L E T T E R S

November 14, 2007

Illinois is being bombarded from many directions.  While we are watching the Gov and the budget being a shambles, we are actually losing our rights in the whole state with the approval and  consent of our elected officials.  When our property rights are gone, we have lost all our other rights as well.   It is very difficult to get people to understand the "big picture."
Cong. Ray LaHood sponsored the "Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area" which puts 42 agricultural counties under the National Park Service authority - and NPS has the right of eminent domain.  Disappointingly Cong. Shimkus voted for the National Heritage Act.  Obama and Durbin are strongly supporting this federal "takings" in the Senate.

Included in HR3998, a $10 Billion land grab bill, The Mississippi Trail Study, aka The Mississippi Heritage Trail Park, will be a major blow to people living in counties bordering the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. The Nature Conservancy and the Wetlands Initiative from Chicago have their eyes set on making everything along the Illinois River a wetland.  The Nature Conservancy used conservation dollars from the Farm Bill to virtually destroy the largest farm in Illinois near Havana. 
The land area bordering the rivers is where some of the most highly productive soil is located.  Protected by levees, it floods once in 100 years.  TNC wants the area to make into a wetlands to grow biomass in the form of poplars, willows and switchgrass.  The Wetlands Initiative want it to be a wetlands for "Nutrient farms" from the wastewater in Chicago and Cook County.  Farmers who own the property - and live and farm there - want to continue to grow food by planting corn and soybeans.

The following - by Fred Grau from Pennsylvania- is one of the E.F. Huttons of property rights.  Note his distinguished email list - he has sent this to the organizations and people who understand the "big picture"  and are desperately fighting for our freedoms.  And they are watching Illinois as it is going down with little or no resistance.  Farm organizations such as Farm Bureau are planning to line their pockets from the National Animal ID Act so they are not trying stop this madness.
Joyce Morrison

 
God is not dead...by Fred Grau
 
The article below and attached came via daily monitoring of the "Invasive Species" scam. But upon reading the details of this new Illinois tax law, it was apparent that this new law is much more then playing God with species that were (or were not) here in 1492 in order to receive grants and expand bureaucratic powers.

For a quick read, scroll to the very bottom where the main points of the law are bulleted.

In short, land management in Illinois has been usurped by Green NGOs and the IL DNR. Valuing rural property at 5% of market value in return for submission to the whims of the IL DNR virtually guarantees that property owners will be forced to sign up.

Recipients of this message don't need a long-winded explanation of what's going on here. All are knowledgeable on the basic issues. But the Pennsylvania Clean and Green (C&G) program that has been in effect for decades provides a glimpse into the future for IL and any other state that follows this template. I am not aware of a single PA farmer or blue collar landowner who didn't sign up for C&G decades ago. Reason: Their property taxes would be astronomical without enrollment.

But as bad and essentially irrevocable as PA's C&G is, even it does not require a Management Plan written by radical Greens in the DNR or NGOs. It is horrifying to think that the Management Plan in IL will require the removal of so-called "Invasive Species" such as tall fescue - practically the State Grass of neighboring Missouri. This is not made up. It's in the article below.
Tongue in cheek, it can be argued that God is indeed not dead.
He lives in Springfield.

Fred Grau
State College, PA  
Prop Tax Cudgel IS and More - IL
Prairie State Outdoors 10-08-07
 
http://www.prairiestateoutdoors.com/index.php?/pso/article/tax_break_for_wild_land/ 
 
Tax break for wild land          10/8/07
BY CHRIS YOUNG
 
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was published Oct. 6, 2007 in the Springfield State Journal-Register.

When Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed Senate Bill 17 this week, it paved the way for landowners to take advantage of a lower property-tax rate in exchange for proper care of undeveloped woods, prairies and wetlands.

"This is the first time the state has offered a property-tax incentive to keep your land in wetlands and prairies for the purpose of conservation and the environment," says Leslie Sgro, deputy director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "I think it is tremendously exciting, because it recognizes conservation as a reasonable factor in considering tax policy."
Implementing the Conservation Stewardship Law will be a challenge. Each parcel of land must have its own management plan. Habitat types and plant communities must be identified and a multiyear timeline established for controlling invasive species, along with conducting routine management such as burning. Landowners who don't follow their plan may face recapture of taxes saved.

Sgro says she expects nonprofit conservation groups and private companies to help create many of the management plans. DNR employees likely will not be able to handle the anticipated demand alone.

"That's the X factor, if you will," she says. "(A management plan) can always be requested of DNR, but obviously we have a lot on our plate. I think a lot of our nonprofit partners will step up."

