From: [email protected] Subject: Be There! Huge Lake Berryessa Meeting In Winters Nov. 19th Land Rights Network American Land Rights Association PO Box 400 – Battle Ground, WA 98604 Phone: 360-687-3087 – Fax: 360-687-2973 E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] Web Address: http://www.landrights.org Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE – Washington, DC 20003 Be There! Huge Lake Berryessa Meeting In Winters Nov. 19th Saturday, November 19 at 1:00 PM is the key to the future of Lake Berryessa. There will be a Town Meeting and open discussion about Lake Berryessa hosted by the town of Winters. You need to be there by no later that 12:30 PM. If you use Lake Berryessa, care about recreation access to Federal lands or have property or permits anywhere affected by the Forest Service, Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Corps of Engineers or Fish and Wildlife Service, you need to be at this meeting. This is about a policy by government agencies to remove “exclusive use” which is a code word for getting rid of existing users at Lake Berryessa, cabin permittees on the National Forests and all kinds of other users who have permits to use Federal lands. Attendees include: City of Winters officials Bureau of Reclamation Officials Congressional Staff From local offices Officials from Bush Administration Environmental Groups Land Rights Groups You. Yes, you. This is your chance to tell Bureau of Reclamation officials and other Federal officials to their face what you think of their Lake Berryessa plan and the concept of getting rid of “exclusive use.” You will get a chance to either come watch in person or ask questions of key officials about what their plan means to you. This is also your chance to compete with special interest groups who have sent out an Alert to get their members and supporters there. You need to be there. Action Items: -----1. Call your local Congressman’s office to ask that he or she send a representative to the meeting in Winters on Saturday, November 19th. Make sure he or she knows that there will be a roll call for public officials so everyone in the room will know who is there and who is not. Ask for a commitment that someone from that office will be in Winters at the meeting. Look here for your Congressman’s name – Each of these House Members have constituents with interests at Lake Berryessa or who use the lake for motorized boating and recreation. When you call, ask for the staff person who handles the Bureau of Reclamation and Lake Berryessa. Mike Thompson (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-3311 – Local (530) 662-5272 Wally Herger (R-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-3076 – Local (530) 893-8363 Dan Lundgren (R-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-5716 – Local (916) 859-9906 John Doolittle (R-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-2511 – Local (916) 786-5560 Doris Matsui (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-7163 – Local (916) 498-5600 Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-5161 – Local (707) 542-7182 George Miller (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-2095 – Local (707) 645-1888 Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-4965 – Local (415) 556-4862 Barbara Lee (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-2661 – Local (510 763-0370 Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-1880 – Local (707) 428-7792 Richard Pombo (R-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225- 2761 – Local ((209) 951-3091 Tom Lantos (D-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225-3531 – Local (650) 342-0300 Pete Stark (D-CA) Wash. DC – (202) 225-5065 – Local (510) 494-1388 Anna Eshoo (D-CA) Wash. DC – (202) 225-8104 – Local (650) 323-2984 George Radanovich (R-CA) Wash. DC (202) 225- 4540 – Local (559) 449-2490 -----2. Call, Fax and E-mail -- Secretary of Interior Gale Norton's Chief of Staff Brian Waidman (202) 208-7351 – FAX: (202) 219-2100 - [email protected] -----3. Call, Fax and E-mail – Deputy Lynn Scarlett - (202) 208-4203 -- FAX: (202) 208-1873 – [email protected] -----4. Commissioner of Bureau of Reclamation – John Keyes (202) 513-0501 – FAX: (202) 513-0309 – [email protected] Request someone from his office attend the November 19th meeting. Tell him how the BOR FEIS hurts people. -----5. Mark Limbaugh – Assistant Secretary for Water and Science – (202) 208-3186 -- [email protected] Request someone from his office attend the November 19th meeting. Tell him how the BOR FEIS hurts people. -----6. Call at least three other people to urge them to come to Winters Saturday. -----7. Call any recreation associations you are part of to request that they send a representative to the meeting. Stop the Bureau of Reclamation's Destructive Plan for Lake Berryessa! Attend the Town Hall Meeting in Winters! TOWN HALL MEETING 1:00 PM SATURDAY, NOV. 19, 2005 WINTERS HIGH SCHOOL GYM 101 Grant Avenue The High School Gym is located just north of Hwy. 128 and County Road 89/Railroad Ave. intersection - the only traffic light in town. Winters is a 11 miles north of Vacaville and I-5 just off I-505 West of Sacramento and Davis. If you