I saw it today. A little story, just a little story that's symptomatic of the much larger problems that California is experiencing with basically all over the place. The inability to build, the inability to develop, the inability to have local investment. And a lot of this is focused around SIQUA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which I've talked about very frequently on this show. The seque, I think is a
scourge on the face of the state. I think there are ways to have environmental regulation and emissions standards that don't require lawsuits, that state regulators can enforce emission standards without having private parties file lawsuits. Basically that the way sequel works is it turns normal It turns normal American rules about who has the ability to file a lawsuit. It takes those normal rules and turns them on their heads,
on its head. Normally, if you are going to sue someone, you have to demonstrate that you suffered some kind of damage, some kind of damages, that you were adversely impacted by someone else's conduct. You know, if someone crashes their car into my house, I can sue that person. My friend who's upset that my house got smashed into. He can't sue the guy who crashed the car. If he comes into the courtroom and is filing a lawsuit, the judge will say, well, who are you, Why are you? Why
are you filing this lawsuit? Oh, I'm really upset for my friend. No, that doesn't work that way. Traditional American rules governing standing, as it's called legal standing, do you have standing to sue? They're a really important sort of limit on litigation on who has the ability to file a lawsuit. Okay, I can sue because someone crashed into my house. I have suffered the economic harm of my
house being smashed sikua. The California Environmental Quality Act turns all that upside down, where basically anyone can file a lawsuit against anybody for alleged environmental harms from new kinds of business development. Whether that's a real estate developer trying to set up new housing, whether that's a business that wants to set up manufacturing within town, whether it's a city that has a development plan for new businesses to set up, whether it's the State of California trying to
build new state infrastructure water storage. This that even the State of California trying to build an annex on the Capitol building. It's all subject to a lawsuit from anybody, any Tom Dick or Harry who wants to swoop in and stop something for whatever reason. Really purportedly it's going to be for some environmental impact reason. But SEQUA has been weaponized by people who have no real interest in
the environment. Siqua's been weaponized by competing real estate developers to stop a real estate developer from starting a housing project. It's been used by people who don't want their property values to go down because of the establishment of a new you know, real estate the establishment of some new multi unit dwelling that they think will bring down the value of their homes, the sort of nimby instinct, not in my backyard yard instinct. So SIQUA has been weaponized
in all these different ways. Let's go down to Pixley and a piece that was commented on by Tad Weber writing in the Fresno b where Weber is so happy that basically a new business maybe with some jobs who knows, is not starting in Pixley. It's a very small town into Larry County. Here's what he writes, chalk one up
for the little guy. The residents of Pixley into Larry County are forcing an energy company to decide whether it wants to do an environmental review for a proposed hydrogen production plant, A review, I might add, that should have been done from the start, no question, full stop. Like many small communities located on Highway ninety nine Sanawaquin Valley,
Pixley is home to low income farm workers. According to a report by the Presno based Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding ding ding ding. Such a such a generic sounding name, The Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. I like leadership, I like justice, I like accountability. These are all good things. Who would who would be opposed to any of those things? Oh wait a second, what is the Leadership Council for Justice
and Accountability. Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability is an ultra left wing nonprofit organization that is super just a bunch of super duper environmental wackos. Okay, you go to their about page. Our team. Every single person who works there has their pronouns right in their profile. All a bunch of she hers. Oh there's a she they there. We go, looks like a dude, looks like a lady.
She her, and Ayah for the some of the Latina ladies working there, A couple of guys, couple of staff attorneys. So this is a left wing outfit that does various kinds of lawsuits locally, taking advantage of things like SIQUA to stop things that they think are environmentally harmful. Let's pull up their nine to ninety, shall we. So pro Publica has their nonprofit Explorer feature. Pro Publica is this online.
