Supervisors approve controversial climate action plan
The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 at a public meeting on Tuesday to approve a controversial climate action plan, with Board Chairman Anaiah Kirk casting the sole dissenting vote.
The board approved the climate action plan, which has been years in the planning process and has come before the board multiple times in recent months, with an amendment to include “new and existing stoves,” as well as the addition of wildfire emissions data.
The decision came on a chill, rainy Election Day after a roughly three-hour public hearing, though weather and voting did not discourage opponents and proponents of the climate action plan from attending.
A crowd of close to 50 people, including vocal climate action plan nay-sayers Alexander Horat and his parents, Joe and Maria Horat, stayed until the
end. At least one frustrated person walked out shouting “Recalls start tomorrow!”
At one point, Kirk imposed a break in the public hearing in response to a speaker named Ty Robben yelling during his first attempt to express his point of view.
“You want to take our fireplaces, and you want to remove our fireplaces, these are lies,” Robben said before screaming, “How dare you!”
“Hey, we’re not going to scare the hell out of people in here, we’re going to take a break,” Kirk said in response to Robben’s outburst. “You’re going to come back and address the board without scaring people and screaming, and we’ll go from there. This isn’t a circus here today.”
County Community Development Director Quincy Yaley, who has been assigned to bring the plan to the board multiple times, remained at her seat near the podium when Robben returned and continued criticizing the climate action plan.
The board took another break when Robben was finished, and county staff moved Yaley’s seat to a staff table farther from the podium.
Before public comment, Yaley opened the public hearing by introducing county consultant Hannah Kornfeld, of Ascent Environmental, and summarizing how and why the climate action plan has been required since approval of the county’s existing General Plan in 2018.
Yaley said the plan is a roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change, but it contains no new local mandates or regulations. At the same time, the plan does contain policies and actions intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In an effort to balance misinformation and disinformation spread by opponents of the plan,
Yaley emphasized what the plan does not do: it does not establish new local regulations; it does not require removal of wood stoves or other wood-burning appliances; it does not ban backyard burning; it does not ban or regulate off-road vehicle use; it does not ban gasoline-powered engine use; it does not include the City of Sonora or federal lands.
The Stanislaus National Forest alone comprises 42% of the county. Other federal lands in the county are overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service.
Yaley also summarized criticism she has heard of the climate action plan, including that “it’s worthless because it doesn’t address emissions from wildfires, and that any local efforts we make here in the county will not combat emissions that come off a catastrophic wildfire.”
Other fears that have been expressed by critics of the climate action plan is that the cost is unknown, and that there may be unintended consequences that could come from the climate action plan, Yaley said.
“So there is a lot of debate over climate change,” Yaley said. “Some folks want the plan to do more and be more specific. A comment I’ve also received is that this plan will force everyone to ride bikes. My response is, this plan is not asking you to ride a bike. Policies are not designed to force people to comply with new rules or new mandates. If you want to ride a bike, ride a bike. If you don’t want to ride a bike, don’t ride a bike. So, we have this big issue with lots of opinions.”
A dozen people lined up to speak when public comment began, most of them opponents of the plan.
Alexander Horat, who was on Tuesday’s ballot as a candidate for a seat on the Tuolumne Utilities District Board of Directors against incumbent Jeff Kerns, spoke first and called out the vagueness of meaning between words like mandates, regulations and policies.
“Policy is basically what a government plans on doing,” Horat said. “So even if it doesn’t happen right away, that means you’re planning on it, and you’re doing it very soon, such as when the federal government — when they set a policy, they don’t do it just for fun, they do it for a reason, so they can start implementing that policy.”
Horat’s parents both took turns at the podium and spoke against the climate action plan. Joe Horat suggested that the plan is “just a communist agenda” and part of a nefarious plot to combine counties, among other conspiratorial claims.
The Horats were followed by John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte, which filed a lawsuit against the county over its 2019 General Plan that resulted in a settlement that legally bound the county to create the climate action plan.
Buckley began by stating that speakers who preceded him had already shared misinformation, such as claiming planning staff are members of environmental groups and “continued conspiracy theory claims.” In reality, the county Board of Supervisors has a very narrow agenda to consider, Buckley said.
“Should you approve the revised climate action plan in order to comply with county general plan direction as explained by your staff?” Buckley said. “Planning staff have obviously made a painstaking effort to sanitize this CAP, to revise wording, to attempt to reduce controversy, and to underscore that the CAP is not limiting firewood burning.”
Buckley emphasized that the key matter before the board is not whether the elected officials’ constituents believe in climate change, or whether they like the governor’s and the state’s policies, but whether the county’s revised climate action plan is appropriately written and sufficient to meet legal requirements of the county’s General Plan.
After two dozen people commented in person and on Zoom, the board voted 4-1 to approve the climate action plan. Columbia resident Diedre Bayer glared in the board’s direction and in the hallway outside, she confronted Kirk and told him, “You’re not listening to the people.”
In a descending elevator on her way out of the county government’s administration headquarters building, Bayer stressed again, “I think they’re not listening to the people. The board. They’re not listening about the climate action plan. They’re making their own agenda.”
The public hearing ended about 12:45 p.m., three hours after it started. Undersheriff Neil Evans, the county’s second-ranked law enforcement officer behind Sheriff Bill Pooley, was among those present for the public hearing Tuesday.