
that may be in the best interest of shareholders. Also, there is
no assurance that elimination of the staggered board would
produce greater management incentive or improve operating
results. Moreover, even if all directors were to be elected
annually, the Company has adopted pursuant to Delaware law an
anti-takeover "rights agreement" of the sort commonly known as a
"poison pill." Rights agreements seek to deter takeover attempts
by making them expensive to execute, thus inducing a would-be
acquirer to negotiate with the board.

THE COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS
RECOMMENDS A VOTE FOR THE DECLASSIFIED BOARD PROPOSAL.

THE INDEPENDENT BOARD PROPOSAL (ITEM 4)

The Committee further seeks your support for the following
proposal, which has been submitted by the Rose Foundation for
Communities and the Environment, a participant in this
solicitation, and Nell Minow. The resolution is accompanied by
the "Supporting Statement" submitted by the Rose Foundation and
Ms. Minow for inclusion in the Company's proxy materials:

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"RESOLVED: the shareholders request the board of directors
take steps to provide that a majority of all board members shall
be 'independent.'

"For purposes of this resolution, an independent director is
one who:
-- has not been employed by Maxxam or an affiliate in an
executive capacity for the past five years;
-- is not a member of a firm that is one of Maxxam's paid
advisors or consultants;
-- is not employed by a significant Maxxam customer or
supplier;
-- does not have personal services contracts with Maxxam or
an affiliate;
-- is not employed by a non-profit entity that receives
significant contributions from Maxxam;
-- is not a relative of an executive of Maxxam or an affiliate;
-- is not part of an interlocking directorate in which the CEO
or other executive officer of Maxxam serves on the board of
another corporation that employs that director; and
-- does not have any personal, financial and/or professional
relationships with the CEO or other executive officer that
could interfere with the exercise of independent judgment
by such director."

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

This proposal seeks to establish a level of independence
that we believe will permit clear and objective decision making
in the best long term interest of all shareholders. Two of
Maxxam's five directors are company insiders; a third has long
been associated with CEO Hurwitz as his attorney
and trustee of Hurwitz' personal business trust. Maxxam thus
falls far short of the level of independence proposed. In our
view, board dominance by insiders and people having other
significant management ties can raise questions about whether a
board is giving priority to management's interest at the
shareholders' expense. According to a committee of the Business
Roundtable, an association of leading corporate CEOs:

"Boards of Directors at large publicly held corporations
should be composed predominately of independent directors
who do not hold management responsibilities within the
corporation... In order to underscore their independence,
non-management directors should not be dependent on the
companies on whose boards they serve."

Maxxam's stock trails the S&P Aluminum and S&P Paper and Forest
Products Indices for one and two-year periods ending December 21,
1999. Maxxam lost $57,200,000 in 1998, reporting operating
losses of $56,900,000 in the first three quarters of 1999. The
company will likely avoid a net loss in 1999 only because of the
Headwaters sale. We believe an independent board could better
evaluate and deal with factors contributing to these losses,
which may include ongoing labor and environmental controversies.
An independent board is also important at this time, as an
administrative law judge is currently reviewing a suit brought by
the federal government seeking $820,000,000 from Maxxam and
Maxxam's CEO for the failure of a savings and loan Maxxam
allegedly controlled. We believe an independent board could best
consider how to deal with this serious matter, including
exploring settlement options that may be in the best interests of
all Maxxam shareholders. Please vote FOR this resolution.

* * *

The Committee recommends a vote FOR the Independent Director
Resolution. If anything, recent developments have underscored
the need for an independent board at this Company.

On January 24, 2000, Business Week Magazine, for the
second time in just over two years, identified Maxxam's board as
among the 25 worst in the nation, describing it as a "small, cozy
board, dominated by CEO." (Consent of publication not sought or
obtained) Maxxam's Board currently is composed of the following
individuals:
-- Mr. Charles E. Hurwitz is Chief Executive Officer and a
controlling shareholder of Maxxam.
-- Mr. Paul N. Schwartz, Maxxam's President, is also Chief
Financial Officer, and Chief Operating Officer of Maxxam.
-- Mr. Ezra G. Levin and his law firm acted as counsel for
various corporate enterprises associated with CEO Hurwitz for
more than 25 years, and Mr. Levin was trustee of CEO Hurwitz'
personal business trust from 1974 to 1995.
-- Mr. Stanley D. Rosenberg has been Mr. Hurwitz's business
associate and attorney for 25 years. Although

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Mr. Rosenberg has served on the Maxxam's board since 1981 he
recently stated under oath that he did not clearly understand the
ownership structure of Maxxam's two major subsidiaries, Pacific
Lumber Company and Kaiser Aluminum, although Kaiser's sales
constituted 88% of Maxxam's revenues in 1998 and 1999.

-- Mr. Robert J. Cruikshank, has served seven one year terms on
Maxxam's board, each time nominated by a committee without
independent members.

In March 2000, the Company proposed expanding the size of
the board to seven members and nominated the two following
individuals to serve in addition to the five incumbents named
above:
-- J. Kent Friedman, who has served as Maxxam's General Counsel
since December 1999 after previously serving as the Company's
outside counsel.
-- Michael J. Rosenthal, Chairman and President of M.J.
Rosenthal and Associates, Inc., an investment company.

We believe that adding the two new board members proposed by
the Company would not give the board the independence needed to
address Maxxam's financial problems and to overcome the legal and
regulatory challenges facing the Company.

VOTING PROCEDURES

The Company's proxy statement and proxy card include the
Cumulative Voting Proposal, the Declassified Board Proposal and
the Independent Board Proposal, but not the names of Abner J.
Mikva and Paul Simon, our nominees for Common Director.

Even if you have already returned a proxy to the Company
using the Company's proxy card, you can still cast your vote for
Judge Mikva or Senator Simon or both, and for any or all of the
three shareholder proposals described herein, by signing and
returning the enclosed BLUE proxy card. See the discussion in
"Revocation Rights" below.

The presence, in person or by proxy, of the holders of
shares of the Company's capital stock entitled to cast a majority
of the votes entitled to be cast at the Annual Meeting is
required to constitute a quorum for the transaction of business
at the Annual Meeting. Under applicable Delaware law,
abstentions and broker non-votes (i.e., shares held in street
name as to which the broker, bank or other nominee has no
discretionary power to vote on a particular matter, has received
no instructions from the persons entitled to vote such shares and
has appropriately advised the Company that it lacks voting
authority) are counted for purposes of determining the presence
or absence of a quorum for the transaction of business. A
plurality of the votes present, in person or by proxy, is
necessary for the election of directors. With regard to the
election of directors, votes may be cast in favor or withheld;
votes that are withheld or broker non-votes will be excluded
entirely from the vote and will have no effect on the outcome.
Abstentions may not be specified in the election of directors.

A stockholder may, with respect to each other matter
specified in the notice of the meeting, including the Cumulative
Voting Proposal, the Declassified Board Proposal and the
Independent Board Proposal, (I) vote "FOR," (ii) vote "AGAINST"
or (iii) "ABSTAIN" from voting. An affirmative vote of a
majority of the shares present in person or by proxy and entitled
to vote at the annual meeting is required for approval of the
other matters presented, including the Cumulative Voting
Proposal, the Declassified Board Proposal and the Independent
Board Proposal. Shares represented by proxies that are marked
"ABSTAIN" on such matters and proxies relating to broker non-
votes will be counted as shares present for purposes of
determining the presence of a quorum. Such shares, however, will
not be treated as shares voting and therefore will not affect the
outcome of the vote on matters such as the Cumulative Voting
Proposal, the Declassified Board Proposal and the Independent
Board Proposal. The Cumulative Voting Proposal, the Declassified
Board Proposal and the Independent Board Proposal are advisory in
nature and cannot be implemented without board approval.

Unless otherwise directed on the enclosed BLUE proxy card,
as more fully described below, the Committee will vote FOR Mr.
Mikva and FOR Mr. Simon to serve as two of the Common Directors
chosen by the holders of common stock (Item 1); we will also vote
FOR the Cumulative Voting Proposal (Item 2); FOR the Declassified
Board

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Proposal (Item 3) and FOR the Independent Board Proposal
(Item 4) described herein.

The accompanying BLUE Annual Meeting proxy card will be
voted at the Annual Meeting in accordance with your instructions
on the card. You may vote FOR the election of Mr. Mikva, Mr.
Simon, or both as Common Directors,

or you may withhold authority to vote for the election of Mr.
Mikva, Mr. Simon, or both by marking the proper box or boxes on
the BLUE Annual Meeting proxy card. It will not be possible to
vote on the election of J. Kent Friedman or Ezra J. Levin, who
have been nominated by the board of directors to serve as General
Directors to be chosen by holders of common stock and preferred
stock, voting together, by using the BLUE Annual Meeting card.
Nor will it be possible to use the BLUE Annual Meeting proxy card
to vote on the election of Robert J. Cruikshank, Stanley D.
Rosenberg or Michael J. Rosenthal, who have been nominated by the
board of directors to serve as Common Directors to be chosen by
holders of common stock. As required by SEC Regulation
240.14a-4(d)(iv), the Committee hereby states that there is no
assurance that the registrant's nominees will serve if elected
with any of the soliciting parties' nominees. However, we have
no reason to believe that they will not serve.

IF NO MARKING IS MADE, YOU WILL BE DEEMED TO HAVE GIVEN A
DIRECTION TO VOTE THE SHARES REPRESENTED BY THE BLUE PROXY CARD
FOR THE ELECTION OF MR. MIKVA AND MR. SIMON AS COMMON DIRECTORS
(ITEM 1), AS WELL AS FOR THE CUMULATIVE VOTING PROPOSAL (ITEM 2),
THE DECLASSIFIED BOARD PROPOSAL (ITEM 3) AND THE INDEPENDENT
BOARD PROPOSAL (ITEM 4), PROVIDED THAT YOU HAVE SIGNED AND DATED
THE PROXY CARD.

REVOCATION RIGHTS

You may revoke a proxy vote any time before the tally by (1)
executing a later proxy card, (2) appearing at the meeting to
vote, or (3) delivering to the proxy holder or to the Company's
secretary written notice of revocation prior to the date of the
meeting. The Company's secretary is Bernard L. Birkel, and
Maxxam's offices are located at 5847 San Felipe, Suite 2600,
Houston, Texas 77057, telephone (713) 975-7600, fax (713)
267-3702.

The Committee will keep the content of all cards it receives
confidential from everyone except those working directly with us
and our staff until the annual meeting, at which time our cards
must be presented to the company's tabulator in order to be
counted.

SOLICITATION

The participants in this solicitation are the Rose
Foundation, 6008 College Avenue, Suite 10, Oakland, California
94618; its President, Jill Ratner, who owns 90 shares of Maxxam
common stock as tenant in common with Rose Foundation Executive
Director Thomas W. Little; Rose Foundation staff, including Carla
Din and Karla James; the United Steelworkers of America, 5
Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222, which owns 1002
shares of Maxxam common stock (two shares purchased on December
14, 1998 and 1000 shares purchased on March 3, 1999); USWA staff,
including David Foster and Scott Adams; the Committee's two
nominees, Judge Mikva, who owns 50 shares (purchased on March 17,
2000), and Senator Simon, who owns 100 shares (purchased on March
20, 2000); As You Sow Foundation, which owns 100 shares purchased
in 1996, and Michael Passoff; and Dorset Management Corp., which
does not own any shares.

Proxies will be sought by mail, facsimile, telephone and
personal interview. The Rose Foundation and USWA will bear the
cost of this solicitation, expected to be $50,000, and to date
they have expended approximately $25,000. The Committee will not
seek reimbursement from the Company for the costs of the
solicitation.

The Rose Foundation has engaged in advocacy and public
education efforts seeking to preserve the Headwaters Forest area
in northern California, which is owned by Pacific Lumber Company,
a Maxxam subsidiary, and which contains several thousands of
acres of old-growth redwood trees. The Headwaters Forest area
encompasses slightly more than 50,000 acres of company property,
or roughly one quarter of the forest land currently owned by
Pacific Lumber. (This estimate is derived from Pacific Lumber's
statement in its 1998 Habitat Conservation Plan, prepared

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prior to consummation of the Headwaters Agreement, that it owns
61,000 acres in the Headwaters Forest area and excludes the 7400
Headwaters Forest Reserve now owned by the Federal Government
pursuant to that Agreement.) In March 1999, Maxxam, the United
States and the State of California reached final agreement on the
so-called "Headwaters Agreement," under which Maxxam received an
extraordinary payment of $380 million in cash and property

in return for the sale of 5600 acres of redwoods, including 3000
acres of old-growth redwoods. An additional 1984 acresc
will be acquired in the future, and a Habitat Conservation Plan
approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior establishes
conditions under which Pacific Lumber can log on 210,000 acres of
nearby land.

The Rose Foundation and its Headwaters Acquisition and
Restoration Trust have solicited contributions that would be used
towards purchasing areas of the Headwaters Forest that are not
acquired by the federal government or the State of California, in
the event that Maxxam should decide to make any such properties
available and should a willing buyer be found. To date, the Rose
Foundation and its Headwaters Acquisition and Restoration Trust
have received $5,679.37 in cash plus a $5 million pledge that
could be used for that purpose. The Rose Foundation does not plan
to acquire any such properties on its own behalf, nor is the Rose
Foundation acting on behalf of any potential buyer and would not
directly benefit from any such acquisition.

For several years, the Rose Foundation has advocated
settlement of pending claims in which the U.S. Treasury Office of
Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) are seeking approximately $820 million in
restitution, damages and penalties from the Company in connection
with the failure of United Savings Association of Texas ("USAT"),
a savings and loan in which the Company held a significant
interest and which the Office of Thrift Supervision alleges the
Company controlled. (see "Reasons for Electing Independent
Directors" above). The Rose Foundation has urged the company to
offer, and urged the federal agencies to accept, a settlement
built around approximately 10,000 to 20,000 acres in the
Headwaters Forest area on which logging is now significantly
restricted by agreements between the Company and state and
federal regulatory agencies. In an effort to enhance FDIC's and
OTS's willingness to consider this kind of settlement, which the
Rose Foundation believes to be in the best interest of the
Company, the Rose Foundation is currently seeking Congressional
enactment of legislation which would clearly authorize FDIC to
transfer such property to a sister federal agency if the parties
were able to agree upon a property settlement of this kind.

In 1993, four years after the FDIC gave notice of its
belief that it had a claim growing out of the 1988 USAT collapse,
and after the media had reported a proposal to have the FDIC
accept certain Pacific Lumber forest lands in the Headwaters
Forest area to resolve potential FDIC claims related to USAT, the
Rose Foundation undertook an analysis of such a "debt for nature"
swap to resolve the potential FDIC claims. In 1994 the Rose
Foundation shared its written and oral analysis with the FDIC and
urged the FDIC to seek in litigation the transfer of certain
property in the Headwaters Forest area to resolve USAT-related
claims. The Rose Foundation also encouraged others to write the
FDIC urging similar action. The FDIC filed its pending action
against Mr. Hurwitz in August 1995.

In October 1994 OTS began its own investigation of the
USAT failure and filed the currently pending action against
Maxxam, Mr. Hurwitz and others in December 1995. At various
times in 1995 the Rose Foundation, in written and oral
communications with federal officials, urged exploration of a
global settlement of FDIC claims and any potential OTS claims
involving a Headwaters Forest property transfer. The Rose
Foundation did not contact the OTS directly until after the OTS
case had been filed in December 1995. It is possible that the
Rose Foundation's advocacy of a proposed property transfer to
resolve USAT-related claims may have contributed to either or
both of the FDIC and OTS actions being brought against
Maxxam and/or Mr. Hurwitz.

In September 1996, before any agreement on the
Headwaters Forest area had been reached, and at a time when
Pacific Lumber had announced plans to log old-growth forest lands
in the Headwaters area, the Rose Foundation urged the U.S. Office
of Thrift Supervision to issue a temporary cease-and-desist order
in OTS's pending case against Maxxam, Mr. Hurwitz and others (see
"Reasons for Electing Independent Directors" above). The Rose
Foundation recommended this action as a way to prevent these
assets from being liquidated, a step that would have reduced the
value of those properties to conservation-oriented buyers,
including government agencies. OTS did not seek such an order.
Had such an order been imposed, it could have had a materially
adverse impact on the Company, in that all significant Company
financial transactions and any liquidation of significant assets
would have required approval of a court or monitor. Later that
month, Maxxam, the United States and the State of California
announced an agreement in principle on the Headwa-

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ters area, which was finalized as the Headwaters Agreement in
March 1999. The Rose Foundation did not renew its proposal for a
cease-and-desist order after the September 1996 agreement. In
addition, Jill Ratner, the Rose Foundation's President, provided
legal advice to Robert Martel, the "relator" or plaintiff in a
False Claims Act suit naming Maxxam as a defendant which was
dismissed as frivolous, with attorneys' fees assessed against Mr.
Martel, based on the Court's determination that Mr. Martel lacked
standing as a False Claims Act relator, although Ms. Ratner did
not appear as an attorney in that or any other litigation adverse
to the Company.

In June 1995 the Rose Foundation contacted the United
States Fish and Wildlife Service expressing concerns about the
possible impacts of logging operations in the Blanton Creek and
Yager Creek watersheds on Company property in the Headwaters
Forest area and encouraging the Service to ensure that Pacific
Lumber Co. complies with federal and state laws protecting
endangered species. The Rose Foundation testified at public
hearings on the scope and preparation of environmental
documentation required under the National Environmental Policy
Act, the Endangered Species Act and state environmental statutes
in connection with the Headwaters sale, encouraging relevant
agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife Service, to consider
the comparative impacts of a variety of forest management
approaches, and encouraging relevant agencies to require
documentation of the infeasibility of rejected environmentally
preferable alternatives. In addition, at several points starting
in 1995 the Rose Foundation wrote letters to the Service in an
effort to seek support for settlement of USAT-related claims in a
way that preserves old-growth timber in the Headwaters Forest
area.

The USWA is a collective-bargaining representative of
employees at, inter alia, steel and aluminum mills located
throughout the United States, including employees of Kaiser
Aluminum & Chemical Corporation ("KACC"), which is wholly owned
by Kaiser Aluminum Corporation, 63 percent of whose outstanding
common stock is owned by Maxxam. The USWA is currently involved
in a labor dispute with KACC involving five of its plants: the
Trentwood Plant in Spokane, Washington; the Mead Plant in
Spokane, Washington; the Gramercy Plant in Gramercy, Louisiana;
the Newark Plant in Newark, Ohio; and the Tacoma Plant in Tacoma,
Washington, where 2900 USWA members were locked out by management
in January 1999. The details of that dispute are described more
fully above ("Reasons for Electing Independent Directors").

Independently of this matter, the USWA and one of its
members filed a complaint in California state court on March 31,
1999 against the California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection, challenging one aspect of the Headwaters Agreement,
which was described earlier in this section. In particular, the
USWA suit seeks to prohibit the CDF from approving any Timber
Harvesting Plan that relies in any manner upon a Sustained Yield
Plan (the "Plan") that was proposed by Pacific Lumber Co. and its
subsidiaries, Scotia Pacific Lumber LLC and Salmon Creek
Corporation, and approved by CDF on March 1, 1999 as part of the
Headwaters Agreement. Specifically, the complaint alleges that
the approved Plan authorizes an unsustainable high harvest of
timber in the short term, without consideration of the long-term
impact of such harvest levels on the economic vitality and
employment in the region. The complaint alleges that this result
violates California state law, which is said to require "maximum
sustained production of high-quality timber products while giving
consideration to regional economic vitality and employment at
planned harvest levels during the planning process." No final
determination has been made about the allegations in this suit.

The USWA has identified Pepsi Bottling Group, Anheuser
Busch, Boeing and Daws Better Built in consumer alert initiatives
designed to dissuade the above companies from purchasing Kaiser
metal. Pepsi and Anheuser Busch have ceased purchasing Kaiser
metal.

The USWA supports passage of the Extended Unemployment
Benefits Bill in the state of Washington that would provide a 30
week extension of unemployment coverage to workers who have been
locked out of their jobs in that state. Under the bill passed by
the State Senate, a company locking out workers would pay the
cost of benefits.

The Bonneville Power Administration ("BPA") is considering
whether to implement a "Good Corporate Citizen Clause" when
awarding subscription power sale contracts to direct service
industries ("DSI"). The USWA supports the implementation of the
clause, as have public officials, including Washington Governor
Gary Locke. Kaiser operates aluminum smelters and has benefitted
from discounted power from the BPA as a DSI. To qualify for
below-market power, the clause would require DSIs to observe
basic standards of conduct as embodied in federal, state and
local laws,

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regulations, and orders. Kaiser might not qualify for discounted
power if the BPA should adopt this measure.

