Do we know that this particular instance is necessarily bad for the ecosystem? Maybe mudslides aren’t a risk on this particular piece of land. Maybe a team of privately-funded experts have determined that the impact to his neighbors is negligible, so he decided to risk the fines. Maybe the guy actually knows what he’s doing.
Note that I’m not necessarily defending the guy. For all I know, he’s just a complete jackass that got the urge to try out his new chainsaw, but I’m not willing to demonize him without knowing the facts. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty clear that he broke the law, and should be punished. It’s less clear that he’s a horrible excuse for a human being who should undergo rodent-based colonoscopy.
And “environmental rapist”? :rolleyes: Throwing around emotionally-loaded words like “rapist” only serves to make you look hysterical. Am I a “speed limit rapist” if I drive too fast?
Zenster:I’ll withdraw what is admittedly a fairly vicious wish [i.e., prison rape] upon this shabby excuse for a human being. […] Personally, I hope he dies very slowly.
I’m not sure that counts as progress in letting go of anger and vengefulness, Zenster ol’ buddy, but never mind. Seriously, though I would not go to any such verbal lengths, I can understand your being so upset about this.
“The clear-cutting of the mature woodland and associated native grasslands also resulted in violations of the Ventura County Grading Ordinance and Hillside Erosion Control Ordinance of the Ventura County Resource Conservation District (RCD).”
[sub]BOLDING ADDED[/sub]
If there wasn’t an increased risk of mudslides and erosion, this charge wouldn’t be in place. All citizens are required to include the county in any sort of decision making process of this sort. Things happens to be this way for a host of good reasons. The fact that he faces gigantic fines for his actions shows how seriously stupid he was to do this. I’ll also add that any professional who would advise someone to knowingly break the law has little or no ethics.
To answer your second question. Yes, if you routinely drove at 100 MPH+ on the freeway, you would be a (to use your own term) “speed limit rapist.” Knowing and egregious violation of the speed limit in such a fashion would definitely place many human lives in grave danger. Such acts would most likely lead to a fatality (if only your own) or fatalities. Just as Kaddis did not fell a single tree, overwhelmingly dangerous driving would also constitute a similar (though slightly different) gross violation.
It appears that most people, having found little to argue with factually are now taking issue with how I have expressed myself. Way to go.
Bolding added, indeed. You can grunt all you want, Zenster – it’s still shit when it comes out. What we’ve got here is a case where the relevant ordinance has a prescribed penalty for infractions, but because this guy decided to take the county on and sue them over the ordinance, they decided to pull out the guns (literally) and go for jail time. Jail time. For taking down oaks occurring once every half a football field or so, or maybe once a whole football field or so, depending on which set of areas you use and assuming you’re calculations are correct (I didn’t check).
This is overzealous prosecution at it’s absolute worst. I’ve upgraded my hopes. Kimstu seems a nice enough sort (if wrong on this issue), so I still just hope she gets arrested for the growing the wrong kind of grass, but that she only spends enough time in jail for her attorney to show up and get her the hell out of there. As for the Ventura county commissioners, I hope Sudden Oak Death takes every damn oak in the county. But I still honestly, truly hope you never ever find out why some people might find your jailhouse rape comparison offensive. So there’s that.
manhattan:Kimstu seems a nice enough sort (if wrong on this issue), so I still just hope she gets arrested for the growing the wrong kind of grass, but that she only spends enough time in jail for her attorney to show up and get her the hell out of there.
:rolleyes: Thanks for the few kind words manny, but your absurd slippery-slope argument doesn’t scare me. You’ll have to do a lot better than that if you want to change my mind about the basic principle that governments do have the right to legislate some environmental restrictions for property owners.
Speaking of legislation, I still haven’t heard a single yip out of any of the libertarian alarmists here about the ordinance involved in one of this guy’s other infractions, namely the illegal keeping of 62 dogs. So according to you, if a guy kills 300 trees it shouldn’t be anyone else’s business, but if he houses and feeds 62 dogs the government can tell him to stop it? Gee folks, where’s the outrage?
Did you not see how preposterously far past the prescribed penalty Ventura county has gone? They’ve got an ordinance. They’ve got a set of penalties for violating it. But if they don’t like you, they’ll try to tack on some jail time, just to make sure you get the message.
