Another “Golden rule”
Make that Goldman.
Now that the world’s largest investment bank, Goldman Sachs, wants to spearhead port and rail development on Humboldt Bay, we hear the ghost of exploits past.
He who has the gold rules.
Is Humboldt prepared to partner with defer to an outside corporate sugar daddy’s whispers of a golden future? Some Humboldt Bay commissioners appear ready to release the reins in exchange for sweet-nothings about economic salvation.
In exchange we can kiss goodbye locally supported projects that would build Humboldt from the inside. Quoth Hank Sims in the latest Journal.
[T]he deal will almost certainly kill off a couple of more viable ideas, such as the Eureka-Arcata trail and a short-sea shipping route for local goods between Humboldt and the Bay Area. Both of these proposals have come dangerously close to success, and so have had to be quickly and decisively stoppered if the fantasy of turning our duck puddle of a bay into a major international shipping terminal – an ecofriendly terminal! — is to be sustained.
That “eco” part is for you suckers. Home Depot, Walmart and Bryan Plumley all sport a green lapel pin so you know it’s for reals.
The Times-Standard sez, in essence, why not negotiate with Goldman Sachs. “We see no harm in moving the discussions to the next level and getting details about the proposal,” reads the editorial.
Whether there’s “harm” is debatable, but here’s a reason not to go down this road — we don’t want it. Converting Humboldt to a hub/route for cheap Chinese crap to the San Francisco bay area curdles the imagination and will spoil our riches. No matter how many green words are used to sell the fantasy.
Ken Miller has it right in Wednesday’s T-S:
We can enhance our quality of life by developing appropriately, but we must be guided by what we want and plan for, not by what they can buy.
Thank you Commissioners Pat Higgins and Mike Wilson for opposing the Saching of Humboldt Bay.
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The Humboldt Herald 
Anyone know how long Goldman Sachs has been involved with this Humboldt Bay Rail-Port idea?
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
did anyone catch the recent “this american life” episode entitled “there was this giant pool of money” ? it was an amazingly lucid explanation of how the the world’s biggest banks have had this massive pool of cash laying around and needed somewhere to invest it; that’s what set off the housing bubble which is now the housing crisis.
when i read about the goldman sachs offer, i suspect that the giant pool of money is looking for some other short term risky investment. after the loans are made and the building starts and the project collapses, someone will be left holding the bag. and it won’t be goldman sachs.
The anti-rail argument was never about money, though it was made to seem so.
Forget rails and oriental imports. . .could this really be about, oh, say an LPG terminal?
If a container port with rail is built it will be as such a scale that they will not likely waste limited trackage on local products, that includes timber. People will be absolutely last on the list of things to be moved on that line.
YEAH. I think we know what kind of industry Ken Miller promotes. It ends in fiery ashes with mishmashed wiring and diesel spills. He denies it of course, but tell us what industry he is FOR.
Enlighten us.
The spin aganist prosperity is always interesting to watch. The same is true of those who would over maximize profits without concern for harm. If the new leaders stepping up to the plate in our county can not see both potential and pitfall as they steer this course perhaps their not as sharp as they would have us believe.
Just imagine, if you will, container upon container of Chinese-made Vienna sausages, pork rinds and Velvetta cheese. Can I be the stevedore?
YEAH. I think we know what kind of industry Rose promotes. It ends in fiery ashes with mishmashed LNG explosions and oil spills on the bay. She denies it of course, but tell us what industry she is FOR.
Enlighten us.
I was waiting to see how H would spin this. I’m disappointed it boils down to we-don’t-want-their-money.
Or their pollution, noise, invasive species, traffic, industrial blight…
The largest source of diesel particulate air pollution in the Los Angeles Basin is from the container port there. The port and rail will be used to ship caustic flammable chemicals and nuclear waste through our town and up our river canyons. The port will be automated and will provide very few jobs. Warehousing for a large port will provide low paying jobs provided through temporary employment services. Trains over a half mile long will wind their way through town. A large container port will benefit large capitalist interests hundreds of miles inland but Humbolt County will remain an interior colony of the imperial United States.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
It’s we-don’t-want-their-retirement-account-funded-Ponzi-scheme, to be more precise. Goldman Sachs couldn’t care less whether a single consignment of garbage ever falls off the tracks into the Eel. They don’t exist to move anything but money around.
When the train won’t go long, they’ll sell short and make twice the money. This is why, in the olden days, an educated democracy hated Wall Street. Whatever happened to edumacation, Ahnold?
Goldman Sachs was mentioned in the Harbor Revitalization Plan that I think was done around 2002 or 2003.
Anonymous said May 29, 2008 at 8:53 am
“Or their pollution, noise, invasive species, traffic, industrial blight…”
Take a look at photos of the bay in it’s early days when lumber mills, shipyards & factories lined the bay.
http://library.humboldt.edu/humco/holdings/shuster.htm
This is exactly how how Eureka and Arcata developed: smoke, noise, truck traffic and “industrial blight” (as you call it). Some people called it “making a living and paying your own way.”
The Humboldt Harbor Harlots and their blinged-out pimp, Goldie Sachs.
Oh, boy.
Could this be a way for this large firm to acquire assets such as rightaways that could then be sold off in bits at profit? Plus, yes, to site an LNG terminal or worse?
You’re just sore because your main argument was that rail is not economically viable. Now faced with that potential, you have to trot out a new argument.
“Goldman Sachs was mentioned in the Harbor Revitalization Plan that I think was done around 2002 or 2003.”
The same plan said the train was a bust and container shipping a waste of time.
“new argument”? Since when?
exactly, SlaM
“the giant pool of money”long version
shorter version as heard on National Pinko Radio
and btw, LPG is not crackin’ out like they hoped (NYT)
I’ll have to do some digging and find out how Hunter’s employer is intertwined with Goldman Sachs.