need to stay overnight, Vacaville is probably the best location. Winters is the main access point for Lake Berryessa and would be severely economically damaged by the BOR Plan. The Bureau of Reclamation has released its Final EIS for Lake Berryessa. It was a rousing disappointment. It continues to promote Alternative B in which all mobile homes will be removed and the resorts completely demolished and rebuilt. It will cost taxpayers huge sums of money to replace services that already exist built with private money. It ignored all the opposing public comments, economic analyses, and common sense proposals that were made during the last two years. The City of Winters, which will be drastically affected by the BOR proposal, has received the support of Congressman Richard Pombo, Chairman of the House Resources Committee, for a Congressional Town Hall Meeting to address the concerns of Winters and the Lake Berryessa community regarding the shortcomings of the plan and the flawed process that created it. Congressional staff representatives will be there to hear us. This could be our last chance to affect the outcome. It is of vital importance that we have an ENORMOUS number of Winters and Lake Berryessa supporters – motorized boaters, campers, businesses, residents, and permittees - at this meeting. In no other way can we effectively demonstrate to the congressional representatives how important this issue is for us - and how necessary it is for them to hear the WHOLE story. While the FEIS is unyielding in its determination to remove all long term sites from the lake, only the Record of Decision will define the final plan - and it has not yet been written! PLEASE BE THERE! Background: Bureau of Reclamation Ignores Public Comments and Pushes Destructive Plan for Lake Berryessa. The Bureau of Reclamation has released its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for Lake Berryessa. It ignored all the opposing public comments, economic analyses, and common sense proposals that were made during the last two years. There is very little difference from the original DEIS released exactly two years ago on Halloween, 2003. It was scary and stupid then, and even more so now, since NONE of the positive economic proposals nor common-sense plans - such as Alternative A+ and the Resort Operators Plan - presented by a broad range of community stakeholders - were incorporated. The only slight modification to the original was a statement that mobile homes may be phased-out over a period of time or moved to other locations within a resort on an interim basis as the resort is remodeled in the BOR image. The full summary from the FEIS is given at the end of this message. Another disappointment was the response of one local Congressional representative, Mike Thompson. Mr. Thompson has consistently supported the BOR and ignored pleas from his local constituents, including the people of the Lake Berryessa region and the people and City Council of Winters. Other representatives from California who have affected constituents have apparently felt they fulfilled their obligation to their constituencies by sending staff to the Bureau of Reclamation to inquire about the issue. But there is a ray of hope in this black cloud of government abuse of its citizens. Your latest calls, e-mails, and letters, when combined with a formal yet impassioned request from the City Council of the City of Winters to Rep. Richard Pombo, Chair of the House Resources Committee which oversees the BOR, has resulted in Mr. Pombo's agreeing to the City Council's request for a Town Hall Meeting in Winters on November 19, 2005 at 1 P.M. at the Winters High School Gymnasium. Chairman Pombo also wrote a letter to BOR requesting that they hold up releasing their Final Environmental Impact Statement until after the meeting on November 19th. As usual, the BOR ignored Congress and released its EIS anyway. The Mayor of Winters will chair the meeting which will include a panel of stakeholders asking pointed questions of the BOR followed by a period for members of the public to ask questions or make statements. Chairman Pombo's staff members will attend this meeting. They will also make a visit to the lake prior to the meeting, in order to be more knowledgeable about the various issues. Our only hope of influencing the final outcome of the Record of Decision is to have Congress intercede and ask questions of BOR and the Interior Department - have the purpose and needs of the NEPA process been met? Has this process been fair? Did BOR pay attention to the public comment process? In other words, was this really necessary? And the ONLY way they will know if this has been done is to send representatives to the Winters meeting. Your congressman owes you this much at least (since most of us will lose our vacation homes through this action). Call their offices (both local and in Washington, D.C.) again and DEMAND they send someone. One person, one afternoon is all you’re asking. And remind them you will know if they have complied. We will only get this one shot at getting our side of the story out – you’ve got to help us make it pay off. 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