Jack - and Ron - - in your neck of the woods.

Roni

----- Original Message
-----

From: Ric F

To: L. M.
Schwartz - VLRC ; Lewis
Anderson ; Roni
Sylvester

Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 11:22 AM

Subject: Fwd: Re: [LT] State Conservation Incentives

Like I've said in the past, the goals of these groups is to take
land off the tax base and out of private control.............once the land is
in a HCP, they can then sue the non-HCP neighbors for any
"contamination" or other construed "habitat impact" that is
coming off their lands and, through the courts, impose habitat restrictions on
non-easement, non HCP lands......and given this guy's admission that "we are a
program of a local government", they are using tax
dollars to accomplish the removal of lands from the tax base and thus, reducing
the public monies to schools and infrastructure (police, roads, etc.). To make
up for this loss, the adjacent properties without restrictions have their taxes
increase and thus we have a disproportionate burden on the tax
paying public, i.e. the neighboring properties.........not bad for a
scam artist hiding in OPM (other people's money, i.e. tax payer funding)........

r

Kevin Connally
<[email-masked]> wrote:

Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:48:49 -0600

From: Kevin Connally
<[email-masked]>

Subject: Re: [LT] State Conservation Incentives

To: [email-masked]

Brad,

You might best contact the Texas Land Trust Council (www.tltc.org ) for an idea
of what is happening state-wide. Washington and Texas actually have a great
deal in common as private property rights states that look primarily to the
private sector to address land protection needs.

Also be aware that there are a number of other land-trust-like activities
taking place, such as the land protection we undertake as part of a
USFWS Habitat Conservation Plan (we have set aside almost
28,000 acres just west of Austin in the last 12 years...) that may not show up
if you are only looking at land trusts.

We negotiate conservation easements, purchase land in full fee, arrange
management agreements, and in almost every way operate like a land trust, with
the exception that we are a program of a local government (see our
website: http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/bccp/default.asp )

Please feel free to call or drop me an e-mail if there are any questions, or if
there is anything I can do for you.

Kevin

Kevin Connally

Sr. Environmental Resource Management Specialist

Travis County

Natural Resources and Environmental Quality

P.O. Box 1748

Austin, Texas 78767

512-854-7213 office

512-848-7697 mobile

512-854-6474 fax

[email-masked]

http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/bccp/default.asp

>>> Brad Paymar 3/6/2008 10:31 AM
>>>

Hello,

We are wondering if there are any fairly current descriptions of the

various state-level conservation incentives that are currently being

used across the country, ideally with some assessment of their successes

and failures/challenges. Even just a list of the various programs being

used would be useful to us. If anyone is familiar with such a document,

or with assessments of individual state programs, please pass them to

us!

Thank you!

Glenn

Glenn Lamb

Executive Director

Columbia Land Trust

1351 Officers' Row

Vancouver, WA 98661

360 213-1205

www.columbialandtrust.org

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