They're usually actually a super liberal outlet, but they have this interesting thing for readily looking up data about different nonprofits. So here is the profile for the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, located in Fresno. It tracks their revenue, their expenses, their total assets, their total liability. It just has all their nine to ninety data from their twenty
twenty three text filings. So this is this little plucky nonprofit just trying to help out the good people of Pixley, California. This little nonprofit, which is located in Fresno, had revenue in twenty twenty three of six point one seven million dollars. I'm no expert, Well, actually I am kind of an expert. I am kind of an expert on Sanwalquing Valley nonprofits, having run one for several several years, run two actually
on and off several years. You're not getting all that money just from like little old Ladies in downtown Fresno and little old Mexican farm worker ladies, giving you twenty bucks six point one seven million dollars in revenue four point twelve million dollars in expenses in twenty twenty three. Their total assets as of twenty twenty three are sixteen point three million, with only four hundred and thirteen thousand dollars of liabilities. You can look at their compensation. The
only compensation they're reporting is for their top three. They have top three key employees whose compensation they report. Veronica Garibov, the co founder and co executive director, who's getting one hundred and fifty four thousand dollars per year. Phoebe, you know, pretty nice for nonprofit work if you can get it. Phoebe Seaton, co founder and co executive director, one hundred
forty eight thousand dollars year. And then Kaylin Hammond, the director of operations, one hundred twenty five thousand dollars per year. Sandra Celadon is on their board of directors. You may remember Sandra Seladan. She's executive director of another liberal Presno area,
nonfit Fresno, building Healthy Communities. She was the one who after the George Floyd riots, she posted on Twitter a video of a Minneapolis police precinct burning to the ground with the delighted, ecstatic little message from her there on Twitter saying burn them all down, burn them all down.
She was then somehow the city of Fresno thought it was a good idea to make her basically the vice chair of the Presno Police Reform Commission, where she completely rolled poor Oliver bains to produce a Police Reform Commission report of recommendations to the Fresno Police Department that was completely obviously written by her, completely rolled Oliver Baines talking about how all policing in America is rooted in racism, It's rooted in gangs of Yahoo's trying to round up
freed slaves. Not true, not true, that's not how, that's not what modern American policing is based in. Modern American policing owes far more to the bobbies. The reforms that happened to police to policing in London in the eighteen hundreds, which were imported across the Atlantic to the United States, starting in kind of the East coast and spread its way westward. The idea of uniformed, professional, full time sworn officers, that tradition has really almost nothing to do with, you know,
deputized yahoos rounding up slaves in the South. Couldn't be more different in fact, anyway. So this lawsuit to try to defend the poor little guys of Pixley from a hydrogen production plan. We'll talk about what is the threat there. This is not coming from some little oh just in the interest of the community. No, this is a super left wing nonprofit designed to achieve that. That's extremely well funded with lawyers on staff who are trying to achieve
super left wing goals. By the way, this isn't like the only time Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability has made headlines. Here's a story from November. Fourth lawsuit puts multiple city projects in Fresno on hole. City of Fresno has plans to bring more businesses into city limits, but due to a lawsuit filed against them, projects are put on hold. By the way, I'm reading again, it's not it's Veronica Gara Bay who is the executive director for
Building Healthy Communities. I think I said gharabav by the way, she and Sandraceladon we're both on hand for the swearing in of new members for the Fresne Unified School Board, which which again continues this tradition that left wing nonprofits and Fresno have. They gather like carrion fowl. They gather like vultures at any governmental bodies meetings and things like that, to linger there like vultures waiting to feed on the
carcass of some local government. Basically just desperately trying to find some program that they can you know, some service, some program they could provide for the city as long as your taxpayer dollars are paying for it. Anyway. Here's a story from November fourth about Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability City of Fresno has plans to bring more businesses into city limits. Due to a lawsuit filed against them,
projects are put on hold leadership. Back in twenty twenty one, Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability in South Fresno community Alliance filed a writ of mandate against the city. They claimed the city didn't properly address several environmental subjects dot pad sequa while filling while filing their program environmental impact report. The State Court of Appeals sided with them on August fifth,
twenty twenty four. City of Fresno member Mike Carbosi explained what this means for projects that need to adjust to this ruling. So, what's going to happen now, This is
Carbasi talking. What's going to happen now is every single project, whether it's a city park that we're building that your tax dollars are paying for, or it's a private development for a home or an apartment you'd want to live in, the cost to build is going to go up substantially now because every single project now has to add on the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars for their
own unique environmental impact report. Carbasi said, So, basically, what had happened the city had put together an environmental impact plant SIQUA. California Environmental Quality Act requires if you're doing a new construction project, you need to have an environmental impact report. What some cities have done, including Fresno is.
