About a dozen people spoke during the public comment period of the Yucca Valley Town Council meeting, chastising the town for its lax policies on protecting the Joshua trees. Managing editor Tami Roleff has more…
Several of the speakers at the end of Tuesday’s Yucca Valley Town Council meeting voiced their concerns during the public comment period about Yucca Valley’s lax enforcement of the native plant ordinance. They referred to developers who grade properties and remove native plants without a permit. When they complained at the Yucca Valley Planning Department, employee Mary Anderson said the developers were clearing their properties before the Joshua trees could be protected as a threatened species.
“All these builders know that the state’s coming down and try to stop it. They’re trying to get their project through before it comes down so it doesn’t bankrupt them.”
She added there wasn’t much the town could do.
“They are a protected tree, but technically all you have to do, even if it’s already gone, is come get a permit after the fact.”
Councilmember Robert Lombardo was one of two council members who responded to the public comments (Council member Rick Denison was the other).
“I’m sorry to hear the information about the permitting process and how it’s been ignored. That concerns me…. Things are taken too far to the extremes; we need to come back to the middle. There should be a way that we can preserve the Joshua trees in our community and yet allow people to have the right of private property to do the things that they need to do on their property at their discretion, within limits.”
The California Fish and Game Commission is holding a hearing today on whether to approve a petition by the Centers for Biological Diversity to place Joshua trees on the state list of threatened species for a one-year study period.
The meeting will be live streamed; visit www.fgc.ca.gov the day of the meeting. To provide public comment during the meeting, please join via Zoom Webinar or by telephone.
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=182027&inline
