[njensen]

“When I used the example of "7 unnecessary surveys" I was referring to sites with "a few willows" and/or EVEN "perennial water" along a deeply cut ravine next to houses on one side and less than 100 feet away a major highway on the other in Santa Cruz County, over-canopied by Eucalyptus and other "montane" trees, underlain with the usual "northern California understory vegetations", hardly a situation that an "experienced" LBV surveyor would, or might, or rationally COULD, even SUSPECT LBV to be present, regardless of how many surveys some CEQA requirement, or disclosure, "might" reveal [to Deborah's point about nebulous expectations]. I was NOT attempting to even remotely suggest circumventing the "intent" of CEQA, which is usually clear, and was clear, for instance, in the cases of "coastally-dependent" projects that "should" only allow for fishing or other maritime industry construction, but are often perverted to provide "low cost" or other houses for rich yuppies or major CEOs, obvious "exceptions" that are not "coastally-dependent". Yet the process gets perverted -- even, as I recall, by Governor [Moonbeam] Jerry Brown's own environmentally-aware and liberal appointees to the Coastal Commission [former LA Mayor Brown, for example], who, one would have THOUGHT, might keep the requirement of "coastally-dependent" in mind while approving unparalleled filling of coastal wetlands and creeks for houses and other "tax-producing" projects throughout the southern coast of California -- the supposed anathema of every "liberal" politician of every stripe when running for election in environmentally/politically-correct-controlled California.... However, I agree and have no problem with, it being up to the intelligent, professional opinion of the professional hired to make SOME kind of judgment call as to whether or not "full protocol" for (for example) Least Bell's Vireo should be made [in my example, Santa Cruz County], where none have been recorded as having bred in at least a hundred years of surveying, nor might even be likely to breed due to the constraints of a site -- including before Cowbirds and the DDT blitzes of the 1940's and 1950's, the latter of which I contend has more to do with having depressed birds and some other wildlife than any single or conglomeration of projects or biological parameters in the history of California [aside from cattle in the interior, or the cutting of redwoods for decks and hot-tubs used by liberal environmentalists attempting to "get back to nature"]. Just my 2 cents' worth.”