Can the Green Mountain State stay green?

It's an old lesson we never seem to learn . . . You can't save the environment by destroying it. -Kit Ausschnitt, current Vermont resident. 

Oftentimes, people think of oil, gas, coal, and other extractive industries being synonymous with rurality. West Virginia has the mines, Kansas has fracking, Alaska drills, and so on and so forth. Despite these stereotypes, there has been a recent boom in clean energy jobs in rural communities (you can read more about clean energy in rural communities here and here). 

Clean energy jobs in rural counties outnumbered fossil fuel jobs by 1.5 to 1 in 2019. In rural parts of the Northeast and Pacific West this rises significantly as clean energy jobs outnumber fossil fuel and power jobs 9 to 1. Rural classification for this purpose was developed by the USDA Economic Research Service which distinguishes between metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties by rating them on a scale of 1-9. You can read more about the rural/ urban classifications here.

According to the World Resources Institute, jobs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, advanced electric grid development, clean fuels, and other clean energy jobs employed around 360,000 workers in rural counties in 2019. These jobs accounted for as much as 10% of total employment in these places. In fact, clean energy jobs make up 3% of total rural employment in Nevada and Wyoming, 3.2% of total rural employment in Indiana, and 3.6% of rural employment in Hawaii. Vermont leads the pack, however, with 5.7% of total rural employment being comprised of clean energy jobs. 

According to the most recent Census, Vermont is the most rural state in the union with 65% of Vermont's population residing in rural areas. Despite its small size (Vermont is the second least populated state after Wyoming), Vermont's share of in-state electricity from renewable resources is the highest in the nation (reaching just shy of 100% in 2020 and 2021) and has the lowest carbon dioxide emissions of any state. 

Since the end of 2014, when the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station was permanently shut down, Vermont has gotten almost all of its in-state electricity from renewable resources. Most of Vermont's electricity comes from a combination of hydroelectric plants (46% of total electricity), wood and wood waste (23%), solar energy (16%), and wind farms (14%).

That said, Vermont's commitment to renewable resource electricity has not been met with universal approval.

Recently, tensions have risen regarding a renewable energy project in Shaftsbury, Vermont. Shaftsbury is located about 2 hours and 45 minutes from Burlington, Vermont, and is located on the southern end of the state. Shaftsbury boosts “the beauty and quiet of rural living with city convenience within easy reach.” 

The renewable energy project in Shaftsbury has been met with local pushback as "the project would build one of the largest solar panel farms in Vermont. This aversion to large-scale change in rural Vermont is not new. An earlier blog post explores how people want Vermont to "stay Vermont."

Local aversion to large-scale environmental projects is not limited to Shaftsbury. A new bill, H.320, if passed would require Vermont utilities to purchase double the amount of clean, in-state energy by 2030 and triple the requirement by 2035. 

Opponents of H.320 question the efficiency of solar panels in northern climates and worry that their country roads won't be able to handle the incoming construction traffic. They also worry about increased pressure on their farms, an adverse effect on property values, and an overall threat to rural living. 

Additionally, residents raise the concern that large solar farms, like the one proposed to be built in Shaftsbury, threaten Vermont's picturesque appearance (parts of the solar array would be visible to neighbors and those traveling on Route 7). One Vermont resident remarked, "The main attraction of Vermont is its appearance. That's all it's got going for it."

Vocal opponents of large-scale renewable energy investments are not against making Vermont more energy-conscious. Instead, they bring attention to the fact that current efforts are "driven by developers trying to make money instead of communities and utilities with incentives to find the most effective way to clean up the grid."

Given the opposition to solar, one might think wind farms would be an easier sell. But, this is likely a nonstarter since the possibility of investing in additional wind power development in Vermont is essentially dead. In fact, there have been no industrial-scale wind turbines built in Vermont in the last decade. And the ones built back then were also met with an outcry at the time. 

So, if Vermont can't build large-scale solar or wind farms, how will they get their energy? One Vermont resident thinks the need will be met by importing more Canadian hydropower from Quebec. In fact, a transmission line that will run under Lake Champlain to provide energy from Canada was approved in April 2022. 

The push and pull happening between locals and clean energy advocates is not new in Vermont. If Vermont wants to stay green, however, the lawmakers will need to introduce a bill that balances the interests of the locals and the clean energy advocates. 

Gambling with the rural foster youth

Nonmetropolitan Elko County covers a vast expanse of northeastern Nevada and is home to approximately 54,046 residents, but it only has twelve beds to service every foster child in the county.

Earlier this year, the need for those limited beds spiked in what one Nevada social services manager told NPR was the worst uptick in foster need she had seen in twenty years working for Nevada’s Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS). With the number of displaced children exceeding the number of foster beds, state officials were at a loss on where to house the children.

In response, Nevada social services used hotel casinos to house seven rural foster youth over a period of 89 days, with staff paid overtime to provide one-on-one supervision of the children.

Of course, casinos are not DCFS’s first choice for placement. DCFS’s primary goal is kinship care, where the child is placed with relatives. But when kinship care is not available, DCFS resorts to out-of-home placements, also known as "traditional foster care."

What happens when kinship care is not an option, and “traditional foster care” is overcrowded and shrinking? Where do these displaced children go?

This is a frequent dilemma and a national trend, which is putting other child welfare agencies in the same predicament as Elko County: KCRA 3 reported Sacramento County was fined by the state of California for placing foster youth in former juvenile detention facilities; the Child Welfare Monitor uncovered Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington all reported similar situations where children removed from their parents were

warehoused in inappropriate settings, such as temporary shelters, hotels, offices, or state-leased houses staffed by social workers; sent far away for residential care, or being left in psychiatric hospitals and detention centers after being cleared for release.

Worth discussion in this regard is the Family First Prevention Services Act (“FFPSA”), which the National Conference of State Legislators describes as offering federal funds to support child welfare programs. As the Act’s name implies, the primary intention is to keep families intact. It thus necessarily shifts child welfare services towards prevention.

