Here is the standard disclaimer-these thoughts and opinions are mine, they do not reflect any ECA opinion or any ECA member’s opinion.

Governing “little ole” Northern California from Washington DC does not work. Now that you know I am an advocate for smaller government (SHOCKER ALERT!), let me provide a few examples of a Government for the People and By the People, run amuck.

Ok, now that I have that off my chest, back to my “loose theme”. Before I start my fairy tale about a mythical group called FEMUH, I need to provide a little background of other examples lest you think I am a “conspiracy theorist”.

I am reminded of a fiasco several years ago when the Fed and State prison system was sued for overcrowding and their solution was to release the prisoners back to the local County Jails. The local Counties tried to inform the State and Feds that their jails were set up for short stays by prisoners, and long prison sentences could not be accommodated without major expenditures to revamp their jails. The response from the Feds and State? No money is heading your way-

deal with it.

I am also reminded of a Fish and Wildlife “proclamation” forcing local jurisdictions to hire biologists to set up fencing, set in buckets with sponges in the bottoms, and count how many California Tiger Salamanders they caught after it rained. I recall going to the meeting with the Feds when they were expanding the areas that had to be mitigated for impact on the little critters, because they were supposedly “worse off” than several years before. I asked the question: “Mr. F & W guy, you did not know how many of the critters were around several years ago, and you do not know how many are around today, correct?” Mr. F & W guy says, “that is correct”. So, I followed up with “then how can you say the CTE population is worse off today, then yesterday?”. F & W guy replied, “because that is what this report says”. END OF THE QUESTIONING AND PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD! Final response from the F & W guy when folks complained that we need housing and the land to build affordable housing on-

deal with it!

Bottom line, the FEDS come out and proclaim there is a problem without any thought of how that might affect the local County. They also take zero responsibility for their “study or report” to be accurate before proclaiming it the basis of the new rule the County has to live under. These things have consequences!

In order to protect the “innocent”, I am going to refer to a federal group with a “made up” name-I will call them “FEMUH”. In the style that we have unfortunately become accustomed to, FEMUH decided to declare that South Santa Rosa Avenue is an at-risk area that needed stricter land use designations due to flooding. FEMUH did not wish to be burdened with FACTS such as “this area has not flooded in anybody’s memory”, or the erroneous adoption of elevations of channel embankments that were wrong and pointed out to FEMUH that they were wrong by licensed Civil Engineers, the FEMUH response is basically “we do not care, as our reports and studies show this to be a problem and we are here to solve the problem”. Good Lord. There is no problem other than the one FEMUH created with their new and wrong flood plain mapping.

Bottom line-some 300 landowners will be impacted by these new Flood Plain designations, and their properties will be worth less for no good reason. Ripple effect will go to the County who will most certainly have many, if not all, of these landowners appeal their assessment for property valuation in order to get their taxes lowered. Let’s see-lower taxes flowing into the County bank account might mean less money available to spend on services that are provided now.

FEMUH does not care. FEMUH basically says to the local County government-

deal with it!

Aren’t you glad this is just a fairy tale about a make-believe group called FEMUH? If it were true, maybe the solution would be to pay your taxes with make believe currency called “NOTHING”. Maybe you can write your check and after filling out the amount with “nothing”, you can write in the memo section-

Deal With It! 

That’s All Folks!

John