{"id":1055,"date":"2011-03-27T10:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T17:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2011-06-24T11:00:31","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T18:00:31","slug":"ceqa-made-easy-for-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/ceqa-made-easy-for-citizens\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Stop a Project Made Easy: CEQA for Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ordinary people (who are not lawyers or planners) are rarely aware of how the law requires them to object to a project. If you fail to do it correctly, you lose your right to sue to stop the project.<\/p>\n

HOPE has just made available the first CEQA Checklist for ordinary people (non-lawyers or planners). It allows you to properly object to an environmentally harmful proposal as California law requires. It takes only seconds to complete and a few more moments to email or fax to the agency in charge.
\n
\nCEQA-form<\/a><\/p>\n

Once filled out and delivered, the checklist puts the agency on notice that you have obtained all legal rights to litigate their environmentally harmful proposal.<\/p>\n

It explicitly provides you with the legal rights of “Standing” and “Exhaustion of Administrative remedies” so you may sue the agency for failing to adequately comply with CEQA.<\/p>\n

It also requires an agency to notify you – send you all notices related to this project. The notices must be sent meaningfully in advance of any government decision.<\/p>\n

The form is free.<\/p>\n

It only works for projects in California, though it could be easily adapted for other states and for Federal projects.<\/p>\n

The reason this works is that almost every project in California is approved illegally<\/u>. Of course that’s my experience, but it is (privately) confirmed by dozens of the best Planners and environmental professionals.<\/p>\n

If you doubt this – next time you talk with a good Planner or CEQA attorney ask them (offer an understanding of confidentiality) “Have you ever seen an Environmental Impact Report that was fully legal?” <\/p>\n

The reason is not that it is impossible or even difficult to comply with CEQA, it can be done almost easily; its that most Developers and Resource Extractors (DREGs) don’t want the harms of their projects exposed and that most planners are incompetent and easily pushed to make political decisions for fear of losing their job.<\/p>\n

A second reason is that DREGs<\/a> are accustomed to getting away with breaking the law- CEQA<\/a>, ESA<\/a> and California’s Coastal Protection Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unless members of the public challenge the staff and the actions – they will continue to flaunt the law. So get our free CEQA form, fill it in and send it in.<\/p>\n

Good wishes,
\nDavid Dilworth, for the Trustees of
\nHelping Our Peninsula’s Environment<\/p>\n

#################################################<\/p>\n

NOTICE<\/center><\/p>\n

HOPE – Helping Our Peninsula’s Environment provides this these Citizen Participation Tools, insightful news and other valuable resources free of charge to the public even though it costs our organization considerable time and money to produce it. <\/p>\n

We would like to continue to provide this service for free that brings you the best available science and law and the highest quality research. <\/p>\n

You can help right now by making a tax-deductible contribution. Please send your tax-deductible contribution (anything you can afford, whether $1.00 or $10,000) to: HOPE, P.O. Box 1495, Carmel, Ca 93921. <\/p>\n

\"\"
\n<\/form>\n

For further information about making tax-deductible contributions to HOPE by credit card please phone us at 1-831-624-6500.<\/p>\n

Thank you,
\n-David Dilworth, for the Board of Trustees
\n#################################################<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ordinary people (who are not lawyers or planners) are rarely aware of how the law requires them to object to a project. If you fail to do it correctly, you lose your right to sue to stop the project. HOPE … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33,17,24,34,22,20],"tags":[150,187,271,51,188],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-good-acts","category-impacts","category-law","category-models","category-public-participation","tag-ceqa","tag-citizen-participation-tools","tag-esa","tag-hope","tag-notice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1057,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}