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Assembly Bill 1032 is Dead!
It was a very close race all the way to the finish line on this very harmful legislation; it could have gone either way all the way to the last minute. Our lobbyist told me that the 1000+ emails and faxes that you guys (and gals) generated for our side during the last push before the deadline is probably what tipped the balance in our favor. For those of you who responded to our Action Alerts, I thank you very much! In case you are not aware, AB 1032 was a bill that would have modified Section 5653 of the California Fish & Game Code to allow the Department of Fish & Game (DFG) to arbitrarily list waterways within the State to be closed to suction dredging - without any public involvement whatsoever. Despite all our efforts, this dangerous bill was passed through the California Assembly and Senate (both controlled by Democratic majorities), and we were only able to get the bill killed on the Governor's desk. That's another very big win for our side! Now that this battle is behind us, I am attaching a summary from our lobbyist to provide you with more detailed insight on how we overcame this (very) difficult problem. It makes for very interesting reading, since the summary provides you with many details we could not discuss in public while that battle was happening. Let's all breathe a sigh of relief and give ourselves some well-deserved pats on the backs for overcoming that awful legislation. Here follows Governor Schwarzenegger's veto message:
Gold Panners Overcome Criminal Citations!I announced in the May newsletter that several gold prospectors near Redding, California had recently been cited for gold panning by a California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) Warden. The warden's position was that gold panning or any other type of surface mining activity (high-banking) is fully against the law (which certainly is not true). The cases were being prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office in Shasta County. The last thing we need in California is to have it become a criminal offense to pan for gold. So, we were taking this one very seriously! The New 49'ers provided both financial and administrative support to the Shasta Miners and Prospector's Association (the local prospector's organization based near Redding, California), assisting them to defend against the citations. The trial (criminal proceeding with 12 jurors) took up most of the final week of August and the first week of September. Even though this is the busiest part of our season in Happy Camp, the gravity of the situation motivated me to personally participate in the full proceeding as an expert witness, adviser and investigator for the defense attorneys. One thing that was clear from the beginning was that DFG and the environmental prosecutor provided by the California Attorney General's Office seriously wanted to win this case! Just to give you an idea, in her closing arguments, the prosecutor told the jury, "California has no problem whatsoever with gold panning. It is digging that we have a problem with!" It was a good thing we had an aggressive team of attorneys on this case, and that we threw ourselves at creating a substantial defense. Shasta Miners Association provided very valuable and strong support for the local prospectors. Numerous local prospectors attended the whole 2-week trial in Redding. Ultimately, the judge dismissed the charges against one prospector who was on trial, and the 12-person jury rendered a unanimous "not guilty" verdict on the other two prospectors who were on trial. This was a substantial win for prospectors everywhere, because I doubt the State of California will be willing to spend so much money (I estimate at least $200K) trying to prosecute small-scale gold miners again for a while! We will attach a copy of a letter from the leadership of the Shasta Miners Association to our organization, thanking us for the valuable support that we provided. I encourage you to read the letter. All of us should be pleased that we have been in a position these past several years to make an important impact upon the serious issues which will define how small-scale gold prospecting will be managed in the 21st century!
Our Legal Fund Needs some Serious Help!Since writing our first check to our Sacramento lobbyists on May 21st of this year (to help us overcome AB 1032), we have received $22,443.76 in legal contributions from all sources. An important part of this was derived from the hard work of New 49'er member, Jim Yerby, who has been conducting prize actions for the legal fund on our Internet message forum and also soliciting prize and cash contributions from industry vendors. The remainder has come from you loyal supporters out there. I want to express a very heart-felt thank you to everyone who has helped! The problem is that we have incurred $40,191.78 in legal and professional (lobbying) services during the same time period. This means, that between the help provided by our attorney (in Portland) and our lobbyists (in Sacramento) to try and kill AB 1032, and the assistance that we have provided to the Shasta Miners Association, our legal fund is presently running a deficit of $17,748.02. The main reason we have fallen behind during the past several months is because, rather than use our monthly mailings to ask our members and supporters for financial assistance to help pay the professionals we hired, we have been asking all of you to please send faxes and emails to California legislators and to the Governor - which was more important at the time. To those of you who responded, I am thanking you very, very much! As you will read in the attached summary by our lobbyist, it was your response to our Action Alerts that ultimately carried the day! Now that the immediate emergency is behind us, we must bring in some financial contributions to help pay our specialists up to date. Without the help from our lobbyists and attorney, there is no way we would have defeated AB 1032. These guys really worked hard for us. I hope you agree that we must finish paying them with minimal delay, and then start building up our defenses for the next challenges which are surely coming our way. In fact, the environmental review process of suction dredging in California has already started. We will need to hire highly-qualified biology experts