Fresno did a massive environmental impact report for all of its zoning and for new developments, so that if a new business wants to set up in Fresno in a place that's designated for that zoning purpose, they don't have to do as much work putting together the environmental impact report. They can kind of piggyback off of the environmental impact report that the City of Fresno already did. That is good, right,
that's going to help spur new investment. And then in it because because Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, they swooped in and sued the City of Fresno to say, your environmental impact report is insufficient. So they're just weaponizing SEQUA to stop basically any new building in the in
the San Jaquin Valley. If there's any project in the San Joaquin Valley that Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability doesn't like, they can just swoop in and file a lawsuit or at least even just the threat of a lawsuit to stop the project cold. So Carbasi saying, hey, guess what, its stopped all these projects dead in their tracks. Now,
all these people who wanted to invest in Fresno. They have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their own environmental impact report, so everything's going to cost more. When we return, we'll talk about what kinds of environmental impacts they think. Think the poor people of Pixley who don't have jobs, who probably would benefit from some new industry, some new investment in the town, are going to suffer from a hydrogen plant. A hydrogen plant, you know, to
have better environmental outcomes. We'll talk about it next. This is the John Gerardi Show on Power Talk. The city of Pixley is not exactly a boom town. It is not exactly a town with a ton of economic investment. It's one of the poorest cities in the San Joaquin Valley. It's got bad air quality, got a huge percentage of people who only speak Spanish or speak limited English. Seventy percent of Pixley's residents live below two x of the federal poverty line. This is not a booming town. It's
the only thirty eight hundred people. You know, if any of you are drying through to Larry County and you drive past it, you know you're not saying, oh man, this is a town that's got a lot happen and happening. No, a energy company, with the great encouragement of Gavin Newsom, wanted to build a hydrogen plant, a hydrogen production plant. This is something Gavin Newsom is super enthused about. Basically the idea Newsom thinks hydrogen is the clean burning fuel
of the future. You have hydrogen production. The only byproduct of producing energy via hydrogen is water. Now, the problem, apparently, is that liberal nonprofits hate all new development, They hate
all new investment, all new businesses, any new business. And they've this liberal this one particular liberal nonprofit called the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, which is based in Fresno and basically goes all up and down the San Joaquin Valley trying to find ways to stop new businesses
from starting, basically using SEQUA as their weapon. SEQUA, of course the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires an environmental review for the construction the building of any new real estate or other venture for whatever the environmental impact would be. Tad Weber gleefully talking about it in the pages of the Fresno b How Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability stopped this hydrogen plant for coming in because of the
negative environmental impact. Wait a tick thout. The whole point of a hydrogen production plant was to not have a negative environmental impact. That isn't that the whole point. You're producing energy and the only byproduct is water. That that isn't Isn't that what we want? Shouldn't we want investment in green energy like that? That's that's the whole point.
