General Plan Update Process Completion

By Jeffrey Lytle

a reconnection for all of the community to freely conduct business under a regulatory environment that is clearly defined and uniformly applied so that politics does not unnecessarily deny a business the opportunity to create better paying jobs that increases the wealth of its community members.

"Retaining a FLAWED Action Policy OR No Policy" is essentially like having an agnostic cognition which allows for a manipulated and crafted political interest atmosphere that favors a fluctuating and clouded cogency. - JL

The Humboldt County General Plan is the local constitution of sorts for its local community members. This plan is the framework for which allows The People a review of their "social, political and economic" opportunities. Policies are "the actionable explanations" of any given local ordinances or codes. These policies, however, never are perfect. In fact, most policies are not even close to being "balanced" for purposes of legalities, uniformity, clarity, specificity, fairness, appropriateness, effectiveness or even being successful. True too, if no policy exists, then what?

As many folks are aware, Humboldt County's citizens have been mired in controversy over this "General Plan Update" process for too long. Citizens have complained about not being included or heard. Worse yet, citizens feel ignored when their communiques regarding specific concerns are not met with at least a communication back, e-mail or written retort. Additionally, being heard in each community has been questionable, and the amplified voices of the citizenry compelled to make a difference proves this known spirit to orderly criticize. In fact, the last supervisor election cycle seated 2 newly elected public officials during the GPU process partly due to these concerns.

Still until this day sadly, no supervisor has challenged the inadequacies of "the process" of adopting (at the Planning Commission level) "amended or new ordinances" for final vote and ratification by the supervisors when placed on their agenda to do so. This is a huge problem because The People did not get to be a "part of the process that defines the ordinances and explains in definition it's probable actionable uses + a specificity which clearly exposes the types of persons or entities which shall most likely be beneficiaries or not"!

Why would the local planning commission pass and adopt an ordinance (updated, amended or new) without having the attached policy language so The People know how it will be operated and managed. Afterall, the planning department does not allow applicants to send in applications without details + So, what are the details that the planning commissioners and supervisors think are not needed, important or necessary prior to adopting something lacking in ingredients to explain methodologies of its probable actionable uses.

Years ago, local communities commenced actions to create among themselves each constitution for their own specific communities. Through it all, communities came up with thoughts about how they would like to be represented + by themselves as The People. There were many recommendations before each separate community general plan was adopted and ratified by the proper jurisdictions. One such recommendation was MAC's + mostly referred to as Municipal Advisory Committees.

MAC's are the functioning bodies of communities in having greater powers to self-control themselves. These MAC's are designed in idea as another option for The People to make their voices well and clearly intentioned. Unfortunately, even after years of having the ability to finally "act" on this adopted community need, supervisors have yet to finally begin the introduction of various community voices + yes, The People could have been heard in a more powerful form, but supervisors did not really want that to happen prior to the General Plan Update process being completed. This unfortunate fact is partly why the process has been a pre-meditated fraud since day one by certain entities that practice bias to favor "obfuscation toward loopholes and enforcement", while not providing clear opportunities for everyone, especially the less fortunate, to become a part of the structure of the community. This political game of "playing a majority of the people aginst themselves and each other" just so happens to destroy opportunities for so many in order to line the pockets of a few + economically and politically. This is a huge problem folks + a form of , "..go on, take the money and run".

So, now, here the separate communities are, waiting for the completion of a GPU process so that it's people can try an understand what they can and can't do. Then, after some thoughts, the citizen will have to figure out if a policy even exists; AND, to investigate whether the policy is actually harmful to the intent of the adopted ordinance or code + and of course, we are then right back whence we began, The Planning Commissioners and Supervisors conducts that lack for a "complete process" before letting a department craft any procedural manipulation to aspire to hidden agendas that favor only the special interests on both sides of the political aisle + private entities and government agencies/jurisdictions.

When any collective effort is put toward coming up with a set of rules or guidelines, inevitably, those who are the craftors and designers of the "laws" have also engaged in a pattern or direction of thought processes which are essentially best explained as thinking about all the things that can occur - "E.I.R".esque. - JL

So, wheres the "beef", err policy?

Part #2

Jobs are something nearly every human being needs on an everyday basis to survive and save for those retirement years if so capable. The unfortunate truth is that jobs have usually lacked in quantity AND quality in some way or another, even for the self-employed. In today's reality, simply having a job is not enough in so many situations. The mere costs of living are too high for so many when compared to how much that person makes per paycheck. In fact, when the worker has to spend money out of their own pocket just to show up to work, they are actually making less money. Then, factor into the home budget that too many jobs locally don't pay enough because taxes are too high, along with everything else. Yes, it becomes a "near impossible task" to convince working folks that they can find better paying jobs in a business climate that won't spend their money until they know what the rules and standards are + ie. policies. Thus, job losses become a "trickle-down" effect for so many who end up waiting for the job creators to create jobs.