Tom Schwartz, former director of conservation for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever in Illinois, has started his own firm, Wildlife Management Solutions, to provide assistance and advice.

"There is going to be a huge demand for plans so landowners can get into and take advantage of the program," he says.

"There is going to be a huge backlog and a need for private organizations and companies to help get out and write those plans.

"It was probably a big part of my decision to move out of Pheasants Forever."

Land managed for forestry already qualified for a lower tax rate, and when news spread that property taxes likely would rise dramatically, landowners rushed to sign up, swamping the state's foresters with requests for forestry plans.
But forestry plans required periodic timber harvest; the new law allows for land to be set aside for conservation without the requirement of harvest. Some parcels of land also were located around housing developments or in places where it was impractical to log.

DNR is preparing to submit a draft of rules to govern the program to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. But first, there will be a 45-day public comment period.

Sgro says the rules are being reviewed within DNR and should be posted for the public to see in the coming weeks.
Signing up and submitting a plan is just the first step. Landowners are going to be looking for help in defraying the cost of improving and maintaining wildlife habitat.

Schwartz says nonprofit groups such as Pheasants Forever may be able to help landowners with cost-sharing assistance. But the demand will be high, as will competition for available dollars.

Some grant programs already are in place, like DNR's Partners for Conservation (formerly Conservation 2000) and the Landowner Incentive Program, a joint program operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in cooperation with DNR and local soil and water conservation districts.

Both programs are competitive, and projects eligible for funding must be evaluated and ranked.

Stan McTaggart, coordinator of the Landowner Incentive Program in central Illinois, says LIP focuses on higher-quality natural areas, often with endangered and threatened species present.

Not every five-acre woodlot will qualify, he says. However, current LIP projects may be able to take advantage of participation to qualify for the lower tax rate because management already is being planned and carried out.

"We would hope to be able to roll some of those right into the (Conservation Stewardship Law provisions)," he says.
Schwartz says landowners wanting to go beyond the minimum effort to more fully restore their land may be in the best position to take advantage of current cost-share programs.

"We're starting to get some calls, and I've had a couple of meetings," he says. "There have been a lot of people anticipating this bill-signing."

Final details are up in the air until DNR submits its draft of the rules for public comment.

"Until then, we can't definitively say what the process is and what requirements will be," Schwartz says. "But there are two or three things these plans are going to require, including exotic and invasive species control, especially bush honeysuckle, Japanese honeysuckle, honey locust and autumn olive.

"Also, the conversion of fescue to native grasses; I can see that being a big one," he says. "Fescue is an introduced cool-season, sod-forming grass that once established essentially provides no wildlife habitat."

Once habitat is restored, landowners will have to maintain it.

Schwartz anticipates his new company will have plenty of work to do statewide.

"Right now I'm working with two others, plus partnering with other companies," he says. "We will add staff where needed."
Sgro says the idea is to make the plan accessible to encourage participation.

"I don't anticipate it will be terribly complicated because we want people to go this way, and we want them to be successful," she says. "The goal is we conserve the land and manage it the best way we can.

"We are going to look at certain key factors and be sure it passes that litmus test."

The process of submitting new administrative rules takes three to four months, she says. "We should have something for the public to review in the not-too-distant future."

DNR anticipates rules will be finalized by next spring.

Requiring management of woodlands, prairies and wetlands may help increase awareness of Illinois' natural wonders.

"It could be a residual benefit that comes about from this type of effort," she says. "If someone walks through your woods and shows you what is there, it can be eye-opening.

"People who have land like this love it," Sgro says. "And anything more they can learn will help them better take care of it."

By Chris Young

Provisions of the program
 
 * Eligible land for preferential assessment includes woodlands, prairies, wetlands or other vacant and undeveloped land that is not used for any residential or commercial purposes.
 * Landowners will be required to submit a Conservation Stewardship Plan to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that specifies conservation and management practices that are designed to preserve and/or restore the land.
 * Unimproved property for which a stewardship plan is approved by IDNR staff will be valued at 5 percent of market value.
* A minimum of five acres is required for enrollment.
* If the landowner does not comply with the stewardship management plan, they will be required to pay the difference between the actual property taxes paid and what the taxes would be without the reduced valuation.
* The sale or transfer of properties enrolled does not affect the valuation of the land unless the acreage requirement is not met or the land use changes.
* Illinois Department of Natural Resources staff will draft rules on the requirements of management plans, which can be written by consultants, biologists or landowners as long as they meet the requirements. IDNR staff will approve the plans and shall reapprove every 10 years.