Romanticizing the past and looking there for answers for the future is another conservative failing.
It seems you got your little piece of heaven and everyone else be damned is the real motive pushing attacks on every new plan. I’m sure self motivation only drives the other side.
True 9:57, the real opposition is to increasing the movement of goods and people to and from the county, the desire to slow growth as much as possible. No, not no growth, just keep it slow. It explains a variety of issues, not just opposition to rail.
also, the world is no longer flat
note also that the NCRA is now claiming in the Novato lawsuit that they are exempt from CEQA. The only way they’ll ever make the numbers work is to ignore the costs of impacts.
…and just imagine the zepplin fleet we could build with that level of investment. Goldman-Sachs is just not thinking outside the shoebox yet. Wait ’til I show ’em my sekrit lottery plan…
of course, there is an eco-friendly, ultra-low energy option for a train to China: the Gravity Train! Makes pretty near as much sense as trying to hold all the hills of Humboldt up with wishful thinking.
Actually, there’s a train bus in development. But why deal with reality when we can make stuff up and shift strategies because we hung our hat on the wrong argument?
The train bus looks like a great idea for the 101 corridor. For the empty-of-towns Eel, not so much.
Ahh, but the 101 corridor is for our trail, not efficient bus rail. In the future everyone is walking, remember?
“Actually, there’s a train bus in development. But why deal with reality when we can make stuff up and shift strategies because we hung our hat on the wrong argument?”
“Train bus” or light rail will never be on a fright line.
What is the point of the train-bus when there is a non congested road that parallels the tracks?
The point is it’s less polluting and more efficient than cars and trains and much less expensive than light rail.
Anyone ever watch the TV series America’s Ports? They spin a whole different story on the need for more West Coast ports.Our existing major ports are in competition with each other in an effort to maintain their customer base.The expansion of the Panama Canel which will accommodate the Post-Panamax ships will have a direct affect on our West Coast port traffic.
Goldman Sachs is not here to build a bus train.
Er, but for that matter, you could ask what’s the point of a trail that borders a non-congested road. A train bus is a more realistic solution long-term (e.g., after the thing is commercially available) than dreaming that a significant number of people will walk or pedal between Arcata and Eureka.
More on Goldman Sachs:
Altamont Press
Isn’t the train – bus for transporting people rather than freight? If so, this is comparing grapes to watermelons and still doesn’t contend with the very real problem of an unstable Eel River Canyon which can’t support a freight train and certainly would never be certified for people. There is NO PLAN for a passenger train to Humboldt County.
Port Authority’s inability to rebuild quickly at WTC site will cost taxpayers:
“New Yorkers are on the hook to hand over $321 million to Goldman Sachs, America’s richest investment bank, because the Port Authority failed to rebuild the World Trade Center as fast as promised.
Under the hidden terms of a deal that then-Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg approved in 2005, the city and state agreed to pay huge penalties to the firm if the Port Authority didn’t complete major portions of the Ground Zero redevelopment by next year, a target now impossible to meet.
Goldman wanted speedy construction because the Wall Street giant is building its own $2.4 billion tower across from the site on West St.
Now, Goldman could snare 64 years of free rent worth $161 million that it’s supposed to pay for leasing the state land. Goldman could also recoup an additional $160 million in sales tax payments.”
If you already have buses and a road why build a bus train?
Ken Miller is a doper – if you think he got anything right, you are delusional……
You guys are really nasty little people. Don’t you have anything constructive to do.
Bye now, off to Mirror land for some fun.
That was sure constructive. Maybe a long look into the mirror will show 11:10 that the nastiness it feels comes from itself.
I agree with Walt’s comment, but what is the difference between LNG and LPG?
More speculators – it is a big part of the last 160 years of Humboldt County’s boom and bust history brought on by speculation.
Liquid natural gas / liquid petroleum gas
Liquefied natural gas consist mainly of methane with a bit of ethane.Typical compositions of natural gas are in the range of:
– methane (CH₄): 70-90 wt.%
– ethane (C₂H₆): 5-15 wt.%
– propane (C₃H₈) and butane (C₄H₁₀): less than 5 wt.%
– other components like CO₂ H₂S H₂O)
Liquified petroleum gas is a byproduct of petroleum refining.
It consists mainly of propane and/or butane.
The composition varies with the refining process. Common mixtures consist of about 60 wt.% propane to 40wt% butane.
Furthermore LPG contains small amounts of propylene (C₃H₆) and butylene (C₄H₈)).
The different compostion is the reason for the major diffrence
in production and handling of LNG and LPG.
The critical temperature of the components sets the upper for liquifaction. The critical temperatures are
-83.6 for methane and +97° for propane (152°C for butane).
That’s why petroleum gas can be liquefied by pressurising at ambient temperature level, while natural gas is liquified by cooling.
Moreover LNG is a pretty cold liquid, which requires efficient isolation or cooling in storage and transportation.
Thank you Jane Doe.
De nada, Carol.
All this Chemistry! It must stop!
-boy (new blog home owner @ WordPress)
gulo gordo Says:
May 29, 2008 at 10:02 am
also, the world is no longer flat
note also that the NCRA is now claiming in the Novato lawsuit that they are exempt from CEQA. The only way they’ll ever make the numbers work is to ignore the costs of impacts.
Response = Public sector fraud. Just like paving a road next to your home and cutting notches into curbs to drain water onto your property; or, over-laying a road which creates a higher center crown which creates a pond effect on adjacent abutting properties. Or, allowing private developments like “Target” that do not mitigate for garbage disposal and littering (nuisances per se and in fact) among many concerns. Again, a contrived different set of rules for politicians to make life easier for them and harder on regular folks.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
if/when my upthread multi-linky note emerges, switch “LNG” for “LPG”.
stupid claws.
