End of a Loooong Effort: Plastic Bag Ban Signed
Commission Forwards Plan to Revive California Parks
Last Call for the Annual Convention
Volunteer for an Old-Fashioned Mailing Party
Take the Pledge
End of a Loooong Effort: Plastic Bag Ban Signed
By Kathryn Phillips
This year’s legislative session ended with the Governor signing an environmental bill that required about 8 years of effort to get to the Governor’s desk: a bill to ban the use of handled plastic bags in grocery stores, food marts and convenience stores.
The bill, Senate Bill 270, goes into effect for grocery stores next summer, and for convenience stores in the summer of 2016. Its immediate effect will be that by next summer, shoppers will be encouraged even more than before to use re-useable bags or pay a dime for each paper bag the store provides for carrying out groceries.
The bill’s long-term effect will be reduced trash along roadways and in cities, a drop in plastic pollution in waterways and oceans, and one less everyday product that encourages ours to be a throwaway culture.
That this bill passed at all is a credit to environmentalists around the state who didn’t give up when the legislature refused to take action on this issue a number of times over the last 8 years. Instead of throwing in the towel, they redoubled efforts to get local ordinances regulating plastic grocery bags passed.
Sierra Club members around the state participated in pushing these local ordinances. By this year, more than 100 local ordinances were on the books, and there were enough different ones that grocery chains cried uncle and decided to support a single state law.
Over the last two years, Senator Alex Padilla has championed this bill. When it failed last year, principally because Senator Kevin de Leon was concerned about how the bill would impact a bag factory in his district, de Leon and Padilla sat down and hammered out provisions to make sure that bag factory could transition to making re-useable bags and avoid closing.
In the end, the plastic bag ban bill provides a textbook example of how to effectively challenge convention to get the right thing for the environment, the public and the economy.
Commission Forwards Plan to Revive California Parks
By Annie Pham
The Parks Forward Commission is poised, after roughly 18 months of work, to adopt aplan in November to strengthen the struggling California State Park System.
The Commission was formed in 2013 in response to legislation, after a period of intense upheaval in the State Park System that included budget cuts and threats of park closures. The 12-member Commission composed of prominent citizens, and co-chaired by a former state senator and a successful Bay Area businessman, served on a voluntary basis to help craft the strategic plan for the State Park System.
The latest draft of the plan may be slightly modified before it is presented at a November 20 Parks Forward Commission meeting in Sacramento. However, most of the latest draft, released in July, is expected to be adopted.
The plan calls for transforming and modernizing the park system so that it “works more collaboratively with partners, protects and restores natural and cultural resources, ensures greater and more beneficial access to parks for all, meets the future outdoor recreation needs of the state, and is financially stable.”
It then suggests actions in a range of areas to complete that transformation. Among other things, the plan recommends ways to change the park system’s personnel system to make it possible for park employees who are not so-called badged personnel (trained to be law enforcement) to rise to leadership levels. It also recommends increasing collaboration with private and public entities, making the parks more accessible to all Californians, and better managing and protecting the system’s natural resources.
The plan also suggests establishing a non-profit public-benefit entity to support parks across the state, beginning with the State Parks System. Details of how this entity would work are limited in the Commission’s plan.
The 40-page plan includes a timetable intended to keep the Department of Parks and Recreation on track to fulfill the Commission’s recommendations. The plan is expected to take about 2 years to implement and the Commission recommends appointment of an implementation team.
The Commission acknowledges in the report that the State Park System needs sustainable and stable funding, independent of the General Fund on which the system is quite dependent now. However, the report does not specify options for developing that sustainable funding. Instead, it calls on the California Department of Parks and Recreation to determine exactly what funding needs are so that the plan’s implementers—which appears to include, in this case, everyone who loves parks—can then figure out how to develop the dedicated public funding.
Sierra Club California’s Parks Committee volunteers and staff have been tracking and commenting as the plan has been developed. If you are interested in being involved in this work, contact Annie Pham at annie.pham@sierraclub.org. You can also follow the Commission’s activities at http://www.parksforward.com.
Last Call for the Annual Convention
There’s still time to sign up to attend Sierra Club California’s annual convention and reserve the chance to learn some new skills to put to work for your local advocacy.
This year’s event will occur on Saturday, October 11 and Sunday morning, October 12. It will be at our regular site for the annual event, Rancho El Chorro in San Luis Obispo County. You can register on our website.
This year, a dynamic duo of media consultants will help activists develop new skills and techniques to be effective in getting important messages out in the rapidly changing media world.
The consultants, Sev Williams and Nina Erlich-Williams, operate Public Good PR and have been successful consultants on environmental campaigns throughout California.
On Saturday, Sev and Nina will present the keynote presentation, "The Changing Media World: How to make it Work for You and the Environment". They will discuss ways that the media has changed in the last decade or so, and how to continue to make it work for getting the Club's message out. They'll refer to some real-world examples that show how California's environmental community adapted and even took advantage of the changing media world to push for environmental improvements or push back against efforts to weaken environmental laws.
On Saturday evening, they will hold a workshop entitled "Spreading Environmental Messages to Thousands with the Click of a Button." Sev and Nina will demonstrate ways that local activists can use social media and conventional media's online websites to influence public opinion about the environment and environmental issues. This will get into the how-to-details about employing tactics that the afternoon keynote highlights. Participants might want to come prepared with a laptop or cell phone from which they can access the internet.
Volunteer for an Old-Fashioned Mailing Party
Help us with our final fundraising push of the year and have fun at the same time.
We are looking for eight to ten people who can be available on November 5 and/or 6 for a mailing party in Sacramento. We’ll be stuffing, stamping, and sorting our annual year-end thank you and appeal for donations.
We welcome enthusiastic, reliable volunteers who are willing to commit to work four to eight hours per day, one or both days.
Refreshments and good cheer provided.
If you can help, please contact Meg Johnson, our operations coordinator, by email (Meg.Johnson@sierraclub.org) or phone (916-557-1100 x 110).
Our office is located in downtown Sacramento, just a few blocks north of the State Capitol Building. We're on a light rail stop and we have secure indoor parking available for your bicycle.
This election year you have a great opportunity to build Sierra Club's influence and power in Sacramento without leaving the comfort of your home county. Simply take the pledge and join your fellow Club members to volunteer at least 10 hours between now and November 4 for a candidate the Club has endorsed.
Volunteering in campaigns is fun. You’ll meet great people and learn more about your community and the issues that move it.
So take the pledge, and then go to our endorsements page for links to candidates’ websites and information about volunteering for each campaign. Ten hours over the next four months: A small investment with a big payoff.
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Thank you for being a part of our work! You may securely donate online or by sending a check to Sierra Club California at 909 12th Street, Suite 202, Sacramento, CA 95814.
