UPCOMING MCL MEETINGS & EVENTS |
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Meetings are open to the public. All are welcome to attend and be part of MCL's important advocacy work! Your participation brings fresh energy and viewpoints. |
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TONIGHT
Demystifying California's New Housing Legislation
MCL After Hours Event
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TONIGHT: Wednesday, January 12th, 7:00 - 8:30 pm
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MCL is hosting a virtual “After Hours” event to demystify California's complicated new housing legislation. Hear from Barbara Kautz, a Marin resident of over four decades and an expert in affordable housing and land use laws.
Each year, 15-20 new laws are signed by the Governor to address California's housing crisis. All towns, cities, and counties in California are required to comply with these new laws, some of which override or dramatically impact local ordinances and regulations.
Join us to learn how this affects housing in Marin County!
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Barbara Kautz is a Partner at the law firm of Goldfarb & Lipman and is well-known throughout the Bay Area for her knowledge of affordable housing and land use law. Her practice includes CEQA compliance, real estate, economic development, and fair housing. Before becoming an attorney, Ms. Kautz worked for 30 years as a planner, community development director and assistant city manager, concluding her planning career as Community Development Director and Assistant City Manager for the City of San Mateo. She is author of In Defense of Inclusionary Zoning: Successfully Creating Affordable Housing.
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Recreation Management and Restoration in Serpentine Prairies
Parks & Open Space Committee Meeting
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Thursday, January 13th, 3:00 - 5:00 pm
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This meeting will have a special focus on recreation management and restoration in serpentine prairies throughout the Bay Area, with short talks (5 slides in 5 minutes) from all around the Bay followed by discussion of Marin areas. Speakers include:
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Michele Hammond, Botanist for East Bay Regional Parks District
Michele will discuss public appropriate space versus nature space, and serpentine protection from users and restoration in listed Clarkia Franciscana habitat. She manages vegetation and rare plant communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Reinhardt Redwood Serpentine Prairie in the Oakland hills and Rocky Ridge at the top of Ohlone Regional Wilderness are some of the serpentine grasslands at the District. Michele is also an active native grassland advocate on the board of California Native Grasslands Association. Michele previously worked on grassland ecology and management for the Range Ecology Lab at UC Berkeley.
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Sarah Swope, Associate Professor at Mills College
Sarah will discuss rare species population demographics on Ring Mountain. She is an evolutionary ecologist and studies three very rare plants in Marin County. She is interested in how plants cope with life in a variable world and the role of genetic diversity in promoting local adaptation. Additionally, all of her work has a conservation theme running through it. She is using her data to make predictions about whether these species are likely to evolve fast enough to keep up with climate change and to recommend ways to protect them.
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Lech Naumovich, Executive Director Golden Hour Institute
Lech will discuss interannual variability and disturbance in serpentine habitats. He has extensive experience in rare plant surveys, vegetation mapping, restoration ecology, and conservation science in the state of California and more recently in the Rocky Mountains. He has served as a California Native Plant Society Conference Session Chair for Restoration four times, served on the Steering Committee for the Conservation Lands Network, and is co-author of Annotated Checklist of the Flora of the East Bay. He regularly teaches technical courses on Restoration Ecology in field and in the classroom and manages restoration projects throughout the Western US.
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Bill Korbholz, Director of Friends of Edgewood Natural Preserve and Hannah Ormshaw, Natural Resources Manager of San Mateo County
Bill and Hannah will cover social trail inventory and restoration and protection of serpentine habitats through education. Bill has been a leader of the Friends of Edgewood since its founding in 1993, serving as a past president and current director. Edgewood Park is home to 11 listed plants including the endangered San Mateo thornmint, Acanthomintha duttonii. He has been deeply involved in many of the organization's programs, with special emphasis on habitat restoration.
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Stuart B. Weiss, Chief Scientist and and Christal Niederer, Senior Biologist, of Creekside Science
Stu and Christal will share about Tiburon Paintbrush work, Streptanthus projects, nitrogen deposition, mowing as habitat management, and climate change. Stu has wide-ranging research experience in conservation and population biology, microclimate characterization, and statistical analysis. He worked for over fifteen years at the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, has authored more than 25 scientific publications, and has served as principal investigator for more than 50 grants and contracts (US Fish and Wildlife Service, California Energy Commission, Silicon Valley Land Conservancy, etc.). Christal has extensive experience in rare plant surveys and monitoring, and has led successful restoration projects with sensitive taxa including San Mateo thornmint, Metcalf Canyon jewelflower, Tiburon paintbrush, and Crystal Springs fountain thistle. She is also intensively involved in Bay checkerspot and Mission blue butterfly introductions. Many of her projects include invasive plant management.
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Congressman Huffman is a go-to person on climate change in Congress. He will address questions on what is coming from Washington:
- What is the future of the Build Back Better Act and its climate change provisions?
- What specifics within the $1 trillion infrastructure bill affect Marin?
- What executive orders and regulatory actions on climate change should we pay attention to?
And:
- What happened at the Glasgow COP26 Summit: Is the glass half full or half empty?
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Jared Huffman represents California’s 2nd Congressional District which spans the North Coast of the state, from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border. He was first elected to Congress in November 2012 and currently serves on the Committee on Natural Resources, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. In the 117th Congress, he chairs the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife, with jurisdiction over federal water projects, fisheries management, coastal zone and oceans policy, and wildlife and endangered species.
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Caltrans:
Public Meeting on State Route 37
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Caltrans is hosting a virtual public meeting January 25th from 5:30 – 7 pm to share information and seek input about the Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study process for an Ultimate Project for State Route 37. This may be one of only a few opportunities for the general public to weigh in.
The PEL Purpose Statement is:
- Preserving a critical regional transportation corridor that is resilient to extreme events while integrating ecological resiliency which facilitates adaptation to sea level rise
- Providing reliable travel time and promoting increases in average vehicle occupancy
- Providing safe mobility for bicyclists and pedestrians
- Maintaining and enhancing public access, including to recreational areas
- Providing equitable transportation solutions that improve access for, and provides meaningful benefits to all users of SR 37, with special consideration of underserved communities
Access info on how to attend the meeting here.
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Marin Conservation League
175 N. Redwood Drive, Suite 135
San Rafael, CA 94903
415-485-6257
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The Marin Conservation League was founded in 1934 to preserve, protect and enhance the natural assets of Marin County. Marin Conservation League is a membership-driven 501C3 non-profit organization. Membership dues and contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. |
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