RECORD DATE/SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF DIRECTORS AND EXECUTIVE
OFFICERS/EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION/ELECTION OF DIRECTORS

Information on these subjects appears in the Company's proxy
statement.

SHAREHOLDER PROPOSALS FOR 2001 MEETING

Proposals that shareholders intend to present at the
2001 annual meeting of stockholders (other than those submitted
for inclusion in the Company's proxy material pursuant to Rule
14a-8 of the Proxy Rules of the SEC) must be received by the
Company no later than January 1, 2001 to be presented at the
meeting. Proposals from shareholders owning over $2,000 in stock
for over one year that are submitted under Rule 14a-8 for
inclusion in the Company's proxy materials must be received by
the Company by January 1, 2001. Any such stockholder proposals
must be sent to the Company's Secretary at its executive offices
at 5847 San Felipe, Suite 2600, Houston, Texas 77057.

PLEASE VOTE FOR ABNER J. MIKVA AND PAUL SIMON AND FOR THE
CUMULATIVE VOTING PROPOSAL, THE DECLASSIFIED BOARD PROPOSAL, AND
THE INDEPENDENT BOARD PROPOSAL.

Sincerely,

The Committee of Concerned
Maxxam Shareholders

For additional Information Please Call
Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders
Scott Adams
Toll Free (877) 634-6546
or
Collect (510) 655-8248

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MAXXAM INC.
2000 ANNUAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS
THIS PROXY IS SOLICITED BY
THE COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS

The undersigned shareholder of Maxxam Inc. hereby appoints
each of Scott Adams and Jill Ratner, with full power of
substitution, for and in the name below, all shares of common
stock of Maxxam Inc. that the undersigned is entitled to vote if
personally present at the 2000 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of
Maxxam Inc., to be held on May 24, 2000 at The Power Center,
12401 South Post Oak, Houston, Texas at 8:30 A.M. (local time) or
at any adjournment, postponement or rescheduling thereof. The
undersigned hereby revokes any previous proxies with respect to
the matters covered by this Proxy.

THE COMMITTEE OF CONCERNED MAXXAM SHAREHOLDERS RECOMMENDS A
VOTE
FOR ABNER J. MIKVA AND PAUL SIMON (ITEM 1), FOR ITEM 2 (THE
CUMULATIVE VOTING PROPOSAL), FOR ITEM 3 (THE DECLASSIFIED BOARD
PROPOSAL) AND FOR ITEM 4 (THE INDEPENDENT BOARD PROPOSAL).

Item 1: Election of Directors
The Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders intend
to use this proxy to vote for Abner J. Mikva and Paul
Simon, whom they have nominated to serve as two of the
Directors to be elected by holders of shares of
common stock (the "Common Directors"). By using this
card, you will not be able to vote for any of the
the Company's three nominees for Common Director
(Robert J. Cruikshank, Stanley D. Rosenberg and
Michael J. Rosenthal), or on the election of J. Kent
Friedman and Ezra J. Levin, the Company's two nominees
to be elected by holders of the common and preferred
stock, voting together. You should refer to the proxy
statement and form of proxy distributed by the Company
for the background, qualifications and other
information concerning the Company's nominees.

Item 2: To act upon a stockholder proposal, if presented at
the meeting, by As You Sow Foundation and John
Harrington requesting that the board of directors take
steps to provide for cumulative voting in the election
of those directors elected by holders of common stock.

Item 3: To act upon a stockholder proposal, if presented at
the meeting, by Brent Blackwelder, President of
Friends of the Earth, requesting that the board of
directors take steps to declassify the board and to
provide for the annual election of all General
Directors elected by the holders of common and
preferred stock voting together.

Item 4: To act upon a stockholder proposal, if presented at
the meeting, by the Rose Foundation for Communities
and the Environment and Nell Minow, requesting that
the board of directors take steps to provide that a
majority of all board members shall be "independent."

/x/ PLEASE MARK VOTES AS IN THIS EXAMPLE

The Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders recommends a vote
FOR Abner J. Mikva and Paul Simon on Item 1, FOR Item 2, FOR Item
3 and FOR Item 4.

1. Election of Directors

Abner J. Mikva (for term expiring in 2001)
Paul Simon (for term expiring in 2001)
/ / For / / Withhold / / For both except

_______________________________________________
For both nominees except as noted above

2. Proposed resolution submitted by As You Sow Foundation
and John Harrington, requesting that the board of directors take
steps to provide for cumulative voting in the election of those
directors elected by holders of common stock.

For / / Against/ / Abstain / /

3. Proposed resolution submitted by Brent Blackwelder,
President of Friends of the Earth, requesting that the board of
directors take steps to declassify the board and to provide for
the annual election of all General Directors elected by the
holders of common and preferred stock voting together.

For / / Against/ / Abstain / /

4. Proposed resolution submitted by the Rose Foundation for
Communities and the Environment and Nell Minow requesting that
the board of directors take steps to provide that a majority of
all board members shall be "independent."

For / / Against / / Abstain / /

WHERE NO VOTING INSTRUCTIONS ARE GIVEN, THE SHARES REPRESENTED BY
THIS PROXY WILL BE VOTED FOR ABNER J. MIKVA AND PAUL SIMON ON
ITEM 1, FOR ITEM 2, FOR ITEM 3 AND FOR ITEM 4.

IN THEIR DISCRETION THE PROXIES ARE AUTHORIZED TO VOTE UPON SUCH
OTHER BUSINESS AS MAY PROPERLY COME BEFORE THE MEETING OR ANY
ADJOURNMENT, POSTPONEMENT OR RESCHEDULING THEREOF, HEREBY
REVOKING ANY PROXY OR PROXIES HERETOFORE GIVEN BY THE
UNDERSIGNED.

This Proxy, when properly executed, will be voted in the manner
marked herein by the undersigned shareholder. Securities and
Exchange Commission reg. 240.14a-4(d)(iv) requires the following
statement on this card: There is no assurance that the
registrant's nominees will serve if elected with any of the
soliciting party's nominees.

(place mailing label here)

Please date and sign this proxy exactly as your name appears
hereon:

Dated:________________________, 2000

____________________________ _______________________________
(Signature) (Signature, if held jointly)

_______________________________
(Title)

When shares are held by joint tenants, both should sign. When
signing as attorney-in-fact, executor, administrator, trustee,
guardian, corporate officer or partner, please give full title as
such. If a corporation, please sign in corporate name by
President or other authorized officer. If a partnership, please
sign in partnership name by authorized person.

To vote in accordance with the recommendation of The Committee of
Concerned Maxxam Shareholders, just sign and date this proxy. No
boxes need to be checked.

PLEASE MARK, SIGN, DATE AND RETURN THIS PROXY CARD PROMPTLY IN
THE ENCLOSED ENVELOPE PROVIDED.


Dates Referenced Herein and Documents Incorporated By Reference

Referenced-On Page
This DEFC14A Filing Date First Last Other Filings

10/1/94 6
3/31/95 3 10-Q
8/2/95 8
11/1/95 6
12/8/97 3
9/30/98 8 10-Q
10/1/98 9
10/14/98 8
12/14/98 14
1/13/99 9
1/14/99 8 9
3/1/99 16
3/3/99 7 14
3/31/99 7 16 8-K, 10-Q, 10-K405
7/5/99 6
7/16/99 8
9/23/99 8
12/21/99 11 12
12/31/99 9 10-K405
1/24/00 3 12
3/17/00 6 14
3/20/00 6 14
3/31/00 3 4 10-Q
4/17/00 3
4/26/00 8 PRRN14A
Filed On / Filed As Of 5/9/00 2 DFAN14A, DEFA14A
5/24/00 2 18
1/1/01 17

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SB - Seeds of Change (5/5)

Seeds of Change

Solutions sprouting from grass-roots efforts
(Fifth of five parts)

By Tom Knudson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 26, 2001)

Change is knocking on the door of America's environmental movement. Change is remodeling it from within.

From the outside, the pressure is coming from ranchers, corporate executives, small-town merchants, educators, schoolkids and other ordinary people embracing a home-grown style of environmentalism that is quietly saving species, restoring forests and grasslands, and preserving open space.

From the inside, it is coming from a broad spectrum of environmentalists -- chief executive officers, fund-raising specialists, state directors, program officers, lawyers and others -- struggling to bring more science, entrepreneurial skill, accountability, teamwork and results to a movement they say has grown self-righteous, inefficient, chaotic and shrill.

"Haphazard conservation is worse than haphazard development. We've had haphazard conservation for 30 years," said Patrick Noonan, chairman of The Conservation Fund, a Virginia group that provides financial and technical support to small environmental organizations.

Yet this new brand of stewardship remains more seed than storm, lacking the clamor and conflict that often accompany environmental news. Its disciples do not view the world darkly. Their habitat is one of hope, not hype.

"We've effectively sold the idea that the world is screwed up," said Dan Taylor, executive director of the National Audubon Society's California chapter. "What people are looking for now are some durable solutions on how to make it better."

Just as consumer taste shapes the corporate landscape, so, too, is hunger for a new kind of environmentalism changing the conservation world. The number of environmental groups is booming -- up from a few hundred in 1970 to more than 8,000 today. And most are sprouting not in traditional power centers -- such as Washington, D.C., or San Francisco -- but in other cities, small towns and rural areas.

The grass-roots nature of the change can be read in the names of the organizations themselves: the Malpai Borderlands Group in Douglas, Ariz.; the Henry's Fork Foundation in Ashton, Idaho; the Great Valley Center in Modesto; the Applegate Partnership in Oregon.

"People now realize they can organize themselves," said Noonan. "They can band together in their community to save that river, field, mountain or whatever. It's America at its best."

Behavioral patterns are shifting, too. No longer is influencing public policy so lofty a goal. Today, some groups focus on a more tangible prize: buying, protecting and restoring land. And no longer do all groups simply say no to economic development; today, a few are learning how to make commerce and conservation walk side by side.

Change is leafing out at the national level, as well, where five of the country's 10 largest groups focus not on advocacy but buying and protecting land -- up from just one 30 years ago. Those groups -- The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Ducks Unlimited, the Trust for Public Land and the Conservation Fund -- have another common denominator: They are among the fastest-growing environmental groups in America.

Two of the 10 biggest groups, and many smaller ones, prosper without junk mail or telemarketing. Five are wealthy enough to compete with corporations for land. Two have their own scientific research institutes. At least two take in significant sums of money -- $4 million a year or more -- from corporations, including oil, timber and mining companies.

Like experimentation on the dot-com frontier, such activity is bringing a burst of creativity to the conservation community, spawning start-ups and spinoffs that bear little resemblance to conventional environmental groups.

Look closely at this landscape and you see organizations with no members, no lawyers, even no payrolls. You also see conservation efforts sprouting in unlikely places -- including an Appalachian farm supply store, a commercial fishing fleet in Mexico, a fast-growing Florida suburb and cattle ranches in California and Arizona.

"You have to manage with people in mind nowadays ... You can't turn the land back to what it was in 1840," said Warner Glenn, a southeast Arizona rancher. Glenn is working with The Nature Conservancy, university scientists and others to keep grasslands healthy for rural families and for wildlife.

Priorities are beginning to change, too. No longer is the designation of parks and wilderness areas as dominant a theme. Today, some are focusing on the restoration of worked-over land, public and private alike, an approach many scientists say can produce greater benefit for the natural world. Some are taking conservation to the inner city, creating parks and cleaning up toxic sites in neighborhoods overlooked by mainstream groups.

And no longer is it enough simply to point out problems. Today, people inside the environmental movement and outside are picking up shovels, planting trees, healing wetlands, tearing out parking lots, working with government and industry -- and solving problems themselves.

This new environmental frontier has no road map, no catalog of places saved or species protected. But plenty of people know it well. One is Bill Kittrell, director of the Clinch Valley program for The Nature Conservancy in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia.

Closer to Nashville than Washington, southwest Virginia seems an odd place for a branch office of the nation's largest environmental group. The countryside -- thickly forested with hickory, walnut and other hardwoods -- is picturesque. But, speckled with small towns and abandoned coal mines, it is no pristine wilderness. Eighty-nine percent of the area is private land.

Yet for the Conservancy, which focuses on protecting rare and endangered species, this quiet corner of Appalachia is more important than a national park. One morning not long ago, Kittrell was waist-deep in the Clinch River, trying to illustrate why.

He sloshed this way and that, using a large viewing scope to peer into the water. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. A few moments later, one of his colleagues -- biologist Braven Beaty -- reached into the river and scooped what looked like a small yellow-brown stone off the bottom.

"Here we go!" Beaty said. "This is a fine-rayed pigtoe mussel. This is a federally endangered species."

Held in the sun, the mussel gleamed. And Kittrell beamed. "This is what we call a G-1 species," he said. "That means there are fewer than five population groups worldwide. The loss of any one population is a threat to the entire species."

All told, southwest Virginia's rivers and creeks are home to 48 rare and endangered mussels and fish, the highest number of imperiled species in any ecosystem in the United States, outside Hawaii. That concentration of rarity -- and a determination to remedy it -- was what drew the Conservancy to southwest Virginia.

"Most environmentalists, they always want more," the Conservancy's former President John Sawhill told The Bee before his death last year. "We wanted to know, 'How much is enough? What do we really need to do to conserve biological diversity in the U.S.? How will we measure success?' "

"So we came up with the idea of creating what we call a conservation blueprint: a map showing all the sites nationwide that need to be protected in order to accomplish our mission," Sawhill said. On that map, a handful of areas glow red and orange -- color codes for extreme biological danger. They are southwest Virginia, Hawaii and parts of California, Nevada and Florida.

"Now we know where we're headed and what we're trying to accomplish," Sawhill said.

The Conservancy also works closely with local residents, including Buddy Thomas, owner of the Castlewood Farm Supply & Garden Center and president of the chamber of commerce in Russell County, Va.

"I've heard it so many times from these farmers: 'What importance are these little mussels?' " Thomas said. "When I tell them those mussels are God's little filters to clean the water, they look at it a whole different way."

"I got a 2-year-old girl," Thomas continued. "You know what my favorite thing in the world is to do? It is to get my fishing rod and my kid and play in that creek. Everybody loves the creek. I can't find many people who want to see it hurt."

Thomas even formed his own conservation start-up -- the all-volunteer Copper Creek Watershed Citizens' Awareness Group -- to bring farmers, environmentalists and others together to solve problems.

"We'll get a lot further doing things together than by butting heads, making threats and telling people they can't do things," he said. "You tell people around here they can't do something, they'll do it or die."

A similar approach is unfolding outside the United States, where Conservation International, the youngest of the nation's major environmental groups, concentrates on a handful of the planet's richest biological zones, from the Congo Basin in Africa to Mexico's Gulf of California.

On turquoise water under a sweltering sun, Conservation International scientist Juan Garcia is putting a new strategy to work to save a wide variety of marine life in the gulf. He is working with the very people who are exploiting the gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez.

Garcia labors alongside fishermen, trying to make shrimp trawling, one of the world's most wasteful fishing technologies, less destructive. Dragged behind large boats, trawl nets snare everything in their path, including sea horses, marine turtles and silvery schools of fish too small to eat.

In the Sea of Cortez, trawl nets capture up to 9 pounds of unwanted species for every pound of shrimp, one of the highest ratios anywhere.

"We are working with six or seven vessels," Garcia said. "They are very enthusiastic about trying to find a solution."

Such community-driven conservation efforts are the brainchild of Conservation International's founder and chairman, Peter Seligmann, who believes the secret to environmental success in other countries is to "make sure everybody understands conservation is in their self-interest."

Seligmann is applying conservation to internal matters, too. A few years back, he abandoned junk-mail fund raising in favor of personal solicitations to major donors. The result: more accountability for donor dollars.

"If you have a million people giving you $25, nobody has the leverage to say -- 'OK, how did you spend my money?' -- because they don't care. It's just 25 bucks," he said. "But when somebody gives you $1,000, they have the right to know, and you have the obligation to inform them, how you spend their money.

"The other problem with direct mail is it requires exaggeration," Seligmann said. "You don't build effective long-term conservation programs based on exaggeration."

Even some groups that continue to raise money though the mail are doing it differently: They refuse to cry wolf.

"We very rarely say, 'The world is coming to an end, send $25,' " said Taylor, the Audubon Society leader. "What we do say is, 'Send us money so we can buy this area, restore that area.' That approach has performed nicely."

In Tucson, the Sonoran Institute takes matters a step further -- it doesn't have a membership at all.

"A membership is very expensive," said Luther Propst, executive director of the organization, which protects open space across the western United States, Canada and Mexico. Instead, it raises money from foundations.

A membership "will also influence your decision-making, often in ways that take you away from science and what your field people tell you. You are tempted to oversimplify. We find that foundation officers appreciate it when you are honest."

Frustrated with junk mail, even Greenpeace is trying alternatives, including something called "direct dialogue" in which volunteers stand on street corners and ask for donations.

But instead of seeking a one-time contribution of cash, the Greenpeace volunteers are asking for a monthly credit-card or checking-account deposit, thus eliminating junk mail and cutting fund-raising costs. That approach is popular in Europe but relatively new in the United States.

"Our argument to donors is, 'This (direct deposit) is how you can really help us,' " said John Passacantando, Greenpeace's executive director. "We're spending too much money to get your money."

Some environmentalists are even taking a fresh look at the movement's most potent weapon: the law. "The law prohibits bad things; it doesn't encourage good things," said Michael Bean, a senior attorney with Environmental Defense, a major national group.

Bean, one of the nation's most seasoned endangered species lawyers, has sued to get the California desert tortoise on the endangered species list and compel American shrimp fishermen to reduce the accidental catch of sea turtles in their nets.

Now he's found a new niche: saving wildlife without litigation.

"The preconceived notion is that the best way to get results is always to tighten the screws," Bean said. "But there are some circumstances in which you get better results by creatively loosening the screws."

One such case unfolded in North Carolina where landowners, wary of land-use restrictions, were leveling pine forests to ward off an endangered woodpecker.

Bean helped broker a deal in which landowners not only agreed to stop such "panic cutting" but also to manage their forests in ways that would attract the birds -- all in exchange for a guarantee from the federal government that they would suffer no new restrictions on using their land.

Bean said the idea behind such "safe harbor agreements" is simple: People who do good deeds shouldn't be punished for doing them.

Incentives are coming to regulatory matters, too.

"We believe in regulation. But you can only go so far with a regulatory system. Free enterprise is the greatest motivator the world has ever known," said Noonan, the Conservation Fund chairman.

"Developers come to us all the time," Noonan continued. "They don't want to get tied up, fight it out for years. They want certainty. I can jam any developer I want. I may not win, but I can jam them. For two, three, four years. That's power. But it's also frightening power."

When a large investment group recently announced plans to build a new subdivision in fast-growing Palm Beach County, Fla., Noonan worked with the developer to create ribbons of open space that will provide habitat for endangered species, restore surface and groundwater flows, and link neighborhoods with bicycle and pedestrian trails.

"We're not going to stop population growth, at least not in our lifetime," Noonan said. "So I suggest the next big leap is: How do we support good development?"

Increasingly, environmental groups also are using the free market to accomplish something that has proved nearly impossible for local, county and state regulators: stopping sprawl.

They are doing it by buying land, even in some of the most booming real estate markets in America. "We're un-developers," said Will Rogers, president of the Trust for Public Land, which recently saved a choice 534-acre parcel from subdivision in the hills above San Jose, for $1.9 million.

Some of the trust's work takes place an ecosystem overlooked by many conservation groups: the inner city. In Oakland, it is turning urban blight into parks. In Los Angeles, it is converting a toxic Superfund site into a soccer field.

"There is an increased awareness that land can be recycled, that parks can be created often out of brownfields" -- abandoned industrial sites, Rogers said. "It's gnarly stuff, in terms of toxics and liability. But it's a big, exciting category. We've done probably 36 brownfields projects over our history."

Noonan's Conservation Fund recently pulled off one of the biggest conservation transactions of all -- buying from a logging company 300,000 acres in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire for $76.7 million.

"We outbid Wall Street on that one," Noonan said. "That's happening more and more."

Like a brokerage house for the environmental movement, the Conservation Fund brought together other nonprofit groups, foundations and public agencies to complete a transaction none could have completed on its own.

"The big weakness of our movement is we don't collaborate very well," Noonan said. "We're seeing a new set of people come into the movement who can talk the language of business and who are humble enough to know they can't do it alone."