It's gonna benefit. Well, no, because here's the problem. See, to have a hydrogen production plant, what do you need, Well, you need trucks to bring in the hydrogen, and that's gonna hurt the environment in Pixley. So we got to shut it down. And this is the Fresno b applauding this. Yes, what Pixley really needs is big time green energy companies out of this big time green energy company out of Phoenix. It was gonna set up this hydrogen production plant in
Pixley of all places. Gavin Newsom's really hot to trot for this hydrogen energy stuff. He's trying to find places to do it. And what do liberals do? They stop it with sequel. Pixley residents sue the Pixley Residents for Environmental Justice sued to Larry County last March because an
environmental review had not been done. Pixley Residence for Environmental Justice, I'm sure an entity that was purely one hundred percent fabricated and created by Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, which, by the way, for those who didn't hear the first segment, Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability is a super left wing nonprofit. It got in twenty twenty three six point five million dollars worth of funding. This is an extremely
well funded outfit. They have like three top executives making around one hundred well over six well into six figures one hundred twenty five to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. They've got lawyer on staff working for them like this is This is not some rinky dink outfit. This is clearly being funded by super left wing groups, super left wing donors who want to achieve super left
wing environmental goals. And they don't want to build. They don't want any real estate investment, they don't want new manufacturing, they don't want anything that they think is going to put any sort of blight on the pristine face of California, including apparently hydrogen energy production, the whole point of which is to be a zero emissions green way of producing energy in Pixley. Why because apparently trucks might have to
drive into Pixley. I don't know if the good people from the Leadership Council for Justice Accountability have been through Pixley. I have guys, it's on the ninety nine, all right, It's a town that exists because it's along the ninety nine. You know what, the ninety nine sure has a lot of trucking, just tons and tons and tons of trucks.
Do you really think, however, just because some of the trucks would now stop in Pixley to offload hydrogen for this hydrogen plant, that is gonna make a rat's rear end of difference for Pixley's air quality. I'm sorry the beggars belief that that's gonna do a damn thing, or how you could even measure that it would do a damn thing. It is staggering, like, oh, oh, yes, Pixley
would have. Pixley already has like many towns in the Sanwaquin Valley, Pixley has pretty bad air quality, the idea that their air quality would get work because trucks will drop off hydrogen at this zero emissions producing hydrogen energy plant to benefit the whole state with zero carbon, zero emissions energy. And we're gonna have This is the level of insanity that we have with SEQUA. This is the level of insanity that we have in California. Gavin News
some things. We're gonna have all electric cars, all green energy production by twenty three. Forget what his goal is. I think twenty thirty five was sort of his goal date. Good luck, buddy, because you can't even build a flipping hydrogen energy production plant, zero emissions producing only byproduct is water hydrogen emission high hydrogen energy plant in Pixley, a town with like three people who live there. It's thirty population, thirty eight hundred out a left wing nonprofit group suing
to stop it because trucks might come into Pixley. God forbid, as opposed to the eight guillzillion trucks that drive right through slash past Pixley on the ninety nine every single day. And the Fresno b is applauding this. When we return the culture of left wing nonprofits in Fresno. This is the John Girardi Show. I want to talk about the
culture of left wing nonprofits in Fresno. I want to talk about it after this story that just absolutely infuriates me that the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, which is becoming a major player on the Fresno liberal nonprofit scene, has successfully cowed this hydrogen energy company that was going to set up a hydrogen energy production plant in the town of Pixley, has stopped them under the threat of a sequa lawsuit, and now they have to do a big,
expensive environmental impact review for a hydrogen plant that is a zero emissions hydrogen energy plant. That's the whole point of hydrogen energy. It's why Gavin Newsom is all hot to trot over ityrogen. The point of hydrogen energy. As you bring in hydrogen, the only byproduct you have from it is water. So it would be a zero emissions power plant, a zero emissions energy production plant. But Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, this Fresno based nonprofit, is
suing to stop it. Why all because more trucks will be coming into Pixley to drop off hydrogen, which ignores the fact that Pixley is on the ninety nine. I don't know about eight hundred billion trucks drive through Pixley every day. You really think a few of those trucks stopping in Pixley is going to make a rat's rear end worth a difference. Now, let's talk about this because the culture of left wing nonprofits in Fresno has been insane for a long time, and Leadership Council for Justice
Accountability is just taking it to the umpteenth degree. There is a large number of Fresno based, but likely other parts of California financed left wing nonprofits. Barrio Sunidos Fresno, Building Healthy Communities, Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, a lot of the programs funded by oh, what's the name of the Fresno, Fresno Council for Economic Opportunity, President Economic