Through FFPSA, states with approved funding have the option to apply funds towards “prevention services.”

One explicit goal of FFPSA is to curb the use of congregate or group homes by prioritizing family foster homes for child placement. States are generally not reimbursed under the FFPSA if they place a child in a group home for more than two weeks.

This well-intentioned goal likely will but up against rural realities: it can be particularly difficult to successfully place children with rural foster families, as noted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

In general, the process for vetting a foster family is intensive, for both the government and the prospective family. The Plight of Rural Child Welfare: Meeting Standard Without Services accentuates how spatial barriers, like sheer distance from a social services office, can make it especially difficult for caseworkers to visit foster families and for foster families to engage with social services.

Rural communities often lack the support networks and resources that are necessary for child welfare, which undermines efforts to identify rural foster family placements.

In "When Mamaw Becomes Mom: Social Capital and Kinship Family Formation amid the Rural Opioid Crisis," Professor Kristina Brant posits that social capital with the local legal actors (e.g. bureaucrats, judges, and child welfare caseworkers) plays an important role when establishing foster families in rural communities. Naturally, good social capital cuts in favor of a family becoming a caregiver, while poor social capital likely prevents them from doing so.

The advantages of social capital plummet, however, when the relevant legal actors are no longer local. This is not an uncommon problem given the spatial remoteness typically associated with rural communities and the phenomena of “legal deserts,” a term coined to refer to the rural lawyer shortage. (Read more about “legal deserts” here and here).

In cases where social capital cannot be employed, a key determinant for getting approved as a rural foster family is effectively out of reach.

To compound and exacerbate the difficulties of finding a rural foster family, the social services associated with supporting families and preventing child maltreatment are few and far between in rural communities.

Some of the notable services considered necessary for adequate child welfare—that are scarce in rural communities—are substance abuse treatment, mental healthcare, and parenting classes. For the social services that are available, material distance—the literal distance that must be traveled—can make accessing and providing services expensive and time consuming.

Simply put, the lack of support and services in rural communities sweeps the legs out from under some of the broad reforms in the child welfare system, like the FFPSA, and leaves rural foster children with no place to go.

This only scratches the surface of several intersectional barriers to adequate child welfare in rural communities, a few of which have been discussed in a thread of blogs starting here, and in this law review article.

Child welfare is by no means an easy issue, and I cannot deny that state agencies and committed individuals and organizations are making efforts to improve it. I only draw attention to differences in rural infrastructure and social services that make rural foster youth especially vulnerable and frustrate the goal of family foster placements. 

West Virginia University plans to correct its budget deficit by scaling back liberal arts programs

West Virginia (WVA) is one of the most rural states in the country. Most of the state's 1.8 million residents live in communities of fewer than 2,500 people. Blog posts relating to West Virginia's rurality can be found here. 

There are only two research universities in the state, one being West Virginia University (WVU). West Virginia University is WVA's largest public land-grant institution. 

In August, WVU proposed an educational transformation: Almost ten percent of majors (32 out of 338) are expected to be eliminated from the university's curriculum to correct its 45 million dollar budget deficit. With the movement away from coal and mining industries, the university will be consolidating its mining and coal programs into an "energy" program.

The university plans to lay off seven percent of its main campus faculty in Morgantown. WVU's main campus will no longer have world language or creative writing programs. 

The reduction of these programs will lower intercultural competencies and will create a wider gap between the quality of education among rural and urban areas. University of Ottawa Professor Richard Mark Wood wrote an article in The International Research Journal of Educational Research detailing this phenomena: 

The education gap between urban and rural areas results in a lack of opportunities for rural students, limiting their potential and hindering their ability to compete in a global economy.

While the program cuts will impact only less than two percent of student enrollment, the New York Times report highlighted the university's abandonment of the humanities and liberal arts majors: 

Some faculty members in Morgantown lament that the state's flagship university [...] is turning its back on the liberal arts by closing programs like creative writing. They say that it is a low blow to a state known for Appalachian poverty and lack of opportunity, one that will accelerate the brain drain that drives many of its talented people out of the state.

Some programs, for example, that are safe from WVU's "chopping block" include computer science, accounting, and engineering– subjects seen as more "useful" majors, according to Indeed. You can read the list of programs the university is planning to modify here. 

Many students, faculty, and community members are outraged by these program changes and cuts. Parkersburg native and WVU alumni Myya Helm expressed her outrage in a Slate article: 

As a first-generation student of color, a federal Pell Grant recipient from West Virginia, and a 2022 WVU graduate with a bachelor's degree in political science and international studies, I am afraid for WVU's future. I am also really hoping that people outside our state realize the degree to which the WVU administration played an active role in the crisis. Their proposal is a result of financial mismanagement, lack of institutional transparency, and an astonishing failure to recognize the power of education in transforming the lives of West Virginians.

Many professors and university staff have criticized the abandonment of WVU's advanced language programs due to the effects the cuts will have on the state's youth. Lisa Di Bartolomeo, WVU professor of Russian studies, admitted that WVA has faced a "brain drain" for generations and that the state has low intercultural competencies.

The lack of educational and career opportunities in WVA has caused individuals who are more educated and highly skilled to seek opportunities outside of WVA. Thus, the ramifications of these curriculum cuts will likely exacerbate the state's brain drain.

The state's flagship university was often seen as one of the only options to study language and liberal arts programs in-state. 

With about two-thirds (64 percent) of West Virginians living in rural areas, it is troublesome that there will no longer be language programs at WVU, especially when many students cannot afford to attend university out of state and can afford only in-state tuition at WVU. 

Without language programs, West Virginian students will no longer be able to apply to jobs that require non-native language competency. 

When I learned about WVU's program cuts and read Myya Helm's article, I immediately texted my mom, who, like Helm, was born and raised in Parkersburg, the state's fourth largest city. Much of our extended family still resides there. Several of my cousins attended WVU, and several are likely to do so given it is the best university in the state. 