Land also can be protected through strategies such as that adopted by California rancher Scott Stone: Restore it to ecological health. Last year, as bright orange flames raced along a creek at the Yolo Land and Cattle Co. northwest of Winters, Stone stood nearby, watching contentedly.

"You can see what we're trying to get rid of," he said, pointing to vast golden fields of yellow star thistle, medusa head and goat grass -- non-native, ecologically harmful weeds and grasses.

The spread of non-native weeds and other species may seem insignificant, but it is actually one of the nation's most serious ecological problems. Exotic weeds and grasses choke out native plants, increase fire danger and destroy wildlife habitat.

Conventional remedies -- herbicides and hoes -- offer little hope. The problem is simply too large. For many weed species in the West, the only option is fire. And in California, few people know more about the therapeutic power of fire than Central Valley farmer John Anderson, who helped Stone plan and carry out his pastoral pyrotechnics.

"That star thistle is history!" Anderson shouted gleefully as knee-high flames raced along a dirt road.

Sitting on the ground as smoke curled around him, his face streaked with ash, Anderson turned philosophical. "We need to reinstitute a culture of fire in the West," he said. "We've feared it for years, and now nobody knows how to burn."

Anderson took advantage of his fireside chat to call for the creation of a massive new federal program to restore land to ecological health -- "a national land health care system," he called it.

"You really can't nickel-and-dime habitat restoration," said Anderson, a member of the National Audubon Society board. "Most of the money we're getting now (from government agencies) is nickel and dime. We need big bucks ... We need millions and millions of dollars to fight weeds right now."

But there are alternatives to federal money, too. You can, for example, call on school kids, as The Nature Conservancy is doing south of Sacramento at its Cosumnes River Preserve.

"We decided that the way to the heart of the community was through the schoolchildren," said Mike Eaton, director of the preserve. "So we set out to create hands-on opportunities." Today, about 4,000 schoolkids a year plant trees, collect acorns and gather frog, fish and duck stories to take home.

Tapping into community spirit is also an approach used by the Malpai Borderlands Group, a network of ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico. There, free market tools such as conservation easements and cooperative grazing partnerships are put to work to protect ranches and open space critical to wildlife.

"There are very few ranchers in this country that are not pro-wildlife," said Warner Glenn -- a member of the group's board -- relaxing on the porch of his ranch home last year as lightning illuminated Mexico's Sierra Madre range to the south.

In 1996, Glenn became the first person to photograph a wild jaguar in the United States. He wrote a book about it and is donating a portion of the proceeds to jaguar conservation.

When the population of a rare species of leopard frog dropped precariously in a drought a few years back, another Malpai rancher, Matt Magoffin, fashioned a homemade water truck. He and his family hauled 1,000 gallons of water a week to the frogs for 2 1/2 years.

"Environmentalists are fighting with ranchers, but we both want the same goals," Magoffin said. "We want to maintain open space and keep subdivisions from spreading across the landscape."

Corporations have also joined the ranks of nontraditional conservationists. And many environmentalists are distrustful.

"The lack of accountability on the part of America's corporate leadership is back where it was in the 1870s," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. Less than 1 percent of the Sierra Club's budget comes from corporations, and such gifts are run through a rigorous environmental screening process.

But Conservation International President Russell Mittermeier embraces corporate wealth.

"The private sector drives much of what happens in the world," said Mittermeier, who has been likened to Indiana Jones for his intrepid travels through tropical jungles to save endangered primates. "One can either be in an adversarial relationship with it, or one can work with people in the private sector who are really concerned and interested in change."

Ford Motor Co. has donated more than $5 million to Conservation International for habitat protection in Brazil and Mexico. Starbucks is backing efforts to promote the cultivation of shade-tolerant coffee plants in Chiapas, Mexico, saving forests from being logged to make way for coffee plantations.

William Clay Ford Jr. -- the car company's chairman -- has served on the Conservation International board member. So has retired Intel Chairman Gordon Moore, who recently gave the group $35 million to start its own research arm.

Although many environmentalists say corporate support is a public relations ploy, Mittermeier said his own experience indicates otherwise.

"William Ford is as strong on this stuff as anybody in the organization," he said, "Gordon Moore is totally committed. He goes on every field trip, climbs every mountain."

The National Audubon Society welcomes corporate donations, too. "Somebody once had a great phrase when asked, 'Would you accept tainted money?' " said Dan Beard, the society's chief operating officer. "The response was, 'The only thing wrong with tainted money is there t'ain't enough of it.'

"What we ought to be doing is building an environmental ethic in corporate minds," Beard said. "We ought to be converting the world to an environmental ethic. If you just ignore people -- or point fingers at them -- that isn't going to do anybody any good."

SB - Playing with fire (4/5)

Playing with fire

Spin on science puts national treasure at risk
(Fourth of five parts)

By Tom Knudson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 25, 2001)

The scientific paper that landed on Tammy Randall-Parker's desk was thick with jargon and data. But to Randall-Parker, a biologist with the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, it was riveting.

Citing an enormous accumulation of vegetation and deadwood in Western forests -- the legacy of years of effective federal firefighting -- the report by a prestigious team of specialists warned that unless such stands were thinned, they were likely to erupt into flame, threatening a rare, falcon-like bird: the northern goshawk.

Randall-Parker felt compelled to act. But when she and others suggested thinning near a goshawk nest, environmentalists protested on the bird's behalf, stopping the proposal dead.

Then came the fire that Randall-Parker feared. "I watched it just explode," she said. The 1996 blaze devoured centuries-old trees as if they were kindling -- including the one that cradled the goshawk nest.

"There was not a green tree left," she said. "What the scientists said could happen -- did happen, right in front of my eyes."

Environmental advocacy has long struggled with scientific fact, despite its very basis in science. But in the battle over the majestic conifer forests that blanket much of the West, advocacy is often shoving science aside -- and forests, wildlife and human communities are suffering the consequences.

Tweaking science to make a point is nothing new for environmental groups. To protect rare species, for example, some groups trot out just those studies -- or snippets of studies -- that support their view. Some will pick and choose facts that serve their interests in campaigns to create wilderness areas.

Misusing forest science is different.

It is playing with fire. Not the natural fires that have nourished forests for centuries, but unusually savage ones that jeopardize homes and human lives and can inflict more serious environmental damage than logging.

"We're not sure if some of these burned areas will ever recover their native biological diversity," said Wallace Covington, a professor of forest ecology at Northern Arizona University and a nationally recognized fire scientist. "Certainly, over evolutionary time, new species will emerge. But these are major devastations."

Science will never settle all conflict over forest and fire management. But during the past two decades, university, government and industry scientists have written a series of papers published in academic journals and elsewhere that point again and again to the rapid and dangerous accumulation of woody debris in Western forests -- and the need for thinning.

"There is strong consensus among credible scientists that 100 years of fire suppression has led to a buildup of fuel in Western forests that makes them very susceptible to destructive, unnatural, ecosystem-destroying wildfire," said Neil Sampson, a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and former chairman of the 1994 National Commission on Wildfire Disasters.

"Time is not an ally," he said.

Environmental groups aren't convinced. Where science sees a tinderbox, they see timber sales in disguise. And despite a steep drop in the volume of timber sold from federal forests in recent years, they say the U.S. Forest Service cannot be trusted.

"We're dealing with an agency that -- at the district level -- is a rogue agency," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, which is backing a "no commercial logging" campaign in Congress.

"There are some very good people in the Forest Service," Pope said. "But there are some people who really still think their job is to keep the local mill running."

Sampson said it's just not so. "The idea that thinning the forest is a boondoggle for the timber industry is bizarre," he said. "Much of what needs to be removed isn't even economically valuable. They are going to spin the science and lose the forest."

Wildfire today is inflicting nightmarish wounds -- injuries made worse by a failure to heed scientific warnings. For example:

* In 1994, Covington and a colleague warned that the Kendrick Mountain Wilderness Area in northern Arizona was so clotted with vegetation, it was ready to explode. "Delay ... will only perpetuate fuel buildup and increase the potential for uncontrolled and destructive wildfire," they wrote in a scientific analysis for the Kaibab National Forest.

Some thinning was done -- but not enough. Last year, a large fire swept through the region, carving an apocalyptic trail of destruction.

"What happened is much worse, ecologically, than a clear-cut -- much worse," Covington said "And that fire is the future. It's happening again and again. We're going to have skeletal landscapes."

* Listening to fire and forest scientists, Martha Ketelle pleaded in 1996 for permission to log and thin an incendiary mass of storm-killed timber in California's Trinity Alps. "This is a true emergency of vast magnitude," Ketelle, then supervisor of the Six Rivers National Forest, wrote to her boss in San Francisco. "It is not a matter of if a fire will occur, but how extensive the damage will be when the fire does occur."

Because of an environmental appeal, the project bogged down. Then, in 1999, a fire found its way into the area. It spewed smoke for hundreds of miles, incinerated spotted owl habitat and triggered soil erosion and stream damage in a key salmon-spawning watershed.

* Early last year, officials of Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico urged that dense pine stands near Los Alamos be thinned. "The underlying need is to reduce the potential for large, high intensity crown fires that threaten people, property, wildlife (and) watersheds," they stated in a report.

The project was slowed by a lack of funds and by environmental concerns. Last May, the Cerro Grande fire, the largest and most destructive in New Mexico history, erupted in the very area recommended for thinning, damaging or destroying more than 220 structures, including several portable structures at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"Witnessing the Cerro Grande fire is the closest I'll come to seeing a biblical event in my lifetime," said Bill Armstrong, a forester with the Santa Fe National Forest. "It was unstoppable. Awe-inspiring. Futile. It was not, however, an unpreventable act of God."


Step into the forest outside Flagstaff, Ariz., and you enter a world of living matchsticks. You see dozens, hundreds, thousands of spindly, stunted ponderosa pines, crowded close together in shadowy thickets -- each competing with the others for moisture, soil nutrients and sunlight.

It is a much different setting from the one described by E.F. Beale, an explorer who passed through the area in 1858. "We came to a glorious forest of lofty pines," Beale wrote in a journal. "The forest was perfectly open and unencumbered with brush wood, so that the traveling was excellent."

What made that 19th century forest spacious was fire.

"Frequent surface fires were as important to ... forests as sunshine and rain," Thomas Swetnam, director of the University of Arizona's Tree-Ring Laboratory, told Congress last year. "Indeed, in southwestern ponderosa pine forests, the only natural events more frequent and regular than fire were the changing seasons."

Smokey Bear changed all that. Preventing and putting out fires, though, turned forests into thickets. Covington, the fire scientist, has quantified the change. In the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, he found an area that sprouted 36 to 81 trees per acre in 1876 had grown shaggy and dense with 692 to 1,801 trees per acre by 1994.

A 1999 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office concluded: "The most extensive and serious problem (for) national forests in the interior West is the overaccumulation of vegetation. According to the Forest Service, 39 million acres are at high risk" of fire.

Not content to lick lightly along the surface of the forest, snapping up grass, brush and small trees, modern-day blazes roar up a staircase of woody debris, leaping high into the forest canopy. Such contemporary "crown fires" burn so hot that they destroy everything from microscopic life in the soil to majestic, old-growth trees that have been nourished by centuries of cooler fires.

"The fires we are experiencing now -- and I've been in this business 27 years -- are unlike anything we have experienced in this country before," said Paul Summerfelt, a fuel management officer with the Flagstaff fire department. "And this is just the beginning."


The buildup of fuels in Western forests was a prominent topic in the 1996 Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project report, a 3,187-page scientific assessment of the California mountain range.

Citing a remarkable accumulation of vegetation and deadwood, the $6.5 million, congressionally funded report warned of a fiery future -- unless overcrowded stands were thinned soon.

"Current quantities of flammable biomass -- primarily small trees and surface fuels -- are unprecedented," the report stated. "Simple physics and common sense dictate that the area burned by high-severity fires will increase. Losses of life, property and resources will escalate accordingly."

One suggested remedy was small-tree logging, followed by prescribed fire. "Logging can serve as a tool to help reduce fire hazard," it stated.

Environmental groups overlooked that part of the report.

Instead, they plucked one sentence from thousands to argue that all logging is bad. Here's how the National Forest Protection Alliance, a consortium of activists, used the report last fall in an action alert, under the heading, "What the Government's Own Scientists Say about Logging and Wildfires":

"Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate and fuels accumulation has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."

Fire scientist Phillip Weatherspoon knows the sentence well. He helped write the Sierra Nevada report. The excerpt, he said, refers to historic logging that left Western forests littered with woody debris -- not modern thinning designed to clean up such debris.

"By itself it is misleading," he said. "This has been really abused."

Informed of Weatherspoon's concern, Jeanette Russell, network coordinator for the forest alliance, said: "This is the most popular fact we have. It is a quote congresspeople have used."

Chad Hanson, executive director of the John Muir Project and prominent foe of commercial logging, maintained there is nothing wrong with using the passage in isolation.

"It's a true statement," Hanson said. "It does not require additional statements to make it true."

The controversy is white-hot, powered by decades of distrust of the Forest Service. As Timothy Ingalsbee, director of the Western Fire Ecology Center in Oregon, explained in a letter:

"The fact that thinning is an abstract concept makes it subject to discretionary abuse .... In every single case of an alleged 'fire hazard reduction/forest ecosystem restoration' project that the agency has proposed the use of commercial thinning, the first thing the agency seeks is removal of the logs."

Not all environmental groups oppose commercial thinning, though. In Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon Trust has joined with Northern Arizona University, the Forest Service and others in an effort to thin dense stands.

The group, though, has hit a snag with no-commercial cut advocates within other environmental groups. "They say we are a tool of the timber industry," said Brad Ack, the Trust's conservation director.

"They say that logging increases the risk of fire," he said. "But that is out-of-context science. A lot of these folks are simply against cutting trees. It's almost spiritual environmentalism."

Hanson remains skeptical.

"This is not about science," he said. "This is the drumbeat of thinning being driven by the (Forest Service) commercial timber program. Science is being victimized."

No pro-thinning effort has drawn more heat than the Quincy Library Group, a coalition of conservationists, loggers and business people in the Sierra Nevada that is a national model for fuel-reduction efforts. What's fueling that heat is sometimes partial truth and hyperbole.

During congressional debate, for example, a coalition of environmental groups -- including the Sierra Club and the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign -- claimed a Quincy-sponsored bill would "double logging." What the coalition didn't say was that logging volume was already at a 50-year low and that doubling it -- which is not actually what the bill proposed -- would have kept it well below historic levels.

"I still support that statement," said Craig Thomas, conservation director of the forest protection campaign in an e-mail. "It doesn't matter what the logging level was in the clear cut days (of the) 1980s. Those levels had no ecological validity."

The bill, passed by Congress, was meant to end the jobs versus trees gridlock, reduce fire risk and restore forests to health; it calls for thinning 40,000 to 70,000 acres of dense stands a year, while protecting 650,000 environmentally sensitive acres.

"They claim that we're clear-cutting, that we're going to destroy the spotted owl and ruin ancient forests -- and we're not," said Michael Yost, a professor of forestry at Feather River College and a member of the Quincy group.

"My wife and I have belonged for many years to the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society and other organizations. And we've stopped our memberships," Yost said. "It's not in retaliation. It's just that I can't believe what these people are saying anymore."

In another case, the forest protection campaign distributed a flier to the U.S. Senate featuring a photo of a gigantic stump. "Sierra Old Growth Still Being Logged," it said. "Vote No on the Quincy Logging Bill." But the tree stump had nothing to do with the Quincy effort, or with Quincy itself. The tree was logged in another area.

"There is truly a conviction on the part of environmental groups that they can distort reality to convey impressions they believe are the truth," said Linda Blum, another Quincy member. "The focus is on ideology and politics -- not the environment."

Thomas said Quincy supporters are blowing smoke.

"This is their tactic: to try to demonstrate that we're some evil beast," Thomas said.

And while Thomas said he was not involved with the flier, he defended its use. "Who cares where the tree was cut?" he said. "The important thing was to convey a truthful message that old-growth forests were at risk in the Quincy proposal."

Some environmentalists don't merely manipulate the science. They attack the credibility of the scientists, including Covington, a Regents professor at Northern Arizona University.

For more than two decades, Covington has labored to bring a science-based ecological restoration gospel to pine forests around the West. His work has been published in academic periodicals, including the prestigious British journal Nature. Yet environmentalists consider his research suspect.

"Wally Covington is a darling of timber-industry supporters in Congress," said Hanson. "A lot of his data is open to question. He is a competent guy, but he is guessing."

Covington replied: "The science is solid. This is not a guess. They are attempting to discredit me because my views are different than their views."

"Science is not just the selective citation of studies," Covington said. "Science is built upon an entire body of knowledge. It's not slanted toward proving a particular point of view."

Sorting fact from fiction can sometimes be difficult. Armstrong, the New Mexico forester, recalled attending a meeting last year at the invitation of the Forest Conservation Council, a local environmental group.

The subject: a thinning project proposed by Santa Fe National Forest officials aimed at protecting the forests and streams that make up Santa Fe's watershed. The forest council didn't like the idea.

"The director got up and presented to the audience a long list of scientific authors and citations, all of them refuting what we were proposing to do," Armstrong said.

The list sounded impressive. "But we didn't know what to make of it," Armstrong said. Later, the group forwarded its scientific objections to the national forest in a letter.

"The claim that 'thinning,' whether commercial or not, will decrease the risk of wildfire continues to be conjecture," the group's president, John Talberth, wrote on Feb. 18, 2000.

Then he cited some science. "According to Forest Service researcher Jack Cohen, thinning forests ... does little, if anything to protect nearby homes and towns from losses during wildfire and may, in fact, be inefficient and ineffective," Talberth wrote, footnoting a 1999 report by Cohen.

Cohen's report does say that. But it also says: "This (research) should not imply that wildland vegetation management is not without a purpose and should not occur."

The forest council left that part out.

Cohen said the group is misrepresenting his research, which focuses narrowly on risk to homes and does not assess the ecological impact of thinning. "They're certainly distorting the context," he said.

In an e-mail, Cohen said: "I think it very unfortunate that some environmental groups play the current spin games that have become very much a part of our culture. Intellectual dishonesty has become a norm."

Talberth responded with an e-mail, too: "We stand by all that we have said," he wrote. "The truth is that there are two sides to the story and if these researchers cannot stand to acknowledge that, then maybe they should consider careers as politicians and leave science to those with more objective thinking."

Talberth's original letter quoted another study, in the journal Forest Science. That article, too, was cited out of context, said Carl Skinner, a California fire scientist who co-authored it.

Armstrong said the scientific citations show up again and again in other environmental appeals and protests. "We get this pseudoscience and misquoted stuff all the time," he said.

SB - Green machine (2/5)

Green machine

Mission adrift in a frenzy of fund raising
(Second of five parts)

By Tom Knudson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 23, 2001)

Dear Friend,
I need your help to stop an impending slaughter.
Otherwise, Yellowstone National Park -- an American wildlife treasure -- could soon become a bloody killing field. And the victims will be hundreds of wolves and defenseless wolf pups!

So begins a fund-raising letter from one of America's fastest-growing environmental groups -- Defenders of Wildlife.

Using the popular North American gray wolf as the hub of an ambitious campaign, Defenders has assembled a financial track record that would impress Wall Street.

In 1999, donations jumped 28 percent to a record $17.5 million. The group's net assets, a measure of financial stability, grew to $14.5 million, another record. And according to its 1999 annual report, Defenders spent donors' money wisely, keeping fund-raising and management costs to a lean 19 percent of expenses.

But there is another side to Defenders' dramatic growth.

Pick up copies of its federal tax returns and you'll find that its five highest-paid business partners are not firms that specialize in wildlife conservation. They are national direct mail and telemarketing companies -- the same ones that raise money through the mail and over the telephone for nonprofit groups, from Mothers Against Drunk Driving to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

You'll also find that in calculating its fund-raising expenses, Defenders borrows a trick from the business world. It dances with digits, finds opportunity in obfuscation. Using an accounting loophole, it classifies millions of dollars spent on direct mail and telemarketing not as fund raising but as public education and environmental activism.

Take away that loophole and Defenders' 19 percent fund-raising and management tab leaps above 50 percent, meaning more than half of every dollar donated to save wolf pups helped nourish the organization instead. That was high enough to earn Defenders a "D" rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy, an independent, nonprofit watchdog that scrutinizes nearly 400 charitable groups.

Pick up copies of IRS returns for major environmental organizations and you'll see that what is happening at Defenders of Wildlife is not unusual. Eighteen of America's 20 most prosperous environmental organizations, and many smaller ones as well, raise money the same way: by soliciting donations from millions of Americans.

But in turning to mass-market fund-raising techniques for financial sustenance, environmental groups have crossed a kind of conservation divide.

