CEQA Nonsense in Calwa

like that that are like that. People will complain about high gas prices. Democrats will complain about high gas prices. They all know why gas prices are high. Gas prices are high because we have very high taxes on gasoline and we have a really onerous body of regulations on gasoline and fuel emissions that requires a separate California basically

has to become a gas island. It has to have its own system of refineries and stuff because the mix that comes out, the mix of gas that comes out of the pump in California has to be different from other states because our emission standards are different. So we all know why gas is expensive in California, and the obvious solution is, well, stop regulating gas like that and cut gas taxes, but no, they don't want to do those things. California politicians would really just rather keep it

the way. It is obviously that they fully understand the problem, they fully understand what the solution to the problem is, and they just don't want to do it. Liberals fully understand why and why don't they want to fix it? Well a couple of different reasons, but I think it's chiefly because liberals run the state. Liberals are beholden to

the environmental groups. The environmental groups have bazillionaire billionaire, genuinely billionaire donors that Democratic politicians don't want to cross because they don't want to lose elections, and they Democrats never want to pass any kind of regulation that would result in more emissions or more harms of the environment. It just goes totally against the grain. So they're not going

to change anything that makes gas prices high. In fact, that their proposed solutions is to accuse the gas companies of price gouging and then pass regulations on the gas companies that actually might make prices more expensive because gas companies will start pulling out of the necessary investment they need to maintain refineries and things like that in California anyway.

There are a lot of problems like that in California where everyone knows the problem, everyone knows the solutions to the problem, and no one cares, no one actually wants. And by no one, I mean the Democrat ruts who control seventy five percent of all the seats in the state legislature, and the governor's mansion and the courts and the entire executive bureaucracy and all the appointed regulatory boards

and blah blah blah blah. Another problem like that, where we all know the problems is why don't we build enough? You know, why is infrastructure so slow to be completed? Why is it does it take so long to build new houses? Again, it's a thing where everyone in California

understands why, everyone gets it, everyone knows why. There are many reasons, and one of the foremost of them is SEQUA, the California Environmental Quality Act California Environmental Quality Act, which allows any Tom, Dick or Harry to file a lawsuit

to stop construction of whatever is being constructed. If you have a housing development and you want to stop it cold, you file some lawsuit and you say under SEQUA that this project's environmental review it's environmental review study was basically inadequate, And you don't have to be a party that's directly negatively impacted in order to file a lawsuit or you know that the amount of causation you have to show can be much more attenuated than it would be for

normal lawsuits where you have to make a normal showing of standing. You know, how directly are you adversely impacted by the specific amount of you know, pollution that would come from this particular construction project. You know, how do we measure that? That would be impossible to measure and to really determine that you have standing under normal tradition rules of standing, so anyone can sue. So everyone again

knows the problem. SEQUA is the problem, and for years Democrats have understood that that was the problem and just decided to ignore the problem because they would rather just keep having the problem and keep having their billionaire environmental donors give them money. That's the long and short of it. Everyone understands that's the problem. Moderates understand it's a problem.

Republicans understand it's the problem. But the Democratic Party controls three quarters of all the seats and the governor's office. So as long as that's the case, sequa's not going to go anywhere. Now you're starting to see some cracks. Buffy Wicks, an assembly member from Oakland, fairly prominent member of the state Assembly, introduced a bunch of bills to get rid of big parts parts of SEQUA. It's like the first time a Democrat has been willing to do that.

But until the Democrats, that's the thing, everyone knows the problem. Democrats have just ignored the problem because they would rather not tick off their donors, slash political supporters, and they don't want to do anything that would have some like

net lesser effect on the environment. It's only I think they're only willing to go into SEQUA because people have realized that literally, anyone can use SEQUA to stop some development that they don't like, even if the real reason they don't like it has nothing to do with the environment. You can have a rival builder file a lawsuit to stop something. You can have a you know, neighbors who don't want say a multi unit dwelling near their home.