Until the General Plan policies are clearly defined, the process to "fully and openly" encourage and be successful at energizing, creating and retaining new businesses and business models in the community will be clouded. The local communities near and far can benefit and thrive on a more environmentally sound business environment utilizing the natural resources created in Humboldt County and by its citizens. This is where Natural Resource Technologies can help (check back for update). This is where Alternative Energy opportunities can help (check back for update). This is where the self-employed come in and fill many gaps and niches that create jobs. This is where those who have jobs need places to eat, sleep, recreate and generally live a more comfortable lifestyle. From all of this + opportunities to spend money to create a business model - jobs are created with minimal inputs from the regulatory bodies of government.

In Humboldt County, a huge problem is that most jobs are proportionately too focused toward the retail sector of the local economy. It is not merely that we have too much here or too little retail over there, it is that connectivity of retail to production is unbalanced as a whole for community wealth building purposes. Much of this disparity simply is because the General Plan policies either do not exist; or, are not adequate in specifically defining the actionable uses for entrepeneurs to understand in detail how to build a business, which causes entrepeneurs to pause!

Society is different today than past years. People have changed over these evolutionary times as well, learning new and exciting things to do, make, create, etc.... These discoveries have led to a better life in many ways for human beings, as well as, a re-direction away from some of the very discoveries and ways of life that allowed human beings to get to where society is today. This does create some interesting twists as society moves forward. These twists, however, should be acknowledged for the direct connections to actual evolutionary changes and not the political power grabbing and control which ALWAYS attaches money with interests. Simply playing The People against themselves only works for so long before the hungry, homeless, jobless, spaceless and downtrodden begin to speak-out.

Simply put, the job environment is currently not favorable. This is partly due to:

#1. the job creators being cautious about wasting money while not knowing the rules. So, it is important that the General Plan gets completed AND, that after completion, policies are clearly defined. The policies should have been attached with the recommendations by staff for every step of the current and overdue GPU process, but were not in many previous deliberations. Therefore, The People must have a process to complete all necessary policies. When the understanding of policies are clear, the probability of job creation should increase.

#2. taxes are too high + unfortunately, most of this issue is out of the purview of Humboldt County Officials. However, if local production can ramp-up local and exported sales, then locally based and generated sales taxes would increase upon people spending more of their locally generated earnings (wealth building). Taxes, and how they are applied economically, socially and politically have a tremendous effect on whether any community and its citizens goes to work or not.

#3. Insurance costs are excessive and overcharges the customer base for profit margins and bonuses, while overcharging the good businesses to pay for the bad conducts of other poorly modeled businesses throughout the State. Simply just starting a business puts the owner into financial debt in many cases. To conduct legal business, most folks must pay for insurance before even earning even $.01 penny. If one does business as a roofing contractor, look out below! Bonding insurance - this is a must as well for many before doing legal business. These policies and plans are very costly.

Workers Compensation - here is another form of insurance that over-charges its businesses, especially the deposit premiums which are designed to take money up-front to create interest income for the State while holding off on claim pay-outs or investigations into fraud and abuse of the W.C.I. system. Again, the business is in the hole before earning a penny.

So, it is very easy to understand why those businesses who have money are in pause + there are those businesses that truly NEED specificity of policies so they know the rules; there are those businesses who are taking the wait and see approach; there are those big businesses who are politically abusing the situation to further prioritize through demands made easier by unemployment; there are those businesses who are mostly made-up of the self-employed who really don't need all the hassles and conducts reserved for big business, but yet still struggle to find work that was created and paid for by those connected to the bigger businesses; and, of course, there exists those businesses which rely upon the consumer to spend money from time to time on big ticket items likes trucks and cars, finer lavishes, homes, etc....

Lastly, if the JOB costs are below a certain amount of labor and materials combined, no license, bonding or insurance requirement is necessary if you are self-employed with no employees (ie. small lawn mowing operations, small haulers of recycling materials, etc.). It is not easy to create jobs when so much money has to be paid up-front. Yet, in Humboldt County, the reality is still that a self-employed person has a better opportunity at survival than in a big city. The self-employed really are leaders in the various communities, just as the big businesses can be if they provide jobs that thrive on the area's natural resources and innovations.

Regards,

Jeffrey Lytle McKinleyville - 5th District