Mendocino County Becomes First in California to pass a Community Bill of Rights

photo[2]At 8:00 pm on Election Night 2014, residents of picturesque Mendocino County concerned about the availability and quality of local water waited anxiously for the first results on Measure “S”, the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance that bans fracking, dumping of frack waste and protects their water from being used for fracking anywhere in the state. Global Exchange and our partners and allies were proud to support the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC), the group behind this initiative.

Just after midnight it was clear they had made California history, passing Measure S by a whopping 67% of the county vote. It was not the only measure in the state to ban fracking—San Benito, CA voters passed Measure J despite the heavy influx of Big Oil funding to defeat it, while Santa Barbara’s anti-fracking measure succumbed to corporate money influence.

But residents of Mendocino county did far more than ban fracking this election.

With the passage of Measure S, residents in Mendocino County made history as the first California community to adopt a Community Bill of Rights, placing their rights above corporate interests. Residents see enactment of this ordinance as the first step in asserting their right to local self-government, and a rejection of the idea that their community will be a sacrifice zone for corporate profits. This is a huge milestone for the community rights movement in California—joining with over 180 communities across the country who have also changed the structure of law by passingphoto[3] rights-based legislation.

The Mendocino County Community Bill of Rights Fracking and Water Use Initiative, (Measure S) establishes the rights of the people of Mendocino County to a healthy environment, including clean air and water, and the rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish. The measure also secures the rights of residents to local self-governance. Fracking is banned as a violation of those rights, and directly challenges constitutional so-called “rights” of corporations to frack in their County. The extraction or sale of local water for use in fracking anywhere in the state is also banned, along with the dumping of toxic frack waste. Further, the measure bans the transfer of offshore fracking oil or waste through the County.

Jamie Lee, a community-based farmer in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino attended the very first Democracy School, a weekend rights-based training, in California in 2006, hosted by Global Exchange and CELDF. “Who knew back then that we would be celebrating this victory today.”  Over the years Jamie Lee brought Global Exchange’s Shannon Biggs to Mendocino many times to meet with groups and residents, hold public lectures, along with other practicioners and educators of the Community Rights framework, including long time advocate Paul Cienfuegos.

So by the time Peter Norris of Willits reached out to Global Exchange in 2013, there was already a strong sense of community self-governance throughout the far-flung county. A county wide Democracy School was held with 50 people, followed by steady flow of rights-based organizing support from Global Exchange, and the encouragement of the anti-fracking movement of California.   David Braun, part of the coalition Californians Against Fracking was a regular visitor to Mendocino throughout the election cycle, “Starting today, in Mendocino, community rights trump those of big money and corporations, but they also ensure that fracking doesn’t destroy precious and irreplaceable water air soil and biodiversity.  Big congratulations are in order to the people of Mendocino for their hard won battle against big oil.   Now we need to double down and make sure all the people of California and around the country are protected from fracking.  There is a lot to build on for all of us – and we will.”

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Resident members of CRNMC turning in signatures for the ballot in June, 2014

 

But it was the community that came together to put this into law. A core group of 30 and countless volunteers worked tirelessly throughout 2014 to collect the signatures for the ballot, host public events, write letters to the editor, paint lawn signs and go door-to-door with the message that decisions about water protection in Mendocino belong to residents and residents alone. As key CRNMC member Kelly Larson said, “Measure S was organized around a network model, rather than the old hierarchical top-down leadership, thereby modeling the ‘community’ in community rights.”

CELDF’s Ben Price offered congratulations to the people of Mendocino County, and to the organizers of the effort, stating, “With this vote, the people of Mendocino are challenging a legal structure that protects a corporate “right” to frack above the rights of communities to not be fracked.”

As resident Carrie Durkee proclaimed, “The passage of Measure S looks like a milestone to me. I’m filled with appreciation, admiration, and gratitude to all for the creation of the Community Bill of Rights.”

Kelly Larson added, Measure S is an important challenge to corporate constitutional rights, and the oil and gas industry.    We’re grateful that the voters of Mendocino County so strongly support community rights…Local people deciding for local control and decision making.  Democracy won here today!” Jamie Lee echoed this, saying, “this is only the beginning of local self-governance for us up here in Mendocino, the first step of many toward changing the rules about ‘who decides’ what happens here. WE do.”

 

 

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Idle No More Bay Area’s Pennie Opal Plant speaking to crowds of over 5,000 at California’s largest ever environmental rally in 2014.