I think Sims hit the nail on the head when he tagged Goldman’s dreamworks as just another delaying tactic by the cargo cultists. Any scheme in Humboldt to compete with better connected and located ports will have to be based on subsidies or National Security. Those factors don’t exist now.
As demonstrated by many misbegotten scams that Humboldt history is rife with, there are always greedy people waiting to be fleeced. With low interest rates, courtesy of the Fed, speculators are looking for higher returns which means higher risk. Goldman has the sharpest pencils in town and is skilled at efficiently separating fools from their money
Whatever Goldman comes up (if anything) will require approval from many public entities, won’t have adequate capitalization with public subsidy, and likely will never happen. The harbor district had better just be careful not to pay upfront fees or invest much staff time pimping for Goldman. There will be future elections. In the meantime, we don’t get a multi-use harbor terminal or scenic/recreational trails.
Go look at the Oakland container port. Now ask yourself “is that what I want to see everytime I look across the bay”. Then ask yourself what it’s be like to have trains rattling through our newly restored oldtown every few minutes. Ask yourself if you want to wait for container ships when you’re trying to get out the bay in your fishing boat. Ask yourself if a single rail without the abiltity to double stack containers, one that goes 15 mph, is really going to handle enough container traffic to make a port viable and profitable. Ask yourself if Marin is going to let our trains rattle through THEIR newly restored, vibrant oldtowns. What effect would bilge pumps and exotic species have on our fishing industry?
Then ask yourself if an intelligent investor is going to throw a billion dollars at it. Let ’em try and fail, that’ll be the dying gasp of the NCRA, but what’s really sad is that a local, small scale port to serve our needs would be a wonderful addition, would actually help our local economy grow, and it’s a lot further away right now. That’s too bad.
Peace be with you
Most all of your comments are on the mark. My question is how much bribe is floating around? Goldman Sachs is a “neoliberal,” we unlike the rest of the World call it neoconservatism) bank. They have “big pools of money,” because they’re part of the wage decline/inflation increase free market profiteers. They believe in “what ever it takes” economics.
The neoliberals are going to send the U.S. economy into a nose dive to get all us stupid fucks to agree with their demands. Grab a shovel and a bag of seeds while you still can.
love eternal
tad
Progluddites, well named. We are all going to laugh at their Luddite mentality that cannot fathom human history when it counters their dreams of a Humboldt private retreat where they can spend their pot money and grant monies in peace and quiet away from the awful hordes of stressed out workers and rat-race American life that happens in the rest of the country.
I know you all came here hoping to get away from that which drove you here, American mainstream life, but it followed you and won’t go away no matter how deep you Progluddites stick your heads up..in the sand.
Humboldt Bay is a natural harbor. What do human beings do with natural harbors historically? Why do they develop them? Could it have something to do with natural bays being strategic ports for distributing goods for all the interior region the strategic ports serve? Could it be human beings figured out thousands of years ago that locating ports helps the whole economy of a country, not just the port itself?
I hope Progs eventually stop being so damn selfish and start realizing just because they have outside funding sources, the rest of Humboldt County workers do not. They need a working Humboldt industrial economy that utilizes what Humboldt has a prime resource–timber and a means to get it to market. Please stop trying to remove the industrial economy of Humboldt County without giving anything working class people can do for a living in return except grow pot.
Steve Lewis that is the best post I have seen from you.
Amen brother Steve.
We need local self sufficiency. We need local factories of a scale that will supply a population of several hundred thousand people the basic manufactured goods (clothing, furniture, etc.) that they need.
We should neither continue to buy imported goods nor try to manufacture for the rest of the world. Local scale manufacture will provide both self-sufficiency (real security) and prosperity (good paying jobs.)
A small seaport of a scale that would support a local economy would be wonderful. A large container port would serve no one in Humboldt County. We would have pollution, blight, poverty, low paying temp jobs, casinos, traffic jams, road rage.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
Neomoderate 2:10 pm — Very well stated. A nice illustration of anchoring one’s economic argument in practical reality rather than hope and faith. A Humboldt container port is joined at the hip with a high-capacity rail line, and neomoderate describes quite nicely the difficulties in making that fever dream work. LNG is perhaps somewhat less unlikely, since it is easier to lay bigger pipe to the central valley natural gas mainline than to rebuild the rail line. But we nipped the last proposal in the bud due to mass latent hazard and displacement of other uses of the harbor. Perhaps slightly more likely is servicing nearshore wave farms, though these would have an adverse impact on local commercial fishermen. Hopefully the coming marine protected areas will help rebuild local commercial/recreational fisheries and perhaps bring more tourism, both of which would bring more dollars to Humboldt Bay communities.
Mr. Steve Lewis-
Although it is historically true that a robust industrial economy has always included belching smokestacks and bustling transport it must be clear even to you that this is an evolutionary dead-end for homo sapiens- one that we had better back ourselves out of quickly. This does not mean the end of industry or manufacture, but we must get smarter and cleaner about it. We must literally agree that we are at a dead end and conciously agree together to climb back out of it.
You see it is just no good when fishes are disappearing, when genetic modification of basic food sources and the genepool thinning that results puts us at risk of a genetic apocalypse, when clean water is becoming more valuable than even oil, and we have thousands of new to nature industrial chemicals introduced into our environment. Things must change or we will go extinct and take a lot of God’s work with us.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
bill@hippiemail.com
Good points Highboldtage. I’d add that smart growth proponets miss the point as well. Small farms,smaller homesteads and good old dirt for kids to play in,chickens to scratch and lay eggs in and for mon&pop to grow local eats in,can’t be abandoned only for idealistic walkable infill. Less urban dwellers and more rural dwellers is a better way. Do you want organic? Do you want true quality of life? Or,do you want to buy all your chow from Aurther/Daniels/Midland? There’s a big gap in reality and ideology. Population control is the 1800 lb. gorilla in the corner yet we focus on trade&cap.
