Berryassa rally

[whiskey & water]

Their is going to be rally in winters at the high school this saturday at 12:00 pm and then the bereau is going to speak at 1:00 pm. My dad has a trailer their at berryassa and goes to the meetings to save the lake. He told me that they need head counts their. This is just to put the word out and try to save the lake. Thanks guys and the race gods and the invention of superchargers and methanol :cool: :cool: :cool:

[SANGER-RICH]

Their is going to be rally in winters at the high school this saturday at 12:00 pm and then the bereau is going to speak at 1:00 pm. My dad has a trailer their at berryassa and goes to the meetings to save the lake. He told me that they need head counts their. This is just to put the word out and try to save the lake. Thanks guys and the race gods and the invention of superchargers and methanol :cool: :cool: :cool:
Well how did it go???

[Heatseeker]

Here's a copy of the email I recieved from the "save the lake" group regarding that meeting:
Lake Berryessa Supporters!
We don't give up!
We want to get the word out about the meeting in Winters yesterday. It was great! We hit a home run. Congressional staffers who were there from Richard Pombo's House Resources Committee said it was one of the best local government/citizen involvement meetings they had seen. Thanks to the City Council and citizens of Winters. Thanks to the many Lake Berryessa business owners and residents who came. This was definitely not a "trailers only" event.
We will need immediate follow-up action with Congress and our local representatives. Stay tuned for your next assignment - and thanks, thanks, thanks, from me and Pat and the many volunteers for all your efforts. We hope to have videos of the event available for you as soon as possible.
Conspicuous by his absence was Congressman Mike Thompson. Lake Berryessa and Winters are in his district but his constituents cannot depend on him for the most minimal of support. Also conspicuously missing was Lake Berryessa Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon. However, Napa Supervisor Harold Moskowite was there to defend Lake Berryessa and oppose the BOR plan with a rousing statement about the true economics of owning a resort and a rebuttal to allegations about the cost of the lake to Napa County.
Below is the first article that came out this morning. It's not too bad, but could be bettter. My response follows it since he still perpetuated a few of the classic myths. One thing he didn't mention was that during the questions, Mike Finnegan of the BOR refuted Carol Kunze's b.s. about health and safety violations. Finnegan complimented the present resort owners and said they had made significant progress in maintenance and upgrading and he would not say that there were any outstanding violations.
Peter
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Article Last Updated: 11/20/2005 03:12 AM
Residents unleash scorn on Lake Berryessa revamp
Nearly 700 at hearing oppose efforts to uproot shore's mobile homes
WINTERS - They are furious.
Nearly 700 people with a stake in Lake Berryessa's future packed the Winters High School gym to the rafters Saturday afternoon to denounce the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's effort to revamp the popular boating hot spot. They booed the sole "environmental wacko" on the panel and heckled the government guy trying to explain it all. And they had reason to.
Because the first choice in the government's list of ways to remake the 20,000-acre reservoir is scrape the place clear of their long-term "exclusive use" mobile homes now dotting the lake's shores and open the place up to more campers, canoers, hikers, RVs and the so-called "short-term user."
Those at the lake now deride the plan as a fantasy effort to remake the lake into something it never has been - namely, a wilderness recreation area. What will happen, they fear, is that the Bureau of Reclamation will destroy a community that has called the lake home for 50 years.
"I've been here 18 years, and I haven't had one person come in and ask me to build a trail up over that forsaken hillside so they can go out and hug a tree," said John Frazier, owner of Markley Cove Resort on the lake's southeastern end, to a standing ovation.
The government plan, released in final form late last month, remains essentially unchanged from earlier drafts. It suggests the Bureau "permanently remove" all of the mobile homes and trailers that now dominate the few level spots on the reservoir's steep and wooded shoreline.
Lakeshore areas at the seven resorts serving the lake would be restored to "a more natural setting" with improved public access. Those with the exclusive leases to the reservoir would be gone, their spots turned over to campsites, picnic areas, RV sites, rental cabins. Instead of paying a concessionaire $400 or so a month to rent the land underneath their vacation home, they would have to reserve a cabin or campsite like everyone else.
Even the current resorts would look different. Today, the lake is fringed with seven resorts, each run by a different operator. Those leases all expire by 2009, with no ability to renew under law. The bureau would like to see each one remade - possibly by a single operator - into different recreation areas: Markley Cove would become the houseboat center; Spanish Flat a mix of camping and "rustic lodging;" Steele Park a "major contemporary overnight lodging area."
"I just wouldn't come," said Mark Randazzo of San Jose, who has such a spot in Steele Park Resort and whose father owned one before him. "(We've) established a community that's about to be destroyed. Randazzo isn't alone. Winters, perhaps the closest town to the lake, has labeled the plan "the economic equivalent of a military base closure to our community," and various business owners spoke Saturday of the devastation such a dramatic overhaul might trigger.
Indeed, Saturday's discussion - technically a Winters City Council meeting - came three weeks after Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy and chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee, asked Interior Secretary Gale Norton to hold a town meeting.
"We've been contacted by hundreds of constituents," said Kiel Weaver, a Pombo aide who flew in from Washington, D.C.
The bureau hasn't made a final decision, and other options - including staying with the status quo - remain on the table. "Take my word for it, or someone you trust," said Mike Finnegan, the bureau's regional manager. "Not you," came a catcall from the crowd.
Plan proponents see tremendous opportunity to open up the largest lake 90 minutes from the Bay Area to the larger public. California faces growing demand for outdoor recreation areas. Lake Berryessa, they say, is underused - a "private lake."
"The economic area around the lake is in sad shape. It's not what you would call an economic success," said Carol Kunze, the lone environmentalist on the panel. The bureau's plan "would convert Lake Berryessa into a vacation destination. It's going to become a recreational asset too for the
9 million people in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento area. Public response to the bureau's efforts has run two-to-one in favor of less trailers and more short-term use. But a visitor would never guess that based on Saturday's turnout.
Nine out of 10 people sported yellow stickers and armbands of orange survey tape in support of the resorts.
The bureau will not likely issue a final decision on Lake Berryessa for at least three months or possibly even a year. More information can be found on the government's Web site: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/berryessa
Contact Douglas Fischer at dfischer@angnewspapers.com.
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Greetings Douglas,
Not too bad an article, except you too ignore the facts that most of the mobile homes are not on flat ground or prime areas. As Bob White said, if you use the BOR's own standards for design, you would still be able to keep 80% of the mobile homes. He stated, as does the ROP, that mobile homes in prime areas would be relocated and their spots given to short term use.
But the number you seem to have taken at face value is the response count during the comment periods.
"Public response to the bureau's efforts has run two-to-one in favor of less (sic) trailers and more short-term use." My personal count (I went through the comment binders for the first comment period) shows that those actually commenting on the removal of mobile homes specifically make up less than 40% of the comments. Even the mobile home owners want change. Many of the letters asked for changes that did not affect the mobile homes or require their removal.
As Pat Monaghan pointed out, 888 form letters were from the now nearly defunct Blue Water Network which simply asked that jet skis be banned and never mentioned the trailers. If these signatures had come on a petition they would have been counted as one comment. We are now up to 17,000 signatures on our petitions - everyone gotten by a volunteer from a real lake user during the last two years - not outside a Safeway store by paid signature gatherers. And the BOR has the nerve to count them as a single comment.
Supporters of a reasonable plan for the lake are trying to be inclusive without destroying the best parts of what exists. There is room for everyone. I have a kayak and a jet ski, a mountain bike and a boat, hiking shoes and an ATV. My family and I use them all regularly.
We are hoping that someday a news reporter may get it completely true and balanced. With people like Carol Kunze deliberately lying about the facts and the BOR acting in a very untrustworthy fashion, it's not surprising that local citizens can lose faith in their government, even a liberal Democrat environmentalist like me.
Peter
Peter Kilkus