No allies of industry, they have become industries themselves, dependent on a style of salesmanship that fills mailboxes across America with a never-ending stream of environmentally unfriendly junk mail, reduces the complex world of nature to simplistic slogans, emotional appeals and counterfeit crises, and employs arcane accounting rules to camouflage fund raising as conservation.

Just as industries run afoul of regulations, so are environmental groups stumbling over standards. Their problem is not government standards, because fund raising by nonprofits is largely protected by the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Their challenge is meeting the generally accepted voluntary standards of independent charity watchdogs.

And there, many fall short.

Six national environmental groups spend so much on fund raising and overhead they don't have enough left to meet the minimum benchmark for environmental spending -- 60 percent of annual expenses -- recommended by charity watchdog organizations. Eleven of the nation's 20 largest include fund-raising bills in their tally of money spent protecting the environment, but don't make that clear to members.

The flow of environmental fund-raising mail is remarkable. Last year, more than 160 million pitches swirled through the U.S. Postal Service, according to figures provided by major organizations. That's enough envelopes, stationery, decals, bumper stickers, calendars and personal address labels to circle the Earth more than two times.

Often, just one or two people in 100 respond.

The proliferation of environmental appeals is beginning to boomerang with the public, as well. "The market is over-saturated. There is mail fatigue," said Ellen McPeake, director of finance and development at Greenpeace, known worldwide for its defense of marine mammals. "Some people are so angry they send back the business reply envelope with the direct mail piece in it."

Even a single fund-raising drive generates massive waste. In 1999, The Wilderness Society mailed 6.2 million membership solicitations -- an average of 16,986 pieces of mail a day. At just under 0.9 ounce each, the weight for the year came to about 348,000 pounds.

Most of the fund-raising letters and envelopes are made from recycled paper. But once delivered, millions are simply thrown away, environmental groups acknowledge. Even when the solicitations make it to a recycling bin, there's a glitch: Personal address labels, bumper stickers and window decals that often accompany them cannot be recycled into paper -- and are carted off to landfills instead.

"For an environmental organization, it's so wrong," said McPeake, who is developing alternatives to junk mail at Greenpeace. "It's not exactly environmentally correct."

The stuff is hard to ignore.

Environmental solicitations -- swept along in colorful envelopes emblazoned with bears, whales and other charismatic creatures -- jump out at you like salmon leaping from a stream.

Open that mail and more unsolicited surprises grab your attention. The Center for Marine Conservation lures new members with a dolphin coloring book and a flier for a "free" dolphin umbrella. The National Wildlife Federation takes a more seasonal approach: a "Free Spring Card Collection & Wildflower Seed Mix!" delivered in February, and 10 square feet of wrapping paper with "matching gift tags" delivered just before Christmas.

The Sierra Club reaches out at holiday time, too, with a bundle of Christmas cards that you can't actually mail to friends and family, because inside they are marred by sales graffiti: "To order, simply call toll-free ... " Defenders of Wildlife tugs at your heart with "wolf adoption papers." American Rivers dangles something shiny in front of your checkbook: a "free deluxe 35 mm camera" for a modest $12 tax-deductible donation.

The letters that come with the mailers are seldom dull. Steeped in outrage, they tell of a planet in perpetual environmental shock, a world victimized by profit-hungry corporations. And they do so not with precise scientific prose but with boastful and often inaccurate sentences that scream and shout:

From New York-based Rainforest Alliance: "By this time tomorrow, nearly 100 species of wildlife will tumble into extinction."

Fact: No one knows how rapidly species are going extinct. The Alliance's figure is an extreme estimate that counts tropical beetles and other insects -- including ones not yet known to science -- in its definition of wildlife.

From The Wilderness Society: "We will fight to stop reckless clear-cutting on national forests in California and the Pacific Northwest that threatens to destroy the last of America's unprotected ancient forests in as little as 20 years."

Fact: National forest logging has dropped dramatically in recent years. In California, clear-cutting on national forests dipped to 1,395 acres in 1998, down 89 percent from 1990.

From Defenders of Wildlife: "Won't you please adopt a furry little pup like 'Hope'? Hope is a cuddly brown wolf ... Hope was triumphantly born in Yellowstone."

Facts: "There was never any pup named Hope," says John Varley, chief of research at Yellowstone National Park. "We don't name wolves. We number them." Since wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone in 1995, their numbers have increased from 14 to about 160; the program has been so successful that Yellowstone officials now favor removing the animals from the federal endangered species list.

Longtime conservationist Peter Brussard has seen enough.

"I've stopped contributing to virtually all major environmental groups," said Brussard, former Society for Conservation Biology president and a University of Nevada, Reno, professor.

"My frustration is the mailbox," he said. "Virtually every day you come home, there are six more things from environmental groups saying that if you don't send them fifty bucks, the gray whales will disappear or the wolf reintroductions in Yellowstone will fail ...You just get super-saturated.

"To me, as a professional biologist, it's not conspicuous what most of these organizations are doing for conservation. I know that some do good, but most leave you with the impression that the only thing they are interested in is raising money for the sake of raising money."

Step off the elevator at Defenders of Wildlife's office in Washington, D.C., and you enter a world of wolves: large photographs of wolves on the walls, a wolf logo on glass conference room doors, and inside the office of Charles Orasin, senior vice president for operations, a wolf logo cup and a toy wolf pup.

Ask Orasin about the secret of Defenders' success, and he points to a message prominently displayed behind his desk: "It's the Wolf, Stupid."

Since Defenders began using the North American timber wolf as the focal point of its fund-raising efforts in the mid-1990s, the organization has not stopped growing. Every year has produced record revenue, more members -- and more emotional, heart-wrenching letters.

Dear Friend of Wildlife:
It probably took them twelve hours to die.
No one found the wolves in the remote, rugged lands of Idaho -- until it was too late.
For hours, they writhed in agony. They suffered convulsions, seizures and hallucinations. And then -- they succumbed to cardiac and respiratory failure.


"People feel very strongly about these animals," said Orasin, architect of Defenders' growth. "In fact, our supporters view them as they would their children. A huge percentage own pets, and they transfer that emotional concern about their own animals to wild animals.

"We're very pleased," he said. "We think we have one of the most successful programs going right now in the country."

Defenders, though, is only the most recent environmental group to find fund-raising fortune in the mail. Greenpeace did it two decades ago with a harp seal campaign now regarded as an environmental fund-raising classic.

The solicitation featured a photo of a baby seal with a white furry face and dark eyes accompanied by a slogan: "Kiss This Baby Good-bye." Inside, the fund-raising letter included a photo of Norwegian sealers clubbing baby seals to death.

People opened their hearts -- and their checkbooks.

"You have very little time to grab people's attention," said Jeffrey Gillenkirk, a veteran free-lance direct mail copywriter in San Francisco who has written for several national environmental groups, including Greenpeace. "It's like television: You front-load things into your first three paragraphs, the things that you're going to hook people with. You can call it dramatic. You can call it hyperbolic. But it works."

The Sierra Club put another advertising gimmick to work in the early 1980s. It found a high-profile enemy: U.S. Secretary of the Interior James Watt, whose pro-development agenda for public lands enraged many.

"When you direct-mailed into that environment, it was like highway robbery," said Bruce Hamilton, the club's conservation director. "You couldn't process the memberships fast enough. We basically added 100,000 members."

But environmental fund raising has its downsides.

It tends to be addictive. The reason is simple: Many people who join environmental groups through the mail lose interest and don't renew -- and must be replaced, year after year.

"Constant membership recruitment is essential just to stay even, never mind get bigger," wrote Christopher Bosso, a political scientist at Northeastern University in Boston, in his paper: "The Color of Money: Environmental Groups and the Pathologies of Fund Raising."

"Dropout rates are high because most members are but passive check writers, with the low cost of participating translating into an equally low sense of commitment," Bosso states. "Holding on to such members almost requires that groups maintain a constant sense of crisis. It does not take a cynic to suggest ... that direct mailers shop for the next eco-crisis to keep the money coming in."

That is precisely how Gillenkirk, the copywriter, said the system works. As environmental direct mail took hold in the 1980s, "We discovered you could create programs by creating them in the mail," he said.

"Somebody would put up $25,000 or $30,000, and you would see whether sea otters would sell. You would see whether rain forests would sell. You would try marshlands, wetlands, all kinds of stuff. And if you got a response that would allow you to continue -- a 1 or 2 percent response -- you could create a new program."

Today, the trial-and-error process continues.

The Sierra Club, which scrambles to replace about 150,000 nonrenewing members a year out of 600,000, produces new fund-raising packages more frequently than General Motors produces new car models.

"We are constantly turning around and trying new themes," said Hamilton. "We say, 'OK, well, people like cuddly little animals, they like sequoias.' We try different premiums, where people can get the backpack versus the tote bag versus the calendar. We tried to raise money around the California desert -- and found direct mail deserts don't work."

And though many are critical of such a crisis-of-the-month approach, Hamilton defended it -- sort of.

"I'm somewhat offended by it myself, both intellectually and from an environmental standpoint," he said. "And yet ... it is what works. It is what builds the Sierra Club. Unfortunately the fate of the Earth depends on whether people open that envelope and send in that check."

The vast majority of people don't. Internal Sierra Club documents show that as few as one out of every 100 membership solicitations results in a new member. The average contribution is $18.

"The problem is there is a part of the giving public -- about a third we think -- who as a matter of personal choice gives to a new organization every year," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. "We don't do this because we want to. We do it because the public behaves this way."

Fund-raising consultants "have us all hooked, and none of us can kick the habit," said Dave Foreman, a former Sierra Club board member. "Any group that gives up the direct mail treadmill is going to lose. I'm concerned about how it's done. It's a little shabby."

Another problem is more basic: accuracy. Much of what environmental groups say in fund-raising letters is exaggerated. And sometimes it is wrong.

Consider a recent mailer from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which calls itself "America's hardest-hitting environmental group." The letter, decrying a proposed solar salt evaporation plant at a remote Baja California lagoon where gray whales give birth, makes this statement:

"Giant diesel engines will pump six thousand gallons of water out of the lagoon EVERY SECOND, risking changes to the precious salinity that is so vital to newborn whales."

Clinton Winant, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who helped prepare an environmental assessment of the project, said the statement is false. "There is not a single iota of scientific evidence that suggests pumping would have any effect on gray whales or their babies," he said.

The mailer also says:

"A mile-long concrete pier will cut directly across the path of migrating whales -- potentially impeding their progress."

Scripps professor Paul Dayton, one of the nation's most prominent marine ecologists, said that statement is wrong, too.

"I've dedicated my career to understanding nature, which is becoming more threatened," he said. "And I've been confronted with the dreadful dishonesty of the Rush Limbaugh crowd. It really hurts to have my side -- the environmental side -- become just as dishonest."

Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo halted the project last year. But as he did, he also criticized environmental groups. "With false arguments and distorted information, they have damaged the legitimate cause of genuine ecologists," Zedillo said at a Mexico City news conference.

A senior Defense Council attorney in Los Angeles, Joel Reynolds, said his organization does not distort the truth.

"We're effective because people believe in us," Reynolds said. "We're not about to sacrifice the credibility we've gained through direct mail which is intentionally inaccurate."

Reynolds said NRDC's position on the salt plant was influenced by a 1995 memo by Bruce Mate, a world-renowned whale specialist. Mate said, though, that his memo was a first draft, not grounded in scientific fact.

"This is a bit of an embarrassment," he said. "This was really one of the first bits of information about the project. It was not meant for public consumption. I was just kind of throwing stuff out there. It's out-of-date, terribly out-of-date."

There is plenty of chest-thumping pride in direct mail, too -- some of it false pride. Consider this from a National Wildlife Federation letter: "We are constantly working in every part of the country to save those species and special places that are in all of our minds."

Yet in many places, the federation is seldom, if ever, seen.

"In 15-plus years in conservation, in Northern California, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, I have never met a (federation) person," said David Nolte, who recently resigned as a grass-roots organizer with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance -- a coalition of hunters and fishermen.

"This is not about conservation," he said. "It's marketing."

Overstating achievements is chronic, according to Alfred Runte, an environmental historian and a board member of the National Parks Conservation Association from 1993 to 1997.

"Environmental groups all do this," he said. "They take credit for things that are generated by many, many people. What is a community accomplishment becomes an individual accomplishment -- for the purposes of raising money."

As a board member, Runte finds something else distasteful about fund raising: its cost.

"Oftentimes, we said very cynically that for every dollar you put into fund raising, you only got back a dollar," he recalled. "Unless you hit a big donor, the bureaucracy was spending as much to generate money as it was getting back."

Some groups are far more efficient than others. The Nature Conservancy, for example, spends just 10 percent of donor contributions on fund raising, while the Sierra Club spends 42 percent, according to the American Institute of Philanthropy.

Pope, the Sierra Club director, said it's not a fair comparison. The reason? Donations to the Conservancy and most other environmental groups are tax-deductible -- an important incentive for charitable giving. Contributions to the Sierra Club are not, because it is a political organization, too.

"We're not all charities in the same sense," Pope said. "Our average contribution is much, much smaller."

Determining how much environmental groups spend on fund raising is only slightly less complex than counting votes in Florida. The difficulty is a bookkeeping quagmire called "joint cost accounting."

At its simplest, joint cost accounting allows nonprofit groups to splinter fund-raising expenditures into categories that sound more pleasant to a donor's ear -- public education and environmental action -- shaving millions off what they report as fund raising.

Some groups use joint cost accounting. Others don't. Some groups put it to work liberally, others cautiously. Those who do apply it don't explain it. What one group labels education, another calls fund raising.

"You use the term joint allocation and most people's eyes glaze over," said Greenpeace's McPeake. The most sophisticated donor in the world "would not be able to penetrate this," she said.

Joint cost accounting need not be boring, however.

Look closely and you'll find sweepstakes solicitations, personal return address labels, free tote bag offers and other fund-raising novelties cross-dressing as conservation. You also find that those who monitor such activity are uneasy with it.

David Ormsteadt, an assistant attorney general in Connecticut, states in Advancing Philanthropy, a journal of the National Society of Fundraising Executives: "Instead of reporting fees and expenses as fund-raising costs, which could ... discourage donations, charities may report these costs as having provided a public benefit. The more mailings made -- and the more expense incurred -- the more the 'benefit' to society."

The Wilderness Society, for example, determined in 1999 that 87 percent of the $1.5 million it spent mailing 6.2 million membership solicitation letters wasn't fund raising but "public education." That shaved $1.3 million off its fund-raising tab.

One of America's oldest and most venerable environmental groups, the Wilderness Society didn't just grab its 87 percent figure out of the air. It literally counted the number of lines in its letter and determined that 87 of every 100 were educational.

When you read in the society's letter that "Our staff is a tireless watchdog," that is education. So is the obvious fact that national forests "contain some of the most striking natural beauty on Earth." Even a legal boast -- "If necessary, we will sue to enforce the law" -- is education.

"We're just living within the rules. We're not trying to pull one over on anybody," said Wilderness Society spokesman Ben Beach.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, the charity watchdog, said it is acceptable to call 30 percent or less of fund-raising expenses "education." But he deemed that the percentages claimed by the Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife and others were unacceptable.

"These groups should not be allowed to get away with this," Borochoff said. "They are trying to make themselves look as good as they can without out-and-out lying ... . This doesn't help donors. It helps the organization."

At Defenders of Wildlife, Orasin flatly disagreed. The American Institute of Philanthropy "is a peripheral group and we don't agree with their standards," he said. "We don't think they understand how a nonprofit can operate, much less grow."

Even the more mainstream National Charities Information Bureau, which recently merged with the Better Business Bureau's Philanthropic Advisory Service, rates Defenders' fund raising excessive.

"We strongly disagree with (the National Charities Information Bureau)," said Orasin. "They take a very subjective view of what fund raising is. We are educating the public. If you look at the letters that go out from us, they are chock-full of factual information."

But much of what Defenders labels education in its fund raising is not all that educational. Here are a few examples -- provided to The Bee by Defenders from its recent "Tragedy in Yellowstone" membership solicitation letter:

Unless you and I help today, all of the wolf families in Yellowstone and central Idaho will likely be captured and killed.

It's up to you and me to stand up to the wealthy American Farm Bureau ...

For the sake of the wolves ... please take one minute right now to sign and return the enclosed petition.

The American Farm Bureau's reckless statements are nothing but pure bunk.

"That is basically pure fund raising," said Richard Larkin, a certified public accountant with the Lang Group in Bethesda, Md., who helped draft the standards for joint cost accounting. "That group is playing a little loose with the rules."

Defenders also shifts the cost of printing and mailing millions of personalized return address labels into a special "environmental activation" budget category.

Larkin takes a dim view.

"I've heard people try to make the case that by putting out these labels you are somehow educating the public about the importance of the environment," he said. "I would consider it virtually abusive."

Not all environmental groups use joint cost accounting. At the Nature Conservancy, every dollar spent on direct mail and telemarketing is counted as fund raising.

The same is true at the Sierra Club. "We want to be transparent with our members," said Pope, the club's director.

Groups that do use it, though, often do so differently.

The National Parks Conservation Association, for example, counts this line as fund raising: "We helped establish Everglades National Park in the 1940s." Defenders counts this one as education: "Since 1947, Defenders of Wildlife has worked to protect wolves, bears ... and pristine habitat."

"It's a very subjective world," said Monique Valentine, vice president for finance and administration at the national parks association. "It would be much better if we would all work off the same sheet of music."

At the Washington, D.C.-based National Park Trust, which focuses on expanding the park system, even a sweepstakes solicitation passes for education, helping shrink fund-raising costs to 21 percent of expenses, according to its 1999 annual report.

Actual fund-raising costs range as high as 74 percent, according to the American Institute of Philanthropy, which gave the Trust an "F" in its "Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report." Borochoff, the Institute's president, called the Trust's reporting "outrageous."

"Dear Friend," says one sweepstakes solicitation, "The $1,000,000 SUPER PRIZE winning number has already been pre-selected by computer and will absolutely be awarded. It would be a very, very BIG MISTAKE to forfeit ONE MILLION DOLLARS to someone else."

Paul Pritchard, the Trust's president, said the group's financial reporting meets non-profit standards. He defended sweepstakes fund raising.

"I personally find it a way of expressing freedom of speech," Pritchard said. "I can ethically justify it. How else are you going to get your message out?"

SB - Fat of the land (1/5)

(Published April 22, 2001)
To our readers
Today, on the 31st anniversary of Earth Day, the environmental movement is at a crossroads. No one can deny its many successes in preserving precious natural resources, but they have come with a price. In fact, some say the environmental movement is fighting for its very soul.

In this five-part series, Tom Knudson, The Bee's Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental reporter, examines the high-powered fund raising, the litigation and the public relations machine that has come to characterize much of the movement today. His stories are based on exhaustive research conducted over 16 months with travel to 12 states and northern Mexico. And what he has found is that the movement established, in part, to combat the influence of the powerful has itself become big business.

-- Rick Rodriguez
Executive Editor

The series
Sunday, April 22: Price of power
A century after John Muir served as the Sierra Club's first president, environmental groups have successfully traded on his legacy, becoming bigger and richer than ever before. But in their quest for power and money, have they cashed in their tradition?

Monday, April 23: Cause or commerce?
When you give $20 to an environmental organization, you expect it to go toward protecting the environment. But creative accounting hides the myriad ways groups can fold a hefty chunk of that donation back into their fund raising and bureaucracy.

Tuesday, April 24: Strongest suit
Suing the government has long been one of the environmental movement's most important tools. But today, the targets and proliferation of environmental lawsuits are yielding an uncertain bounty for the land.

Wednesday, April 25: Apocalypse now
Scientists say Western forests are gigantic tinderboxes inviting disaster, badly in need of thinning. But many environmental organizations are ignoring -- and sometimes manipulating -- that message.

Thursday, April 26: Hope, not hype
A new kind of conservation is blossoming at the grass roots that focuses on results, not rhetoric. Its goals include buying, protecting and restoring land, and making commerce and conservation work together -- without crying wolf.

***
Fat of the land

Movement's prosperity comes at a high price
(First of five parts)

By Tom Knudson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 22, 2001)

As a grass-roots conservationist from Oregon, Jack Shipley looked forward to his visit to Washington, D.C., to promote a community-based forest management plan. But when he stepped into the national headquarters of The Wilderness Society, his excitement turned to unease.

"It was like a giant corporation," Shipley said. "Floor after floor after floor, just like Exxon or AT&T."

In San Francisco, Sierra Club board member Chad Hanson experienced a similar letdown when he showed up for a soiree at one of the city's finest hotels in 1997.

