[Paul F]

Buzz,

I normally don't jump to the conspiracy side of things, but California is filled to the brim with overzealous environmentalists. There are groups of environmentalists that work full-time to sue city, county, and the state on every possible action. The result is that rather than go to court, the agency submits to a cash settlement. The environmentalists take that cash to continue to fill their coffers and sue again and again and continue to get awarded settlements.

Example - our town approved a shopping center on property that was formerly a high school. Environmentalists sued on some basis (I've forgotten the reason). The town caved and gave them $100,000. It got built, but it was delayed for a long time.

Example - the state highway in town was being widened and additional lanes were added to a bridge. The state put up netting on the underside of the bridge to prevent birds from nesting so they would not get hurt during construction per previous agreements with the environmentalists from previous bridge building. The environmentalists sued them for putting up the netting.

On and on it goes to a level of insanity. Just the fact that the legislation is coming up will get the attention of some environmentalist and who knows what will happen.