Another long-term effect of these program cuts will be bitterness toward those who have access to the liberal arts education that remains available at elite universities like Cornell. The result will be what the scholar Lisa Corrigan calls a "two-tiered educational system."

The outcome is also likely to fortify many Republican voting strongholds. Ben Shapiro has risen to conservative fame for his stance against elite liberal arts universities that "indoctrinate America's youth," despite attending UCLA and Harvard Law School himself.

For some, it is hard to understand the value of a liberal arts education, but for me, it's easy. I am grateful to have been able to experience one. I graduated from Cornell University in 2021, an Ivy League university with a motto of "any person ... any study."

During my time at Cornell, professors, my parents, and even President Martha Pollock encouraged me to take classes that had little to do with my major. From a Beyonce poetry class to a science of cooking class–– I had the privilege to take courses that had nothing to do with my career path. 

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a private university that offered more than 50 different language courses. However, some rural students, like Myya Helm, do not have that option, given that WVA is one of the poorest states in the country. The 2020 Census found that 16.8 percent of West Virginians were living below the federal poverty threshold, meaning many residents cannot afford to attend private colleges or out-of-state universities. 

These program cuts will have long-lasting effects on rural youth. Without the opportunity to study languages or the liberal arts, young WVU residents will lose opportunities that many urban students take advantage of when entering the employment market. 

I have five cousins under 13 who live in Parkersburg. I worry about their education if they follow their parents' footsteps and attend WVU. However, one thing is certain: they will still be able to study business and accounting. 

You can read more about higher education issues in rural places here, here, and here. 

Scared straight: The legislative war on LGBTQ+ people

This year’s Pride felt different. June, a month that corporate America has for several years doted on as a rainbow festival, returned to its painful, humble beginnings: a protest. In 2023 alone, more than  540 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures, and 45 anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been enacted, with the majority targeting transgender and nonbinary people. Laws passed in certain states have banned gender-affirming care, allowed misgendering, banned drag performances, and censored school curriculums, including books.

Legislative attacks on the LGBTQ+ community are so worrisome that last week Canada issued a travel advisory to warn its LGBTQ+ community about U.S. laws that may affect them. The country’s Global Affairs department did not specify which states, instead advising travelers to “check relevant state and local laws” because “Canadians could face certain barriers and risks when they travel outside Canada.” In a similarly alarming vein, the Human Rights Campaign declared a ‘State of Emergency’ for LGBTQ+ Americans for the first time in its 40-year history following this year’s spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. 

This past June, New York City’s West Village was dripping confetti, flags, and extravagant floats, celebrating the progress the city has made since the 1969 Stonewall Riots. Yet, amongst the crowds of urbanites in brightly colored bikinis and wigs, were signs that read, “Not All Country Boys are Bigots,” “Ban Assault Rifles Not Drag Queens,” or “Y’all Means All.” The dichotomy paints the bigger picture of Pride in America—one that includes the growing struggles of rural LGBTQ+ people. 

While overall support for the LGBTQ+ community has never been stronger, “nearly half (49%) of LGBT youth in rural areas and small towns stated that their community was somewhat or very unaccepting of LGBTQ people compared to just over a quarter (26%) of those in urban and suburban areas,” according to The Trevor Project. 

The urban-rural divide in LGBTQ+ community support hurts LGBTQ+ people. Equal rights cannot afford an “us” versus “them” rhetoric. Society has labeled some states as more “liberal” or “safer” than others, when in reality there are still pockets of "rural" and "red" in states like California. Read more about polarization and red LGBTQ+ lives here and here. 

Rural resistance to LGBTQ+ people and same-sex marriage can be attributed to a cultural divide. Luke Boso in “Rural Resentment and LGBTQ Equality,” posits that “[m]any rural Americans, especially in predominately white communities, feel that they are under attack” because policies that protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination threaten “several core tenets of rural identity: community solidarity, self-reliance, and compliance with religiously informed gender and sexual norms.” Pro-LGBTQ+ legislation symbolizes a changing America and opposing LGBTQ+ rights is one mechanism to protect and assert rural identity.

Representation of LGBTQ+ people in mainstream media and popular culture suggests that LGBTQ+ people mainly live in cities or on the coasts. However, “an estimated three million or more LGBT people call rural America home,” according to The Movement Advancement Project’s 2019 Report. That number will likely grow, with “roughly 10% of youth identifying as LGBT,” and “with rural youth just as likely as urban youth to identify as LGBT.” Yet, rural LGBTQ+ people face additional challenges such as fewer alternatives to service providers when facing discrimination. You can read more about LGBTQ+ discrimination in healthcare here and here. 

Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has become so threatening that families have fled their states out of fear that their children could face prejudice or violence. In a recent VICE News video, parents discuss leaving their schools and jobs behind to keep their transgender children safe from alt-right extremists who want to force their kids to be someone they are not. The Shappley family from Texas discuss leaving for a state with laws in place to prevent parents of trans children from being extradited after they move. Meanwhile, the Trujilo family from Arizona discuss their frustration with their state laws banning transgender kids from playing sports and getting gender-affirming surgery. 

“I get really freaked out,” Daniel Trujilo (15 years old) says, “they want to arrest parents or pediatricians and people that are helping.” 

“We are often reduced to just body parts,” says Daniel. 

“We have all of our family and friends here, and Daniel would lose more than he would gain,” says Lizette Trujilo (Daniel’s mother). 

Yet, there is hope to found as LGBTQ+ representation in government increases. Last week, Fabian Nelson, 38, became Mississippi’s first openly LGBTQ+ legislator. “When he campaigned in South Jackson, he talked about the city’s water crisis and about crime. When he campaigned in his district's rural areas, he talked about broadband access and economic development.” While Nelson’s platform strictly focused on specific issues facing his district, he wants people to understand that Mississippi has someone to fight anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. 

Bye bye Blythe: California prison closure threatens small town

Much has been said about the closure of the California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville, California. You can read more about the CCC closure here and the city’s legal battle to save the prison here, here, and here. You can also find a discussion on rural prisons in general here.