“Steve Lewis that is the best post I have seen from you.”
Poor Steve. Damned with faint praise.
Did Bill actually say that a container port would cause an increase in casinos and road rage?
Did you forget to mention depression, restlesness, masturbation, and, therefore, blindness.
You sound like those new Rx commercials.
I would laugh at you but my face is frozen this way.
Hello Harry,
I have been laughed at before, save your energy.
Yes, overdevelopment of the port will bring the kind of grinding poverty that comes with casinos and road rage. Anyone who says these port jobs will be “good jobs” is lying. I have seen this before, I lived in Reno, another “port.” Reno and Sparks have spent a billion dollars on warehouse infrastructure and gotten in return a thousand or so temporary warehouse jobs.
Humbolt container port jobs will mostly be temp jobs, through temp agencies, without benefits and at the minimum wage.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
Very nice at making up factoids. Keep it up. You have them going.
Don’t forget about Restless Leg Syndrome Harry.
“I have seen this before, I lived in Reno, another “port.” Reno and Sparks have spent a billion dollars on warehouse infrastructure and gotten in return a thousand or so temporary warehouse jobs.
Humbolt container port jobs will mostly be temp jobs, through temp agencies, without benefits and at the minimum wage.”
Bill, it really is time for you Progs to stop being so selfish. I have two good friends who happen to be members of a local tribe with a casino and both of them have to struggle hard to live because their casino isn’t paying them or most of the tribe hardly anything and hasn’t since it opened. Ironically, one of my friends flees to Reno where he knows he can get “good paying” warehouse jobs. He certainly makes well over minimum wage. He can’t find employment in Humboldt County where his tribe is located. He’s not alone. My son-in-law and family had to travel to Arkansas to find work-again locally people forced to find employment outside Humboldt County. This scenario is repeated over and over again in Humboldt County.
Most Humboldt workers do not have college degrees to get state funded jobs nor do they have hidden rural land to grow pot. And there’s always talk and token attempts at community self-sufficiency but these efforts have no bearing on mainstream Humboldt lives.
In the long run, yes indeed, community self-sufficiency is where Humboldt County needs to aim itself but to get there we need to compete with existing communities economically so that our community isn’t one that’s dying because workers have to leave to find employment. The Palco Community Corporation is the type of business model we need, one that employs mainstream workers without college degrees but yet one that creates the infrastructure necessary for community self-sufficiency. That’s what Palco “communikits” were all about.
But until local people have jobs it is just selfish to try to take away further potential jobs for them when you know as well as I do that you have no safety net employment to offer. Give them the safety net and then you can ask them to change to a better system. Palco Community Corporation employment meant to do both at once.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
How to deal with container shipping.
I favor port development for Humboldt Bay but I certainly am opposed to recreating the Port of Oakland scene of ugly cranes spoiling the skyline or industrial smokestacks belching out tons of smoke and pollution. But Bill’s not paid attention to the efforts of both Palco and Evergreen Pulp, two local potential “belching” smokestacks that have been greened and with advancing technology can probably be greened even more.
I would like those opposed to container ship port development to help me develop the “Sea Train” idea which calls for abandoning large container ships for sea-worthy tugs and barges which if one springs a leak doesn’t mean a huge dumping of whatever liquid was being transported.
Also sea train barges of containers could stop outside Humboldt Bay and be brought in by local tugs and off-loaded via fork-lifts and ramps into waiting trucks without need of ugly cranes.
We’re Americans. We’re known for solving technological problems. Port development and maintaining or even increasing ecological diversity within Humboldt Bay can be achieved if we have the mind set to do so. Negativity based on yesterday’s technological problems doesn’t help us today or our kids tomorrow.
Let’s just build the rail on a series of barges. That would be more stable than the terrestrial route.
Next: Steve Lewis will suggest that we build the rail through a wormhole in the spirit world.
It is pretty dishonest to look at existing facilities like Oakland or anywhere else and assume a new port would be anything like it. The rules and regulations would certainly preclude the 19th and early 20th century picture you are painting for port development highboltage. All of you kooks will be out making sure every single rat and mosquito will not be harmed. Your fantasy of self sufficiency is not supported by facts either. Many of the local manufacturers state high shipping costs as a barrier to growth. It seems like you’re against any reasonable shot at creating wealth in the county. Your irrational fears of rampant growth are not even real if you truly believe what you are writing. If there will only be a few temporary jobs, where will the traffic jams and road rage come from? You can either say lots of jobs, therefore growth, or no jobs, waste of money. You can’t have both.
“Many of the local manufacturers state high shipping costs as a barrier to growth.”
It’s as if they awoke one morning and realized that Humboldt County is isolated.
No CPR, they start out with a small business and then when it gets to a certain point, they leave or stop growing.
Check out this article in the business section of NY Times, May 29. LNG is getting shipped to other countries – not here. LNG terminal in Louisiana stands empty – no supply.
The fact remains that we are isolated and that a railroad looks unlikely.
Isolation is our saving grace.
Unlikely because we would need a lot of money to repair the line and make the canyon stable? Yeah, better come up with a new excuse.
Yes, that’s the reason driving rail opposition, but you’re not supposed to say it.
There’s nothing wrong with pointing out the geologically obvious.
No geologist would make the claim, unless he or she is an anti-rail activist.
Having a grounded realistic view of the economics of restoring rail service to the Lost Coast does not make you an “anti-rail activist.” It just affirms one’s mental stability.
The rail road was barely economic to run in the best of times and had several outages of months and YEARS due to floods and landslides. A railroad will never survive without public subsidies.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
No one is “anti-rail”. But once you tie the rail road to a large container port it becomes obvious that the rail is not for us.