Anyone can use it. They just can pretend that it's for an environmental reason, and then labor unions often can use it to sort of squeeze groups into you know, requiring that they use prevailing wage for construction and then that massively increases construction costs and blah blah blah blah blah. All right, so what annoys me is that there are like five people left who still cheer in America or

in California anyway. Well, let me correct that the only people left in California who think SEQUA based lawsuits are a good idea are basically most of the state legislature, the governor. Well, and they don't even think it's a good idea, but they'd rather keep SEQUA in place because

they don't want to tick off their donors. So the only people left in California who want SEQUA around are the majority in the state legislature, the governor, and Marrik Warzowski from the Fresno b Apparently, so Warzowski, he's a fascinating, fascinating fellow. He lives in Clovis and writes all these articles about how terrible Clovis is the city of his choice because it's conservative and it's a really nice place

to live. And I feel like he is expresses in his columns in the Presno b this real angst over that he is also, bizarrely just the biggest fan of Sandra Celadon. You've ever seen Sandra Salodon, who is the CEO of Fresno building Healthy Communities, and she's going to run for the State Assembly, and Sandra Saladan, Let anyone forget. I'll make sure nobody forgets. Insofar as I am able.

This is Sandra burn it Down Celadan, the gal who during the George Floyd riots when they were starting, she retweeted out a video of a police precinct building burnt down in Minneapolis with the tweet burn it all Down. She then proceeded somehow after saying she was sorry, and

I guess everyone just sort of forgave her. She became the vice chair of the Fresno Police Reform Commission, with predictably stupid left wing results because she basically railroaded Oliver Baines, I think, and wound up writing the whole thing herself. At least I hope she railroaded Oliver bans because if

Oliver Bins actually wrote that stuff, shame on him. The Police Reform Commission's report was basically full of phony, blooney history, trying to paint this false historical picture that all policing in the United States is rooted in racism, that the whole legacy of policing in America's racist. Anyway. Maryorkworzowski loves

Sandra Saladon. He's like going to fundraisers for now, he's writing columns about how wonderful her nonprofit Resnue building healthy communities is why for filing lawsuits to stop infrastructured development. South Fresno community groups score another victory with appeals court ruling. For several decades, South Fresno residents were powerless in preventing polluting industries and distribution centers from getting shoved down their throats,

regardless of the deleterious effects on their health. Recently, they've been fighting back and in an increasing number of cases, fighting back and winning. The latest example came in March, when a state appeals court sided with community groups quote

community groups. What we mean by quote community groups is left wing nonprofits funded from Los Angeles in their ongoing legal battle with Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration over major expansion of the North Avenue and American Avenue freeway

interchanges on Highway ninety nine. The appellate Court granted a petition submitted in November by Friends of Kalawa, Inc. And Fresno Building Healthy Communities that should, without waiting too deep into the legal muck, finally compel Caltrans to justify its environmental review for the one hundred and forty million dollar project. So this is a sequel law too. Clearly, Caltrans does,

I am sure, an enormous environmental review. It's a state run agency, so we're gonna let private persons sue the state agency. The state agency, which by the way is probably a load has has environmental lawyers I'm sure who work for it, who do these environmental impact reports, and who guide the agency about all kinds of stuff. I'm sures they're subject to all kinds of green requirements. Blah blah blah blah blah. They've already done this massive environmental

impact study. There you go through it all. And yet after they do all their work, Fresno Building Healthy Communities a left wing nonprofit group who probably got three people from CALWA. This is what these nonprofits do. You have these bigger nonprofits who have a bunch of funding money from Los Angeles. They go to some community in the Sanawakean Valley to try to stop some development, whatever community

that is. They get like five people from the community and tell them, hey, you want to sign your name on this so that we can say that citizens from concerned citizens from Kalwa have sued to try to stop

the environmental harm of this. They get five people to sign a thing and then they could say, oh, yes, concerned Citizens of Kalua have joined together with President building out the communities, which is funding the whole thing, and you're pushing the whole thing, and we're obviously the main force behind this whole thing to try to stop Caltrans from you know, building infrastructure, development blah blah blah blah blah. Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability is another one of