Hundreds of miles away, down on the border of Arizona, the small city of Blythe faces the same dilemma.

In December 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced the planned closure of the Chuckawalla Valley State Prison (CVSP) by March 2025. The desert town of Blythe, population 18,000, has been the home of CVSP since its construction in the 1980s.

Just like Susanville, Blythe could be described as “Prison Town, USA.” With over 800 employees, CVSP is the number one employer in the area. And just like Susanville, Blythe is the home of a second prison, the Ironwood State Prison.

While not every dollar spent by the prison goes into the coffers of Blythe or the hands of its residents, the prison still provides a major source of revenue. One study estimated that CVSP’s expenditures provided more than $65 million in economic benefits.

High-paid CVSP employees are unlikely to find other jobs in Blythe. Instead, they will seek reassignment to one of California’s other prisons, taking advantage of a CDCR policy meant to manage the department’s changing staffing needs. As one former prison official commented to Calmatters.org, “where am I going to get a job making that kind of money with a high school education?”

The ripple effect from losing CVSP will be felt throughout the community. Prison employees buy groceries, eat at restaurants, and shop at local stores, causing multiplier effects in Blythe – the absence of which will be devastating. A recent study estimated that the anticipated drop in enrollment from outmigration will cost the local school district nearly $5 million.

Local leaders also worry about the potential impact on the Palo Verde Hospital, the nearest hospital to Blythe and several other communities. It’s unclear if it will survive the closure. Likewise, Palo Verde College, which has a successful inmate education program, is poised to lose approximately 250 students.

Recognizing the potential severe adverse effects of the prison closure, the locals have banded together. “Save Chuck” has become a rallying cry as well as the name of a local coalition. State legislators representing Blythe and the surrounding community wrote a passionate letter to Governor Newsom pleading their case.

While the town of Blythe and Riverside County have asked the state to keep CVSP open, the town of Norco, also in Riverside County, offered their prison, the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC), as a sacrificial lamb.

Unlike CVSP, which was purpose-built as a modern prison in the 1980s, the CRC was a resort before it was made into a prison in the 1920s. CRC requires over $1 billion in anticipated repairs, more than double the cost of maintaining CVSP. More importantly, CRC occupies economically valuable land and facilities that could be developed for the benefit of Norco.  

While local residents and officials want the state to keep CVSP and close CRC, their cries have fallen upon a deaf statehouse. Governor Newsom refuses to do either.

Instead, the state will work with Riverside County to develop an economic resilience plan and provide the same kind of support offered to Lassen County in the wake of the CCC closure. Prison officials will be transferred to other institutions where possible. The community at large will receive grant money to boost economic diversification efforts and provide skills training for those who are losing their jobs.

The struggles of Susanville and Blythe illustrate a recurrent problem for rural America, one which Professor Michael Carolan, in his article "The Rural Problem: Justice in the Countryside," referred to as rural misrepresentation. There is a disconnect between the wants and needs of rural areas and state lawmakers seated in faraway urban areas.

Blythe’s Interim City Manager, Mallory Crecelius, told Calmaters.org that she filed more than 40 public records requests after the closure was announced. She wanted to understand the decision to shut down CVSP. Nobody had told her, or the rest of Blythe, why their prison was on the chopping block.

In a press release, CDCR says they selected CVSP for closure after agency leadership

carefully evaluated the options for prison closures, pursuant to the 2022-23 budget and Penal Code requirements, and took into account several factors including cost to operate, impact of closure on the surrounding communities and the workforce; housing needs for all populations; long-term investments in state-owned and operated correctional facilities; public safety and rehabilitation; and durability of the state’s solution to prison overcrowding.

While that is an extensive list of considerations, CDCR failed to seek input from the very people who would be impacted the most. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a councilwoman of nearby La Quinta, lamented that the state would shut down CVSP “without even telling and consulting with the community.”

As Governor Newsom continues to reform California’s criminal justice system and state legislators continue their quest to curb state spending, California’s leaders have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes in Susanville and Blythe. Work with the local communities from the start. Involve local leadership in the decision-making process. Give the people whose jobs are at stake a fair opportunity to be heard.

Maybe that would prevent prolonged legal battles and extensive campaigns to persuade the state to reverse course. 

Rural places as sacrifice zones, from California to China

I've been following this story out of California for a few months or so--the story of how a company called Flannery Associates has been buying up thousands of acres of farm and other rural land in Solano County, between Sacramento and San Francisco.   The Wall Street Journal first reported in July under a headline more focused on national security concerns than anything else, "Investors Bought Nearly $1 Billion in Land Near a California Air Force Base. Officials Want to Know Who Exactly They Are."  The speculation then was that foreign investors might be buying up the land as they are elsewhere in the United States, creating a threat to our food security.  Alternatively or additionally, any foreign threat stem from the proximity to Travis Air Force Base.  

Then, about ten days ago, the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times revealed, nearly simultaneously, that the folks behind Flannery Associates are Silicon Valley elites hoping to aquire enough land to build a new city--obviously in the orbit of the Bay Area--from scratch.  

The San Francisco Chronicle describes what the area is now:  "rural back roads that snake the dry farmland around Jepson Prairie and Montezuma Hills."  There's also this: 

For more than a century, the rangeland in southeast Solano County didn’t change much. Cattle and sheep grazed. Wheat and barley grew. Ranches were passed down from generation to generation in this swath of wide open territory between Vallejo and Sacramento.

This excerpt from the New York Times story about Flannery's aspiration similarly characterizes the place's starting point as rural:

Take an arid patch of brown hills cut by a two-lane highway between suburbs and rural land, and convert it into a community with tens of thousands of residents, clean energy, public transportation and dense urban life.

Elsewhere, the utopia the investors aspire to build is compared to Paris or the West Village in New York City in terms of walkability, a "bustling metropolis that ... could generate thousands of jobs."  