"Here I had just been elected to the largest grass-roots environmental group in the world and I am having martinis in the penthouse of the Westin St. Francis," said Hanson, an environmental activist from Pasadena. "What's wrong with this picture? It was surreal."

Soon, Hanson was calling the Sierra Club by a new name: Club Sierra.

Extravagance is not a trait normally linked with environmental groups. The movement's tradition leans toward simplicity, economy and living light on the land. But today, as record sums of money flow to environmental causes, prosperity is pushing tradition aside, and the millions of Americans who support environmental groups are footing the bill.

High-rise offices, ritzy hotels and martinis are but one sign of wider change. Rising executive salaries and fat Wall Street portfolios are another. So, too, is a costly reliance on fund-raising consultants for financial success.

Put the pieces together and you find a movement estranged from its past, one that has come to resemble the corporate world it often seeks to reform.

Although environmental organizations have accomplished many stirring and important victories over the years, today groups prosper while the land does not. Competition for money and members is keen. Litigation is a blood sport. Crisis, real or not, is a commodity. And slogans and sound bites masquerade as scientific fact.

"National environmental organizations, I fear, have grown away from the grass roots to mirror the foxes they had been chasing," said environmental author Michael Frome, at a wilderness conference in Seattle last year. "They seem to me to have turned tame, corporate and compromising."

This series of articles -- based on more than 200 interviews, travel across 12 states and northern Mexico, and thousands of state and federal records -- will explore the poverty of plenty that has come to characterize much of the environmental movement. Some of the highlights:

Salaries for environmental leaders have never been higher. In 1999 -- the most recent year for which comparable figures are available -- chief executives at nine of the nation's 10 largest environmental groups earned $200,000 and up, and one topped $300,000. In 1997, one group fired its president and awarded him a severance payment of $760,335.

Money is flowing to conservation in unprecedented amounts, reaching $3.5 billion in 1999, up 94 percent from 1992. But much of it is not actually used to protect the environment. Instead, it is siphoned off to pay for bureaucratic overhead and fund raising, including expensive direct-mail and telemarketing consultants.

Subsidized by federal tax dollars, environmental groups are filing a blizzard of lawsuits that no longer yield significant gain for the environment and sometimes infuriate federal judges and the Justice Department. During the 1990s, the U.S. Treasury paid $31.6 million in legal fees for environmental cases filed against the government.

Those who know the environment best -- the scientists who devote their careers to it -- say environmental groups often twist fact into fantasy to serve their agendas. That is especially true in the debate over one of America's most majestic landscapes: its Western evergreen forests. A 1999 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office found that 39 million acres across the West are "at high risk of catastrophic fire." Yet many groups use science selectively to oppose thinning efforts that could reduce fire risk.

"A lot of environmental messages are simply not accurate," said Jerry Franklin, a professor of forest ecology and ecosystem science at the University of Washington. "But that's the way we sell messages in this society. We use hype. And we use those pieces of information that sustain our position. I guess all large organizations do that."

And sometimes when nature needs help the most, environmental groups are busy with other things.

As the tiny Fresno kangaroo rat struggled for survival in the industrialized farmland of California's San Joaquin Valley in the 1990s, for example, the environmental movement did not seem to notice.

As a fisheries conservationist tried to save rare trout species across remote parts of Oregon and Nevada, he found no safety net in major environmental groups.

As sea turtles washed up dead and dying on Texas beaches in 1993, no groups made the turtles their mascot.

"I contacted everybody and nobody listened," said Carole Allen, who rehabilitates turtles injured in fishing nets. "Everybody wants to save dolphins. Turtles aren't popular. It really gets frustrating."

Yet look closely at environmentalism today and you also see promise and prosperity coming together to form a new style of environmentalism -- one that is sprouting quietly, community by community, across the United States and is rooted in results, not rhetoric.

"I'm so frustrated with the opportunism and impulsiveness of how groups are going about things," said Steve McCormick, president of The Nature Conservancy, which uses science to target and solve environmental problems. "What's the plan? What are the milestones by which we can measure our success?"

Today's challenges are more subtle and serious than those of the past. Stopping a dam is child's play compared to halting the spread of destructive, non-native species. Protecting old-growth forests from logging is simple; saving them from fire and disease is more difficult.

But as the Bush administration takes control in Washington, many groups are again tuning up sound bites -- not drawing up solutions. "President Bush is forging full steam ahead ... to open up the Arctic!" says John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society, in one of the first mass-market fund-raising letters focusing on Bush's environmental policies. "I need you to make a Special Emergency Gift."

There is no clearinghouse for information about environmental groups, no oversight body watching for abuse and assessing job performance. What information exists is scattered among many sources, including the Internal Revenue Service, philanthropic watchdogs, the U.S. Department of Justice and nonprofit trade associations.

Sift through their material and here is what you find:

Donations are at flood stage. In 1999, individuals, companies and foundations gave an average of $9.6 million a day to environmental groups, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, which monitors nonprofit fund raising.

"Our business is booming," said Patrick Noonan, chairman of the Conservation Fund, an Arlington, Va., group that provides financial and educational assistance to environmental organizations.

The dollars do not enrich equally. The nation's 20 largest groups -- a tiny slice of the more than 8,000 environmental organizations -- took in 29 percent of contributions in 1999, according to IRS Form 990 tax records. The top 10 earned spots on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's list of America's wealthiest charities.

The richest is The Nature Conservancy, an Arlington, Va., group that focuses on purchasing land to protect the diversity of species. In 1999, The Nature Conservancy received $403 million, as much as its six nearest rivals combined: Trust for Public Land, Ducks Unlimited, World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Council.

Forty years ago, the environmental movement was a national policy sideshow. Today, it is a strong, vocal lobby that weighs in on everything from highway transportation to global trade. Some groups, such as the National Audubon Society and Environmental Defense, are generalists, dabbling in many things. Others, such as Ducks Unlimited and Conservation International, have found success in specialization.

Public support runs deep, too. "Many, many people feel almost religious about the environment," said Patricia Schifferle, former regional director for The Wilderness Society in California. "It really does touch their inner souls."

One recent public opinion poll commissioned by The Nature Conservancy found that 54 percent of the nation's 104 million households were "extremely concerned" or "very concerned" about the environment. An additional 31 percent were "somewhat concerned."

About three-fourths of all contributions in 1999 came from an estimated 8 million to 17 million Americans. Most personal contributions were modest, but some were not.

Vice President Dick Cheney, then-CEO of Halliburton Co., gave $10,000 to the Conservation Fund. Harrison Ford gave $5 million to Conservation International. Julian Robertson Jr., a leading money manager, gave more than $100,000 to Environmental Defense and more than $50,000 to The Nature Conservancy.

"This is a growth industry -- a huge growth industry," said Daniel Beard, chief operating officer at the National Audubon Society. "There is a lot of wealth that has accumulated in this country over the last 20 years. And people are wanting to do good things with it."

Conservation has not always been so comfortable. Much of its history is rooted in simplicity. Henry David Thoreau, perhaps America's earliest conservationist, set the tone with his 19th-century classic -- "Walden" -- about living in harmony with nature.

"Simplicity. Simplicity. Simplicity!" Thoreau wrote. "I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen and keep your accounts on your thumbnail."

John Muir, the California naturalist whose spirited defense of the Sierra Nevada brought conservation to the forefront of the nation's attention a century ago, expanded on Thoreau's theme.

Living on bread, oatmeal and water, Muir would disappear into the Sierra for weeks, then return and pour his passion into print. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings," he wrote. "Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees."

David Brower, the legendary former Sierra Club leader who led successful battles to keep dams out of Dinosaur National Monument and the Grand Canyon in the 1950s and '60s, said success springs from deeds, not dollars.

"We were getting members because we were doing things," Brower said before he died last year. "Our (strength) came from outings and trips -- getting people out. It came from full-page ads and books."

Today, there is a new approach -- junk mail and scare tactics.

Dear Friend,

If you've visited a national park recently, then some of the things you're about to read may not surprise you!

America's National Park System -- the first and finest in the world -- is in real trouble right now.

Yellowstone ... Great Smoky Mountains ... Grand Canyon ... . Everglades. Wilderness, wildlife, air and water in all these magnificent parks are being compromised by adjacent mining activities, noise pollution, commercial development and other dangerous threats ...


So begins a recent fund-raising letter from the National Parks Conservation Association, a 400,000-plus-member organization. The letter goes on to tell of the group's accomplishments, warn of continued threats, ask for money -- "$15 or more" -- and offer something special for signing up. "Free as our welcome-aboard gift ... The NPCA bean bag bear!"

Let's say you did send in $15. What would become of it?

According to the group's 1998-99 federal tax form, much of your money would have been routed not to parks but to more fund raising and overhead. Just $7.62 (51 percent) would have been spent on parks, less than the minimum 60 percent recommended by the American Institute of Philanthropy, a nonprofit charity watchdog group.

And the parks association is not alone.

Five other major groups -- including household names such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club -- spend so much on fund raising, membership and overhead they don't meet standards set by philanthropic watchdog groups.

It's not just the cost of raising money that catches attention these days. It is the nature of the fund-raising pitches themselves.

"What works with direct mail? The answer is crisis. Threats and crisis," said Beard, the Audubon Society chief operating officer.

"So what you get in your mailbox is a never-ending stream of crisis-related shrill material designed to evoke emotions so you will sit down and write a check. I think it's a slow walk down a dead-end road. You reach the point where people get turned off." Then he hesitated, adding:

"But I don't want to say direct mail is bad because, frankly, it works."

Even some of those who sign the appeals are uncomfortable with them.

"Candidly, I am tired of The Wilderness Society and other organizations -- and we are a culprit here -- constantly preaching gloom and doom," said William Meadows, the society's president, whose signature appears on millions of crisis-related solicitations. "We do have positive things to say."

Many environmental groups, The Wilderness Society included, also use a legal accounting loophole to call much of what they spend on fund raising, "public education."

In 1999, for instance, The Wilderness Society spent $1.46 million on a major membership campaign consisting of 6.2 million letters. But when it came time to disclose that bill in its annual report, the society shifted 87 percent -- $1.27 million -- to public education. The group also shrank a $94,411 telemarketing bill by deciding that 71 percent was public education.

The Wilderness Society's spokesman, Ben Beach, said that kind of accounting is appropriate because fund-raising solicitations are educational.

"No one is trying to do anything that isn't right by the rule book here," he said. "A lot of us don't particularly like getting (telemarketing) calls. But that's not to say you don't learn something."

Still, the accounting practice is controversial. Nine of the nation's 20 largest groups don't use it. "Playing games with numbers is not worth the effort or questions that would come from it," said Stephen Howell, chief operating officer at The Nature Conservancy.

"It should be called what it is," said Noonan, the Conservation Fund leader. "As we become larger and more successful, I worry about the ethics of our movement. We need to think about self-regulation and standards. If not, the ones who make mistakes are going to hurt it for all of us."

Dollars can disappear in other ways, of course.

Some groups lose money on Wall Street. In 1997, Environmental Defense watched with dismay as a $500,000 "short-selling investment partnership" tumbled to $18,000. Acknowledging it was "a lot of money to lose," the group's deputy director of operations, Edward Bailey, pointed out that Environmental Defense has done well with other investments. "No one is going to be right 100 percent of the time," he said.

Comfortable office digs and sumptuous fund-raising banquets are another drain on donor dollars. The Sierra Club spends $59,473 a month for its office lease in San Francisco. In Washington, Greenpeace pays around $45,000 a month.

In June 1998, The Nature Conservancy spent more than $1 million on a single fund-raising bash in New York City's Central Park. Carly Simon and Jimmy Buffett played. Masters of ceremonies included Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace and Leslie Stahl. Variety magazine reported that the 1,100 guests were treated to a martini bar and a rolling cigar station.

"The goal was to raise (our) profile among high-dollar donors," Conservancy spokesman Mike Horak said in a statement. And it paid off: $1.8 million was raised.

Fund-raising banquets never sat well with Alfred Runte, an environmental historian who served as a board member of the National Parks Conservation Association from 1993 to 1997.

"We would always go to a sumptuous hotel or the most expensive lodge -- places most Americans couldn't afford," said Runte, author of "Yosemite, The Embattled Wilderness."

"If we have to get big donors by spending money that average, dedicated members think is going to the parks, we've lost," he said. "We're no longer environmentalists. We're party-givers."

Salaries gobble up money raised, too. In 1999, top salaries at the 10 largest environmental groups averaged $235,918, according to IRS tax forms. By contrast, the president of Habitat for Humanity, International -- which builds homes for the poor -- earned $62,843. At Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the president made $69,570.

Among environmental groups, Ducks Unlimited paid its leader the most: $346,882.

"Those salaries are obscene," said Martin Litton, a former Sierra Club board member, who worked tirelessly over a half-century to help bring about the creation of Redwoods National Park in 1968 and Sequoia National Monument last year. Litton did it for free.

"There should be sacrifice in serving the environment," he said.

One large payment occurred in 1997 when the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) fired its president, Paul Pritchard, in a dispute over management style and direction. It awarded him $760,335 to settle his contract -- the equivalent of more than 50,000 individual $15 donations.

Thomas Kiernan, the group's current president, dismissed the incident as "3-year-old history" and called it "profoundly irrelevant."

"NPCA made an offer. We countered. It was just like every other negotiation," said Pritchard, now president of the National Park Trust, another parks-based group in Washington. "I'm proud of what I did at NPCA."

Others have a different view. "I told Paul that I thought his salary and benefits had become egregious," said former board member Runte.

Speaking of the environmental movement as a whole, Runte said: "The larger problem is the disease of money. In truth, what the environmental community has become is a money machine ... We have come to the point where we keep score by the almighty dollar. And we need to start keeping score by the health of the planet."

SB - A flood of costly lawsuits raises questions about motive (3/5)

Litigation central

A flood of costly lawsuits raises questions about motive
(Third of five parts)

By Tom Knudson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 24, 2001)

No one knows the Sacramento splittail better than Peter Moyle.

For 20 years, Moyle, a professor of fisheries biology at the University of California, Davis, has struggled to protect the silvery fish that lives in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. He even helped prepare a petition requesting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service list the fish under the Endangered Species Act in 1992.

But when the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity sued the wildlife service in 1998 to force a ruling on the petition, Moyle wasn't pleased.

The reason? By then, three wet winters had touched off a splittail population explosion. What's more, a multibillion-dollar habitat restoration plan for the Delta, called Cal-Fed, was brightening the fish's future.

"I was sorry to see it," Moyle said of the suit. "Things were getting better."

When Moyle later learned that the center's law firm had been awarded $13,714 in public money for a court victory that led to the fish being listed as "threatened," he was shocked.

Suing the government has long been a favorite tactic of the environmental movement -- used to score key victories for clean air, water and endangered species. But today, many court cases are yielding an uncertain bounty for the land and sowing doubt even among the faithful.

"We've filed our share of lawsuits and I'm proud of a lot of them," said Dan Taylor, executive director of the California chapter of the National Audubon Society. "But I do think litigation is overused. In many cases, it's hard to identify what the strategic goal is, unless it is to significantly reshape society."

The suits are having a powerful impact on federal agencies. They are forcing some government biologists to spend more time on legal chores than on conservation work. As a result, species in need of critical care are being ignored. And frustration and anger are on the rise.

"It's all about power and the trophy," said Kay Goode, assistant field supervisor for endangered species at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, which has been sued so often that employees call it "litigation central."

"We can't continue at this pace," Goode said.

The crush of cases is prompting some lawyers and government officials to speculate that the suits could be motivated, at least in part, by money. Under federal law, an attorney who wins an environmental "citizen suit" against the government is entitled to an award of taxpayer-funded attorney fees.

"I worry that the propensity to sue the (fish and wildlife) service every time it misses a deadline sets our community up for an easy assault on the availability of fees," said Michael Bean, a senior attorney for Environmental Defense, one of the nation's largest conservation groups.

The Southwest Center's lawyers say money is not a factor for them.

"We file a lot of cases, but the point is not to generate income; it is to win and spur change," said James Tutchton, lead lawyer on the splittail case, which was filed in conjunction with the Sierra Club. "People don't like the fact that we represent unpopular groups and species and win."

There is no central repository for environmental lawsuits. But information obtained by The Bee from the Department of Justice using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and from federal courthouses around the nation shows that:

* During the 1990s, the government paid out $31.6 million in attorney fees for 434 environmental cases brought against federal agencies. The average award per case was more than $70,000. One long-running lawsuit in Texas involving an endangered salamander netted lawyers for the Sierra Club and other plaintiffs more than $3.5 million in taxpayer funds.

* Attorneys for environmental groups are not shy about asking for money. They earn $150 to $350 an hour, and sometimes they get accused of trying to gouge the government. In 1993, three judges on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington were so appalled by one Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund lawyer's "flagrant over-billing" that they reduced her award to zero. "Even a perfunctory examination of (the lawyer's) time entries would show that she billed on a Brobdingnabian scale," wrote the judges, referring to the giants in "Gulliver's Travels" to drive their point home.

* Lawyers for industry and natural resource users get paid for winning environmental cases, too. When California water districts won a follow-up suit over the splittail last year, their law firms submitted a bill for $546,403.70 to the government. The Justice Department was stunned.

"Plaintiffs have failed to exercise any billing discretion," wrote U.S. Attorney Matthew Love in a January brief. "They seek compensation for excessive, duplicative and redundant tasks ... charge their normal hourly rates for (routine) activities such as telephone calls, letter writing (and) review of files."

* Since 1995, most cases brought have not been about dams, nuclear power or pesticides, but about rare and endangered species. That flood of suits has turned judges into modern day Noahs who decide which species are saved -- and which aren't. But the judges -- guided by law, not science -- aren't always the best-equipped to make biologically correct decisions.

* Suing on behalf of species is a specialty niche. Four law firms filed more than half of all such suits from 1995 to 2000. A whopping 75 percent of those cases were lodged in six states: California, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. One kind of case -- over "critical habitat" -- has so swamped the Fish and Wildlife Service that it has halted the biological evaluations necessary to add new species to the federal endangered species list.

* Lawyers don't just bill for legal work. They also submit claims for lobbying, talking to the news media and flying and driving to and from meetings and courthouses.

"This has become a cottage industry," said Elizabeth Megginson, former chief counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Resources. "And it is being paid for by you and me, by taxpayers.

"Lawsuits are filed not so much to benefit species but for other reasons," said Megginson, who investigated dozens of cases for the committee. "It certainly is a way of supporting lawsuits that might not be filed if (environmental groups) had to pay their own way."

Citizen suits came into prominence three decades ago when Congress passed sweeping environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. Realizing that political pressure could deter federal agencies from enforcing the law, Congress granted environmental groups and ordinary citizens the right to hold the government accountable in court.

Since then, citizen suits have played an essential role in cleaning up and restoring the American landscape. A 1988 endangered-species suit by the Natural Resources Defense Council forced the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to restore water to the San Joaquin River, bringing a ghost stream back to life. Another citizen suit led to the listing of the northern spotted owl as a federally "threatened" species, dramatically curtailing logging in the Pacific Northwest.

But like strong medicine, the power of the law works both ways. Used strategically, it can work miracles. Used otherwise, it can generate powerful side effects, even hurt what it is meant to help.

"Lawyers can be like engineers," said Gregory Thomas, chief executive officer of the Natural Heritage Institute, an environmental law and mediation group in Berkeley. "The engineering mentality says that if something can be built, it should be built. The legal mentality tends to be that if a case can be brought, it should be brought.

"But we know, from both engineering and lawyering, that that leads to socially undesirable results. It leads to dams that ought not be built. And it leads to lawsuits that ought not be brought."


On April 15, 1998, when millions of Americans were filing their taxes, the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity was filing a lawsuit to protect Alaska's Queen Charlotte goshawk. Six weeks later, the center's legal team was in California to sue over the Sacramento splittail. Then came another California case concerning 39 species, from the Pacific pocket mouse to the California gnatcatcher.

No environmental group in America files more endangered species cases at a more frenetic pace than the Southwest Center, which has since dropped the "Southwest" from its name to reflect its expansion into California and Oregon. Public records show that from 1994 to 1999 alone, the Center for Biological Diversity and its lawyers filed 58 lawsuits, an average of one every 32 days.

"We're panicked," said Kieran Suckling, the center's executive director. "There are species going down before our eyes."

But most of the suits don't hinge on the science of endangered species -- they're based on statutory deadlines. When Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, lawmakers filled it with deadlines to force bureaucrats to make timely decisions. When the Fish and Wildlife Service fails to meet those deadlines, which is often, it can be sued.

Missed deadline suits can be sweeping in scope. When the service failed to make timely decisions on 44 rare California plants proposed for the endangered list, the center sued on all 44 -- and won.