Opportunity Council, something like that. A number of these left wing nonprofits, and they all are kind of intermingle with one another. They all know one another, they all know each other, they interact with each other. They all have very similar guiding left wing principles and ideas. And what's been happening is these left wing nonprofits The way they function or exist is well, we'll talk about Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. Their modus operandi seems to be
they file sequel lawsuits against everybody. But what these other nonprofits seem to do is they hang around governmental entities to advance what sounds like some altruistically liberal cause, but it's always with their handout. I remember Barrios Sunidos was big on this, you know, in kind of the defund
the police era. The Barrios who need would be hanging out at the President Unified school board meetings again with their handout saying, you know, we need to get President Unified needs to cancel its contract with the Fresne Police Department for having police on campuses within Presnew Unified school district. The presence of police officers in black or brown communities, you know, is a hateful, harmful, traumatizing thing. The very
presence of police is violence. We need to defund the police, you know, we should instead of having policing, we should have more conflict resolution specialists that that Fresne Unified could divert their funding to. And and yes, Fresne Unified should do more mental health professionals even though President Unified as mental health professionals you know out the wazoo, But what you need is more conflict resolution specialists. And uh, you know,
we could provide the conflict resolution specialists for you. President unified, school district and entity funded by taxpayer dollars, who is not as cautious about spending other people's money. But just just give us a contract, give us a nice, big, fat, unlikely to be reviewed, very scrutinizingly government contract for us to provide these services where no one will actually measure the metrics of how successful it was, how useful it was,
and we will provide your conflict resolution specialists. The same
thing happened with the Police Reform Commission. How oh have Sandra Celadon from Fresno building healthy communities, have what's her face from Barrios Sunidos, have them on the Police Reform Commission, have them completely roll Oliver Bains and write all the recommendations for how the police should conduct themselves and reform measures that the police should have, and have them more focus on again again, conflict resolution specialist, conflict resolution specialist,
conflict resolution specialists, and of course the whole idea being well we could provide conflict resolution specialists. We could provide it. Go to the Fresno Public Housing Authority with the same proposal. Oh, get rid of the cops at you know, public sector housing, you know Section eight housing. We could provide conflict management and de escalation councilors instead. So that's what they do. These ultra left wing nonprofits. Faith in the Valley is
another one. These ultra left wing nonprofits. They hang around city Hall, they hang around the County Board of Supervisors, they hang around the president Unified school Board. By the way, at the swearing inn for new president Unified school Board members. That happened just a day or two ago. Guess who was there. Sandra Saladan, Fresnoe Building Hell Communities. And I think the name is Veronica Garabay, Yes, Veronica Gharabey, the
executive director for Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. They're there. They're just hanging out, just hanging because they and this is what happens. They basically appoint themselves the representatives of minority areas of Fresno. Is it clear that the citizenry that the thirty eight hundred citizens of Pixley, California, genuinely don't want a hydrogen production plant in city limits? Are are the thirty eight hundred residents of Pixley like really think?
You know, none of them would like a job at the plant. Nobody, None of the citizenry of Pixley is like, hey, you know it could be a positive thing. Have some investment here in Pixley. Source of jobs? You know? No, no, no, no no. Somehow Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability was
able to find, you know, three citizens of Pixley. I'm sure to set up the citizens of Pixley against for what was the name of the phony Bologney What was the name of the phony Bologney organization that they obviously put together the Pixley Residents for Environmental Justice. Ah, yes, I'm sure the Spanish speaking farm workers who live in Pixley are thinking, you know what, how do I vindicate environmental justice? I know, I will start a community organization
to fight for environmental justice. Now, this nonprofit came in, They found one or two people willing to sign a form, sign a petition or something, and they filed the lawsuit. They organized whatever this entity was, Pixley had residence for
Environmental Justice and they filed this lawsuit. So that's the culture at city Hall in Fresno, at any sort of gathering of governmental really, any governmental body that is overseeing taxpayer money and that has contracts to give out, that can give a contract to a nonprofit to provide some city services. That has been the culture in Fresno for years and years and years. It's going to keep being the culture, apparently. And now we can add to the
list the weaponization of SEQUA. This is apparently a very effective nonprofit strategy. Use SEQUA just to stop any investment in Fresno. Just now, We'll stop every real estate, every construction project. We're going to stop dead in its tracks. Yeah, it's just what we're doing. When we return. I reflect on a Notre Dame football victory next on the John Girardi Show. So folks as today. Yesterday I filled in for Trevor Carey and I was kind of major league bummed.
