On Wednesday September 21, Supervisor Hal Wagenet reconsidered his actions in blocking the Precautionary Principle from going to a committee for study. He is placing the Precautionary Principle back on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors agenda for next week, Tuesday September 27th. According to Supervisor Wagenet, "I think this is one of those times when I may have made a mistake. I would like to see the Precautionary Principle go to committee for study."

On Tuesday September 27th, the Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to place the Precautionary Principle into the governance committee for a 90-day study. At the end of the 90-day study period, the Board of Supervisors will then have the option of voting on adopting a Precautionary Principle Ordinance. The item will be on the Consent Calendar (Agenda) which is for "routine and non-controversial items acted upon by the Board at one time without discussion." The Consent Calendar is adopted as the first order of business upon the start of the Open Session portion of the meeting.

It would be great for as many people to be in the audience as possible! We need to let the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors know that we would like to see the Precautionary Principle studied for possible implementation. They need to know we would like for our government officials to use a framework for decision-making that anticipates how our actions will affect the environment and health for future generations.

To view the Supervisors agenda and the time the Precautionary Principle will be heard see: http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/bos/agenda.htm
or call the Clerk of the Board: (707) 463-4221.

In the words of Jason Bradford,

"When making decisions such as land use or purchases of goods and services, more than the immediate bottom line is at stake. How are products produced? Does their production and transport use more or less fossil fuels than others? Are we supporting or undermining our local economic base by our decisions, etc.? Enactment of this principle would make local, sustainable produced goods more attractive to government purchase. That would spawn many new business opportunities that would help support government services... Everyone makes mistakes. We can be proud of Hal again if he were to own up and re vote on this."

For further information on the Mendocino Partnership for the Precautionary Principle see: www.mendoprecaution.org or contact Britt Bailey, (707) 884-5002.