 

With the arrival of fracking on the political scene, California’s democracy is unquestionably drowning in Big Oil. As Common Cause has reported, over the last 15 years, $267 million has been spent on lobbying and political contributions in Sacramento, the lion’s share of which coincides with fracking’s ugly rise as the short-term future of the fossil fuel industry. Fracking is perhaps the worst energy idea to hit California’s communities and the climate in history, yet the echoes of “drill baby drill” seem to be resounding throughout the Capitol, overwhelming the voices of the people, common sense, the process of democracy, and the realities of the worst drought in history. As Americans Against Fracking’s David Braun says, “Only in a world where corporate influence rules public policy would slash and burn technologies like fracking—which utilizes enormous quantities of fresh water and toxic chemicals to smash bedrock and release dirty energy—be considered a good idea.”

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Source: Damien Luzzo

Studies following the recently defeated fracking moratorium showthat State Senators who voted “NO” received 14 times more in industry contributions, coupled with massive industry lobbying expenditures, revealing money’s influence on politics. With huge campaign contributions to the Governor and state politicians; the intense pressure of lobbying; industry’s role in writing regulatory laws; the revolving door of government-to-industry-and-back jobs; and the inappropriate appointments of industry to myriad ‘watchdog’ posts—the crisis we face may be bigger than fracking. Increasingly, California communities are taking democracy into their own hands and banning fracking locally.

Following the fracking money: In the flash of a gas flare, Governor Brown has shaken the “moonbeam” moniker that dogged his early career as an idealist and an environmentalist who stood firmly outside of the establishment. Now, wading deep in the pool of political money, the third-term “climate leader” took Big Oil & Gas contributions totaling $2.5 million before signing the now-infamous bill-gone-bad SB4 into law, which instead of regulating fracking (the bill’s initial intent), actually exempts fracking from regulatory oversight, and even forces the state to issue fracking permits for at least the next two years.

Occidental Petroleum, Governor Brown’s biggest energy funder has the largest stake in Calfiornia’s fracking game. As Claire Sandberg reported in Truthout, in an October 2013 investor call, Occidental executives cited “more favorable permitting” as the impetus behind its plan to increase capital expenditures by $500 million next year in California. “Most of this increase will be directed towards unconventional drilling opportunities where we have more than 1 million prospective acres for unconventional resources,” said Occidental president and CEO, Steve Chazen. fracking_contributions_to_senate

Following the SB4 fail, concerned Californians rallied, continuing to plead and demand that state representatives protect California from fracking by passing a statewide moratorium, a bill known as SB 1132.  In a powerful display of big money over justice, the bill was defeated, a well funded victory for the fracking industry. Following the money, nonprofit watchdog Maplight provided the following analysis: “Senators voting ‘NO’ on the moratorium bill have received 14 times as much money from the oil and gas industry, on average ($24,981), as Senators voting ‘YES’ ($1,772). Twenty-one votes were required for the bill to pass. The final vote was 16-16, with eight Senators abstaining. Three of the abstainers have been suspended from the Senate due to corruption allegations. If the five active Senators who abstained from voting—all Democrats—voted in favor, the moratorium would have passed.

  • The Democrats who abstained from voting on the moratorium have received, on average, 4.5 times as much money from the oil and gas industry as the Democrats who voted ‘YES’.
  • Senator Jeanne Fuller (R) has received $52,300 from the oil and gas industry, more than any other senator voting on the bill. She voted ‘NO’.”

Reported by the Daily Kos: Over their lifetime, the 16 Senators who voted against SB 1132 have taken $590,185 from the oil industry, while the 16 who voted no have taken $159,250. And, according to Truthout, the Western States Petroleum Agency—the biggest corporate lobby in California—spent $4.7 million in 2013, and $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2014, contributing to the estimated $15 million the anti-fracking coalition Californians Against Fracking says the industry spent lobbying against SB 1132.

Regulating fracking isn’t the answer either. With the creation of the Halliburton Loophole, fracking was exempted from the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. But even if it wasn’t—fracking cannot be done safely, and it is largely the industry to be regulated that writes the policies, anyway. As Colorado biologist Shane Davis details, The Colorado oil and gas conservation commissions (COGCC) regulations are nothing but a public pacifier. There is an internal ‘waiver’ system that allows the fracking industry a free pass to not have to abide by any regulation if they can show the regulation will cause undo financial burden to the operator.” As a scientist who is also living with high levels of Benzene and other toxins in his blood from exposure to fracking sites near his home, he has become a national spokesperson for the cause. Says Davis,It is very clear the state of Colorado cannot abide by its mission to prevent adverse impacts to the environment and protect public health, safety and welfare.

