The Davis and Sierra Club Legacy Letter to the Editor

October 20, 2002

To: Letter to the Editor ( My Word--Op/Ed)
From: Oscar Braun , Executive Director   650-726-3307
Re: The Davis & Sierra Club Coastal Legacies

Sunday's front page headline read: ``Donors to Davis get coastal permits; State agency smiles on governor's contributors".  Common Cause executive director said, ``Davis has established a ``pay to play" dynamic throughout state government".  The newspaper investigative reporter's research revealed ``the records of contested and controversial seaside developments raised serious questions about whether Davis, who was elected on a save-the-coast platform, has put the coast itself in play when it comes to political money.  He has obtained $8.3 million from donors with business before the California Coastal Commission. That makes Davis the most aggressive political fund-raiser in the history of California state politics."

So why is  the Sierra Club  aggressively endorsing  Davis for re-election ? Because the Davis controlled California Coastal Commission  allows ``ALL"  Sierra Club endorsed  projects like their $300 million  Devil's Slide Hwy 1 Tunnel Alternative boondoggle to drain and fill coastal wetlands that has destroyed endangered species habitat without benefit of any CCC or federal permits. Former Sierra Club fund raising director Audrey Rust, now executive director for Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) has ordered the two historic Johnston Ranch dams on the coastal  steelhead Arroyo Leon stream to be permanently opened after over a century of continued use.  The POST  Sierra Club inspired  action drains wetlands containing one of the largest populations of listed species on the San Mateo County coast while also depriving the Giusti farm family  agricultural water rights enjoyed for over a century.  Renown environmental attorney  Alan Beaven's last endeavor on behalf of his co-founded California Watershed Posse before his 9/11 Flight 93 heroism, was his failed efforts to force POST to clean up their infamous 200 acre illegal unlicensed  Johnston Ranch toxic landfill that is poisoning coastal surface and ground water and bring POST into compliance with the Clean Water Act.  POST continues to operate their toxic  landfill without benefit of any state or federal permits.  Governor Davis appointed chair to the Regional Water Quality Control Board, John Muller, has not responded to the Posse's request for Clean Water Act compliance enforcement.  Two months ago, San Francisco Superior Court Judge James McBride ruled that water board members ``abused their discretion" in relaxing dioxin rules polluting water of the United States.  These John Muirs inspired zealots provide Davis with their ``environmentalist" endorsements and  the governor's regulatory agencies look the other way and the State Resource agency provide them public bond funding. 

So what is the political quid pro quo between Davis and the Club  this election?  The Sierra Club is aggressively lobbying  for the defeat of Proposition-A while calling for the destruction of 2.4 million Bay Area residents regional water system.  Davis will not say a single word against these Muir eco-terrorist tactics.  If the San Francisco voters foolishly defeat Proposition –A, then the governor will simply use the State's power of eminent domain to ``take" over the SFPUC regional water system and all that positive cash flow that San Francisco has enjoyed for nearly 80 years.  It's always about the fund raising with Davis & the Sierra Club…isn't it?!

For Senator Feinstein remembers Alan Anthony Beaven visit: www.thepebble.org

For  information about the California Watershed Posse visit: www.cwposse.org  or www.saveourbay.org