The Chronicle story provides this on Flannery's business practices--and an interesting legal strategy that reminds me of the old adage, "the best defense is a good offense": 

From the beginning, Flannery has been relentless in its drive to buy up parcels of land in southeast Solano County, often paying three or four or five times appraised value. But while it has willingly offered to pay well above market value, the company has also accused the ranchers of colluding to force prices even higher. In May, Flannery filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento, accusing a group of ranchers of an “illegal price-fixing conspiracy” that caused them to spend $170 million in “overpayment for properties.” The lawsuit seeks $510 million in damages.

Lisa Shipley, manager of the Solano County Farm Bureau, said the accusations of collusion have had a chilling effect on the tight-knit community, with ranchers wary of talking to each other lest they be accused of conspiring against Flannery.

Shipley is quoted:

Flannery has done some slimy, underhanded stuff to these long-term, multigenerational farmers.  Everyone is afraid to talk. They are afraid of getting sued. My members are afraid to talk to me. It’s a messy situation.

Flannery is only now starting to talk to local government officials regarding their plans.  Given that the land is zoned agricultural and there is little water available, big hurdles remain.  The story quotes Solano County Administrator Bill Emlen, who said he's been looking into Flannery for five years.  

We approached them a while back and said, ‘We’ve noticed you have been making a lot of large acquisitions and we’d like to set up a meeting to talk about zoning and the general plan and what your intentions are.'  They said they were investors in family farms and their intention was to continue with grazing and farming and that was their plan.

Emlen noted that the county's policies have long been to approve only "large scale residential development takes place in the cities," including Vacaville, Dixon, and Fairfield, and thus to preserve the rural parts of the county. 

With these California events fresh in my mind, I couldn't help think of a partial California-China parallel when the Washington Post reported here a few days ago from a rural part of Hebei province, home of Beijing.  The headline is, "Rural areas sacrificed for Xi Jinping’s new city, satellite imagery shows."  The story tells of government efforts to build a whole new metro area, Xiong'an New Area, in the orbit of Beijing.  Xiong'an New Area, which will be twice the size of New York City, has been under construction for six years.  When the new metro was recently threatened by flooding from Typhoon Doksuri, Chinese officials used rural parts of the province as a sacrifice zone to save their investment in the new city. 

Here's an excerpt from the Post's story.

[W]hile the effort diverted water away from Xiong’an and other urban areas, it directly contributed to the devastation of rural villages in Hebei, destroying homes and livelihoods. Satellite images reveal that authorities’ actions led to a dramatic increase of water across those areas, covering at least 95 square miles — almost 46,000 football fields. In one of the clearest examples, more than 20 square miles of farmland near Xiong’an’s high-speed railway station were still underwater on Aug. 5.

* * * 

The idea that rural areas are better suited to take the brunt of flooding dates to as early as the 1950s and 1960s, when most of the country’s flood zones — areas that are deliberately flooded to absorb excess water — were built. But such areas are no longer as sparsely populated as they once were. Local governments have allowed towns in designated flood zones to grow, despite regulations meant to control the number of residents living there.

We can also see instances--even recent ones--of rural places being sacrifice zones to urban ones when flooding strikes in the United States.  I wrote about it this spring from California, but it's also been a practice when flooding has threatened the Mississippi River Valley.  

South Dakota Law Review Symposium on Rural Lawyers set for September 21-22

Read more here.  This event marks the 10th anniversary of South Dakota's Project Rural Practice (now called the Rural Attorney Recruitment program) and is also a decade on from the 2013 symposium that kicked off the conversation on these issues.  For that symposium, Bradley Showman (Class of 2014) and I co-authored Law Stretched Thin:  Access to Justice in Rural America. 

The schedule for the event is below.  

Thursday, Sept. 21

9-9:05 a.m.: Welcome | Knudson School of Law Courtroom

 
9:05-10:15 a.m.: Rural Indigent Criminal Defense Panel | Knudson School of Law Courtroom
Panel discussion about the roles of rural defense attorneys and with the issues that face rural defendants.
Moderator: Dean Neil Fulton - Knudson School of Law

Panel: South Dakota Sixth Circuit Judge Bobbi Rank, Attorney Brent Matter, Attorney Justin Bell, and Attorney Tom Sannes

10:30-11:45 a.m.: Rural Prosecutor Panel | Knudson School of Law Courtroom

Panel discussion about the roles of rural prosecutors and the issues that face rural prosecutors.

Moderator: Professor Maybell Romero - Tulane Law
Panel: Professor Quinn Yeargain - Widener Law, Professor Margaret Raymond - University of Wisconsin Law, Flandreau Attorney General Seth Pearman, and Associate Director of Advancement Elaine Yellow Horse – Thunder Valley CDC

Noon-12:30 p.m.: Lunch and Unsettling Expectations and Expertise to Address Rural Attorney Shortages | Al Neuharth Media Center

Dr. Michele Statz, from the University of Minnesota Medical School, will speak during the lunch hour about the rural lawyer shortage and address solutions including how to recruit, retain, and sustain rural legal professionals.

1-2:15 p.m.: How Other States and Industries Draw Talent to Rural Areas Panel | Al Neuharth Media Center

Panel discussion with attorneys from different states about what other states have done in addressing the rural attorney shortage.

Moderator: Attorney Amanda Kool

Panel: Professor Maybell Romero - Tulane Law, Dr. Michele Statz - University of Minnesota Medical School, Professor Lisa Pruitt – UC Davis Law, and Professor Anthony Schutz – Nebraska College of Law

2:30-3:45 p.m.: 10 Year History of South Dakota Project Rural Practice Panel | Al Neuharth Media Center
Members of the South Dakota bar will discuss the history of South Dakota’s Project Rural Practice and the ten years since its beginning.

Moderator: Attorney Kelsea Kenzy Sutton
Panel: Chief Justice David Gilbertson, Attorney Bob Morris, Attorney Pat Goetzinger, Attorney Rachelle Norberg, and Professor Ryan McKnight

4 p.m.: Keynote Address | Knudson School of Law Courtroom

South Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice Steven Jensen

Friday, Sept. 22

8-9:15 a.m.: Professional Responsibility Issues Affecting Rural Lawyers | Knudson School of Law Courtroom

Panel discussion about ethical issues facing rural attorneys.