The NWP was known as ‘the most expensive railroad in the world for the 3 generations it hauled timber (that had no expiration date) from the greatest concentration of building material in the history of the world, to a fast-growing metropolis largely built out of that material. The railroad stopped paying for itself when labor started earning what we consider living wages.
Now let’s work over that business plan, substituting for valuable old-growth lumber: gravel, garbage and cheap Chinese crap. This business plan would add up one way only: with ongoing, massive outside subsidies. If we were LA we might get ’em. As sparsely populated as we are behind our runny mountains, we can barely pay the hacks and scamsters than run our paper railroad. Just that is more subsidy than we need. It’s the most we’ll get, at least until China starts mass producing monorails. If they do, LA will get ’em long before us.
It’s actually a great idea to focus on a smaller shipping port designed to get goods OUT of Humboldt County as much as anything. This will spur and promote local light manufacturing in the same way that better high-speed internet options can spur and promote the IT sector in this area.
Humboldt needs to maintain local control over its bay and allowing outside organizations to fully fund and build a container port that primarily serves an outside region and outside financiers will do nothing for the local economy. It is inviting a parasite to suck on your juicy leg. Goldman sees long term investment potential because it’s being discussed. Any new West Coast shipping ports will hit their radar and attract interest.
Owning a port is a good investment over the long term without a doubt. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY the local municipalities need to retain ownership. If Goldman Sachs thinks there is money to be made in a port on our Bay well then why not do it ourselves and reap all the benefits locally?
As for jobs they are not all equal. If a bunch of out of work timber workers want easy low-skills warehouse jobs they know where to go to get them. Humboldt needs to further develop its economy and particular the industrial sectors. The Bay provides a major opportunity in that arena. Just as building a Walmart and a Home Depot on the last good piece of bay frontage is a bad idea so is building an enormous port that does little to serve the local economy. A port designed to spur local manufacturing and reduce shipping costs into Humboldt, on the other hand, makes a ton of sense.
Ultimately it is more likely to see a new rail line built over 299 corridor for shipping.
A railroad will never survive without public subsidies.
———–
Which is of course not a problem. Would any of the roads out of the area, such as 101, 299, 36, 299 ever survive without public subsidies?
The rail line has the most potential as a tourist railroad. Google “restored rail tourism” and you’ll find that railroads around the world are being restored to primarily service tourism. A by-product of that restoration is the ability to open freight services, which must be secondary. As fuel prices increase, rail shipping becomes more and more economical compared to trucking. This is a long-term trend rather than a short-term blip ala 1973. Having existing rail infrastructure is a forward-thinking effort.
The rail right-of-ways are the most important thing to preserve. As nice as a trail can be it can also be located in other places. Just like the people who bemoan the removal of rail in Los Angeles in the 1940’s you’ll be bemoaning the removal of the right of ways here, to make for a friggin TRAIL, in about 25 years.
You want a bike trail/hiking route along the water from Eureka to Arcata? I’m all for it. Try the OTHER side of 101.
Local Control over Humboldt Bay is absolutely necessary. Exports more than imports is a must.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
The difference being that the highways are public property and the railroad will be a private for profit enterprise SUBSIDIZED by the taxpayers.
Or maybe you forgot that detail.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
paving says:
Which is of course not a problem. Would any of the roads out of the area, such as 101, 299, 36, 299 ever survive without public subsidies?
Ever looked at where tourist railroads work? Look at Reno. Look at Napa. What are they choked with already? Tourists. If you think a billion bucks spent developing a tourist train toward the least visited National Park in the 48 states is a great idea, take it to Goldman Sachs. Not even Sacto is wacky enough to fall for that one.
Just for perspective, the Skunk Train between Willits and Fort Bragg rejoiced in several times the tourists we get up here at each end of its line, and still managed to go bankrupt and die–twice, right? It’s a cruel world. I wish it weren’t so. This is why the RR pitchmen don’t even bring up passenger service, it’s just too self-evidently not gonna happen.
Mr. Steve Lewis-
http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8394615&nav=menu113_2
Reno tent city filling with homeless shelter overflow
Posted: May 29, 2008 05:41 AM PST
More than 100-homeless people slept in tents last night in Reno.
A homeless shelter in downtown Reno has been full for weeks. People that News 4 spoke to at the tent city say it all started back in March. They say The Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission stopped housing the winter overflow and cut-off at least 60 beds.
Many use the Reno drop in center for shelter but the maximum stay is 30-days.
Most say they can’t find jobs because of the slow economy and have no where else to go.
Victor Chambers, a homeless resident of the tent city said, “I’ve never seen the economy this bad and not recover within a few months, but this the worst. For people to be like this out in the rain and the shelter won’t even open their doors for then when it’s raining, you know.”
The property is owned by the city and workers at the nearby shelter don’t know how long this camp will last.
There is talk of plans for a shelter opening in the fall for women and children.
You’re really a bunch of ignorant hicks with concrete minds. All mixed up and permanently set.
First, manufacturing has no near term future in Humboldt. Never did, never will. Manufacturing flourishes in places closest to the raw materials, energy, and populations. Outside of wood, gravel, and water there ain’t much of that in Humboldt. About the closest would be fishery products but you all know what’s happened to the salmon runs. Food products are a possibility, but limited due to short growing seasons. The “raw material” for high tech manufacturing is also “intellectual”, human knowledge, skill, and ability. Outside of some artists and writers, there ain’t much of that in Humboldt either.
Its very noble wanting to help laid-off unskilled workers. But the fact is their abilities aren’t sufficient to command an American middle class life style. Proud rural poverty, while living minimally and close to infrastructure, is the best outcome for most of them. The worst outcome is criminality, addiction, and chronic illness. Seen any of that around lately? The best policy would be to convince them to compel their progeny to pursue every educational opportunity and create some human capital worthy of investments in service, value added, and creative products. Unfortunately, “cultural” factors preclude many of them from doing the right thing for their childrem.