To date, the center has succeeded in adding 87 species in California to the federal endangered list.

"What we have accomplished is huge and real," Suckling said. "If citizens were not able to file these suits, the law would be meaningless. Politics would rule. And politics is always against endangered species."

Other environmentalists question the wisdom of such an approach.

"A missed-deadline case is like shooting fish in a barrel," said Thomas at the Natural Heritage Institute. "Anybody can bring such a case. Anybody can win such a case. The question is, having won it, have you advanced a broader strategic solution?"

Frequently, the answer is no, said Bean, of Environmental Defense, one of the country's most experienced endangered species attorneys.

"The reality is listing often doesn't do a whole lot to improve the status of these species," Bean said. "Nine percent of listed species are improving. Thirty to 35 percent are declining. It won't do a lot of good to list species if they continue to decline -- and we ultimately lose them."

But it's not missed-deadline cases that are stirring up the most conflict. It's another category of lawsuit that seeks to secure "critical habitat" for species listed as federally threatened or endangered. Critical habitat is defined as habitat essential to the survival and recovery of a species.

Such suits generate playful headlines. Consider one recent case involving the California red-legged frog, a federally threatened species.

"Threatened Frogs May Get Leg Up," the Hartford Courant wrote after federal biologists last year -- in response to a center suit -- proposed to designate one-twentieth of California, 5.4 million acres, as critical habitat for the frog. The Engineering News-Record -- a trade journal -- hopped on the story. "Builders Jumpy Over Frog Limits," it reported.

Federal officials say the case was actually a leap backward for conservation.

"Critical habitat does not add a lot of value and -- in many cases -- almost no value to the conservation of species," said Michael Spear, head of the California-Nevada office of the Fish and Wildlife Service. "We will cover a significant part of California, one way or the other, with critical habitat this year."

But to Suckling, critical habitat has a near-magical power: to halt development, logging and other activity on land not occupied by endangered species but "critical" to their recovery. The idea is that species could eventually re-colonize such areas, or at least pass through them during migration.

Work stoppages are already happening in Arizona, where the designation of 790,000 acres of critical habitat for the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, spurred by a center suit, has brought sprawl to a crawl around Tucson.

And what the owl has done for Tucson, the red-legged frog will do for California, only more so, Suckling said.

"Ten years from now, when tens of millions of acres of critical habitat will have been in existence across the West, there will be an enormous increase in species recovery and habitat restoration," he said in an e-mail. "The money spent on its designation will be seen as a bargain. It is a heck of a lot cheaper than keeping species in the emergency room for the rest of eternity."

The most massive critical habitat allotment of all came earlier this year when the Fish and Wildlife Service, again prodded by a center suit, designated 39,000 square miles of Alaska as critical for the spectacled eider, a sea duck.

"You know what is so important about the spectacled eider?" Suckling said. "That designation will be the only thing standing between George Bush and the oil rigs."

But such cases may be backfiring. In January, then-wildlife service director Jamie Rappaport Clark placed a moratorium on additions to the endangered list, saying the agency's resources are being gobbled up by critical habitat litigation.

"Critical habitat has turned our priorities upside-down," Clark said. "Species that are in need of protection are having to be ignored. This is a biological disaster."

Clark also voiced concern about the tax dollars that flow to environmental lawyers who win critical habitat, missed deadline and other cases. "I guess it's pretty good employment," she said.

Like other Fish and Wildlife officials, Clark has no direct role in negotiating attorney fees. That is handled by the Justice Department and, when talks break down, federal judges. The money comes not out of the Fish and Wildlife budget, but from a special "Judgment Fund" that pays claims of all kinds against the government.

So the size of the awards was news to Clark. Informed that some climb to $100,000 or more, she reacted angrily. "I guess they (lawyers) dress pretty well," she said. "I believe citizens should have the opportunity to sue the government, but this has gone over the edge."

William Curtiss, a vice president with the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund -- the nation's largest nonprofit environmental law firm -- said public anger should be directed at government officials for breaking the law and for prolonging cases in court.

"It's hypocritical for the government to drag these things out for years, make the plaintiff jump through every hoop and hurdle, then turn around and whine about how much it costs," Curtiss said. "I don't buy it."

Few firms win larger fee awards than San Francisco-based Earthjustice, formerly the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. When Earthjustice won a coho salmon suit recently, for example, it submitted a bill for $439,053 to the Justice Department, and settled for $383,840. Most of the invoice was for 931 hours of legal work by Earthjustice senior attorney Michael Sherwood -- at $350 an hour.

Curtiss said $350 is a reasonable hourly fee for an experienced San Francisco attorney and Sherwood is the firm's most experienced.

Other lawyers, though, say the rate is high. "Nobody I'm aware of charges $350 an hour on our side," said Gregory Wilkinson, an attorney who represents irrigation and water districts. Wilkinson's rate is $225 to $250 per hour.

Earthjustice President Vawter "Buck" Parker said that unlike trial lawyers, his firm's lawyers have no incentive to win big awards.

"When we win fees, they go into a common pot for the general support of the whole organization," Parker said. "No one sees a change in their salary. No one sees their office budget go up ... on account of it."

One big controversy unfolded outside of public view in 1994 when a Sierra Club lawyer and other attorneys asked for $5 million, the largest fee request of the decade, as a partial settlement for winning an endangered species suit in Texas.

"The claim is excessive by any standard of fairness or reasonableness," U.S. attorneys wrote in protest to a federal judge.

The judge put the billing documents under seal. But, obtained by The Bee, they show that U.S. Attorney Charles Shockey was so irritated that he did not limit himself to dry legalese. He titled one legal motion:

"FEDERAL DEFENDANT$ OPPO$ITION TO PLAINTIFF$ MOTION ... FOR AWARD OF THEIR COMBINED CO$T OF LITIGATION."

The Justice Department and plaintiffs' lawyers settled the partial claim for $2 million. But the lawsuit eventually cost the government an additional $1.5 million, federal records show, ranking it first among fee awards in the 1990s.

Fee disputes are fairly common. Lawyers for the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara asked for $123,462.53 in a 1996 Endangered Species Act case that led to the listing of the red-legged frog as "threatened." U.S. District Judge Manuel Real balked. He cut the award to $44,511, calling the billable hours "overstated."

The original frog invoice included charges for time spent talking to the news media, traveling, even adding up the legal bill itself.

"Hours spent are grossly unreasonable ... given the straightforward, simple unchanging nature of the case," Justice Department lawyers argued in papers filed with Real.

The 1993 suit that infuriated the Washington. D.C. circuit judges involved a Clean Air Act case filed by the Environmental Defense Fund against the Environmental Protection Agency.

In the case, the judges wrote that the Defense Fund's attorney Kirsten Engel "claimed to have spent 73.45 hours -- nearly two work weeks -- preparing two letters to the EPA about EDF's request for attorney fees.

"We are compelled to conclude that Engel submitted outrageously excessive time entries ... Therefore, we award the petitioner none of the $17,773.50 it asks for Engel's work," the judges said in their decision.

"We regard over-billing the government as a serious transgression, damaging to the public and violative of the trust reposed in each member of the bar," the judges concluded.

Occasionally environmental lawsuits cause other damage -- to the very groups that file them.

One such case unraveled in Arizona recently when the Southwest Center sued the U.S. Forest Service, alleging that it failed to "consult" with the Fish and Wildlife Service about cattle grazing's effect on endangered species -- a violation of federal law.

The suit targeted large swaths of federal land leased to ranchers, including a lease held by Joe and Valer Austin, owners of the picturesque El Coronado Ranch in the Chiricahau mountains.

The Austins are no ordinary husband-and-wife ranch team.

Since buying El Coronado in 1984, they have invested more than $1 million to return it to ecological health. They have constructed 20,000 erosion control structures, cut back herds dramatically and reduced the seasons they graze, and worked to restore threatened and endangered species. They have welcomed university and government scientists to the ranch to observe their efforts.

Their work has earned them numerous awards, including the Joseph Wood Krutch Award from The Nature Conservancy in 1996 and, two years later, the W.R. Chapline Land Stewardship Award from the Society for Range Management.

That didn't satisfy the Southwest Center, which alleged in its 1998 Forest Service suit that the Austins' ranching practices were harming endangered species.

"It was a real slap in the face," Joe Austin said.

Valer Austin added: "They just put us in the same bucket with everybody else. They didn't even come out here to see what we were doing."

The Austins didn't stand idly by. They jumped into the lawsuit with the federal government -- and emerged victorious. Senior U.S. District Judge Alfredo Marquez in Tucson ruled that the suit had been brought in bad faith and ordered the center to pay the Austins' $56,909 legal bill.

Still, Joe Austin feels conservation has suffered a defeat.

"Everything we were trying to do to convince other ranchers and landowners that endangered species are not a liability has been lost," he said. "The Southwest Center proved me wrong. The Southwest Center proved to everybody that having an endangered species is a liability.

"In fact, many people think you should just get rid of them," Austin said. "That is the exact thing I didn't want to happen."

What's the center's view? "It's a bummer," said Suckling. "I wish it had not come down this way. But would I sue again? Absolutely. (The Austins) are having an impact on public land. The fact that they are doing good things elsewhere doesn't excuse it."

Cienfuegos claims "not a NIMBY issue" Uh huh.

In a message dated 5/2/2007 1:43:52 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, salzman@inreach.com writes:
From: cienfuegos@igc.org
To: Humboldt neighbors re 17-unit subdivision in Manila...
 
To neighbors across Manila and beyond,

The ad-hoc group of Manila Neighbors which has been meeting for a number of months now to challenge the inappropriate Scott Riley 17-unit subdivision in our neighborhood wants to invite all of you who receive these emails to come on out tomorrow evening, Thursday May 3rd at 6pm, for the Planning Commission meeting where the Riley proposal will be on the agenda for the first time. It's a very packed agenda, so we're not guaranteeing that our issue will be heard Thursday night.

Nevertheless, we hope that dozens of concerned residents across the Humboldt Bay area will recognize the importance of this meeting, and that we're able to pack the chambers with articulate voices of opposition. This is NOT just a Manila issue - and NOT a NIMBY issue. it's about what kinds of development the residents of Humboldt Bay wish to allow in our communities in the future, and how these critical decisions should be made.

If you'd like to attend, but don't want to sit through hours of other issues, please consider doing one of the following:
1) Email me your home or cell number (no later than 5pm Thursday), and we'll give you a call from the meeting once our agenda item is about to be heard, or
2) Watch the meeting on Cable Access Channel 10.
Either way, as soon as our agenda item comes up, we need each and every one of you to be standing there with us in the Supervisors Chambers in the Courthouse building.

If our agenda item gets tabled, it will be continued to the meeting on Thursday, June 7 at 6pm. And if you can't make either meeting, please consider writing a letter to your Supe or to the Planning Commission. And please cc a copy of your letter to us at . THANKS!

Now, here's details of the Riley development, in case you haven't seen them yet.....

-----------------------
Local Manila resident Scott Riley is proposing a 17-unit very dense subdivision of 2 and 3 story homes on 3.4 acres of his 8.5 acre property, which is mainly healthy intact willow wetlands and significant coastal dunes at the edge of Manila, about 1/4 mile south of the Manila Community Center, at 1521 Peninsula Drive (Parcel# 400-131-05). Zoning would have to be changed as he has requested a Planned Unit Development (PUD) which the neighborhood actively opposes.

The development could be precedent-setting county-wide in a number of harmful ways.

None of us are opposed to this property being "developed" as long as it matches the existing neighborhoods low density, and doesn't destroy any of the existing dunes. That would probably require that only a very small number of homes get built, all with Peninsula Drive frontage, as is the norm in the rest of the neighborhood.

The main issues of concern about this development are:
* 17 two and three story houses squeezed onto 3.4 acres of mostly dune-covered wildland - an unprecedented density in our village - in a Planned Unit Development (PUD) which throws out the existing zoning requirements. Some lots would be smaller than 4000 square feet when existing zoning requires minimum lot sizes of 20,000 sq.ft. And property frontages of as little as 27 feet while current zoning requires 75 foot wide minimums.
* 6500 cubic yards of dunes (about 650 dump truck loads) to be bulldozed and moved (described as "dune restoration" in the proposal!).
* Storm runoff from the new street, sidewalks, rooves, would be directed into the adjacent wild intact wetlands.
* Project is being marketed as the county's first solar/green subdivision. Amazingly, John Ash Group is the primary architect, which we thought had a higher standard of environmental responsibility in the projects they agree to participate in, as we believe this project is mostly a green scam.
* 30+ cars all coming out of one cul-de-sac driveway multiple times each day, on a narrow road with no sidewalks or walkable shoulders in a quiet rural neighborhood.

This is not a NIMBY issue. No developer should be allowed to place a densely packed subdivision of large homes on top of a wild dune ecosystem adjacent to a healthy willow wetland in a rural neighborhood on a narrow road.

To get involved, or for more info about the ongoing efforts of Manila Neighbors to stop this development, please contact any of the core members of our neighborhood group: Aryay Kalaki, Tim Ayres, Michael Fennell, Colleen Clifford and Ian Davidson, Dan Edrich, Gordy Anderson, Amanda Pollock & Trinity Fales, Ray Grosveld, and myself, Paul Cienfuegos. Any one of us would be happy to hear from you, if you know some of us personally. Or write to us at .
--------
UNMET TRANSIT NEEDS COMMENTS
From: "Jennifer Berman"
Subject: Still time for UNMET TRANSIT NEEDS COMMENTS, Climate News
Dear Concerned Climate Protectors,

There is still time to submit written comments for the unmet transit needs process. There was not a very good showing of people at the HCOAG unmet transit needs hearing, so your input is needed now! You can do this online via the Green Wheels website:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~wheels/joomla/content/view/191/

Just express what your personal unmet needs are: more frequent bus service, weekend bus service, neighborhood vans to get you to the main line, better bike and walking trails...etc.

Community involvement in our local planning priorities may be the most important step you can take to protect the climate.

Here is some other interesting climate protection information:

Read Al Gore's 10 pt plan to stabilize the climate
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/21/10136/4144

Read James Hansen's testimony to Congress
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/testimony_26april2007.pdf

Read all the latest global warming news here:
http://www.eesi.org/publications/Newsletters/CCNews/4.20.07%20CCNews.htm

Thanks, Jennifer

Jennifer Berman, Coordinator
Redwood Alliance Climate Action Project
707-822-6171 climatechange@redwoodalliance.org
http://redwoodalliance.org/
PO Box 293 Arcata, CA 95518
CAP meets 2nd and 4th Mondays, 5:30 pm
1175 G St Arcata, N of Wells Fargo, upstairs
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and there's more

Sustainable Jobs & Environment

(logo of ocean, mountain and sky)
Houston Corporate Accountability Events

Monday, May 17, 1999 8:00-9:00 PM
Candlelight Vigil at Hurwitz's Apartment
111 N. Post Oak Lane

Tuesday, May 18, 1999
Strategy Conference
9:30 AM to 2:15 PM
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Houston, TX
2222 West Loop South in Galleria Area
(Registration: 8:30-9:30 AM) For info. call: 713-783-1400, ext.
123)

March to Maxxam Corp. Headquarters and Rally 2:30-4:30PM
5847 San Felipe (at Augusta)

Public Forum from 7:00-9:00 PM
Westin Hotel, 5060 West Alabama, Galleria Area
Fourth Floor, Galleria Tower, Woodway I

Wednesday, May 19, 1999
Ongoing Rally at Maxxam Shareholder Meeting
Waterwood National Resort and Country Club
1 Waterwood Parkway, Huntsville, Texas
8:30 AM to 1:00 PM (For Directions Call 713-1400 Ext. 123)

Sponsored by:
(logo of United Steelworkers of America)
In Unity There is Strength!

The following may be deemed to be "participants" in this
solicitation: The Rose Foundation for Communities and the
Environment, which owns 50 shares of Maxxam common stock; Jill
Ratner and Thomas W. Little, the Rose Foundation's president and
executive director, who own 90 shares of Maxxam common stock as
tenants in common; the United Steelworkers of America, which owns
1002 shares of Maxxam common stock; As You Sow Foundation, which
owns 100 shares of Maxxam common stock; Howard Metzenbaum, who
owns no Maxxam stock; and Abner Mikva, who owns 50 shares of
Maxxam common stock. The participants (except the As You Sow
Foundation) are the members of The Committee of Concerned
Shareholders and the two nominees.

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LABOR AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS PRESENT

CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY FORUM
-- Fair Trade vs. Free Trade
-- Sustainable Jobs & The Environment
-- Accountability From Maxxam's Management

(logo of ocean, mountain, sky)

Tuesday, May 18, 1999; 7:00 PM-9:00PM
Westin Hotel, 5060 W. Alabama, in Galleria Area
Woodway I, Fourth Floor, Galleria Tower

Sponsored by:
United Steelworkers of America
(logo of United Steelworkers of America)
In Unity There is Strength!

The following may be deemed to be "participants" in this
solicitation: The Rose Foundation for Communities and the
Environment, which owns 50 shares of Maxxam common stock; Jill
Ratner and Thomas W. Little, the Rose Foundation's president and
executive director, who own 90 shares of Maxxam common stock as
tenants in common; the United Steelworkers of America, which owns
1002 shares of Maxxam common stock; As You Sow Foundation, which
owns 100 shares of Maxxam common stock; Howard Metzenbaum, who
owns no Maxxam stock; and Abner Mikva, who owns 50 shares of
Maxxam common stock. The participants (except the As You Sow
Foundation) are the members of The Committee of Concerned
Shareholders and the two nominees.

Shellenberger and the Rose Foundation

(Communications Works logo)

Communication Works

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 10, 1999

Reporters: Call For Interviews With Metzenbaum or Mikva
CONTACT: Michael Shellenberger, Katrina Muniz, 415-255-1946
(cell: 415-398-4001)
Steelworkers: David Foster, Director, 612-623-8045 (cell:
612-710-1700)
Jon Youngdahl, cell: 612-810-8788; Rose Foundation: Scott Adams,
Tim Little, Jill Ratner, 510-658-0702

MAXXAM SHAREHOLDER GROUP TO BRIEF REPORTERS ON EFFORTS TO
IMPROVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AT MAXXAM

Who: Jill Ratner, Rose Foundation for Communities and
the Environment
Tom Van Dyck, As You Sow Foundation
Dave Foster, United Steelworkers of America

What: Press Conference
Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel: Houston Galleria
2222 West Loop South, Houston (tel. 713-961-7272)
When: 12:00 Noon, May 18 (Day Before Maxxam Shareholder
Meeting

The Committee of Concerned Maxxam Shareholders will brief
reporters about their campaign to elect two independent directors
to the Maxxam board and to improve corporate governance at the
company.

The Committee's proxy materials note that Maxxam recorded a net
loss of $57.2 million for 1998. Business Week named Maxxam's
board the 10th worst in the list of "The Worst Boards of
Directors" and called it a "tiny board with little business
experience dominated by CEO" Charles Hurwitz (Dec. 8, 1997).
Apart from performance issues, the proxy materials also cite
several factors that, in the Committee's opinion, demonstrate a
need for independent directors and corporate reform.

The briefing will take place on May 18, one day before Maxxam's
annual meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 8:30 AM on
Wednesday, May 19, 1999 at the Waterwood National Resort and
Conference Center in Huntsville, Texas.

The Committee is urging holders of Maxxam common stock to elect
former U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum and former federal Judge
Abner Mikva to the two board seats filled by owners of common
stock. The other three seats on Maxxam's board are chosen by the
common and preferred shareholders voting together, with preferred
shares outvoting common shares 10 to one.

Participating in the press briefing on behalf of The Committee of
Concerned Maxxam Shareholders are Tim Little and Jill Ratner of
the Rose Foundation, and David Foster of the United Steelworkers
of America. Also participating is Tom Van Dyck of the As You Sow
Foundation, which is sponsoring one of the two shareholders
resolutions, but is not a Committee member. In proxy materials
circulated to Maxxam shareholders, the Committee explains why it
believes that Maxxam needs independent directors and governance
reforms.

DFAN14A 12th Page of 14 TOC 1st Previous Next Bottom Just 12th


* "Specifically, allegations of fiduciary lapses have surrounded
Maxxam's CEO and Chairman, Charles Hurwitz. In April 1997, the
Delaware Court of Chancery ruled in a case brought by minority
Maxxam shareholders that Mr. Hurwitz had engaged in self-dealing
with loans that were not found fair to the Company . . . . In
addition, Maxxam faces potential liabilities in two separate
legal proceedings based on the failure and subsequent $1.6
billion bailout of United Savings Association of Texas, a savings
and loan association that Maxxam is alleged to have controlled. .
. . These suits and related litigation have already been costly
to the Company, which has paid approximately $40,000,000 in
litigation expenses, including Mr. Hurwitz's expenses."

