Save-the-CCC
Save-the-CCC
Redding Record Searchlight
California Conservation Corps could disappear in budget cuts
By Kimberly Ross - Saturday, January 10, 2009
PHOTO - Levi Smith, 20, uses a chain saw to cut brush Friday as part of a fuel-reduction
project on one of the horse and bike trails in the Swasey Recreation Area. Smith is a member
of the California Conservation Corps’ Shasta 21 crew based out of Redding.
Photo by Jakob Schiller / Record Searchlight
Levi Smith, 20, uses a chain saw to cut brush Friday as part of a fuel-reduction project on one
of the horse and bike trails in the Swasey Recreation Area. Smith is a member of the California
Conservation Corps’ Shasta 21 crew based out of Redding.
At risk: Corps values
The California Conservation Corps' Redding-based office could close this summer. What does
it do?
Employs: 70 corps members and 17 supervisors. The total payroll is more than $1.5 million
annually, not including benefits.
Provides: More than 110,000 public service hours in Redding each year.
Pays: Corps members $8 an hour - far less than contract workers.
Fights fires: Including more than 44,000 hours so far this fiscal year; it's the only firefighting
CCC crew in the state.
Volunteers: More than 2,000 hours locally so far this fiscal year.
Worth the loss?
California Conservation Corps Foundation spokesman Bobby Pena said eliminating the corps'
state funding could cost more in the long run.
If the CCC's 500,000 firefighting hours provided in 2008 were offered by professional fire
personnel, the cost would be $20 million.
Statewide, the CCC provides more than 170,000 hours of free conservation work, valued at
$2.4 million.
State parks would need $1.18 million more in trail construction partnerships if the CCC were
eliminated.
-------------------
They fight fires, maintain trails and eradicate invasive plants - all for minimum wage - but
Redding's 70 young California Conservation Corps workers will be laid off if a proposed state
budget cut is made.
In fact, the Redding-based CCC office that serves Chico, Yreka and Redding would have to
close entirely, CCC Foundation board member Bobby Pena said. As a result, the 70 corps
members and 17 staff employees would lose their jobs, he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for 2009-2010 would eliminate state funding
for the CCC starting July 1 - a cut designed to save $17 million statewide.
The organization employs people ages 18 to 25 in a strictly disciplined year of natural resource
training and labor. Many of its young workers don't yet know their lives' directions or come
from disadvantaged backgrounds.
For corps member Kody Smith, 19, of Shasta Lake, the CCC has provided training as a first
responder, firefighter and crew leader, he said Friday.
"If it wasn't for the 'Cs, I would not have a high school diploma," he said. "This has kept a lot of
kids on track."
Smith was among about 15 crew members in hard hats and heavy gloves, buzzing through
overgrown brush with chain saws for the sixth week. Their toil maintains the Wintu Trail west
of Swasey Drive for hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians and assists in preventing future
fires.
Before joining the CCC, 24-year-old Jess Hernandez supervised a local casino's security. He
hated the job and dealing with intoxicated people, he said at the trail worksite on Friday. Now,
after three months with the CCC, the Wintu tribe member's goal is to someday join the Navajo
Hot Shots firefighting team and become a smoke jumper.
"If this program goes to nothing, I probably won't get that shot," he said.
The governor's proposal would transfer some CCC funding to 12 conservation corps programs,
Pena said. However, the nearest one to Redding is in San Francisco.
That's no help to local cities, federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM),
parks like the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, and community organizers like Randy
Smith.
Smith, chairman of the Redding Rotary Club Environmental Committee, has spearheaded a
yearlong effort to clear Shasta County waterways of invasive plants. In doing so, he's often
relied on CCC crews, which don't come with the security limitations of a prison-camp crew.
Working for $8 an hour, they also cost a fraction of what a private contractor would charge.
"You give them 50 cents and they give you $3 back in terms of the work they've performed,"
Smith said.
BLM field manager Steve Anderson said 12 miles of new trail on Lower Clear Creek couldn't
have been created without CCC crews. That kind of intense, small-tools work isn't financially
possible through contractors, he said.
"A lot of times, you're literally wheelbarrowing in gravel, or hand-setting rocks on drainages,"
he said.
If the CCC is cut, many projects will be delayed indefinitely, Anderson said.
On Monday, a CCC crew will voluntarily cut and chip brush and remove nonnative plants at
Turtle Bay Exploration Park and McConnell Arboretum.
Smith said he can't imagine how the north state's outdoors would stay healthy without the CCC.
"It's kind of like doing without your mother," he said. "I don't even want to consider that."
Reporter Kimberly Ross can be reached at 225-8339 or kross@redding.com.
E.W. Scripps Co.
© 2009 Record Searchlight
California Conservation Corps could disappear in budget cuts
By Kimberly Ross - Saturday, January 10, 2009
PHOTO - Levi Smith, 20, uses a chain saw to cut brush Friday as part of a fuel-reduction
project on one of the horse and bike trails in the Swasey Recreation Area. Smith is a member
of the California Conservation Corps’ Shasta 21 crew based out of Redding.
Photo by Jakob Schiller / Record Searchlight
Levi Smith, 20, uses a chain saw to cut brush Friday as part of a fuel-reduction project on one
of the horse and bike trails in the Swasey Recreation Area. Smith is a member of the California
Conservation Corps’ Shasta 21 crew based out of Redding.