And making an issue out of local “control” is a retrograde, ignorant, and facile attempt to explain economics. Control is important for fiefdoms, monarchs and totalitarian dictators, but not where democratic institutions are strong and there’s an informed electorate. No one has “control” in our highly interdependent society. We have influence, choices, and authority to determine how our community continues into the future. Feelings of victimhood, powerlessness, alienation, inferiority, and disenfranchisement all lead to fixation on imaginary “control”. Again, these ideas are a symptom of undeveloped human intellection ability. It leads to exploitation and co-option by creating opportunities for greedy and amoral people to create the dependence of feudal fealty. And who hasn’t seen plenty of that by the local “strongmen” who aspire to be aristocrats?
Manufacturing on a regional scale is certainly viable. Manufacturing on a global scale – competing for a global market probably isn’t.
Certainly a hundred years ago there was someone in Humbolt making wheels and wagons, brooms and buckets.
It makes no sense to grow a tree here in Humboldt, chop it down and ship it to China and make a broom and then ship it back here. It may be cheaper, but it still makes no sense.
So we make our brooms here. Our brooms will be a bit more expensive but the money will circulate locally. We trade a bit of economic advantage for a bit of economic security.
Have a peaceful day,
Bill
bill@hippiemail.com
Humboldt sufficiency a nice myth, but untrue. My history reading is that comfort items were imported here from San Francisco. The original local “industry” was outfitting gold miners with necessities and later exchanging their found gold for liquor, women and manufactured goods. Certainly any metal objects (other than gold) were imported, including knives needed to fashion a crude broom. Iron for wheels can’t be mined here. Cotton for clothing wasn’t grown, spun or woven here. Glass jars for preserving food weren’t made here.
Anyway , a local broom wouldn’t be any where near as durable as one engineered with greater variety of materials. Making a broom wasn’t as lucrative as mining gold. Those who didn’t find gold were “busted” and left. The pattern of living dependent on imports remained when gold gave out and was replaced with lumber, fish, dairy, and some agriculture.
Without trading with the larger civilization, human life in Humboldt isn’t very sustainable. No doubt the Natives were largely self sufficient but they lived very differently than how any one now would willingly choose, we’d call them “stone age” people. Even they traded with inlanders for valuables like obsidian. Their lives didn’t include brooms or wagons . And their populations were kept stable by Winter famine and disease. Certainly they didn’t live what folks now call a “rural lifestyle”. No technology, travel, leisure, or extended old age, for starters
“There’s nothing wrong with pointing out the geologically obvious.’
Heraldo’s Luddite mentality would be laughed at in Tokyo where high rise buildings exist all over the place often hit by big earthquakes that formerly destroyed and killed thousands of Japanese. If they had let the “geologically obvious” dictate their housing needs no high-rises would be built but obviously Japan isn’t ruled by Progluddites.
If you want high rises thumb yourself down to San Francisco.
Pulleez
The economic incentive to build stronger structures in Tokyo is vastly greater than for a podunk rail line. And the geology is very different, not many steep unstable mountains in Tokyo. That’s why they built a city there and stayed there for 1400 years. Who stays on an active landslide? Caltrans gave up on Confusion Hill after 50 years.
Heraldo,
You’re astute to see Steve would have to thumb a ride, he doesn’t have the American Ingenuity to obtain and maintain a car. But if having an opposable thumb was necessary for hitchhiking, he couldn’t do that either.
Not A Native –
Nobody is saying “let’s fund a railroad” right now. They’re saying “let’s not sell out the port to global investment firms” and “let’s not ruin the bay by making us a pit-stop on a global shipping line” and “let’s not ruin an existing rail right of way so we can build a fucking hiking trail”
If you think light manufacturing is not a viable industry in Humboldt you’re simply wrong. The manufacturing of craftworks, in particular, is already doing reasonably well in the area. In terms of resource proximity, which is not nearly as important as you imply, there are abundant wood products and abundant industrial water sources. Finally, manufacturing of consumer goods is more about how much you can sell them for rather than how much you’re making them for. Branding the products by geography is a practical effort. Or have you not noticed all those “Humboldt” t-shirts in your hometown? I see them everywhere but Eureka.
The bay can and should offer shipping. The City of Eureka can and should use the bay to dock boats in Old Town. The railroad can be of use in the future, possibly for transportation, shipping and tourism. Further the route itself can support utilities, such as expanded high-speed internet which is already strung along that route (for easier maintenance access).
The trend around the world is toward rail and sea. The day of the auto and truck has peaked and now must wane. If you want to be prepared for the future of two and three decades from now you think about these issues. If you want to be West Virginia in that timeframe you continue to talk the way you do. Infrastructure investment is often equated to ‘wasted money’ by idiots whose economic viewpoint has now been roundly discredited. Please accept reality and the realization that infrastructure investment is key for any region to thrive. We’re not talking about building a fucking car museum.
paving – “The rail right-of-ways are the most important thing to preserve. As nice as a trail can be it can also be located in other places. Just like the people who bemoan the removal of rail in Los Angeles in the 1940’s you’ll be bemoaning the removal of the right of ways here, to make for a friggin TRAIL, in about 25 years.”
That is why it is called “rail banking”. You preserve the ROW for rail but you use it as a trail today so you don’t waste the next 25 years.
BTW – it is a well established federal program used by over 150 communities around the US.
http://www.railtrails.org/index.html
Trail for who? We’re going to build this trail for a 100 odd bike enthusiasts?
No were going to let the train ROW rot so no one can use it.
No, we just stridently disagree on the rail’s timeline to viability.