the types of lefty nonprofits. They did something like this in Pixley. I talked about this story a lot. They stopped a green hydrogen energy power plant from being built in Pixley on the grounds that it would cause too much truck pollution. It's a green energy power plant and they're trying to stop it because it's gonna have too much pollution. Cut too much truck pollution, specifically in Pixley. Pixley, a town that is nothing other than a pit stop

along ninety nine. Ninety nine goes right through Pixley. All Pixley has is trucks driving through it. I how many thousands of trucks drive through Pixley every single day, given that Pixley is again pretty much just a pit stop

on the ninety nine. Anyway, the Appellate Court granted a petition submitted in November by Friends of Kalawa Inc. Again it's probably like five people and Fresno building healthy communities that should without waiting too much deep than legal, MUK finally compel Caltrans to justify its environmental review for the one hundred and forty million dollar project, the same environmental review which, as you may recall, conveniently left out Fresno

Counties proposed twenty nine and forty acre industrial park east of ninety nine that can't proceed without improved freeway access and will unquestionably bring more air pollution and truck traffic to already overburdened neighborhoods. It's always truck traffic air pollution that we're concerned. Where do you want industrial parks to be See this is again, why is it hard for businesses to come to California? Why is it hard to

build stuff in California? It's because of this crap. Okay, here we have a possibility for a huge industrial park for Kalwa, which, by the way, is like Kewa is desperately in need of more development, It's in need of more jobs. This is a very poor part of the Fresno area. Like, why is a president being columnist out here, like, yeah, let's stop development because a nonprofit says that the pollution is bad for people, that the pollution will really harm

people's health. This nonprofit says, so will it will? Will? Will this entity actually harm people's health that badly? So much as to justify that we're just not gonna build this thing that could employ God knows how many people like bring new jobs, bring new like no. But again, if we wonder why it's expensive to build in California,

we wonder what like cheerleading for crap like this? Like so apparently the only people in California left who like SEQUA is a majority of the state legislature, these left wing nonprofits that use it to sue and Marrik Worzaski. That's it. That's it, the Fresno b loves sequel lawsuits. When we return, we'll dig more into this John Gerardi show here on Power Talk. So this is the insane

thing about these sequel lawsuits. And specifically we've got this lawsuit from Fresno Building Healthy Community, Sandra Saladon's group, which you know she's getting ready to you know, getting herself more and more and more press in anticipation in twenty twenty six that she's going to run for the state Assembly. They're suing Caltrans because a big road infrastructure project that they've been working on, one hundred and forty million dollar project.

They're trying to argue that it the its environmental impact study is in sufficient. But let's recall whom they're suing. They're suing Caltrans, which is a state agency. It's a state agency. Here's an idea. If we're concerned about environmental impacts of things, why not just let the state regulate it? I mean, when' that makes sense. You've got environmental impacts. It's very hard for an individual to show standing to sue over an environmental impact. And if you just open

upstanding to sue to anybody. As the Calibournia Environmental Quality Act is done well, then the whole situation is just ripe for it's just ripe for abuse, and that it is. In fact, what's happened with SEQUA is that people have utilized SEQUA the California Environmental Quality Act to file lawsuits against development projects to say, oh, their environmental impact review

was insufficient. But people have been filing those lawsuits who don't, who clearly manifestly do not give a crap about the environment.

It's a neighbor who doesn't want a multi union dwelling near her house because she thinks it'll lower her property value, so she's all an environmental impact on the study hasn't been fully completed, and it just seems like there are all these different projects around the city that are getting stopped throughout the San Joaquin Valley and I'm sure all up and down California that are getting stopped dead in their tracks because either there's some private business entity that

doesn't like this project going up, or some neighbor who doesn't like this business going up, or there's some environmental nonprofit that wants to make a splash to make a name for itself, trying to say that basically, oh, this will increase traffic and therefore increase pollution in hurt people's health. By that logic, there's no development that could possibly take place near human dwellings, right, I mean, where do they want an industrial? You presumably cannot build anything without more

