FUNDING AVAILABLE

The booklet, produced by the California Forest Improvement Program, informs you that "We at the California Department of Forestry (CDF) have designed CFIP with a minimum of the 'red tape' typical of government programs so that you can help your state rebuild its forest resources to meet future citizen's needs for wood products."

Up to 75% of the costs can be paid by taxpayers. The "funding" can be up to 90% if your project is less than 500 acres and you permit public access for recreation such as hiking, camping, hunting, picnicking and fishing. Any of the preceding can be a commercial recreational business.

To qualify for the improvement program you must have 5,000 acres or less of forestlands which is defined as land that can support 10% or more tree cover. 5,000 acres is the maximum allowed, 20 acres of non-TPZ land is the minimum, and there is no minimum for land conservation or habitat improvement projects.

Not only is state government using tax money to help land owners with the costs of improving private property, but the federal government has programs too; the USDA Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, the Forestry Incentives Program and the Agricultural Conservation Program.

The booklet advises that since taxpayer funding is limited the prospective beneficiary of the improvement program should look into getting "funds" from both the state and federal agencies. The booklet has cute cartoons on every page, some showing cute little land owners applying for their "funding" handouts at both state and federal levels.

According to the booklet, applications are ranked on a basis of which projects are seen as more cost effective. Among the criteria that will increase an applicants chances for approval are; the applicant owns less than 500 acres, the project is located in a county with high unemployment, local labor will be used, and a business with gross annual revenues of half a million dollars or less will do the work.

The next several pages explain how to wiggle your way through the bureaucracy and on page 31 you are admonished to keep good records. Then you are informed that "Sacramento will mail a check directly to you." How nice.

There is something very disgusting about forcing some people to finance the improvement of other people's private property. How could this possibly be justified?

If it is true that the bulk of taxes come from the middle and lower economic classes, then store clerks, waitresses, truck drivers, busboys, janitors, bartenders, file clerks, typists and others pay taxes so that landowners with up to 5,000 acres can enhance the value of their property. And, if the landowners want more than beleaguered California taxpayers can provide, they can go after the equally distressed taxpayers from other states for more money.

From my observations, people who own land are usually in a better economic situation than average folks. Even the great American middle class who own their own home own only about 1/7th of an acre on which their home rests. They would hardly be considered landed gentry. And yet they are robbed by the "authorities" so that those who own up to 5,000 acres can clean up their land and increase its value. Perhaps this a form of economic democracy, with bias for the rich.

The criteria that applications in areas of high unemployment will have priority is inconsistent. First it is stated that the purpose of the program is to improve forest lands. Then we are informed that if jobs are scarce in the area, projects will be approved that otherwise might not be. Looks like the old CCC is coming back disguised as a timber management act.

Most ominous of all is CDF's call for applicants "... so that you can help "your state" rebuild its forest resources to meet future citizen's needs for wood products."

If I understand this correctly, in plain English it means this:

I can get money that was taken from lower income workers so that I can hire a company that makes up to $500,000 a year to improve my land that isn't really my land at all, but rather is the resource of the state, so that future taxpayers (who are called citizens) will have abundant wood products available.

No comment is made about paying back the future taxpayers who were fleeced to help the private land owners, so we can assume that when they buy wood products they will pay full market value.

I really object to the phrase "your state." I don't own the state nor do I want to help it in any way. Especially when the "state" is trying to steal my trees! I don't agree that the trees on my property are the resource of the state. The trees on my land are my trees and belong to no one else.

Those who wish to improve the commercial value of their trees are morally obliged to pay this expense themselves. Unknown waitresses, clerks and busboys have no obligation to defray a land owners expenses for any reason. If there is an obligation, a politically contrived one, then we in America are as socialist as the Soviets, and we should stop talking about free enterprise and private property.