At risk: Corps values
The California Conservation Corps' Redding-based office could close this summer. What does
it do?
Employs: 70 corps members and 17 supervisors. The total payroll is more than $1.5 million
annually, not including benefits.
Provides: More than 110,000 public service hours in Redding each year.
Pays: Corps members $8 an hour - far less than contract workers.
Fights fires: Including more than 44,000 hours so far this fiscal year; it's the only firefighting
CCC crew in the state.
Volunteers: More than 2,000 hours locally so far this fiscal year.
Worth the loss?
California Conservation Corps Foundation spokesman Bobby Pena said eliminating the corps'
state funding could cost more in the long run.
If the CCC's 500,000 firefighting hours provided in 2008 were offered by professional fire
personnel, the cost would be $20 million.
Statewide, the CCC provides more than 170,000 hours of free conservation work, valued at
$2.4 million.
State parks would need $1.18 million more in trail construction partnerships if the CCC were
eliminated.
-------------------
They fight fires, maintain trails and eradicate invasive plants - all for minimum wage - but
Redding's 70 young California Conservation Corps workers will be laid off if a proposed state
budget cut is made.
In fact, the Redding-based CCC office that serves Chico, Yreka and Redding would have to
close entirely, CCC Foundation board member Bobby Pena said. As a result, the 70 corps
members and 17 staff employees would lose their jobs, he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for 2009-2010 would eliminate state funding
for the CCC starting July 1 - a cut designed to save $17 million statewide.
The organization employs people ages 18 to 25 in a strictly disciplined year of natural resource
training and labor. Many of its young workers don't yet know their lives' directions or come
from disadvantaged backgrounds.
For corps member Kody Smith, 19, of Shasta Lake, the CCC has provided training as a first
responder, firefighter and crew leader, he said Friday.
"If it wasn't for the 'Cs, I would not have a high school diploma," he said. "This has kept a lot of
kids on track."
Smith was among about 15 crew members in hard hats and heavy gloves, buzzing through
overgrown brush with chain saws for the sixth week. Their toil maintains the Wintu Trail west
of Swasey Drive for hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians and assists in preventing future
fires.
Before joining the CCC, 24-year-old Jess Hernandez supervised a local casino's security. He
hated the job and dealing with intoxicated people, he said at the trail worksite on Friday. Now,
after three months with the CCC, the Wintu tribe member's goal is to someday join the Navajo
Hot Shots firefighting team and become a smoke jumper.
"If this program goes to nothing, I probably won't get that shot," he said.
The governor's proposal would transfer some CCC funding to 12 conservation corps programs,
Pena said. However, the nearest one to Redding is in San Francisco.
That's no help to local cities, federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM),
parks like the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, and community organizers like Randy
Smith.
Smith, chairman of the Redding Rotary Club Environmental Committee, has spearheaded a
yearlong effort to clear Shasta County waterways of invasive plants. In doing so, he's often
relied on CCC crews, which don't come with the security limitations of a prison-camp crew.
Working for $8 an hour, they also cost a fraction of what a private contractor would charge.
"You give them 50 cents and they give you $3 back in terms of the work they've performed,"
Smith said.
BLM field manager Steve Anderson said 12 miles of new trail on Lower Clear Creek couldn't
have been created without CCC crews. That kind of intense, small-tools work isn't financially
possible through contractors, he said.
"A lot of times, you're literally wheelbarrowing in gravel, or hand-setting rocks on drainages,"
he said.
If the CCC is cut, many projects will be delayed indefinitely, Anderson said.
On Monday, a CCC crew will voluntarily cut and chip brush and remove nonnative plants at
Turtle Bay Exploration Park and McConnell Arboretum.
Smith said he can't imagine how the north state's outdoors would stay healthy without the CCC.
"It's kind of like doing without your mother," he said. "I don't even want to consider that."
Reporter Kimberly Ross can be reached at 225-8339 or kross@redding.com.
E.W. Scripps Co.
© 2009 Record Searchlight
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Friends of the
Save-the-CCC
Campaign
-- Partial List --
Save-the-CCC
Campaign
-- Partial List --
- Paul Carrillo - Chair, Friends of
CCC - John Van de Kamp, Former
Attorney General, State of CA - Herb Perry -Professor Emeritus
Economics,CSUS & member of
Civilian Conservation Corps - Bruce Saito -Executive Director
Los Angeles Conservation Corps
& President o California
Association of Local Corps - Ian Kim, Director Green Collar
Campaign of Ella Baker Center
for Human Rights - Brian Stark - Director, Land
Conservancy of San Luis Obispo - Barbara O'connor, Ph.D., Dir. of
Institute of Study of Politics &
Media, CSUS - Bud Sheble - Former Director of
the California Conservation
Corps Gov. Dukemejian - Tom Mertens, Board of Directors,
League to Save Lake Tahoe - Susie Lange, Deputy
Superintendent Department of
Education - Rick Hawley, Executive Director
– Green Space Cambria Land
Trust - Bill Wilson, Former Chairman of
the Board, Tahoe-Baikal Institute - Robert L. (Griff) Griffiths, Co-
Founder, National Association of
Civilian Conservation Corps
Alumni - Robert Burkhardt - Head of
School, Eagle Rock School &
former Chief Deputy CCC