to help us get through that process in good shape. This will also cost money, so we need some help! The fundraising strategy which has always worked well for us during the past several years is to ask for a $10 (or more) contribution from all of you supporters out there who are able to help. If we bring in a $10 contribution from each person who receives our newsletter, we would be able to pay all our existing legal/lobbyist bills. Unfortunately, not everyone helps. So we rely more-heavily upon those of you who are willing and able. Here is the strategy that has been working for us during the past 5 years: When we are faced with an important legal or political challenge, we hire the best attorneys and/or lobbyists and/or environmental specialists that we can find to help us win. Such professionals are expensive, because they are very good at what they do. Our attorneys are better than the government attorneys that we go up against. Our lobbyists are plugged into the political machine well enough to prevent our messages from being ignored. They know how to utilize our resources to achieve the desired result! The biology is on our side. But it takes respected specialists to get our message heard. While some might argue that our specialists are too expensive, my own experience in warfare tells me that we must win the important battles, and that we should not take any unnecessary chances on losing battles which are key our industry's future. It would be very risky to go up against the smart bombs of our adversaries using only spears and hatchets. To win the important battles of today, we must have the best firepower that is available to us. Otherwise, our adversaries will out-gun us! This means meeting our adversaries on today's battlefield with respected specialists that will fight for our side. So the challenge for us is in defending our industry at the present time is primarily in raising the money to pay specialists that will help us to win our battles. I ask that you please don't turn your back on this reality. Small contributions from a lot of people are the key! Otherwise, the pain is vastly increased upon a smaller group of us who are willing to take some responsibility for how things come out. We are not wasting money. We only expend legal fund money on expenses that are directly related to identified, important legal or political challenges to our industry. All of the time which I personally invest into legal and political action (a lot!) is donated to the cause. Other industry leaders do the same. Our future depends upon this. So I am asking that you please make a contribution right away if you can! Contributions can be directed to New 49'er Legal Fund, P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, CA 96039. You can also call in a debit or credit card contribution to our office at (530) 493-2012. Or you can make a contribution through Pay Pal. To help encourage financial contributions, some very nice prizes have been donated by industry manufacturers and other supporters. While we are not selling raffle tickets, we have been authorized by the prize donors to submit a drawing ticket for each $10 in contributions that we receive from those of you who support our effort ($100 would create 10 tickets, etc.). Our girls in the office will print your tickets as we receive contributions. The prize drawing will take place on 31 January, 2008. As an additional incentive, we will also send out the free New 49'er DVD to each person who contributes $25 or more to our legal fund. This is a brand new 30-minute DVD which captures the fun, excitement and winning spirit which our members have been experiencing during the past few years along our mining properties. There is a lot of really good stuff happening on our properties these days! New 49'er members, Haze & Andy Williams and I devoted countless hours filming and editing during this past season to create a fully-updated Club video. It is finished, and now ready to send out in DVD format. This is the DVD you want to show your friends and family when they want to know why you are passionate about gold prospecting! Thank you very much for anything you can do to help us out!
Video Enhanced Adventure Coming Soon!I thank you all for being patient with us during the past several months, as most of our publishing and mailing resources have been focused upon overcoming AB 1032. Now that we have that behind us, we can get back to the exciting business of gold mining adventure! Fortunately, even though most of our resources have been tied up in politics, we had very capable video specialists (Haze & Andy Williams) out on the claims during this past season, capturing a lot of the fun and excitement! The material has already been edited together into numerous fantastic video segments. These will support several stories which we intend to publish over the upcoming winter months. The incredible thing about these web-stories is how live video is able to place you right in the middle of the action as it happens. There are no actors in our video segments. This is live video capturing the excitement being experienced by real people as high-grade gold deposits are being discovered and brought to the surface! If you are not yet on our list to receive the full-color Internet version of this newsletter (with video), just look for the free sign-up link on every page of our web site, or click here. Here are several previews of coming attractions:
Earlier Group Mining Adventures
2008 ScheduleGroup Mining Projects: Because we only allow a limited number of participants in these projects, I encourage you to schedule as far in advance as possible by calling Montine at (530) 493-2062. Here follows our schedule of organized Group Mining Projects for the 2008 season: Weekend Surface Mining Projects: June 7 & 8; June 28 & 29; July 19 & 20; August 9 & 10; August 30 & 31. Special Week-long Group Dredging Projects: July 5 through July 11; July 26 through August 1; August 16 through August 22; September 6 through September 12. Special Week-long Above-water Group Mining Project: June 14 through June 20. Winter Shows: Here follows a list of the trade show events we will attend during the upcoming winter months. All members are invited to spend some time helping us operate our booth at the following gold shows:
General Information About the Club ::
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