Humboldt County is one of the greatest places on earth. With our dramatic seascapes, our temperate climate, our magnificent forests and our small-town culture, Humboldt is truly one of America's hidden gems.
But for the people of Humboldt to retain our high quality of life we need a strategy to create good, new jobs that protect our communities and respect the natural environment. For too long we have allowed outside companies to abuse our trust and disrespect the community.
The Alliance for Ethical Business believes that Humboldt can grow and attract ethical businesses in a range of industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, sustainable forestry, crafts, and tourism.
Sign-up here for action alerts so you can take action today for a prosperous and beautiful Humboldt County.
For information on the effort by powerful corporate interest to use our precious remaining bay-front property for a big box development that will threaten our locally owned businesses and kill jobs, we recommend you visit: BalloonTrackWatch.org.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Alliance for Ethical Business |
| HELP is of no help to Humboldt 4/13/2006 My Word by Richard Salzman Eureka Times Standard In response to Kay Backer's My Word of March 22, “Getting Humboldt leaders to leadâ€: 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? (Read More...) |
| The big box vs. local entrepreneurs My Word by Richard Salzman Eureka Times Standard I want to thank my friend Cletus Isbell for furthering the discussion on big-box stores in his My Word of Dec. 23. I do, however, want to respectfully disagree with three points he makes. First, I disagree that those consumers now comfortably buying items off the Internet (and getting them home-delivered) will switch to the big boxes. Instead, the big box's customers will mainly be those of us who now frequent locally owned and operated brick-and-mortar stores. The second and third reasons have to do with the intertwined subjects of jobs and taxes, and can perhaps be best illustrated with the example of Home Depot, a timely subject coming before the Eureka City Council in the form of a zoning change request for the Balloon Track. A Home Depot would have a devastating effect on everyone who sells everything from appliances to flooring, hardware to cabinets, lumber to home heating. The list goes on and on (and a Best Buy -- another possibility -- would include everyone in music and home electronics). Since Home Depot now also does installation, work would be snatched from all sorts of contractors and tradespeople, too. Yes, some driven out of business will be able to get jobs at the Home Depot, but the ripple effect on our community will be devastating. The key difference is that Home Depot spends most of its money with out-of-the-area suppliers -- and sends all of its profits back to corporate headquarters. Whatever short-term gains there may be in the tax base would pale in comparison to the money drained from our local community. Because whenever a dollar is spent at a locally owned company, it recirculates several times through the local economy. The county has already acknowledged this economic fact of life in a comprehensive study called “Prosperity -- The North Coast Strategy†(available at www.northcoastprosperity.com), which the city of Eureka signed onto. I urge readers to just do a Google search on “big box impact†and read any of the myriad studies detailing the disastrous effect these stores can have on the economy of areas with a limited population like ours. Our locally owned and operated small businesses are the lifeblood of what has proved to be a vibrant and resilient local economy, but there are limits to how much more impact we can sustain. The loss of extraction-industry jobs already has been hard on us, and small businesses are the best hope for living-wage jobs. Yet even those businesses which might survive the initial impact and aren't forced to close down will have to cut back: Cut back on their workforce and downsize their American dream. There is simply not enough business in such a small community to support both the big box and the local entrepreneur. I don't know that the government could or should stop a big box from coming to town, but business owners, tradespeople and all their customers and neighbors alike ought to tell their elected officials, starting with the Eureka City Council, not to facilitate the process through zoning changes or the rejection of study grants. Richard W. Salzman, an artists' representative for illustrators working in advertising and publishing, has long been active in local Democratic politics. He lives in Trinidad. The opinions expressed in this My Word piece do not necessarily reflect the editorial viewpoint of the Times-Standard. (Read More...) |
| Affordable Housing, or Starter Castles Tuesday, August 31, 2004 - Eureka Times-Standard My Word by Richard Salzman As the county updates its General Plan, a small vocal group of developers (HELP) say their Plan H would make housing more affordable in Humboldt. While all proposals deserve careful consideration, the Alliance for Ethical Business finds HELP's claim overly optimistic at best -- and perhaps outright dishonest. These developers and Realtors want the county to assume a 2 percent annual population growth as an antidote to rising housing costs. Plan H calls this a "conservative" rate of growth -- even though it would quadruple the current county target. What's more, it neglects to mention that all of California has a projected growth rate of only 1.19 percent. When we look at what 2 percent annual growth would really mean to Humboldt County, can we imagine another 80,000 new residents, stuffed mostly between Rio Dell and Trinidad? (Read More...) |
| Finally: The Truth about PL/Maxxam's Lies May 5, 2005 Responding to Pacific Lumber Company’s claims of financial crisis, the State Water Resources Control Board has released what is quite likely the most thorough and authoritative analysis of the PL’s finances ever made public, finding that the company’s dire predicatment “is the result of the risky business model that (parent company)MAXXAM has chosen to follow.†This study was commissioned by the State Water Board to determine whether increased regulation by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) may be responsible for PL’s proclaimed economic crisis. The study specifically responds to various claims made by Pacific Lumber in a March 15, 2005 Economic White Paper, and analyzes Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings by Pacific Lumber, Scotia Pacific, and MAXXAM going back to 1993. The report concludes that “MAXXAM has taken money out of PALCO in subtle and complex ways and has directed PALCO to harvest trees at rates that greatly exceeds sustainable forest practices. MAXXAM has put PALCO at risk by borrowing large sums of money, not paying down its long-term debt, and thereby keeping PALCO a highly leveraged company.†(Read More...) |