Moderator: Professor John Cook - William H. Bowen School of Law
Panel: North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Daniel Crothers, Professor Rebecca Feldmann - William H. Bowen School of Law, Professor Tom Simmons – Knudson School of Law, and United States District Judge Daniel Traynor

9-10:30 a.m.: Rural Community and Attorney Data Panel | Knudson School of Law Courtroom
Panel discussion about rural data including issues, tracking, and compilation.

Moderator: Professor Lisa Pruitt – UC Davis Law
Panel: Professor Aleks Schaefer - Oklahoma State University, Professor Andrew Van Leuven - Oklahoma State University, Professor Brian Farrell - University of Iowa College of Law, Professor Daria Fischer Page - University of Iowa College of Law, Third-Year Law Student Bryce Drapeaux – Knudson School of Law, and Professor Hannah Haksgaard - Knudson School of Law

10-11:45 a.m.: Teaching and Scholarship Panel | Knudson School of Law Courtroom
Panel discussion with academics about what teaching methods and scholarship will benefit attorneys entering rural practice. 

Moderator: Professor Hannah Haksgaard - Knudson School of Law
Panel: Attorney Amanda Kool, Professor Lisa Pruitt - UC Davis Law, Professor Melissa L. Kidder - Claude W. Pettit College of Law, Professor Kelly Collinsworth - Southern Illinois University School of Law, and Professor Marilyn Trefz – Knudson School of Law

Noon–1 p.m.: Experience from the Field – Rural Lawyers Panel and Lunch | Al Neuharth Media Center

Panel discussion with rural South Dakota attorneys about their practice and experience as a rural attorney.
Moderator: Volume 69 Symposium Editor Trevor Case – Knudson School of Law
Panel: Attorney Kelsea Kenzy Sutton, Attorney Willie Hustead, and Dakota Plains Legal Services Executive Director Thomas Mortland

 
1 p.m.: Rural Career Fair | Knudson School of Law: USD Knudson School of Law’s Career Services will be hosting a Rural Career Fair following the symposium.

If you are a rural law firm in South Dakota and are interested in networking with students after the conclusion of the symposium on Friday, email Teramie Hill at Teramie.Hill@usd.edu or register here for the “Stay in South Dakota” career fair on Friday afternoon.

The SD Bar Foundation sponsorship for the Rural Law Symposium is provided through the generosity of the Cozad Fund.

New California Senate Pro Tem represents a vast rural district, along with some Bay Area suburbia/exurbia

The world of California politics appeared a bit surprised yesterday when the Democratic leadership of the State Senate announced that Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) would succeed Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) as President Pro Tem of the body.  McGuire lives in Sonoma County, toward the far southern (and more populous) end of a massive district that stretches along the Pacific coast from Marin County (on the northern side of the Golden Gate Bridge), up through Del Norte County at the Oregon state line.  His district is, I believe, the second largest of California's Senate districts in land area and includes vast rural areas  The largest is represented by Brain Dahle (R-Bieber) and runs from the Oregon state line south of Lake Tahoe to include Alpine county.      

Here's an excerpt from Politico's coverage of McGuire's ascension to leadership:

McGuire’s term would be brief — no more than 2 ½ years, since he’s termed out in 2026. He and Atkins are negotiating a transition that could begin as soon as January, though the exact timing wasn’t specified.

The decision came after a relatively short period of whipping votes and some brief discussions Monday. McGuire edged out other candidates, including Monique Limón; John Laird; María Elena Durazo; and Steve Padilla.

* * * 

McGuire's ascension comes after months of growing speculation about who would follow Atkins, the first woman and openly gay lawmaker to hold the post. He had pitched himself as an interim leader who can serve as a bridge between an outgoing class of veteran senators and a large group of newer members — some with future leadership aspirations of their own.

The process was devoid of the drama and prolonged leadership clash that just played out in the Assembly, where Speaker Robert Rivas pushed out Anthony Rendon in a fight that fractured the caucus. The Senate leadership contest was worked out within roughly 24 hours of McGuire telling colleagues he had secured the votes. Many senators and staffers also said they had hoped to avoid the Assembly’s fate.

Rivas represents a rural district of a somewhat different sort, one even more focused on agriculture, in the Salinas Valley in central California. 

McGuire has been on Atkins' leadership team since 2022. He has served in the state senate since 2014. He previously served as mayor of Healdsburg and was also a member of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

I've followed McGuire on Twitter for years and have been pleased to see his concern and advocacy for far northern California's rural reaches, as in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.  Among the headlines from his Senate page are these, which are relatively rural focused: 

McGuire's Wildfire Survivor Protection Act Stops Mortage Companies from Hoodwinking California Homeowners 

and 

McGuire Secures Policy to put Millions Back into the Pockets of Fire Survivors

Prior blog posts about McGuire's district, which mention the state senator, are here.

Here are some blog posts about McGuire's Republican counterpart, Brian Dahle, from that even more rural and sparsely populated district 1,  which is the inland counterpart of McGuire's and runs contiguous to it for hundreds of miles.  Dahle ran against Gavin Newsom in 2022 for the governorship of California and lost badly.  I see on his recent X (formerly known as Twitter) that Dahle is associated with an anti-crime rally on the Capitol grounds. 

Maine Democrat Jared Golden doubles down in opposition to student loan forgiveness, with implications for rural folks

 

The Portland Press-Herald (Maine) reported last week on U.S. Congressman Jared Golden's provocative statement opposing student loan forgiveness.  Golden, a Democrat, is a three-term incumbent from the state's second district, which leans Republican and includes vast rural areas.  Golden's career and politically pragmatic stances are discussed in three prior posts, which also provide more information on the demographics and economics of his congressional district.  

