The (misnamed) Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) is a huge Northwest American land grab. It is being pushed through Congress as HR 980, and proposes that 24 million MORE acres of land (about 38,000 square miles) in five northwestern states be given over to the Wildland’s Project which will ultimately mean that human presence on the land is drastically reduced. Subcommittee hearings were held on May 5th, and the bill has been referred to three committees. Please take the time to learn of the full impact and text of this bill. When land is stolen so is our freedom.

A group dedicated to reforming California government tested its taxation and revenue proposals before a supposedly “friendly audience” at a facilitated “Town Hall” consensus-building meeting in Santa Cruz in mid-March, 2009. They encountered surprising resistance, even from a room filled primarily with self-identified “liberals,” as it dawned on attendees that the proposals would at least grease the skids for higher taxes. Time will tell whether that resistance is echoed or amplified in subsequent meetings held in the Fresno area and Los Angeles.

Santa Cruz County Treasurer-Tax Collector Fred Keeley is at the helm of a movement to repeal Proposition 13 and the 2/3 voting supermajority required for tax increases. The mantra is crisis, crisis, crisis and the claim is that a new organization called "California Forward" can fix it. This use of crisis is meant to scare voters into agreeing to increased taxes.