Audits
of businesses for illegal immigrants rising [Associated Press]
U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached its highest number yet of companies
audited for illegal immigrants on their payrolls this past fiscal year. Audits
of employer I-9 forms increased from 250 in fiscal year 2007 to more than 3,000
in 2012. From fiscal years 2009 to 2012, the total amount of fines grew to
nearly $13 million from $1 million. The number of company managers arrested has
increased to 238, according to data provided by ICE….The audits "don't
make any sense before a legalization program," said Daniel Costa, an
immigration policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington,
D.C., think tank. "You're leaving the whole thing up to an employer's
eyesight and subjective judgment, that's the failure of the law. There's no
verification at all. Then you have is the government making a subjective
judgment about subjective judgment." An AP review of audits that resulted
in fines in fiscal year 2011 shows that the federal government is fining
industries across the country reliant on manual labor and that historically
have hired immigrants. The data provides a glimpse into the results of a
process affecting thousands of companies and thousands of workers nationwide.
Lawyers
could profit from high-speed rail land battles [Fresno Bee]
Real
estate attorneys are seizing a monumental opportunity as California lumbers
ahead with its high-speed rail plans in the central San Joaquin Valley. With
1,100 or more pieces of property in the path of the proposed route between
Merced and Bakersfield, lawyers who specialize in eminent domain cases could
see business spike over the coming months as the state's High-Speed Rail
Authority starts trying to buy land for rights of way….The U.S. and state
constitutions require that any agency taking land through eminent domain must
provide "just compensation" to the owner. But deciding exactly what
"just compensation" means is the kind of sticky legal wicket that
gets attorneys involved. Because trains traveling at 220 mph cannot make tight
turns, some of the line will slice in an arc through farms rather than skim the
squared-off edges of properties or hug existing freight railroad lines. For
farmland, "just compensation" may encompass much more than the
per-acre value of the land. Other factors may include the production value of
permanent crops on the acreage, the effect that the rail line would have on the
remainder of the parcel, whether any structures or irrigation systems have to
be moved, and access to acreage that sits on the other side of the tracks and
whether those leftover pieces can be farmed economically.
Fresno
County audit finds questionable Williamson Act properties [Fresno Bee]
What
do a gun club near Kerman, an abandoned asbestos mine north of Coalinga and a
landscape company outside Clovis have in common? They've all enjoyed tax breaks
designed for farmers -- even though they're not farms. This is just the tip of
the iceberg, according to a new Fresno County audit that suggests there are
hundreds of nonagricultural sites receiving agricultural tax benefits….The
audit alleges chronic problems in how Fresno County computes taxes under the
Williamson Act, from assessing parcels inconsistently to bad record-keeping,
resulting in widespread errors. About 5% of the audited properties, those
receiving the agricultural tax breaks, aren't likely in agriculture. More than
20% of the properties are assessed a tax that is based on old and potentially
incorrect information, the audit finds.
Pot
farms wreaking havoc on Northern California environment [Los Angeles Times]
…The
marijuana boom that came with the sudden rise of medical cannabis in California
has wreaked havoc on the fragile habitats of the North Coast and other parts of
California. With little or no oversight, farmers have illegally mowed down
timber, graded mountaintops flat for sprawling greenhouses, dispersed poisons
and pesticides, drained streams and polluted watersheds. Because marijuana is
unregulated in California and illegal under federal law, most growers still
operate in the shadows, and scientists have little hard data on their
collective effect. But they are getting ever more ugly snapshots…. Scientists
suspect that nutrient runoff from excess potting soil and fertilizers, combined
with lower-than-normal river flow due to diversions, has caused a rash of toxic
blue-green algae blooms in the North Coast rivers over the last decade.
Farmland
in demand [Los Angeles Times]
In
the last year, Prudential Financial Inc. has plowed money into lemons and
avocados in Ventura County, almonds and mandarins in the Central Valley and
strawberries in Santa Cruz County. The insurance giant is just one of many
players, including highly specialized investors and large pension funds, that
have snapped up California farmland recently. The buying spree has helped push
farm and ranch land values to record highs, raising questions about how long
the boom might last and what effect it might have on the state's important
agricultural sector….The average cost of an acre of farm real estate in
California rose to $7,200 this year, roughly $300 above last year's record,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Farmland
sharing idea for the birds [Stockton Record]
…This
will be the second year that officials flood two 70-acre corn fields at
Berryhill Farms. The goal: to demonstrate that farms and wildlife can coexist.
Habitat restoration can be a scary concept for landowners. It sounds like land
being taken out of production. Gov. Jerry Brown's twin tunnels plan includes
ambitious plans to convert 113,000 acres of farms to habitat. With an $800,000
grant from the state Department of Fish and Game, the Delta Protection
Commission set out to show that habitat can be restored while holding onto
productive farmland - a concept known as "working landscapes."… Low
berms were built allowing the cornfields to be flooded after the harvest. Water
was delivered via a network of canals running through adjacent lands that have
already been restored for habitat….The Delta Protection Commission has also
proposed using $1 million in voter-approved Proposition 50 funds to convert
1,000 acres of Delta farmland to rice, creating more flooded habitat for waterfowl.
Ag
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