Golden's mid-August Tweet responded to a report from the Maine Beacon that Golden, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, had received a donation from Sallie Mae after he was one of two Democrats who joined Republicans in May to oppose Biden's student-loan relief program.  (The other was fellow leader of the "yellow-dog coalition," Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, of southwestern Washington State).  Golden's Tweet led with 

I've always held the opinion that working class Mainers shouldn't foot the bill for someone else's choices. Once again, radical leftist elites prove they don't understand Maine.

It then included this text:   

Sadly, this is what the radical leftist elites are learning about "democracy" these days:  silence and destroy anyone who disagrees with your views or goals.  I stand by my vote and my opposition to forking out $10,000 to people who freely chose to attend college.  They were privileged to have the opportunity, andmany left college well-situted to make six figure salaries for life.  The Twitterati can keep bemoaning their privileged status and demanding handouts all they want, but as far as I’m concerned if they want free money for college, they can join the Marines and serve the country like I, and so many others, have in the past and many more will in the future. If they want a career and hard skills without college debt, they should join a union and enter an apprenticeship. But if they choose to attend college, they can pay back their loans just like working-class people pay back home mortgages, car loans, and many other expenses that people choose to take out loans for.

Golden's statement provoked lots of strong reaction on X, formerly known as Twitter.  One of those responding was Tiffany Bond, an independent who has twice challenged Golden in the past.  Bond broached the matter of the implications of Golden's position for rural Maine, writing:  

What the hell is wrong with you, Jared?  Rural Maine will have no dentists, doctors, lawyers, teachers or anyone requiring a professional education. You don’t understand rural Maine.

The Maine People’s Alliance account responded  “Really? I’m not sure the ‘Twitterati’ are the ones not understanding Maine right now.”

Academics responded, too.  History professor Heather Cox Richardson wrote, 

Heavens!  Did you really write this or have you been hacked?!? You always seemed a centrist voie of reason that represented your Maine district well.  What's with this "radical leftist elitists"?!? 

And University of Maine political science professor Amy Fried posted a few responses:

This language is divisive and nasty.  There is a real debate to be had about helping people go to and graduate college and if there are benefits to be gleaned by the whole society.  You've done nothing to contribute to that.  Just awful.  Don't think of running statewide, ever. 

An account holder called bre kidman's awkward blue check wrote: 

Yikes, bub.

Did you draw the short straw on making the cringe statement to get that Sallie Mae money for the team? You know college educated Mainers aren't making 6 figure salaries.

JS there are classier ways to quit Congress than slamming your constituents when they're down.

Then, from the same account: 

Also, real quick math question: how much money did Maine voters spend getting you elected to a job with a low six-figure salary?

The tone of Golden's statement--though not the substance--is in sharp contrast to the statement of another "rural" politician, former Montana Governor Steve Bullock who wrote in a New York Times op-ed in December, 2021: 

To overcome these obstacles [facing the Democratic party in rural America], Democrats need to show up, listen, and respect voters in rural America by finding common ground instead of talking down to them. Eliminating student loans isn’t a top-of-mind matter for the two-thirds of Americans lacking a college degree. Being told that climate change is the most critical issue our nation faces rings hollow if you’re struggling to make it to the end of the month.

Note that Bullock held himself out as representing what rural voters generally think, which is not necessarily the same as saying he would side with them on either student loan relief or climate change policies.  That is, we do not know what he thinks or what side he would land on faced with policies to ameliorate student debt or climate change.  What is clear is that Bullock's tone is more conciliatory than Golden's, that it leaves room for nuance and discussion.  

I blogged about Bullock's op-ed and the response to it in this post.

In any event, I'm curious to see how Golden's stance on student loan relief plays out when he's up for re-election next year.    

Here's an earlier post about higher education access for rural Mainers.

Cross-posted to Working Class Whites and the Law Blog and First Gen Course Blog.  

Small-town government run amok (Part XII): Who and what were behind the police raid of a small-town newspaper in Kansas?

This story out of Marion, Kansas, population 1,922, made big national headlines two weeks ago when police raided the local newspaper, the Marion Record, as well as the home of its publisher  The reason these events attracted so much attention, of course, is that the law does not typically permit prior restraints of media in the United States--and thus we don't tend to permit seizure of journalists' notes and tools.  After-publication liability can attach if, for example, a publication runs afoul of defamation law or some other laws. 

Since these dramatic events unfolded in Kansas, catapulting little Marion onto the world stage, national media have been revisiting the "scene of the crime" to reveal who and what were behind the raid.  What evidence justified the search warrant?  Early reports suggested that it came down to a dispute between the newspaper and the owner of a local business, Kari Newell, over a DUI she got 15 years ago, which caused her to lose her driver's license for a time.    

OK, I thought, but a local judge and local police still had to get involved for the raid to have occurred, which caused me to file these events temporarily under my "small town government run amok" folder.  This is my mental category for events when small-ish local governments do knuckle headed things--often unconstitutional things--because no one is watching the watchers.  That is, the officials aren't getting legal counsel or don't, for example, have a lawyer present to advise when decisions are being made.  In this case, though, a magistrate judge (with a law degree), Laura E. Viar of Kansas Eighth Judicial District, approved the police chief's request to search the offices of the newspaper and the homes of the newspaper editor and a councilwoman.  The judge granted that search warrant based on evidence suggesting unlawful use of a computer and identity theft, the latter being a felony.  (I note that in this district, the means of ascending to the bench is through "assisted appointment" and that Judge Viar is not listed on the ballotpedia webpage, though she is listed on the government webpage of the Eighth Judicial District).

The facts underlying that allegation were that a Marion Record reporter had checked the accuracy of an allegation about Newell, a local business woman, whose past DUI and loss of driver's license, the journalist was investigating.  The reporter did so by entering information gleaned from a screenshot purporting to document Newell's DUI and entering those details into a state government website to confirm Newell's loss of license.  Newell's old DUI and loss of license were of public interest only inasmuch as she was applying for a liquor license for her restaurant.  Nevertheless, the newspaper did not publish a story about the restauranteur's DUI. 

