Posts Tagged: hills

Preserving, protecting public lands is a top priority

Sunrise at Yosemite National Park. (Photo: Stephen Moehle, via Shutterstock)

by ANNIE NYBORG posted 11.30.2022

OPINION: From my home in Ventura County, I can see the rugged hills and green oak trees of the Los Padres National Forest. I grew up in this area and have spent countless days exploring my wild backyard. As a kid, these lands were a constant in my life and I thought they would always remain unchanged. But as an adult, I know these places are threatened by development and climate change.

Fran Pavley: The quiet crusader

Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, addresses colleagues on the Senate floor.(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

by CHUCK MCFADDEN posted 07.01.2015

To environmentalists in California, across the nation and around the world, she is a trailblazing leader. To the California Chamber of Commerce and many Republicans, she is the unrealistic author of job-killing, la-de-da legislation. To some, she is a futurist who predicts gas stations will disappear in 10 years. She is Fran Pavley, a pleasant, gray-haired Democratic state senator from Southern California who does not come across as a firebrand but can grow passionate about protecting the environment.

State Sen. Rod Wright, an Inglewood Democrat who once headed the powerful Governmental Organization Committee, was sentenced Friday to three months in jail and banned for life from holding public office for lying to the public and election officials about his true place of residence.

A first-in-the nation bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in the exploration for underground oil and gas deposits was approved by the Legislature and sent to the governor’s desk.