WHOW! It appears that Director Jack Unger may have pulled
a last minute attorney out of his hat. According to Jack Unger's presentation,
it was literally minutes before the meeting that things came together for him.
Unger stated that he had been busy making telephone calls to a
number of leads but that he was landing into voice messaging systems for the
Holidays. And, he was also being given promises of a call-back after the Holidays,
that couldn't be acted on.
It might have been through the intervention of prayer. I
will acknowledge that I prayed for Unger's success. I presume Unger and a few
others might have been in prayer as the outcome of this will heavily impact most every
member of the community.
I won't go into the specifics of what turned out to be a very
interesting 2-hour Special CSD Meeting, but I feel that the CSD is now on a good track
of meeting the solar appeal's filing deadline. President Robert Springer and
Director Jack Unger seem to have a good understanding of what needs to be done.
Unger appeared to have been prepared to fallback to recommending
the attorney that the CSD had hired earlier for the Planning Commission appeal to
the Board of Supervisors.
That attorney had agreed to do the Superior Court
filing of appealing the Supervisors' decision, but only if the CSD agreed to move
towards a compromised settlement.
The current attorney has a pro-solar clientele base in the industry,
so the match isn't a holy one for the CSD. Consequently, the Board wanted
to acquire a new legal representative.
Any compromised settlement is unacceptable to Newberry Springs
as the serious silica dust problems and other damages would remain.
The audience at the Monday night meeting was fewer than the
previous Tuesday night meeting, but the questions and the information flow were
excellent. Director Vickie Paulsen was back and the Board had all of its
directors in attendance.
With a last minute candidate surfacing that appeared well
qualified, a vote was taken to retain the attorney.
Voting AYE were Chairman Springer and directors Unger, Deel, and Paulsen.
Surprisingly, Director Clark, who had placed his two previous votes for the community
pursuing appeals, decided to abstain.
During the discussion before the vote, Larry Clark didn't
verbally participate so the logic for his flip-flop back to pro-solar isn't
known. But then, that is unpredictable Larry.
The filing will likely be a California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA) driven filing for a Writ of Mandamus against the County of San Bernardino's
Board of Supervisors' upholding of the Environmental Impact Report's certification
and the approval of the Daggett Solar Power 1 project.
If the CSD's appeal is granted, the project will likely go
back to the County's Land Use Services Department to address the
two-dozen-plus violations of CEQA, violations of the County's General Plan,
violations of the County's Development Code, and violations of State Law and
the State's Constitution.
I see the Clearway Energy project doing
great damage in depreciating the property values in Newberry Springs.
Even the heavy cloud of the Supervisors' approval of the project has
now depressed Newberry's real estate market.
The depreciation was easily anticipated and recognized as a
widespread seizure of Newberry's property values in clear violation of the
Federal Constitution's 4th Amendment.
Should Clearway Energy start mowing and disturbing the soil
in Daggett, it may be time for a major class action for restitution of the hundreds
of millions in damages and perhaps punitive awards. With the many above
referenced violations, the project has no business being built nor being even
permitted by the County.
Clearway's mowing, in a Sand Transport Path, is insanity.
Its construction and presence can not help but increase the spread of silica dust
exposure in Newberry Springs. Silica dust is classified as a dangerous
California Proposition 65 listed carcinogen.