truck traffic. I mean again, SEQUA was used to stop construction of a let's remember this. This was back in December in Pixley, Okay. A left wing nonprofit used SEQUA to stop construction of a hydrogen power plant, a zero emissions, green energy hydrogen power plant, to build it in Pixley, where like, all due respect to the great people of Pixley, I'm sure it's a lovely place. Not a lot of

people live there. Seems like a perfect place to build a power plant, create some jobs for the good people of Pixley, but no environmental groups are like, no, that'll increase truck pollution because trucks will come into Pixley to drop off I guess the hydrogen that needs to get converted into energy. Pixley is nothing but a pit stop on ninety nine. It's nothing but trucks. It's just the ninety nine goes right through it. It's trucks, it's thousands

of trucks define the environment of Pixley. You really think, I don't know, twenty trucks extra, you know, stopping in Pixley to drop off hydrogen. I don't know how many trucks a day drop off hydrogen and a hydrogen plant. You really think that's making a rat's rear end of difference. So I guess they just don't believe any of these claims.

I don't believe. I find it very difficult to believe any of these claims that we can really measure that the extra pollution of people going to a place, building some development so that people can go to a place that's really causing this much more environmental harm. Again, why can no one build anything in this state? Why can nobody invest in this state? It's because we have laws on the books that stop people from doing it. And in this case, with this Kalwa area Caltrans expansion, this

is Caltrans. It's a state agency that probably again has more green regulation over it, more environmental lawyers crawling all over it than possible. Probably you can shake a stick at and we're gonna say no, the State of California is a bunch of polluting, vile don't care about the environment, right wing just drill baby, drill monsters who are building this Caltrans project to force feed smog into the mouths of babies. Who are you insane? In a sane state?

Clearly one in which we do not live in a sane state. Rather than letting any Tom, Dick or Harry file a lawsuit saying that someone's environmental review is inadequate, the state would just oversee that. Just let the state oversee it. If the state says the environmental impact of this thing is all right, I'm really loath to second guess the state of California the most left wing bunch of lunatics ever, well, the second most after presno building

healthy communities. Clearly, I just find this whole structure, this idea of cheerleading a sequel lawsuit of any kind, just seems so irresponsible to me, so insane. It's seek what is the root cause of why housing is unaffordable in this state? We can't build more housing or demand far

out strips or supply of housing. Why because builders lack the confidence to invest when they're not sure if someone's going to file a lawsuit and until a governor candidate comes forward who actually says I want to repeal sequa. I want to repeal a bunch of these environmental regulations that add twenty thirty, forty fifty thousand, whatever it is to the cost of every new home. I'm tired of this.

I'm going to run and I'm going to push a ballot initiative alongside me to stop it until someone runs for governor saying that we're just gonna keep keep on doing it. And you know, good job for the Fresno b I don't think the President Bee is allowed to introduce any editorials complaining about the cost of housing, given that all of their columnists, Tad Weber and Mark Korsowski, well they're both out here cheerleading sequel lawsuits to stop

stuff from getting built. When we return, Brandon Vang is elected a new Fresno City Council member. All of the bizarre issues of what was a very bizarre little race. Next on The John Girardi Show, Brandon Vang is the new city council member for the Fresno City Council. He winds up succeeding Luis Chavez, who left that seat vacant upon getting elected to the Presno County Board of Supervisors.

By the way, for those those who are wondering, why would you want to be a Fresno County supervisor rather than a Fresno City council member, Well, the pay is way better. The pay is way better, and there are no term limits. Being a county supervisor is secretly like the best gig in all of California politics. The pay is great. Probably have fewer controversial votes in a year

than any city council will, especially for a big city. Yeah, there's no assumption with county supervisors that this should be just a part time job and you should be No. No, County supervisors get paid very nicely. It's sort of the the cream of the crop of local politics jobs. Anyway. Well, Brandon Vang gets elected to the city council seat, and his chief opponent had been Elizabeth Johnason Roses, who is