I was a little bit bummed because I learned that Notre Dame basically stuff shifted in my schedule and Notre Dame schedule after the terrorist attack that happened in New Orleans. Notre Dame was supposed to play in the Sugar Bowl on January first. Because of the terrorist attack in New Orleans, they had to bump the game back one day, and so Notre Dame play wound up playing starting at one o'clock yesterday. And as any of you who listened to the show, no, I am a die hard Notre Dame
football fan. I am a Notre Dame grad. I went to Notre Dame undergrad. I went to Notre Dame law school. I took a class from Amy Cony Barrett. Okay, I am as I am. I bleed for Notre Dame, and I realized, dog gonet, I'm gonna be filling in for Trevor like during the second half. Like the game starts at one, Trevor's show starts at three, so I'm gonna man like, all right, well, I guess I can have the game on the monitor in the studio and I can do the show. That was the most distracted bitter
radio I've ever done. I had one or two moments where I was like, oh, okay, I might need to actually turn this game off because this is this is gonna become some bad radio here. But I sold you on. I did not have any FCC non compliant outbursts in the middle of the broadcast, and I gotta say I am. I am so jazzed about a couple of things with Notre Dame. This is the John Girardi Show, It's not the U Show. So if you're bored by Notre Dame football,
I'm sorry, you go get your own radio show. All right, I'm gonna do two minutes on Notre Dame football. So a couple of things I'm happy about. One, Notre Dame getting rid of Brian not excuse me, Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame for the SEC on the grounds of Notre Dame can't win big time. I need to go to an SEC school where I can win big time. Notre Dame proceeding to get to the College Football Playoff, get
to the semi finals of the College Football Playoff. Meanwhile, Brian Kelly's cooling his heels in Louisiana, not in the playoff, getting his rear end beat by USC of all teams to start the year, USC which was highly mediocre. Just the shaden freud I experience every time LSU loses, every Notre Dame fan all of a sudden, you know, Notre Dame fans. We don't really play. Notre Dame doesn't play LSU very often, if at all. It's not one in
Notre Dame's historic rivals. Every Notre Dame fan is checking out the scores on LSU pretty much every week and just delighting, just luxuriating in every Brian Kelly loss as opposed to every Marcus Freeman wins. And then let's talk about Marcus Freeman, our new coach. So our new coach, Marcus Freeman, super charismatic, underrated, But basically every female Notre Dame fan is in love with Marcus Freeman because he's
a very good looking guy. My wife has basically said, listen, I'm going to make comments about how hot I think Marcus Freeman in is. It doesn't mean I don't love you. I'm like, all right, you know, fair enough, that's fine. I'll give you that. As long as he keeps winning, I'll give you that. Underrated how much the women of Notre Dame absolutely love Marcus Freeman. Marcus Freeman also seems like an awesome dude. He's got like five little kids
from teenage to little kids. He and his wife converted to Catholicism after he became the Notre Dame head coach, which is super cool. He reinstituted the players going to mass before games, which apparently Catholic, you know, cradle Catholic. Brian Kelly had stopped doing. Gosh, Brian Kelly just seems like such a jerk. So, by the way, I I'm just so happy. I'm so happy with Notre Dame winning. I'm so pumped. I really hope we can beat Penn State.
I'm terrified of Ohio State. Go Irish, beat the Nittney Lions. That'll do it. John dijolready show see you next time on Power Talk