| Maxxam Machinations Demand Local Solutions My Word by Michael Twombly Times Standard - February 8, 2005 The Los Angeles Times reported last week on a closed-door meeting between Charles Hurwitz, CEO of Maxxam (parent of Pacific Lumber) and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. They conferred on the likelihood of Pacific Lumber’s impending bankruptcy. The meeting included Undersecretary of CAL-EPA James Branham, formerly of PL and “broker of the Headwaters deal.� The Times editorialized “Californians may get to see up close how well or ill the revolving door of public service/private industry serves the public’s purpose.� Hurwitz, through his myriads of shell companies, took many hundreds of millions of dollars from this once proud, sustainable and responsible company by mortgaging PL’s vast timber assets. He intentionally burdened PL and its spin offs with so much debt that they cannot legally cut enough timber to pay off the approximately $100 million in annual interest on the debt while still covering operating costs, Rather than make up for this shortfall from the hundreds of millions he has taken from PL, Hurwitz has found it eminently more profitable and expedient to threaten PL’s bankruptcy and the termination of hundreds of its loyal employees. (Read More...) |
| Pacific Lumber Tries to Cut It Both Ways [LTE] Letters to the Editor - L.A. Times Pacific Lumber Tries to Cut It Both Ways January 29, 2005 Re "Bankruptcy Threat With an Edge," Jan. 25: Perhaps Pacific Lumber Co. is "running out of logs" because timber companies such as Pacific Lumber have already deforested the vast majority of virgin forest in the United States. Permits to cut protected stands should not be issued. Do we want to silt more streams, create more flooding and lose the last of our first-generation forests? To halt financial losses, Pacific Lumber should implement more sustainable business practices (i.e. don't clear-cut everything in sight). Bjorn Fredrickson Seattle (Read More...) |
| A Titan of Logging Threatens to Topple [L.A. Times] By Tim Reiterman Times Staff Writer February 21, 2005 REDCREST, Calif. — Whenever Pacific Lumber Co. planned to dispatch helicopters to log its nearby redwood groves, the company would phone Christine Rising at her vine-draped bungalow above the Eel River. After finding someone to care for her horses, dogs, cats and pot-bellied pig, Rising, 51, would pack her clothes and head down the dirt road toward a Eureka hotel about an hour's drive away. Then for days or weeks, she could escape the beat of helicopter blades that she says wreak havoc with her surgically repaired left ear, causing nausea, dizziness and even blackouts. For Pacific Lumber, paying Rising's hotel bills for a few years was a cost of doing business — a relatively inexpensive goodwill gesture by a company that could ill afford more enemies or more obstacles to harvesting its valuable Humboldt County timberlands. But early last year, Rising says, she had to start fending for herself. Although Pacific Lumber says it will help her out with her medical expenses, it has stopped paying to relocate her. For Rising, who lives on an $850-a-month government disability payment, the development was a heartless move by one of California's most powerful natural resource companies. But it also was one more sign that a company that has been a pillar of California's north coast economy for nearly a century and a half is in trouble. (Read More...) |
| Palco's bad deal is everyone's bad deal [Times-Standard] Sunday, February 13, 2005 - The Times-Standard The Pacific Lumber Co. has on many occasions warned courts, critics and boards that it rests on the verge of bankruptcy if things don't go its way. In this latest round, it offers what seems to be its most desperate cry. Everyone is taking the company seriously this time. Employees are worried. Businesses are worried. Contractors are worried. Bondholders are worried. Standard and Poors is worried enough to put Palco's $750 million worth of timber notes on watch for another decline in rating. And lots of people are worried that Palco's intonations that it might slip out from under the provisions of the Headwaters Forest agreement might be for real. Indeed, it already has skirted these requirements in some ways. When the Environmental Protection Information Center finally won its case against Palco's 100-year plan to cut timber, the logging didn't come to a grinding halt. Palco submitted plans under little-known state rules, and has been cutting in some areas without such a plan since. (Read More...) |
| Headwaters Headache [San Francisco Chronicle] ONE OF CALIFORNIA'S biggest environmental deals is near a breaking point. A giant redwood lumber company wants speeded-up timber-cutting approvals -- or it may go out of business. In 1999, the Pacific Lumber Co. sold 6,000 acres of primeval redwoods to the government in a landmark transaction that averted logging and saved cathedral-like stands of the world's largest trees. Now the company claims that restrictions on timber cutting are putting it in jeopardy of bankruptcy. The firm is pressing state and regional regulators for logging permits, claiming better science and logging practices allow for more cutting on its 210,000 acres along the foggy North Coast. If the firm doesn't get its way, layoffs and possible bankruptcy are possible, its executives hint. Coming from a company known for bare-knuckled bargaining, it's an offer that Sacramento should resist. Pacific Lumber must learn to live with logging rules that it crafted and signed barely six years ago. The public expects careful regulation in exchange for $480 million paid by federal and state government for the Headwaters groves. (Read More...) |
| Loggers' Sneak Play [L.A. Times] Two questions: Why did Pacific Lumber Co. sign on to a deal with California six years ago if it was not going to be able to honor the agreement? And is it too late to get our $480 million back? For that money, the state bought 7,000 acres of old-growth redwoods in the Headwaters area of Humboldt County, along with the logging company's agreement to follow strict conservation rules on 200,000 acres it kept. Now the company is demanding to log beyond what the deal allows in flood-prone watersheds. Pacific Lumber warns that if not given its way it will go bankrupt, laying off hundreds and, it says, leaving all environmental agreements dead. "We are running out of logs," one company exec said. That does happen when logging isn't accompanied by a good land-management plan. If there had been a plan, it would have forecast this problem. Which makes the company either incompetent or dissembling in accepting the half-billion-dollar handout. (Read More...) |