* "In 1997 and 1998 the California Department of Forestry and
Fire Prevention ("CDF") suspended the timber operator license of
Maxxam's Pacific Lumber subsidiary twice in a twelve month
period, based on 128 cited violations of state forest practice
rules. The most recent license suspension lasted over three
months."

* "Maxxam's Kaiser Aluminum Corporation ('Kaiser'), 63% of whose
outstanding common stock is held by Maxxam, is embroiled in a
serious labor dispute, the longest in Kaiser's history. The
Committee believes that this dispute and the associated costs
were avoidable . . . If the NLRB [National Labor Relations
Board] does decide to file a complaint, such a complaint could
allege that KACC [Kaiser Aluminum Chemical Corporation] engaged
in an illegal lockout. That contention, if established, could
result in gross back pay liability of up to $3 million per week
from January 14, 1999."

* KACC reported losses of $50 million in the fourth quarter of
1998 owing to the strike, and Kaiser reported a net loss of $38.9
million in that quarter."

* "In addition, serious accident rates and worker compensation
claims increased at KACC since the strike began. According to
the Occupational Health and Safety Administration ("OSHA") safety
logs, serious workplace injuries increased 138 percent in the
fourth quarter of 1998 over the average of KACC during the first
three quarters of 1998 prior to the labor dispute."

* In addition, both Kaiser and Pacific Lumber have experienced
tragic fatalities that the Committee believes could have been
prevented. In October 1997, a 33 year old Kaiser mechanic died
when he was crushed beneath the bucket of a front-end loader he
was repairing. The Washington State Department of Labor and
Industries found Kaiser at fault in the incident, cited Kaiser
for five safety violations, and fined it $35,000. In September
1998, a Pacific Lumber employee logged a tree into a group of
protesters, killing a 24 year old man. Attorneys for the young
man's family have publicly announced that they expect the logging
incident to be the subject of a lawsuit seeking damages."

The following may be deemed to be "participants" in this
solicitation: The Rose Foundation for Communities and the
Environment, which owns 50 shares of Maxxam common stock; Jill
Ratner and Thomas W. Little, who own 90 shares of Maxxam common
stock as tenants in common; the United Steelworkers of America,
which owns 1002 shares of Maxxam common stock; As You Sow
Foundation, which owns 100 shares of Maxxam common stock; Howard
M. Metzenbaum, who does not own Maxxam stock; and Abner J. Mikva,
who owns 50 shares of Maxxam common stock. The foregoing (except
the As You Sow Foundation) constitute the members of The
Committee of Concerned Shareholders and the two nominees for
Maxxam common director.

Michael Shellenberger, Director
Communication Works
tel: 415-255-1946, fax: 415-255-1947
http://www.communicationworks.org
###

Two more suits - it never ends

March 14, 1999

MacGuffin Communications
366 California Ave. #7
Palo Alto, CA 94306
>
Contact: Adam Miller 650-851-1147
Michael Evenson 707-629-3679

For Immediate Release:

PACIFIC LUMBER LOGGING PLANS THROWN OUT BY COURT

Judge Blasts Department of Forestry for Abuse of Discretion

Following close on the heels of the government's acquisition of the
Headwaters Forest from the Pacific Lumber Company, a Humboldt County
Superior Court Judge ordered the California Department of Forestry (CDF)
to rescind approval of two Pacific Lumber Company timber harvest plans
in Northern California.

On March 9, Judge W. Bruce Watson ruled that CDF's approval of plans to
clearcut nearly 200 acres of old growth Douglas-fir above Sulphur Creek
in the Mattole River watershed, violate state law. Watson wrote in his
decision "CDF's failure to meaningfully analyze, evaluate, consider, and
use the comments, opinions and recommendations of other public agencies,
experts within their fields, as the law requires is prejudicial abuse of
discretion..."

Serving as his own attorney, Michael Evenson, 53, filed the two lawsuits
in the summer of 1998. Evenson is a rancher who lives at the mouth of
the Mattole River near Petrolia, California (population 100), the
westernmost point in the continental United States.

"It's like David and Goliath," said Bob Martel of the Humboldt Watershed
Council. "A lone citizen, without a lawyer, prevailed in court against
an opponent as menacing as Pacific Lumber's owner, Charles Hurwitz, with
his legendary platoon of lawyers. These THPs would have affected the
entire community downstream. Homes and productive farmland would have
been washed away. This is a victory for everyone."

"Not only did these THPs threaten wildlife habitat, they threatened our
property." said Ellen Taylor of Petrolia, a grandmother of 56, who was
arrested, along with 20 other protesters, in August for blocking Pacific
Lumber's logging in the proposed THPs. "You don't need a Ph.D. to see
what happens when you log steep slopes: you get landslides. These
landslides are why our river is so full of gravel and silt. The salmon
can't spawn and the riverbanks are being undercut, which imperils our
homes."

The Mattole Valley is in the most seismically active terrain in the
country. The exceedingly steep slopes, highly erosive soils, and
rainfall of up to 200 inches make sustainable logging by clearcut
impossible.

In his 18 page ruling, Judge Watson also said the cumulative impacts
assessment in the THPs as approved by CDF appear inadequate. "Both
[THPs] encompass a large portion of a small watershed that has been
seriously degraded, most likely due to cumulative adverse impacts caused
by a variety of land use practices [logging]," wrote Judge Watson.
This information has been known to CDF since at least 1990..." His
ruling confirms CDF does not have the expertise to make biological
decisions, and Watson's decision will likely affect approval of other
timber harvest plans in areas where the risk of landslides is a concern.

The agencies were unanimous in their determinations that the area is
extremely unstable, and that logging on slopes as steep as 80% increased
the likelihood of landslides that would, in turn threaten the dwindling
populations of the endangered coho salmon. Watson cited the objections
raised by state Department of Fish and Game, National Marine Fisheries
Service, North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Environmental
Protection Agency and US Geological Survey.

Watson wrote "CDF is mandated by law to consider the concerns expressed,
and address those concerns, by either finding they are without
foundation, which appears unlikely given the record, or account for
concerns, which accounting is supported by the record. In [these THPs]
CDF did neither, that failure is an abuse of discretion."

Attorneys for both CDF and for Pacific Lumber claimed that the Habitat
Conservation Plan accepted as a condition of the Headwaters acquisition,
would provide adequate protection for Sulphur Creek, and that it
included higher standards of protection than existing state law
requires.

Judge Watson did not agree. He wrote: "Irrespective of the [HCP]
agreement, however, given the substantial concerns expressed by the
other agencies, CDF would have been remiss in approving [the THPs] in
any event."

Judge Watson ruled in favor of Evenson on all counts, and awarded court
costs.

"After a decade of liquidation logging, Pacific Lumber doesn't have any
old growth forest left to cut that doesn't endanger species and
downstream residents." said Evenson. "There's nothing to cut but the
steepest, most landslide-prone slopes."

"CDF can no longer rubber stamp THPs, disregarding the concerns of the
regulatory agencies." Bob Martel explained. "They should defer to the
determinations of wildlife agencies charged with the protection of
public trust values."

"This decision isn't just a victory for salmon and neighbors." said
Evenson. "It's also a victory for Pacific Lumber employees who's very
future is jeopardized by unsustainable logging practices. Every
hillside they've logged surrounding these THPs is riddled with
landslides. Trees don't grow on landslides. Judge Watson reminded us
that the law has the future of timber workers in mind."

"You can't have sustainable timber jobs without practicing sustainable
forestry." said Evenson.



Earth First! Media Center
Andy Caffrey, director

efmc@asis.com
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/9901/

We have so much more to do! We are working so hard to get the word out to
the world via the Internet on these crucial and cutting-edge campaigns
against these outrageous atrocities! Our postings about David Chain's
killing have now gone out to over a million people on five continents and
been translated into French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish and Russian.
_____________________________________

WE NEED YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW

We have just gone through a tormenting last five months and are flat broke
with broken down gear, scant supplies, and late bills to cover. We are in
need of certain supplies as well, such as Epson 740 ink cartridges, zip
disks, videotape, postage, and subscriptions to periodicals, if we are to
continue on after March.

Please send contributions to further our work in support of the above and
dozens of other EF! campaigns, payable to "Earth First!," to

Earth First! Media Center

Well, well, well. Look who they used as "Resources:" The Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, 510-658-0702; Environmental Protection Information Center, 707-923-2931; Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, 202-208-7351.
Check the way things are characterized.

The Junk Bond Boss Meets the Ancient Sequoia

by Sharon Seidenstein

Ancient redwoods are priceless, from an environmentalist's point of view, but now green activists are trying to attach a price tag to the trees in order to preserve them. Texas millionaire Charles Hurwitz controls one of the last groves of old-growth redwoods in private hands, and environmentalists are lobbying for a ìdebt-for-natureî swap, with Hurwitz giving the trees to the U.S. government to pay back some of the $1.6 billion it spent bailing out a savings and loan Hurwitz managed into bankruptcy. Hurwitz says the government should either buy the land at fair market value, or get out of his way and let him log.

The direct action group Earth First! was the first to suggest that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) accept the redwoods of Pacific Lumber Company's Headwaters Forest in Northern California as payment for its 1988 bailout of depositors of Hurwitz's United Savings & Loan of Texas. In its usual fashion, Earth First! made the suggestion politely, at a 1993 demonstration at the FDIC's Washington, D.C. headquarters. A lot is at stake. The forest's Headwaters Grove is home to 1000-year-old redwoods standing hundreds of feet tall and shielding the habitats of the Northern spotted owl and other threatened and endangered species. It is a remnant of a forest that once blanketed the West Coast from Big Sur to southern Oregon, 96% of which has vanished under 150 years of liquidation logging.

Since the 1993 demonstration, Greenpeace, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and Senators and Congresspeople have joined in the call for a ìdebt-for-natureî swap. They are appealing to the FDIC, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Clinton Administration to negotiate forgiveness of all or part of Hurwitz's debt to the federal government in exchange for 57,000 to 76,000 acres of Headwaters Forest, to be placed into public hands for long-term protection.

Debt-for-nature swaps, although rare in the United States, are not unheard of. In 1988, the Bank of America gave the state of California a nature preserve in the northern part of the state, three other properties and $27 million to clear a debt of about $54 million. In the early 1990s, Howard Hughes' estate swapped wetlands near the Los Angeles Airport in exchange for state taxes due. Outside the United States, Third World countries have traded ecologically valuable resources to relieve debt. This controversial version of the swap has helped protect tropical forests and grasslands in Bolivia, parks on the island of Palawan in the Philippines and a dozen other sites.

A swap of S&L debt for nature seems like a far-fetched plan if you ask Richard Keeton, Hurwitz's lawyer. He took time out from his busy schedule, fielding lawsuits from people seeking his client's cash, to tell me in a good-natured way that any debt-for-nature idea is ìbeating a dead horse.î Since his client is innocent of wrongdoing, he explained, there is no debt.

But it could be one of the FDIC's options, because of the convoluted and seemingly illegal connections Hurwitz created between his S&L and the go-go world of junk bond financing of the 1980s. Hurwitz bought the redwoods with his own swap ó the FDIC claims he buried his Texas S&L by having it buy junk bonds nobody wanted from Michael Milken's junk bond factory at Drexel, Burnham, Lambert in New York City. In turn, Milken helped Hurwitz engineer the takeover of Pacific Lumber and received his business issuing the junk bonds to pay for it.

The takeover has led to the equivalent of a work speedup in the forests. Because junk bonds are risky, or backed by assets of lower value, they burden the companies that issue them with high interest payments. To pay off the loans and interest on $600 million of junk bonds (and $300 million of bank loans) issued to pay for the company, Hurwitz has doubled Pacific Lumber's traditional rate of logging, sold off assets and allegedly raided the employee pension fund. Before the takeover, Pacific Lumber's relatively conservative harvesting practices had kept the forests healthy while other timber companies had destroyed theirs. But now the only thing that protects the Headwaters Grove from logging is an injunction won by an environmental group ó which is likely to end in September.

Junk Bonds for Sale Cheap

Last year, The Wall Street Journal described Hurwitz's United Savings and Loan of Texas as ìa highflying thrift heavily involved in junk bonds, arbitrage and speculative real estate plays.î Its failure was one of the most costly of the S&L bailouts of the 1980s, and centrally involved in the junk bond crisis that cost the U.S. government $134 billion to clean up.

The S&L's complicated financial transactions with Hurwitz's Maxxam Corporation essentially freed up its federally insured deposits to fund Maxxam's hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber. In effect, the government argued in a 1991 lawsuit against Michael Milken, Hurwitz transferred the assets of the federally-insured S&L to Maxxam (see box). This suggests that Hurwitz and Maxxam Corporation acquired Pacific Lumber and Headwaters Forest illegally, and the takeover of the lumber company ìled to the failure of the savings and loan and subsequent bailout,î as one environmental lawyer put it.

The Hurwitz camp categorically denies any wrongdoing. For one, they claim Hurwitz did not legally control United Savings & Loan. His lawyer also says that the FDIC cannot legally ìsecond guessî today actions taken according to Hurwitz's best business judgment in the 1980s.

If the Suit Fits. . . File It

Charles Hurwitz is a wealthy man. He is principal shareholder and CEO of Maxxam, Inc., whose assets were recently estimated at $3.8 billion. Hurwitz, or Maxxam, own Kaiser Aluminum, Federated Development Company of New York, Pacific Lumber and United Financial Group, the former holding company of United Savings and Loan of Texas. Pacific Lumber owns 189,000 acres in Northern California plus two mills. The acreage includes nearly all old-growth redwoods in private hands, some 6,000 acres. Prime old-growth redwood trees, like many of the 300-foot giants in Headwaters Grove, are worth $100,000 each at the lumber yard.

But apparently Hurwitz owes a lot of people a lot of money ó and many are finally going after it. He has faced three shareholder suits linked to Pacific Lumber alone: one an attempt to block the takeover of Pacific Lumber, the second by Pacific Lumber's original shareholders who felt they had been sold out for a ludicrous price, and a third challenging his raid of the employee pension fund. In 1995, the FDIC, the Office of Thrift Supervision and a Humboldt County community activist filed three new suits against him.

FDIC v. Hurwitz, filed in August 1995, seeks a $250 million damage award from the financier directly; Maxxam is not named in the suit. It accuses Hurwitz of having United Savings & Loan buy junk bonds from Drexel in exchange for the firm financing his takeovers. He then hid the true condition of the S&L ìby a pattern of deceptive financial reporting and balance sheet manipulation.î As it sunk deeper into a hole, the S&L increased its liabilities beyond legal limits, gambled on ìcumbersome real estate projects with no realistic chance of success and invested in complex financial instruments which the officers understood poorly and which resulted in staggering losses to the association.î

The FDIC suit

Under Hurwitz's control, the financial condition of United Savings steadily deteriorated. As the institution's financial health plummeted, Hurwitz, senior officers and United Savings board members serving at Hurwitz's request undertook greater and greater risks until both the officers and board members ìbecame entirely indifferent to losses the institution might incur,î the FDIC charged in its lawsuit against Hurwitz.

But according to FDIC chair Ricki Tigert-Helfer, the lawsuit cannot compel Maxxam, Pacific Lumber or their boards of directors to consider a debt-for-nature swap since they might decide to use other assets to satisfy their liability.

"Nevertheless," she added in a letter to Jill Ratner, a lawyer with the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, "the FDIC is open to any appropriate settlement of its claim, including a debt-for-nature swap."

Additional pressure for a debt-for-nature swap came from yet another lawsuit, filed in January 1995 by Humboldt activist Robert Martel in U.S. District Court. It asks that Maxxam repay losses related to the Savings & Loan and that the judge award as much as $4.8 billion in damages on behalf of U.S. taxpayers.

Nearly a year later, in December 1995, the federal Office of Thrift Supervision filed 13 claims in administrative court charging Hurwitz, Maxxam, Federated Development and former and present directors of United Savings and Loan and its holding company with contributing to the failure of the S&L by turning it into ìa vehicle for speculative, highly leveraged, high risk investmentsî from a traditional home mortgage lender. In order to keep financing takeovers while maintaining its stated net worth, the thrift had to sell off its assets.

The suit seeks civil penalties of more than $800,000, restitution and a ban on the financiers from working in the banking industry. Among its other claims: that the financiers failed to properly maintain the minimum net worth of the S&L, which regulators had made a condition for approving the merger of United Savings & Loan and another thrift in 1983; violated a ban against affiliated parties engaging in transactions when the S&L bought junk bonds from Drexel, Burnham, Lambert; failed to maintain the minimum capital required by law; and paid out ìunsafe and unsoundî bonuses, settlements and severance packages to officers and directors.

Languishing and Dying in Congress

The U.S. Congress and the Clinton Administration are well aware of Headwaters and Hurwitz. In 1994, then-Representative Dan Hamburg (D-CA) introduced a bill in the House that authorized the U.S. Forest Service to begin negotiating with Pacific Lumber and other landowners of Headwaters to attach the forest to the Six Rivers National Forest. Although the bill eventually passed the House, the Senate version introduced by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) did not come up for a vote.

Hurwitz has a close ally in Frank Riggs (R-CA), the Congressman who defeated Hamburg in the Republican sweep of 1994. In June, Riggs was soundly rebuffed by his colleagues when he tried to win passage of a rider limiting enforcement of the Endangered Species Act on Pacific Lumber land. Perhaps Pacific Lumber was tired of being challenged by a local environmental group for its violations of environmental law. The Environmental Protection Information Center won nine suits that overturned Headwaters timber harvest plans.

The House also defeated a bill Riggs introduced that would have opened Headwaters to logging if negotiations between the Forest Service and the landowners fell through within an 18-month period.

Meanwhile, environmentalists, senators, representatives, Vice President Al Gore and high-level administrators in the departments of the Treasury and the Interior have been busy exchanging letters and holding meetings. One of the most hopeful meetings took place in February in Sacramento with Deputy Interior Secretary John Garamendi, California state officials and Hurwitz.

Searching for Cover

It's now June.

Pacific Lumber is busy logging. They have already cut a large swath through Headwaters Grove and logged significant portions of second-growth and residual-growth forest. Suits filed by the Environmental Protection Information Center have largely kept the chainsaws out of the most pristine groves, but the court injunction that currently protects the Headwaters Grove will probably be lifted in time for autumn logging.

The neighboring Elk River Timber has indicated it is willing to sell its land to public trust, but in the meanwhile is logging in a threatened species' habitat.

The Environmental Protection Information Center continues its legal battles, challenging a timber harvest plan along the South Fork Elk River drainage in a June lawsuit.

The FDIC suit against Hurwitz and his cohorts is pending in Judge Lynn Hughes' federal court in Houston, awaiting rulings on various motions, including one filed by Hurwitz's lawyers to dismiss the case. The Office of Thrift Supervision's suit is scheduled for a hearing in May 1997 in Houston, but OTS has not frozen Maxxam's assets, as it has the power to do if it thinks they will not be around once the lawsuit is over. Martel's suit seeking damages on behalf of U.S. taxpayers has been transferred, also to Texas.

One possible sign of hope: Deputy Interior Secretary Garamendi recently said that the federal and California governments are discussing with Hurwitz the acquisition of Headwaters Forest ó although they are not specifically talking about a debt-for-nature swap or settling the lawsuits. It will be several months before the public can expect to hear of a possible agreement.

That's about the time the young Coho salmon of Headwaters will be searching for rapidly declining cool waters and scarce adequate cover.

Resources: The Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, 510-658-0702; Environmental Protection Information Center, 707-923-2931; Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, 202-208-7351.

Issue #207, September-October 1996

NCJ - 5/96 Riggs' Forest Bill: A Headwaters solution, Forest Service shakeup

SPECIAL REPORT - MAY 1996

Riggs' Forest Bill: A Headwaters solution, Forest Service shakeup
by Jim Hight
Photo by Doug Thron

THE CONTROVERSY OVER PACIFIC Lumber's Headwaters Grove hasdragged on for nearly 10 years, through protests and lawsuits, ballot measures and several rounds of state and federal legislation.

Now Congressman Frank Riggs proposes a land-swap in which the public would "buy" the grove of ancient redwoods northeast of Fortuna with U.S. government land. Riggs and his staff say HR 2712 will provide a fair resolution to the Headwaters standoff. But the environmental groups who have used lawsuits and injunctions to prevent the logging of Headwaters don't agree.