a trustee with president Unified School District. And I want to see if I can go through all of the little mini accusations and scandals for what was a pretty slimy campaign. Kind of a lot of it seemingly coming from the Chavez camp. But anyway, let's let's go through this, Okay. So the weird thing is Elizabeth Jonathon Ross, who is running for Louis Chavez's old seat. Is Louis Chavez his wife, And right off the bat, that just rubs me the

wrong way. And lest you think it's a Democrat thing, I'm also not crazy about Republican spouses just hopping into their husband's old jobs. Like there's all this stuff that Ron DeSantis's wife, Casey DeSantis, might run for governor of Florida, and she seems like a I don't know, seems like a nice enough lady, and there's a lot of reporting that she's like his chief confidant and advisor. I don't know.

I just don't like the idea of spouses jumping in, by the way, Like if Tulci Gabbard's husband all of a sudden showed up and was like, hey, all luck to me governor of South Carrol, I'd probably find that weird too. It's not just a women running for their husband's thing. It probably also a husband running for their wife's saying. If I can assure you, if Doug m Hoff decided to run for something I'd be ready to load him into a cannon and shoot him into the sun. Anyway,

So right off the bat, that's weird. Javez then releases this like District five newsletter, which is purportedly like a newsletter to be released to residents to let residents know about important, you know, city council services for that city council district. But it features a big photo of his wife who was about to run for his old seat.

Chaves released it, and it's got a big photo of his wife who was about to run for his seat, with her name in big bold letters, Elizabeth Jonathon Rosa speaks at the opening of a some health center thing, and then he's like, oh, well, no, well it wasn't campaign material, Okay, we all know what was happening there. Chavez was trying to use city money to basically do a campaign ad for his wife without really doing a campaign ad for his wife. Basically for him to say, well,

it's not care painting. I just mentioned her name and put a big picture of her there because she happened to be at this event that took place in my district, you know, a community event to let people know about this this new health center that that started up, now, so that was sleazy. Then there was a bunch of anonymous reports, and I should emphasize that they're anonymous, so you know it, take it with a grain of salt.

There's all this anonymous reporting that Chavez, basically Chavez and Jonathon Roses, we're trying to get the Mong vote for Jonathan Roses, obviously important running against Brandon Vain. So they're trying to get the Mong vote. And the way that they do it, allegedly is with Luis Chavez going to different Mong organizations saying that his wife will support a Mong woman to be the new superintendent of Presnean Unified School District. Jonathan Ross is on the board of trustees

of Fresney Unified School District. And in return for Jonathon Ross supporting Misty her who's currently the interim superintendent, in exchange for Jonathan Ross supporting Misty Her, will these other Mong community groups back Jonathon Roses for the for the

city council seat. So there are a bunch of anonymous reports alleging that then this mailer came out that accused Brandon Vang of statutory rape of a fifteen year old around nineteen ninety three, Vang said the accusation was completely false, and then Andrew Jans, the city attorney, looked into it. Well, it finally got revealed it was kind of true. Brandon Vang, the fifteen year old in question, would Vang would later marry Okay, it's his wife. Vang was twenty years old,

he impregnated a fifteen year old. They raised the child together, and the two of them got married. Not great, obviously not, but you know, there are worse outcomes in world history. I guess I think it's still troubling any twenty year old having sex with a fifteen year old bad Thang clarified the presidents of DA's office never investigated it. True, but the mail are basically everyone left that story with

just a gross taste in their mouth. I mean, it's sort of I don't know, I mean, like it's you know, if a twenty year old has sexual relations with a fifteen year old, generally I'm inclined to want to throw them in jail. But you know, this case happened. They got married, and they raised the child together, and they're married. It's sort of an awkward thing. So so what do you say? I mean, I don't know, what are you going. Yeah, it's sort of the horses out of the barn in

a certain sense. So the whole thing left everyone with kind of a bad taste in their mouth. In short, it was just a gross election. I did not want Jonathan Roses to win now here. Here's the other thing is that Vang was backed by Juan Arambula and that sort of part of the local Democrat political machine. Chavez is trying to be his own kind of machine, and he's in and his wife is in. He's in politics, his wife is in politics, and they're they're trying to

kind of make a name for themselves. So seemingly we got these these dueling factions here and so in short, theng they have a special election, and this is all for a special election. By the way, Chavez vacated his city council seat because he won his seat on the President County Board of Supervisors. So they're having a special They had this special election in March, sort of middle of nowhere, where they had about twelve percent voter turnout.