It appears that the judge, having the police department appear ex parte seeking the search warrant, never considered the first amendment implications of the warrant she signed off on.  That's a pretty significant oversight given how relatively little was at stake for Newell, the victim of the alleged identity thefl. 

Some of this detail is revealed in this Washington Post feature, published just this weekend, which provides the most detailed back story I've seen so far on these events.  It it a tale rich with rural and small-town themes, including lack of anonymity.  Here's the lede:

The phone conversation between the journalist and the town’s newly hired police chief quickly turned contentious.

Tipsters had been telling Deb Gruver that Gideon Cody left the police department in Kansas City, Mo., under a cloud, supposedly threatened with demotion. So now she was asking him difficult questions on behalf of the weekly Marion County Record about the career change that had brought him to this prairie community of 1,900 people.

The chief bristled.

“If you’re going to be writing bad things about me,” they both recall him telling the reporter, “I might just not take the job.”

He also advised Gruver that he had hired a lawyer.

Cody later said he had been on guard during the conversation, having been warned by longtime residents that the Record could be overly aggressive in its reporting.

“If you live in Marion, you understand,” he told The Washington Post. “If you don’t live in Marion, you don’t understand.”

Gruver wouldn’t publish any of her reporting on Cody for months to come. But their confrontation in April marked an escalation in long-running tensions between a group of local journalists and the officials and community members they cover that would boil over through the summer.

The small-town intrigue might have stayed in a small town, though, had Cody not initiated a dramatic step earlier this month. Responding to a local businesswoman’s allegation that the paper had illegally accessed her driving record, Cody obtained search warrants from a magistrate judge and led half a dozen officers on an Aug. 11 raid of the Record’s offices and the home of its editor and publisher — seizing computers, servers, cellphones and other files.

* * * 

Cody, 54, officially assumed his post in June. Shortly thereafter, he ordered his deputies to stop sending daily police activity logs to the Record.

Crime is infrequent in Marion, but the Record had consistently published these weekly reports — detailing every minor traffic accident police responded to, every report of wandering cattle — for decades. Cody told The Post that his review led him to believe these disclosures could violate privacy laws. In response, the paper began publishing a pointed notice where the reports had formerly appeared: “Chief Gideon Cody has ceased providing a weekly report of police activities.”

The story later suggests that Cody was motivated to seize the Record's computers not to vindicate restauranteur Newell, but because the computers would reveal details of who had made allegations against the police chief himself.  

And then there's this sort of "last chapter," involving someone else in Marion County who has a law degree and should understand the constitutional implications of what transpired with the newspaper seizures:  

Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey announced five days after the raid that he would withdraw Cody’s warrant and return the seized items to Meyer and his staff.

The announcement seemed to amount to an admission that the now-infamous raid had been a mistake. Ensey said in a statement that there had been “insufficient evidence” to justify a raid on the searched locations or to connect the sought-after items with an alleged crime.

You can read earlier coverage of these events here, here and here.  The last of these, from the Kansas City Star, alleges Marion County Sheriff copied the newspaper's hard drive before returning it and that the county is being asked to destroy that copy.

It all makes me wonder what sort of legal advice Marion County and the City of Marion are getting now, as they face fall-out from the raid--a raid that, incidentally, appears to have led to the death of one of the newspaper's owners/publishers/editors, a 98-year-old woman whose house was searched in the initial raid.  

Why the highest paid doctors (but not the highest paid lawyers) live in the Dakotas

"The real reason the highest-paid doctors are in the Dakotas" is the headline for Andrew Van Dam's recent report in the Washington Post.  Here's what the data show:    

The best-paid doctors in America work in the Dakotas, where they averaged $524,000 (South) and $468,000 (North) in 2017 in their prime earning years, including business income and capital gains. That’s well above the already astonishing $405,000 the average U.S. doctor made in the prime earning years, defined here as 40 to 55.

And it’s way above the $288,000 we estimate was earned by lawyers in that age group. Prime-earning-age attorneys in South Dakota made $165,000 in 2017, while their neighbors to the north made $183,000.

By contrast, lawyers in New York earned an average of $438,000, which is roughly comparable to the $447,000 earned by the average New York doctor. Their D.C. lawyer friends made $406,000, while the average D.C. doctor eked out just $349,000.

* * * 

Rural regions rule the doctor rankings: Alaska, Wyoming and Nebraska join the Dakotas in the top five states for physician pay, confounding the intuition hammered into our souls by more than a decade of covering economics. None of those are high-earning states overall, with the evergreen exception of Alaska. They’re also not high-cost: North and South Dakota rank 41st and 45th, respectively, in cost of living among the states and D.C.; only Alaska costs more than average, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

And here's the "why" part:   

“For lawyers, there is a strong relationship between the lawyer’s income and incomes of other people in the area. And that’s not true for doctors,” Gottlieb said, noting that doctor pay doesn’t have a strong relationship with local education levels and real estate prices, either.

Economists explain that competition is another key factor:  

Rural America has about 20 percent of the U.S. population but about 10 percent of its doctors, according to our analysis of Census Bureau data. So the talented young physicians willing to hang their shingles in North Dakota don’t have to worry about rivals undercutting their prices. They can charge more for everything, from appendectomies to vasectomies.

* * *

The government also influences physician pay directly through Medicare, perhaps the biggest spigot of health-care cash on Planet Earth. Typically, people in low-income areas can’t spend as much and merchants tend to earn less. But that’s not the case for health care, in large part because Medicare ensures that retirement-age Americans — by far the biggest health-care consumers — can afford about as much in South Dakota as they can in South Beach. Which means doctors work in one of the few industries where demand is not necessarily determined by disposable income.

* * * 

But Medicare plays an even more explicit role in fostering this geographic pay-gap anomaly. A stellar 2022 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office lays out the astonishing design choices that have caused Medicare calculations for doctor pay to be remarkably flat from state to state.

Van Dam goes even to even more depth on this point, but you'll have to read the rest of his story for that level of detail.  His related story, "The states that produce the most doctors, artists and writers, and more!" is here.