That’s my beef here. Jail. For cutting down a tree once every half football field. You seriously don’t find that disproportionate to the point of outrageousness? Fucking jail. Armed people come and put you in a cell and deny you freedom. For a tree once every half football field.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss my lawn theory. Mandatory lawn maintenance is a common municipal ordinance. Normally, the penalty is a fine and the town mows your lawn and charges you for it on top of the fine. Kind of like the prescribed penalty for violating the Protected Trees Statute in Ventura County. But apparently, if they really don’t like you and you sue them over the lawn ordinance, they can take you to jail and that’s OK with you.
As for the dogs (I know I’m not a libertarian alarmist, but still), it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that keeping that many dogs sans licensing is presumptively cruel to the dogs. As it happens, they went for less than their initial charge on that one – there’s some set of facts of which we’re unaware on that subject.
1.)Manny, you know you’re wrong, here, just admit it. The guy broke the law. He knew he was breaking the law. He was affecting other people’s property values, endangering their homes from landslides and (I’m sure you don’t care) doing real damage to the ecosysytem. I have no sympathy for him at all. He’s a criminal, plain and simple.
2.) For fuck’s sake, everybody, prison rape is funny. Lighten up.
manhattan: *They’ve got an ordinance. They’ve got a set of penalties for violating it. But if they don’t like you, they’ll try to tack on some jail time, just to make sure you get the message.
That’s my beef here. Jail.*
Then we’ve got some common ground, at least, since I don’t quite see either what the justification is for requiring that the guy do time for this instead of just pay for mitigation (especially when the mitigation costs might be as much as three-freaking-million dollars :eek: —that’s plenty punitive as far as I’m concerned!).
However, if it was the jail time that was outraging you, you should have said so up front. Your first post, on the contrary, implied that it was the mere fact that Ventura county even had any legal regulations on this issue that was chapping your hiney. To wit:
And did you even bother to read my recent posts?!?
You know, where I said:
“Kimstu, in view of your well worded contributions to this thread, I’ll withdraw what is admittedly a fairly vicious wish upon this shabby excuse for a human being. You quite obviously have perceived the correct manner in which I meant it. I’ll leave it at that.”
I guess not. It continues to amaze me how people exercise selective literacy when dealing with my threads. [insert additional roll eyes smilie >here<] And did you even bother to read where I basically agreed with you about lawns?!? You know, where I said:
“Believe it or not, I almost agree with you about the immense environmental damage that lawns represent. The TONS of excess fertilizer, weed killers and maintenance equipment pollution being delivered into our environment on a daily basis for the sake of lawn upkeep is unconscionable.”
I guess not.
If I were a county official who had taken the time to personally inform Mr. Kaddis that he needed to obtain permission to cut any trees, only to find out he had gone ahead and done so anyway, I’d certainly feel tempted to tack on some time in the pokey. This guy blatantly ignored official instructions and warnings. You have to be pretty damn stupid to do that.
Try to remember that there are very few ways to restore this property that do not require another couple of hundred years worth of time.
Let’s try another tack here, manny. Should the guy be thrown in jail if he killed hundreds or thousands of animals?
This is, in fact, exactly what he did. How many songbird’s nests do you think fit into the crown of a large oak tree? Dozens at least. Maybe there were some woodpecker dens in there too. You know about how woodpeckers are on a serious decline, right? You know how the woodpeckers love acorns, right. We’ll gloss over the thousands of chipmunks, squirrels, gophers, moles, foxes and other woodland creatures that depended on that tract of land for sustenance.
This asshole killed quite a few of them by eliminating their habitat and food chain. Many others will drown in their burrows when the rain and runoff is not properly absorbed. But none of this matters to you because some obstinate fuckwit defiant asshole just had to voluntarily break laws he was well aware of and may (properly) be sent to jail for it.
I’m also obliged to note how you have freely indulged in rude exchange when I have directed no invective at you.
You missed my point. The law is apparently targeted at anyone who cuts a tree greater than 6 inches in diameter, regardless of whether or not it creates an erosion issue, because the county wants a chance to determine for itself whether the tree would create an erosion issue. Just because the law is called the “Hillside Erosion Control Ordinance” doesn’t mean you can only violate it by causing an erosion problem.
All righty then, please share your qualified expertise on the the legal intracacies of hillside erosion control and how it is enforced.