[vdriver4ever]

I moved to Idaho 32 years ago but spent many weekends at the lake while growing up. I hope to spend some time on the lake again. Please do all you can to protect it just as it is.
I am sure you have legal representation here, but I can tell you that its easier to win a lawsuit against the BOR if you are able to find fault in the process they took, rather then trying to win over common sense.
Pat Minegar

[21rayson]

sounds like they want to make it in to a lake havazoo.

[058]

Joe, where were you and your dad? I looked for you guys and didn't see you. I drove 80 miles [one way] to attend that meeting and was very pleased with the turnout, it was impressive. For those of you that have never boated on Berryessa you need to see this treasure to understand what we could very well lose forever if these treehuggers, kyakers, canoers, butterfly catching birdwatching dope smoker get their way. I was at the lake the week before with the Banderlog group and the weekend couldn't have been better, in November no less.... water was like glass, weather was wonderful [mid 70s] and not a jetskiier to be seen. You have to be there to appreicate it. Please don't let this place fall to the Sierra Club because thats who is behind this action. If this lake falls to the will and the whims of the Sierra Club and their ilk then all lakes and rivers will be targeted, its just a matter of time before they go after your lake or river of choice.....Get involved now before its too late!

[whiskey & water]

My dad was there, he tried to make a statement but i guess you had to fill a blue sheet out I guess. I could make it my wifes sister was getting married in tahoe that day. O58 sorry but who are you number doesnt right a bell.

[058]

My dad was there, he tried to make a statement but i guess you had to fill a blue sheet out I guess. I could make it my wifes sister was getting married in tahoe that day. O58 sorry but who are you number doesnt right a bell.I'm crushed, my feelings are hurt :cry: :D .....You know me with the turbocharged Ford powered Hondo flat at PCR. We've had many cocktails at the bar many times. I'm usually with Armond, Bob

[whiskey & water]

Oh sh%# Man i feel like an idiot. Ya your right many of cocktails and hopefully many more. Your avator used say One of the four stallions from berryassa.