Oh Yeah, high value “craftworks”. I’ve seen them all along Hwy 101 in Orick. Go around the country and see that every tinkerer with a sander, scroll saw, and wood lathe is making items better than anything you see here. Apalachia, New England and even Ohio have highly developed craft traditions that predate Humboldt by hundreds of years. Redwood, Doug fir and Tan Oak aren’t prized species for heirloom or artwork. And those “plastic” redwood burl coffee tables went out with discos. A couple of locals make cabinets and do custom mill work for local trophy homes, but thats small potatoes. Vance and Hines, the “international” bar maker, just about went bankrupt when the merger meldown happened. They’re a niche business that gets the crumbs during economic booms and are the first to get clipped in lean years.
Palco was the largest employer in Humboldt County for decades. Now they’re down to 350? employees and looks like downsizing even more. All those Palco jobs and much of the service provider jobs are gone with nothing to replace them for local workers. My son-in-law when he was a lumber grader had to travel to Arkansaw at one time in order to find work for his family. Not an unusual story at all.
Arts and crafts don’t cut it as economic mainstays. And with gas out of sight in cost, tourism is not going to be any economic mainstay either until the country gets off its oil addiction. Light industry is fine but even light industry wants to locate in places where shipping is possible. Blocking port and railway develop only hurts our Humboldt economy and that hurts real people’s lives.
Again, those whose incomes are derived either from pot monies directly or indirectly (e.g. lawyers and car salesmen) or from the State of California, (e.g. students or grants), should not try to thwart the job opportunities of local Humboldt workers who are not in higher education or do not hold degrees but are just regular working class people needing jobs to support themselves.
If only we had a children’s toy manufacturer making wholesome wood toys for tomorrow’s children. Sigh. Commissioner Gordon, pull out that giant Steve Signal!
One thing is for sure. There is definitely a lack of intellectual capital here. 2/3 of the workforce work for the government or non-profit enterprises. Nobody is creating wealth in those sectors. That doesn’t leave much of us to pay for the rest of you guys.
“No, we just stridently disagree on the rail’s timeline to viability.”
You’re the one who said it would take 25 years.
FLASH
Volume Off 10% in port of Long Beach/LA. Americans buying fewer imported goods.
No one is blocking rail development other than mother nature. Take it up with her.
No one was blocking discovery of the New World but mother nature. Human beings have been “taking it up with her” since they moved out of Africa. Span America with a transcontinental railway? Yesterday’s anti-railway people said, “Cross the continent with a railroad? Impossible.” Fly like birds? Impossible. Go to the Moon? Utterly ridiculous.
Where there’s a will, there’ a way. Prog-Luddites refusing to look at the historical record of what engineering feats humanity is capable of when it needs to defeat natural barriers will be laughed at by their grandchildren.
Except all of those engineering feats came with a huge payoff. Where is the payoff going to come from sinking hundreds of millions into a lost coast railroad? Are we going to start exporting your bullshit?
Concur with Paving.
Who’s bullshit, Jane? You think every time human beings accomplish engineering feats it’s because they expect a huge windfall of money dropped in their laps? Go look at Confusion Hill and see extreme engineering done because it was needed.
Society needs to teach kids in school that throughout history those who advance human society are always met with gangs of naysayers ridiculing each visionary advance yet history shows advances take place and human beings progress in their quest for knowledge and self-fulfillment.
Naysayers are always proven wrong in the end yet because they ride on the majority’s timidity re the new, they think they stand for society’s disapproval. But history always marches right over them and in the end makes them look like the fools they are who hinder all the rest of us with their myopic inability to trust human resourcefulness and their petty meanness towards innovators, e.g. Jane’s comments.
If you can’t help provide solutions, at least move out of the way.
Cool off Steve. Jane is a rank and file rail activist. They have a boatload of red herring arguments to avoid the real issue. They simply want to slow growth on the north coast.
God, I do hate the unspoken attitude, “We came here and got ours. We don’t want anybody else to follow us and do what we did and spoil everything.”
I’m a native Californian. It’s the same thing we Californians see with these aggressive imports from back east coming to carve out kingdoms in the laid back California boonies from the ignorant locals. Carpet-baggers coming in destroying the local economic infrastructure, e.g the killing of Palco, and then saying we do want any replacement hiring locals. We want people like us and white-collar jobs.
Meanwhile the blue-collar working class in Humboldt County get screwed by Prog activists slowly but surely destroying every major industry in Humboldt County that isn’t in the education or yuppie supply business.
WHen I think of “aggressive imports from back east coming to carve out kingdoms in the laid back California boonies” I think of Charles Hurwitz. Boy am I full of shit.
Well, you said it, not me. If you included Darryl Cherney and Julia Butterfly you’d be more on the mark.
The fiction is that they want slow growth. They want no growth. In fact they want to turn it into a big park, people can visit for a price, take their shit out in little bags when they leave, and the worst thing is they want to be the RANGERS. In control and get payed for it.
Well, they came and got theirs and now want to make sure nobody else follows in their footsteps. Pampas Grass People is what I’ve termed them before and it’s still appropriate. Come in as aggressive political refugees from the Big Cities and back East, see what they consider virgin territory to establish their names and reputations among the true believers and if lucky cash out at the end of the day with a million dollar lawsuit win or a million-dollar book deal. Meanwhile local timber workers have no local work and must themselves move away to other states to seek employment.
Wow, so Palco and Hurwitz did not drive themselves into the ground and then try to sell off the pieces that were left? It was the Progs?
And the train tracks up the Eel Canyon are not a problem, even though every study and estimate says it will be i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y expensive to reopen and impossible to maintain?
And the best candidate is the one that you can’t write in or find on the ballot?
Please, Steve, more fairy tales! Maybe the one about how you saved the indigenous peoples a la Indiana Jones.