So and the two leading candidates are both Democrats. So Brandon Vang gets just over fifty percent of the vote. Basically The way that this election would work normally is the two top vote getters, if neither one gets a genuine majority, would face each other in a runoff. Well, Thang was just barely at the fifty percent threshold, and if ten votes go differently, Thang would be under fifty percent.

So they finally certified the election results. Vang got nine votes over fifty percent, so he is the outright winner. He is the council member elect. Now this possibility of a recall. Jonathon Roses only got like thirty something percent, so she's still a ways back, but she is the second place candidate. If Vang gets under that fifty percent threshold, she might have a shot in a runoff, but he's

It looks like Vang is just barely over that threshold. Now, Seemingly it's within the range that someone could could request a recount. Jonathon Roses apparently had a statement though that sort of doesn't sound like she's going to challenge it. But all in all, it was really just kind of

a sleazy growth selection. I don't you know, I think some of the unsourced stories that Jonathan Roses was apparently trying to bribe the Mong community trying there was an attempt to curry favor with the Mong community, using Jonathan Roses's way as a president Unified trustee to get a Mong person hired as the supervisor in order to get Mong votes in a shady deal that Chavez was brokering. I don't I mean, it's either true, excuse me going

through puberty on the radio. It's either true and Roses and Jonathan Roses and Javs are sleazy and gross, or it's false. In the vein camp that was leaking that stuff, they're gross. The leak about Vang engaging in statutory rape. It's kind of gross given that it was his his current wife that this was about that she was fifteen he was twenty, but at the same time not false seemingly and you know, I don't want twenty year olds having sex with fifteen year old anyway. The whole thing

is kind of gross. It was really local politics at its absolute worst. I guess the only thing we can say that's good, and it's two Democrats. We're both probably not going to be great on the President's City Council. I don't know. President City Council is a lot calmer now that Esmuel Dasia is not on it. But the whole thing is it was really local politics at its worst.

When we return in which I reveal that radio show hosts don't know everything about everything, including tariff's next on John Jerardy Show, Folks, I know that because I talk on the radio, you all probably assume unanimously that I know everything about everything, and I must admit it's such a high quality show I could give off that impression. But in all humility, this is a great radio thing. Pretending ragging about yourself when pretending to be humble. I

don't know jack about trade. I don't know jack about trade. I kind of, maybe, sort of a little bit feel like I am more inclined towards more protectionist trade policy, and trade policy that is such that it incentivizes businesses to keep their jobs in the United States. I guess here are my fears with Trump's tariffs right now. One, He's only gonna be president for four years, after which time, who knows can we really rebuild the industrial base of

the United States within that short of a timeframe. I guess that's my one concern with tariffs is that we're gonna have all this short term pain costs increases for various things, and then it'll all get reversed by a Democrat in twenty twenty nine. I guess that's my concern, is that we'll have all the short term pay and none of the long term benefit. And maybe that's sort

of my only question. And two, I guess there's some concern about like, well, a lot of people are sort of picking nits, like, well, is this actually being strategically done, Why are we going after Taiwan so much? Like like you know, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. In general, though I agree that we should structure our policy so that America is producing a lot of things that are really essential for America. If China invaded Taiwan, we would be screwed, as COVID showed. I mean, during COVID we

were super short on chips. Anyone who tried to buy a video game system during that time knows what I'm talking about. I wasn't even trying to, but I saw that they were like whole video game systems just weren't available because of COVID and how it harmed or supply chains. So again, I don't know everything about everything. I would like to see manufacturing and jobs and things come back to America and not rely on Chinese slave labor for stuff.

That'll do it. John Dirolady Show, See you next time on PowerTOP