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Fracking protests in New York warn Governor Cuomo. Could California be far behind?

So what happens next? For a growing number, the crush of money at the state level is beginning to draw the curtain on the idea that maybe the system isn’t broken but working perfectly—just not for residents or healthy ecosystems. So where do we turn to save ourselves from bad ideas like fracking? Well for now, the growing consensus seems to be that we must rely on our neighbors. A growing number of communities, including Santa Cruz and Beverly Hills, have passed local bans on fracking, with several more working to make it on their local 2014 elections ballot.  Peter Norris, resident of Willits, CA, believes watching the statewide fracking debate play out “only points to the larger issue of democracy and gets to the question ‘who decides about fracking—residents or corporations?” It’s one of the reasons he’s part of  a countywide group, the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC), which is working to pass an ordinance this November to assert their local right to ban fracking: “Residents here feel strongly that decisions about water here should be made locally and should be focused on the rights of community and our ecosystems, and enforced by laws.”

toolkitcoverThe CRNMC is gathering some 6,000 signatures throughout the county in order to put the idea of community rights on the ballot this November. If passed, Mendocino County will join the ranks of over 160 communities—from big cities to conservative rural townships across the US that have protected the health safety and welfare of residents and local ecosystems by asserting their right to decide what happens where they live. They are working with Global Exchange and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to pass an ordinance that bans fracking by elevating the rights of communities and the local ecosystem above the claimed “rights” of corporations. “I like to think of it in terms of the adage ‘we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for,” says Idle No More Bay Area’s spokesperson Pennie Opal Plant, “We can’t expect our elected officials to act in our best interests. We have to do everything we can to ensure the safety of our communities. Enacting local democracy is an important tool.”

Shane Davis agrees, “It is time that communities enact local control through the ballot box. Community rights should be supreme over corporate pollution.”  To learn more about  Community Rights, download Global Exchange’s new toolkit.

 

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Increasingly, communities throughout California are facing the dangers of hydro-fracturing (fracking). Despite the severe drought plaguing farmers, farming communities in the Central Valley and throughout the state are being siphoned for water for fracking operations, or being used as a dumping ground for the toxic waste fracking generates. But residents in Mendocino County have another idea for water protection—local control.  A growing movement in this northern county—home to wineries, farms and redwood forests—is concerned about their already short supply of water, and are not willing to allow the toxic infrastructure and heavy water use that fracking brings. As Peter Norris, a Willits spokesperson for the newly formed Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) says, “Residents feel strongly that decisions about water here should be made locally and should be focused on the rights of community and our ecosystems, and enforced by laws.”

Fracking is slated to come to Mendocino in 18 months, though residents seek to stop it before it begins by putting a ban on the ballot this November—but the ordinance they seek to pass is more than just a fracking ban.  Partnering with Global Exchange’s Community Rights program, residents there have recently formed the CRNMC specifically to assert their right to protect the community and local water by banning fracking for the extraction of hydrocarbons, banning the use of local water for fracking outside the county, as well as banning the dumping or transport of toxic fracking waste through the county. To do this, their ordinance will recognize their local authority to make decisions that directly affect them and their ecosystems in order to ban all practices related to fracking, and strip fracking corporations of the legal tools corporate executives use to turn communities into sacrifice zones for profit.

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CRNMC’s Jane McCabe and Kimbal Dodge, with event posters.

The CRNMC is gathering some 6,000 signatures throughout the county in order to put the idea of community rights on the ballot this November. If passed, Mendocino County will join the ranks of over 160 communities—from big cities to conservative rural townships across the US that have protected the health safety and welfare of residents and local ecosystems by asserting their right to decide what happens where they live.

The CRNMC will be enlisting volunteers and signature gathering at a series of four public events sprinkled throughout the county:2014 Fracking-Who Decides

  • Friday June 6, 2014, 7PM in Willits: LL Grange, 291 School Street
  • Saturday June 7, 7 pm in Ft. Bragg:  Town Hall, 363 N Main Street
  • Sunday June 8 at 1 PM in Boonville:  Anderson Valley Grange, Hwy 128
  • Sunday June 8, 4 PM in Ukiah: Methodist Church, 270 N Pine Street

The events will feature local speakers from the CRNMC, Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director, Shannon Biggs, and Americans Against Fracking’s founder, David Braun.  Come join a lively discussion, sign the petition, or volunteer with the campaign!

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For more information on the events, contact Peter Norris 707.456.9968, or visit the CRNMC’s website or facebook page.

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about  Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!