Well, how ’bout the Great Prog/Enviro Genocide Campaign against the Bear River tribe for a hot title based on a true story?
Yessir! See Prog/Enviros Darryl Cherney and Ken Miller each attempting to sabotage the Bear River’s Heartland’s Project which attempted to regain Bear River’s ancestral lands held by Palco. See Progs run a non-stop hate campaign against Bear River’s Heartland’s Project organizer for over 13 years, making sure local Native Americans do not get any uppity ideas about taking back large amounts of their former lands.
See Progs work for decades to make sure Palco tanks faster than otherwise instead working with Bear River to oust Maxxam’s ownership. See Progs being the biggest hypocrites in Humboldt County as they bash Palco and Maxxam yet actually torpedo the most economically and morally justified local community project to regain control of Palco.
And of course, see Progs crying their eyes out tomorrow when both Clif and Estelle lose out to the best qualified candidate, Johanna Rodoni.
OH GOODIE! Why is it that the Bear River Tribe isn’t interested in “their” Heartland’s Project again? That’s my very favorite part of this fairytale.
Johanna isn’t a candidate.
Well, Jane, I guess you got a thrill then when I posted how Prog Ken Miller sabotaged Bear River’s Heartlands Project.
As to why Bear River isn’t interested in their Heartlands Project now, well, they are, most all the Tribe is except for four people on the present Tribal Council. And fyi, Donald Brenard heads the Heartlands Project, not me, so all your dissing Heartlands is dissing Native Americans, i.e., a continuation of the slow genocide of Native Americans whenever they attempt to regain lands that were stolen from them.
We are coming for you, Steven.
I’d like to be a prog,but unfortunately I’m not a registered dem.
Yeah, that’s why I dis Steve. Not because he acts like he’s the new mascot for Planters, but because I relish dipping my hands in the blood of my ancestor’s genocidal acts before I paint my house which is located on the spot of a long ago injun slaughter.
What the hell is wrong with you Steve?
Yes Steven, you are the expert of all things Native American and must speak for them because, as everyone knows, they are incapable of speaking for themselves. Steve Lewis’ Native American name in English is Blowhard Fool.
Gee, Jane cowardly anonymous Doe hiding your identity so you can call names of people who are actually doing something constructive for the community. Feel proud of your attacking Native Americans by attacking people helping them? You’re sick , Jane.
Oh Steve, don’t be a drama queen.
Hmmm, I remember reading a letter to the editor some time back where the Bear River Tribal Council specifically stated that Steve Lewis in no way represents them.
Mresquan, instead of continually trying to slander my reputation, why don’t you do the right thing and stop it because I at least am doing something to help Native Americans. What are you doing?
Fyi, here is proof that even Bear River’s current Tribal Council did indeed back our Heartlands Project however briefly in March of this year and then just as quickly recinded their backing. Dealing with tribal politics is not easy as anyone working in Indian Country will tell you.
BEAR RIVER BAND of ROHNERVILLE RANCHERIA
27 BEAR RIVER DR. LOLETA, CA 95551 7O7.733
May 20, 2008
Mr. Stephen Lewis
325 Center Street
Rio Dell, CA 95562
RE: PALCO Bankruptcy
Heartlands Project
Stephen,
The Tribal Council appreciates your time and effort on this project, however, due to the large number of projects we have locally, and our direct management of the Tribe’s
Casino, we simply don’t have the time to dedicate to the PALCO bankruptcy. We were hoping that Sparky Brenard, with your assistance, could handle that representation. It
was not mentioned, during our previous conversation, that a lawyer would be necessary. The Tribal Council is not willing to retain a Texas lawyer at $30,000.00 to intervene in
the bankruptcy proceeding, nor are either of our California lawyers available to attend bankruptcy proceedings in Corpus Christi, TX. Therefore, unfortunately, we must
decline your offer to continue advocacy on the PALCO bankruptcy.
In addition, there are significant restrictions on running a lottery system that make it impractical to proceed with (see Gaming Compact Section 4.1, restriction on use of
internet to facilitate a lottery system.) The Tribe has no interest in running a lottery system outside of its gaming facility, and it would likely be ruled illegal to conduct such
operations off of the Tribe~s trust land. It is also unlikely, based on the obligations of the bankruptcy court to protect the secured interests and shareholders, that the court would
simply give the Tribe 70,000 acres. The Tribe is not in the logging business and is not interested in taking over the logging obligations of the Pacific Lumber Company.
Thank you for your interest in this matter.
~ ~ ~f’~
Leonard Bowman, Chairman
Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria
This is the Bear River Tribal Council’s opinion which unfortunately does not represent the Tribe’s opinion or so Don Brenard discovered after doing an informal tribal survey about support for the Tribe’s Heartlands Project. I can’t do anything about it as an outside white person because even my Bear River tribal friends are stymied by the situation.
The fact that neither I or Don could get any news media to tell the Heartlands story didn’t help matters. Now the Tribe will in all likelihood never have this window of opportunity to get back a big chunk of their aboriginal territory.
Mresquan, you have any understanding of what I tried to accomplish with the Heartlands Project and Bear River? Read up on the Indian Island massacre period and stop disrespecting my work unless you can show how you are doing something better to help local Native American descendants of the people our forebearers genocided.
Slowing economy forces Oakland port job cuts
“Goal is 34% cut
The port needs to trim an estimated $18.6 million in operating expenses, cutting them to $181.8 million, according to documents the commissioners were given to consider at a May 20 board meeting. The port is also aiming to cut its capital improvements budget by 34 percent over the next five years, from $967.6 million to $637.3 million. The port also must reduce its debt payments.
“Expenditure growth rate is outpacing the growth rate of revenues,” said a briefing paper given to the commissioners.”
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