The bill actually deals with much more than Headwaters. It contains eight sections addressing forest issues large and small, from conveying a tiny parcel of Forest Service land to the Del Norte County Unified School District to turning most of the Six Rivers National Forest operations over to the private sector.

Riggs hopes the bill will soon be heard before the Subcommittee on National Forests, Parks and Public Lands, then move through the Natural Resources Committee, pass the House and Senate, be signed by President Clinton and become law. He and his staff have martialed wide support in the forest products industry, and they believe most of their constituents will back the bill as a vehicle to boost North Coast jobs while protecting the Headwaters Grove as a National Biological Diversity Reserve.

North Coast forest-protection activists promise an all-out, national campaign to defeat Riggs' bill if it moves forward as written.

To resolve the Headwaters issue, Riggs' legislation would set up a process in which the Interior Department would exchange federal lands with PL for the 3,000-acre Headwaters Grove and up to 1,700 acres of contiguous land that would be a "buffer" between the grove and PL's surrounding timberlands.

Bureau of Land Management lands in Humboldt County, or timber harvesting rights on those lands, would be the first priority for exchange. Along with these, any other federal lands that have been designated as available for disposal could be exchanged.

"We'll accept other federal dormant assets, RTC properties (taken over from failed S&Ls), military bases," says PL President John Campbell, who was consulted by Riggs' staff in the bill's drafting.

To compensate for the value of Headwaters, PL "could either turn around and sell these properties as private land or go ahead and develop them," says Campbell.

The lands identified by Riggs and the BLM for exchange include Lacks Creek, a couple miles southeast of the southern border of Redwood National Park; Iaqua Buttes and Big Bend, on either side of the Mad River, southeast of Kneeland; and Butte Creek, off Highway 36 east of Bridgeville.

Used by some backpackers and hunters, the lands contain about 8,000 acres, mostly Douglas fir, with a lot of old growth. Their total value, however, is far less than that of Headwaters' huge redwoods, so a great deal of other land would have to be exchanged for Headwaters, which was valued by a Forest Service appraiser in 1993 at $500 million.

"The secretary (of the Interior) can look all over California for land or marketable timber harvest rights," says Jason Conger, Riggs' point man on resource issues. "Any property that is already surplus can be offered."

But bartering the BLM lands in question is objectionable to the bill's opponents. "The reason that land has a large volume of timber on it is that it is some of the last of the little bit of old growth that remains on BLM property," says environmental attorney David Krueger, a board member of the Northcoast Environmental Center. "It's all critical habitat (for the spotted owl and other old growth-dependent species)."

The other major objections to the bill focus on the process outlined for negotiating an exchange. The legislation gives PL and the feds equal control over a new appraisal process, but it mandates that "no reduction shall be made in the appraised fair market value" to reflect critical habitat restrictions. This angers environmentalists who say that Headwaters' value for timber harvesting is diminished by the fact that under federal and state endangered species laws, it can't be harvested until PL comes up with a "habitat conservation plan" for the marbled murrelet, listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act and "endangered" under California law.

But to do otherwise wouldn't be fair, says Conger. "It would be like passing a law that reduces something's value and then going in and buying it. A single landowner should not bear the cost of the public's benefit in protecting endangered species."

But most alarming to those who have opposed PL's efforts to log in Headwaters is a provision of Riggs' bill that sets a time limit of 18 months on negotiations between PL and Interior; after that PL can begin to harvest timber even if it "results in a taking otherwise prohibited by the Endangered Species Act."

"After 18 months of negotiation, if PL doesn't get the price they want, which could be a king's ransom, they're given an incidental take permit without any public review or any third-party review," says Cecilia Lanman of Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville, the main Headwaters litigant against PL over the last eight years.

The species that would be "incidentally taken" is the marbled murrelet.

"They were once called 'fog larks' because people would hear them crying to their mates in the fog," says Lanman. They nest on the flat branches of old redwoods, depending on dense canopies to protect their eggs from ravens, jays and other predators. According to Lanman, Headwaters is one of three murrelet habitats in the state. And though other populations live in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, preserving the local habitat is critical because geographically diverse populations are required for long-term viability.

In a Feb. 15 meeting with forest-protection activists in Arcata, Riggs conceded that their concerns about the 18-month time limit were valid. "It's clear from the feedback today that (the time line) should be modified," Riggs said after the meeting. Conger says that's likely to happen as the bill moves through committee, but he insists some deadline is needed "or this could go on for another 10 years."

Behind the disagreements over this bill are deeper divisions over property rights and environmental protection.

"Like everybody else we'd like to see Headwaters saved, but in a way that will give Pacific Lumber value for what is rightfully their property," says Patricia Murphy, president of Alta California Alliance. "This bill is a step in the right direction."

Environmentalists are hoping that the FDIC is successful in levying fines against Maxxam Chairman Charles Hurwitz for his role in the failure of United Savings of Texas in 1988. Then they'd like that debt forgiven in exchange for Headwaters, the "debt-for-nature" swap.

PL's Campbell maintains that even if Hurwitz is found culpable in the Texas case and is fined, "suing Mr. Hurwitz is not the same as suing Maxxam or PL you can't take corporate assets to pay off a personal debt. That would make the shareholders very unhappy."

Six Rivers National Forest is the target of two major sections of Riggs' bill. The legislation would mandate that a large chunk of the forest budget be diverted to hiring private contractors; and on two of the SRNF ranger districts -- Mad River and Lower Trinity -- it would accelerate timber harvest in a massive "experiment" to gauge the effects of old-growth logging on the northern spotted owl. That's the critter whose potential extinction shut down the public forests of the Pacific Northwest in 1990 and set in motion the massive reordering of forest priorities known as Option 9, or the Northwest Forest Plan. HR 2712 would take apart much Option 9 as it applies to SRNF.

After the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was finalized in April 1994, the SRNF developed its own forest plan to cover the next 10 to 15 years. It set massively reduced timber outputs -- 15.5 million board feet per year down from a typical cut of 140 million per year in the 1980s.

Huge areas of the 960,000-acre forest have been set aside as "late successional reserves"; containing a mixture of old growth and mature second growth, they are off limits to large-scale timber sales. Only selective harvesting that improves old-growth characteristics will be allowed. Virtually all land along streams and rivers are likewise protected as "riparian reserves" to revive the dwindling salmon runs. And even the "matrix" lands where timber sales will go forward must be managed to provide habitat for a range of species from the lowliest fungus to the grandest salamander.

To put it in the dry language of the SRNF forest plan, "The forest will be managed to maintain ecosystem components, structure and processes."

Few environmentalists celebrated Option 9; in fact, it's been challenged in court for not providing enough habitat protection for the owl, particularly in Oregon and Washington where old-growth sales that were contracted before the spotted owl injunction are now being harvested under the 1995 "salvage" law. But with a few complaints here and there, most North Coast forest activists support the NWFP and the Six Rivers Forest Plan.

By contrast, it's hard to find anyone in the forest products industry with a positive thing to say about either the regional or local plan.

"Any forester looking at a million acres would see that there is no problem to harvest over 200 million board feet a year on a sustainable basis and retain environmental values," says Bruce Taylor, president of Blue Lake Forest Products. "The Six Rivers' recent level was about 145 million. That was less than industry wanted, and more than the environmentalists wanted. What's being projected now is not even in the same zip code. It's ludicrous."

Like other local mills that bought Forest Service timber, Blue Lake cut back its production and work force after 1990. Others didn't even survive, and many timber-dependent workers and their families have suffered as a result.

And while the NWFP promised money for job retraining and economic development in timber-dependent communities, many feel these promises weren't kept. "I don't know one unemployed logger who's been retrained and put into a job that lasted more than three months," says Mary Fattig of Salyer, a vice president of California Women in Timber.

She says she sees the economic fallout every time she drives through Willow Creek. "People who've been in business for 30 to 50 years have had to close Willow Creek Meat Market, which had been there since the '20s, had to close. So did Hodgson's Department store."

Fattig supported some of the goals of the NWFP, however, and she joined a unique committee formed under the plan which was charged with developing new approaches to using the forest in a certain part of the SRNF and Shasta-Trinity National Forest called the Hayfork Adaptive Management Area. Her proposal was to selectively log all the old growth trees in a small area and track the effects on the spotted owl.

Her idea was endorsed by the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, which started to develop a research program. Then she learned it was in Rep. Riggs' bill, but on a much larger scale: covering two entire ranger districts, nearly 50 percent of the forest.

At first she was shocked at how large Riggs' "experiment" was. Then she realized that in the process of legislation, "sometimes you have to ask for 20 percent if you're going to end up with 3 percent."

"Right now we're shutting down the national forest because of the spotted owl," says Conger, in defense of a larger experimentation area. "Is it necessary? If, as we think, the owls are not negatively impacted by management activity, then we can restore much of the Forest Service land base and reduce our growing imports of logs from as far away as New Zealand. We wouldn't have any need for Option 9."

The "Adaptive Management of Timber Resources for Old Growth Dependent Species" section of the bill would hand over management of the two ranger districts to the research branch, and mandate that half of the SRNF budget be turned over, 75 percent of which must be used "for payment to private contractors for planning, implementation and monitoring of the research plan."

Combined with another section of the bill which orders the SRNF to "contract out" field work related to preparing timber harvests for a five-year "demonstration period," the arithmetic of the bill seems to cut the SRNF down from a $15 million agency to one with a budget near zero.

Here's where Conger acknowledges that his boss may be "asking for 20 and hoping for 3," in Fattig's words.

"If both parts passed as they are written now, a substantial amount of the Six Rivers' budget authorization would be transferred into the contracting program or the research project. That's one of the issues that the Forest Service would have to analyze and report to Congress on during the legislative process During the hearings we would be able to find out exactly how much it would transfer and (make revisions accordingly)."

But Conger makes no excuses for putting the Six Rivers feet to the fire. "If you endorse having a formerly active land-management agency becoming a planning and documentation agency, they're on the right track. But if you think they should be active stewards of the land, as we do, this idea is to take some steps to get them back on track."

Disagreement over exactly what track the Forest Service should get back on is why environmental activists are upset about these elements of Riggs' bill.

"We've already had an acceleration (of timber harvesting) and there's a tremendous amount of damage that needs to be repaired from the era of acceleration that existed from the mid-1940s to 1990," says Tim McKay, director of the Northcoast Environmental Center in Arcata. "The road building associated with clearcutting accompanied so much watershed damage that we're going to be dealing with effects of acceleration well into the next century."

McKay and others believe strongly that the SRNF's projected 15.5 million board feet of annual production is reasonable, given what they say was overharvesting during earlier years. They say that the regional NWFP and the Six Rivers Forest Plan are designed to meet environmental laws -- the same kinds of environmental laws that resulted in the forest being hammered by legal challenges to timber sales and ultimately shut down when the spotted owl was "listed" as endangered. A major rollback in environmental protections to increase timber harvest, as they envision under Riggs' bill, would put the forest back into gridlock, they say.

"All of the Forest Service planning resources have been directed toward designing a new generation of timber sales for the last couple years," says Krueger, the attorney who has followed Forest Service activities for years, sometimes challenging its timber sales. "We've been in a position where the old timber sales that have been in the pipeline are exhausted and the new timber sales are just getting going.

"Unlike private timber companies, the Forest Service has to take into account other uses of the land, and they're required to do their work publicly. As a consequence, the procedures in terms of inventorying, getting public input and complying with the laws simply require a couple of years for a typical timber sale to be put together. They can go faster in an emergency but that means some other project gets slowed down.

"Here we are at the point where new timber sales are just starting and Riggs is coming up with a proposal that says 'Start over.' The result will be that you now postpone timber sales."

SRNF personnel confirm that for several years virtually no timber was offered for sale. It's this "drought" of trees that has caused mounting frustration among people in the industry who once relied on forest service timber work.

They say they'll be offering their targeted 15.5 million board feet by 1997, and without directly criticizing Riggs' legislation (something federal employees are discouraged from doing) they back up Krueger's point.

"If we get into a situation where we're back in court, litigation will grind us to a halt," says Six Rivers public information officer Bill Padonick. "This has been demonstrated in the past. We don't want to be there again, we want to be productive and moving forward."

"Probably what we'll see is that by managing and using the land and resource strategy that we have in place, we will be able to do more (timber harvest) than the current forest plan says because will find down the road that we will be able to manage for viable habitat without having to depend on the large reserves."

Less dramatic components of HR 2712 include adding some land to the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation and increasing slightly the annual limits on timber cutting in the Smith River National Recreation Area.

More controversial is a section that would adopt the BLM's recommendation for designating "wilderness" in the King Range National Conservation Area. After a long study period, the BLM recommended that 24,660 acres be designated as wilderness. The area is primarily on the ocean-facing slopes of the range, running from Sea Lion Gulch in the north to the Sinkyone Wilderness in the south, with a large break around the Shelter Cove area.

The BLM says it made the recommendation after considering how much work it would take to manage popular wilderness areas and analyzing to what extent lands were already used for ranching and other uses. They acknowledge that the acreage designated was below what the majority of people commenting on the issue wanted. "Most did favor the all-wilderness alternative," says BLM spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian.

Environmentalists say public opinion ought to carry the day in this case. "At hearings for the wilderness study, it was 500 to 3 speaking in favor of a larger wilderness designation," says Lanman of EPIC. She adds that her group favors a wilderness bill that looks at all the BLM lands in the state.

NCJ - 9/15/96 Headwaters Rally

There's Shellenberger's buddy and partner, Adam Werbach... did they know each other back then?
This was when all the pressure was being exerted.... Bonnie Raitt, Woody Harrelson...

PHOTO PAGE/ESSAY - OCTOBER 1996PHOTO PAGE/ESSAY - OCTOBER 1996
9/15/96 Headwaters Rally

Photos by Brandi Easter
Essay by Jim Hight

At the press conference Sept. 15, singers Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt,
Adam Wehrbach of the Sierra Club and Cecilia Lanman of Environmental Protection Information Center


A section of the crowded rally site on Highway 36


"I'm a logger and I'm here to stand up for the rights of my job," said Bryan Chipps of Eureka, one of this group of counter-protesters.


Giant puppets brought by demonstrators keep watch over the portable toilets.


County sheriff's deputies, Highway Patrol officers and Fortuna police were ready, but the only arrests occurred at the pre-determined trespassing site.

Headwaters forever?

FOR A JOURNALIST, THE "largest protest against logging in U.S. history" provided a wealth of images and telling moments.

A mass of colorful humans bumped and squeezed together onto the shoulders of Highway 36 for five hours. Flags and banners danced above their heads and turkey buzzards soared across the blue sky.

Darryl Cherney sang "You can't clearcut your way to heaven," with Judi Bari on fiddle and Francine and Nymiah singing harmony.

The loudest applause of the day went not to visiting celebrities Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley but to Cecilia Lanman, the local activist who seems to have risen to the rank of general in the Headwaters Army.

On Fisher Road, three generations of a family stood in quiet defiance at the front of their driveway, a logging crane parked behind them, as protesters walked and danced toward the PALCO property line.

When someone crossed that line, an officer said, "Ma'am, you're trespassing. Please step back across the line." She said "No," and the officer said, "You're under arrest" before slipping a plastic tie around her wrists and leading her off.

In contrast to some characterizations on North Coast TV news, I witnessed much to admire about the way protesters -- and the organizers -- conducted themselves.

Before and during the rally on Highway 36, the riot-ready police stood back while scores of volunteer security people kept order. "Please stay to the side of the white line" was heard more often than "Save Headwaters."

When pickups full of timber fallers drove back and forth -- one throttling a chain saw -- I saw friendly waves, not middle fingers, extended by people in the crowd.

People of all ages were there, including Rex Rathbun, 76, of Petrolia. On his way to get arrested he told me his first act of civil disobedience had occurred in the same place last year. "That was 50 years to the day after I walked the streets of Tokyo after World War II. And I didn't fight that war so Charles Hurwitz could log the last of the old forests."

But for the cynic in me, there was some meaty material to chew on.

In the staging area where protesters prepared to cross PALCO's "green line," I asked a 10-year-old boy from Mill Valley why he was going to get arrested.

"For the cause," he said, then nodded toward the green hills surrounding us: "Imagine if all of that was logged." He was looking at healthy second- and third-growth conifers.

In the "press tent" and from the stage speakers mentioned their concern for timber workers and predicted new jobs in "restoration and ecosystem management" after Headwaters is protected. They said Hurwitz revved up PALCO's timber harvest, hastening the day when the company will shut down the old-growth mill in Scotia. "Can we count on Mr. Hurwitz to take care of us after the timber is gone?" asked one speaker.

"Can we count on you to be honest about the economic impacts of your demands?" a fast-talking heckler could have yelled back.

Protection of PALCO's six remaining old-growth groves will surely shut down PALCO's Mill A years before even Hurwitz had planned.

Watershed restoration jobs pay well and are important to the recovery of fisheries, but the money for them trickles into Humboldt County by the hundreds of thousands. And how generous will the federal government be with the North Coast after sacrificing some $300 million to purchase just the main Headwaters Grove?

People who know a lot more than I about the subject say PALCO's old-growth groves and the tens of thousands of acres connecting them must be preserved. With only a tiny percentage of untouched forests left in the lower 48 states, there seems to be common sense in the environmentalists' claims.

Whether you call it "God's Creation" or the "Web of Life," there is a natural order. In the last 150 years, we humans have acquired the ability to quickly and massively intervene in this order.

Headwaters' defenders believe we must restrain timber harvesting and preserve 60,000 acres of the coastal redwood ecosystem. With the momentum of the times and a national constituency behind them, it looks like they'll slowly but inevitably win most of the battles.

But as a newcomer to a county built on timber jobs, I can't help but think about what will be lost and who will lose it, and how much we all lose in the ongoing conflicts.

NCJ - THOSE DISAPPEARING TIMBER JOBS 9/97

THOSE DISAPPEARING TIMBER JOBS
GUEST OPINION by Jerry Partain

If you follow the debate over forestry policies in the Pacific Northwest, you've probably heard from environmentalists who say that job losses in the timber industry have been caused by the new sawmill technology rather than environmental regulations.

Recently my attention was called to a study by Bill Freudenburg at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studied employment trends between 1947 and 1993 and found no "statistically believable evidence of a 'spotted owl' effect on logging jobs." He concluded that if environmental laws had any effect on jobs in the timber industry, it was to increase them.

My first clue to Freudenburg's biased outlook on this subject was his use of the terms "chopping down trees" and "mowing down trees." Like a lot of people, he doesn't approve of harvesting trees as an agricultural crop. I'm sure he would not refer to a wheat harvest as "chopping down" wheat stems.

Employment in the period Freudenburg studied certainly did drop, and it dropped partly because of technology changes that saved lives and reduced operating costs. It dropped also because companies harvested old growth timber at a rapid rate, thus reducing the availability of this resource.

After World War II returning servicemen were intent on resuming their peacetime lives after four years of war. Logging and timber manufacturing expanded rapidly throughout the Northwest beginning in 1945. The rapid harvesting was done not because loggers love to "chop down" trees, but because they responded to an unprecedented demand for homes, furniture, paper and a thousand other valuable products made from trees.

The large increase in logging just after the war set the stage for a significant reduction of logging jobs when the demand was met. It's what we expected. It's what happened in the Northeast, the Great Lakes states and the Southeast in much earlier times.

In 1960 I predicted at an economic development seminar that the 300 or so sawmills we then had in Humboldt County would drop to about 10 or 15 by 1980. We knew that the industry needed to make the transition from harvesting residual old growth to the management and harvesting of young growth. It was the pattern followed all across the country at different times in our history. The difference was that all of the old growth had been cut in the rest of the country, while we still had millions of acres of old trees left to fight over.

Among the good scientific works of today, there are many examples of junk science molded to produce a desired result. This was best displayed locally by faulty studies on the habitat needs of the spotted owl. Freudenburg has produced the same kind of work to show that environmental regulations have not only not caused job losses but have actually created more jobs in the industry.

Despite Freudenburg's work and other studies negating the "spotted owl" effect on our labor market, I think the truth is contained in the answer to this simple question: If the Six Rivers National Forest has a million acres of timber land and its management sets aside 85 percent of that for purposes other than timber growing and harvesting, doesn't that have an effect on jobs in the timber industry?

That's what has been done throughout the Northwest under the Northwest Forest Plan (Option 9).

Yes, technology and the shift to harvesting second-growth timber have reduced timber employment. Fewer hours of human labor are required to produce 1,000 board feet of lumber. But the reduction in the number of acres available for tree growing and harvesting has cut additional jobs.

Of course, the environmental laws have sown a rich increase in jobs for biologists, geologists and other "ists" to meet the new requirements. The costs of employing these people is borne by the buyers of timber products.
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