I recently attended a local County Supervisors meeting where they unanimously approved Climate Action Plan and a Sea Level Rise Strategic Plan. This was in spite of the fact that more than 20 people provided public comment in opposition to approving these plans and that vast majority of people in attendance at the meeting were strongly opposed to approval of the plans. These plans will place more than 100,000 acres of land under the control of environmental bureaucrats and further encumber our local economy with draconian regulations and red tape.

Our board of supervisors should have been painfully aware that in January of this year Copart relocated its corporate headquarters from Fairfield CA to Dallas. This type of relocation is not unusual; in fact the Orange County Register recently published an article listing 129 large corporations that are in process of relocating out of our state. In 2010 the last large aerospace contractor, Northrop Grumman left the state and Toyota Motors abandoned the NUMMI plant in Fremont.

It's no mystery why companies are continuing to leave California: High taxes, undue regulation, workers' comp costs, a legal environment stacked against businesses, and lengthy and costly construction permitting requirements. The reality is that in county seats in Nevada, Arizona, and I am sure as heck in Texas, no one else is even discussing environmental boondoggle plans such as these much less approving them. The sad truth is these plans were approvedby the board of supervisors, not for the good of the citizens, but simply to prevent the state of California from suing our County for not complying with state mandates.

In the 1950s a novel was written concerning a future United States where the free enterprise system had been crippled by excessive taxation and regulation and where people were slaves to government. Finally, the captains of industry simply gave up and left. The name of that novel was "Atlas Shrugged." The reality is that in locally we have in excess of 12 percent unemployment, our schools are laying off teachers and our state and local governments are verging on insolvency.

Today, Atlas is shrugging in California.


A Voice In The Wilderness


PS: To my fans . I had total knee replacement surgery six weeks ago and I am recovering well.