Personally, I’m confident that these are additional charges on top of the unauthorized tree cutting that are in place specifically because the deforestation will now create runnoff and topsoil retention issues. Perhaps you know better. Let’s hear all about it, mkay?
Try to argue like a fucking grownup, would you? This “oh yeah? what makes you an expert?” shit is ridiculous.
Here’s my decidedly non-expert understanding, and if it’s wrong, feel free to correct me. I’m not making any calls that require expert knowledge of hillside erosion here.
The law was enacted, at least in part, to reduce erosion problems due to people cutting down trees
The way the law works is that before you cut down a big tree, you need to apply and get permission from the county
The county grants permission based – at least in part – by evaluating whether or not cutting down this tree causes an erosion problem.
Failing to get this permission does not mean you caused an erosion problem. It means you broke the law and failed to go through the proper procedures, but it has yet to be determined whether or not cutting down the tree is actually any sort of environmental problem. That’s the reason for the punishment: the county didn’t get to make the call on whether or not this act was environmentally sound. For you to state unequivocally that this act causes environmental problems simply by virtue of not having been approved is simply incorrect.
I have a better idea. Let’s hear all about you taking a course in elementary logic. Condescension only works well when you’re right.
Honest question. No insults, no opinion-based answers:
Is it inconceivable that, had Mr Bulldozer filled out the proper forms, that his request for permission to cut down these trees would have been approved?
The world might be a better place if I stole your wallet.
No, hang on…
Ahem,
::: put’s on poshest voice :::
Your Honour, if it so pleases the court, may I be so impertinent as to suggest that my client stole ntuckers’s wallet merely to make the world a better place, I assert that he is not a thieving pikey by the law of (mumble, mumble)
::: His Honour replies :::
The Great Unwashed, I find you guilty of [list=a][li]not being a lawyer []needless frivolity[/li]and []simulposting[/list=a]I sentence you to (mumble, mumble)
You didn’t actually read the article that you linked to, did you? Our happy little prarie-maker may get fines of up to $100,000.00. Jail time is not mentioned, so ease up with your prison-rape fantasies, my little Left Coast Druid.
First of all, this is not Great Debates or General Questions. We’re in The Pit and, if you hadn’t noticed, even a moderator’s replies to this thread have taken a nasty turn. Next, you are the one who’s disputing the researched facts I have put forth. The burden of proof is upon you, not I. Without doing a whole shitload of more research, I’m not going to have more than opinion based answers. With my ambient outdoor temperature at 94°F right now, a lot of homework just isn’t going to fly. I would like to point out that, so far, you probably have been relying exclusively upon similar “opinion based answers.”
My contention is that charges related to “Hillside Erosion Control” ordinances involve the removal of trees from slopes and similar grades. Unless the property’s major plateau area subsequently drains onto another hillside, I’m voting that some of the trees were removed from surrounding slopes. I believe this is what triggered the additional “Hillside Erosion Control Ordinance” charges and have presented all available evidence and calculations to show that.
Right now, if you wish to contend otherwise, it is up to you to provide contradictory proof. If you are unable to, then my work will stand on its own merits. After spending some hours investigating and posting all the facts I can find related to this case, I’m less than enthusiastic about continuing to argue the fine points, especially when most posters agree with the bulk of issues I have presented. Because I try to be fair, I’ll give you a few more statistics:
191,700 x 1,000T or 191,700,000 tons annual California production (2001-2002)
First half (11/02 - 3/03) = $75,243,237 revenue on 93,702,798 pounds of production.
Here’s a link to the California Avocado Commission.
Over 300 properly grafted trees, actively producing avocados that sell for an average of ~80¢ per pound represent a huge revenue source. It is quite possible that the county might have wished to see such a productive taxable operation added to its revenue roles. I would imagine that they might require a complementary section of wild oak open space preserve sequestered to counterbalance the loss of habitat needed to establish the avocado orchard.
This is merely my guess. Just as it is merely my guess that county officials were extremely pissed off to find that this asshole Kaddis blatantly defied their direct admonitions about cutting any trees on his property. I invite you to prove otherwise concerning any of these suppositions upon my part. I am not obliged to provide refutation of my own evidence. That is up to you.
PS: Brutus, until you learn how to read an OP, I’m assuming that it’s you who is dumber than anyone can imagine.
Seriously, though I would not go to any such verbal lengths, I can understand your being so upset about this.