Yolo County’s strong arm tactics to takeover from private ownership the 17300 acre Conaway Ranch in eastern Yolo County has been thwarted. Eminent Domain was invoked over a yearago by the county since the owners wouldn’t sell, in order to ‘protect’ the ranch, ostensibly. The owners had been operating it as it had been for many years, as a rice farming operation and as duck clubs with much natural wildlife habitat. The owners were even awarded for their stewardship by wildlife organizations. But the county, sensing that some of the ownership, having a history of being in the development history [the horror!] may want to turn the 17300 acres into houses and strip malls, thereby the county must take the land to ‘save’ it! Never mind that about 15,000 acres is virtually undevelopable as it is so highly susceptible to flooding you would be out of your mind to try. Our helicopter ride with the Guv and Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff early this year gave me a birdseye view of the vast majority of the land under several feet of water, up next to the Sacramento River and it’s working, intact levee.
So what are the Yolo supervisors ‘preserving’ it from? Not developers. Ducks? Rice growers? [them’s fightin words] Not to mention that supervisors are empowered to make the ultimate land use decisions that would regulate that development. This is coupled with Yolo’s dire financial straits, like many counties. Where are they going to come up with the tens or even hundreds of millions to pay off this land grab.
Yolo is a lovely place, I represent about 51% of Yolo by acreage and about 7% by population, but until all the roads are in top shape and the police, sheriff, and fire departments have all they need, what in the world are they doing buying up farmland, removing it from tax rolls?
It really boils to the 50,000 acre feet of water rights the ranch holds. Whiskey’s for drinkin, water’s for fightin’. Conaway has it, others have a longing eye on it. The goverment’s story morphed from preserving the land to worrying that the water would be sold off…again something an ordinance could conceivably regulate. Many believe that local goverments wanted to divide up the kill for their own devices, allocate water for development on their terms. [I just don’t picture that Yolo County wanted to get into the business of growing rice…nor would I recommend it with bureaucrats running a farm] Indeed, the eminent domain taking was executed and ruled valid by a local judge thanks in part to the recent Kelo vs. New London decision that has touched off the eminent domain reform prairie fire across this country and here in California, and the court was in the legal phase of placing a value on the property so it then be ‘just compensated’. A figure over perhaps $200 million wasn’t impossible if highest use value was allowed. [How does Yolo pay that off by ‘preserving’ it?]
Legislative efforts at reform, including SCA 15 and 20 by Senator McClintock as well as my own companion bill, ACA 22, were stopped by partisan votes and politics this year in the legislature. A few pieces of window dressing legislation were passed that deal with micro issues of eminent domain but will do nothing to stop these abusive takings. Assemblywoman Mimi Walters tirelessly led the charge in qualifying the initiative, Protect Our Homes, Proposition 90, that went around the Legislature and will be voted on this November.
So, what is the outcome for Yolo and the Conaway Preservation Group ownership? The owners, after much legal wrangling and great expense, get, in the USA, to keep their land and water…but with many restrictions on the land use and water right use…takings. Yolo County declares ‘victory’ by gaining a settlement [a settlement? what did the county bring to the table? what did the landowners get out of the deal?] which "address their long-standing objectives to preserve the water, agricultural resources and natural resources of Conaway Ranch for public benefit." [public benefit? does the public get to just set up shop at anyone’s backyard BBQ in Irvine or Modesto or Yreka? Yolo says that Conaway has to give public access] And the taxpayers, once again, this time Yolo citizens, are stuck with the over a million in legal billing for this wrongful effort to take the ranch by their government…but wait, the thuggery exhibited by Yolo also extorted $2.4 million from Conaway for Yolo County’s costs, plus, via fees, a cut of any water possible sales out of the area that could may occur. Yeah, show me the money and we’ll go away. From a land and water grab to instead, a settlement that Yolo county declares, "we got what we wanted". And hand wringing by enviros that are upset that another 17000 acres did not move out of productivity and property tax rolls into public ownership, to be mismanaged by government bureaucrats as like our overgrown burning forests.
Congratulations to Conaway Preservation Group, it only cost you an arm. Shame on Yolo County Government for such flimsy logic and blatant thuggery. Shame on the US Supreme Court for not stopping such tyrannical takings. Yes on Proposition 90 and God’s blessings on America.