Hello neighbors. So I know I promised you a website update by today… however there is one more stall. The county’s response to our CAB presentation is out. You can read it here: County Recommendations.

It addresses many of our issues… but not all, and not all to satisfaction. BUT, before posting any of our remaining concerns and details on the development, our group needs to get together to review all the changes and make sure we are accurate. We will do so tomorrow night. So we still plan to get an update done this week.

For now, there are some “wins” in these recommendations, and if you don’t have time to read a 400+ page document, I will post some highlights below. (we’ll reveal more information as we study the documents). We should point out that the June 6th meeting is for approval of the tentative map. If that map is approved, there are still many things that the developer will be required to do for final approval, and “it is not the function of a tentative map review process to determine whether 225 residential units at this location is an appropriate use of the land.” So June 6th is not the end of this journey.

The county states that:

The developer will be required to work with the NDOW on a wildlife management plan.

Maintains that some 600,000 yards of excavated materials will not need to be removed via our road systems and the developer will not be permitted to do rock crushing on site. It is suggested that materials will be used in construction and/or stored on premises, in piles shorter than 6 feet, to be used during construction of phase 2.

They state that there will not be need for extensive blasting (though we disagree and will present our case) and are required to present a blasting mitigation plan for any blasting that is needed.

They will be required to do a final geotechnical investigation including field exploration, soil testing, rock rippability study, and recommendations are required and will be prepared with submittal of the final map. They will not be allowed to build on any discovered active faults and required to do appropriate set backs.

Unfortunately, the code we referenced in buffering requirements are expired and there is no specific required buffering distance. They propose that the 40′ buffering area meets the Forest Area Plan requirements.

These are just a few things that we can clear up from the previous incarnation of our presentation. there are still more changes, and more concerns that have not been answered.

Stay tuned!

Dearest Neighbors… lets make some noise! A lot of stuff has been happening behind the scenes in the last week. We are adding a ton of ammo to the clip right now and will be updating this website shortly to relay all the glory that is our public statement to the county about this development. I had hoped to publish tonight, but it will be published by Tuesday at the latest.

In the meantime, we could use some help!

We want to put together a canvassing crew to make sure we rock the house on June 6th. We can put together all the information we want, but regardless of how solid it seems, nothing speaks louder to our commissioners than a giant crowd of residents unified in opposition!

My good neighbor Steve Wolgast has offered to help plan the canvassing attack as I am gone for the weekend and still trying to iron out the presentation and updates to this site.

If you aren’t willing to get out in the neighborhood and hand out some flyers and get people to join us and voice their opposition to this project, please email Steve at jwolgast@pacbell.net.

To make things easy on him, please email with the subject line “Ascente Canvassing”. In the email please give him your name, number and address. (if you feel comfortable with that. If you don’t want to give out your number and address to a stranger, you of course can converse a few times first to make sure he’s the nice guy that he is).

I will see all of you beautiful people on the other side of the holiday! I am now officially off the clock and onto 5 year anniversary celebration mode. Happy wife, happy life.

There was an unfortunate error in the mailer that was sent out to our entire community. The community meeting is this Friday, the 19th and not on Wednesday. We apologize for this error and hope you can help us rectify the situation by spreading the word to anyone you know that do not receive these updates.

At this meeting we will discuss the status of the development, what the next steps are and our plan of attack for the planning commission meeting on June 6th and beyond. We will be discussing some very important things that we hope to have as much community input on as possible so we hope you can come.

We will also be updating this site between now and June to reflect all of the information we have on the problems with this development.

Hope to see you all on Friday!

Last night the CAB voted to deny Ascente! There is still a long road ahead, but we can take heart in our second victory at the CAB. I want to take the moment to thank everyone that came out in support of our community last night and all of the people that spoke on behalf of the Galena area and put so much work into our presentation.

LeRoi Porter, Chip Porter, Kris Hemline, Jack Broadhurst, John Beach, Marty Moran, Julie Moran and their daughter Lucy, Janis Foltz, Nancy Davis, Joel Ellis, Lee Conley, Matt Alder, Marium Samuelson, Mary Cook, my wonderful wife Laura, Chuck Price, Gretchin Kvaal, Russ Monette, Martha Campbell, Ruth Hagan, Janet Raydon, Sandy Evarts, Lisa Madison, Scott Madison, Trudy Allen, Sue Gulas and David Sater. You people are the reason that the board stood up and take notice. They couldn’t ignore you. It was truly inspiring.

Most importantly, on behalf of everyone, I thank Ken Allen and Todd Mihevc for developing this entire presentation. All I did was get people together in the beginning, but these two stepped up and put ridiculous hours into finding every little thing wrong with this development and worked all of the community’s concerns and input into one big undeniable set of facts. Facts that say Ascente cannot go through.

Last night, for what its worth, the CAB agreed with us. Now its onto the planning commission in June. They do not have to listen to the CAB… but if they don’t listen to them, I guarantee they’ll have to listen to us for a long time. Good luck with re-election Mr. Lucy.

Be well my friends and neighbors.

We sent out a mailer to our entire area to keep people up to date and inform them of the planning commission meeting in June and a community meeting we have set for May 17th. Unfortunately it seems that the wording might confuse people that the CAB meeting is on May 17th. The flyer was made and planned before we knew about the CAB meeting while we were gearing up for the June meeting.

The Community Advisory Board meeting is in fact on Thursday at 6:00. A community meeting led by Ken Allen to discuss the project has been set for May 17th and the big one is on June 6th.

Hopefully people will not directed away from the Thursday meeting with this. Do what you can to spread the word and get people out on Thursday. Some people have offered to put up signs in their area about the meeting. Anyone wanting to make their own in their area is encouraged to do so as well. Thanks for all the work everyone has put into this!

It is time to get things in gear with the CAB meeting. We need more volunteers!!! We have a huge and detailed presentation to give to the board at the meeting on Thursday that hits Ascente everywhere where it hurts. If they are truly listening to us, they can’t ignore the points we have made here.

We need 9 more people!!! Talk to your neighbors. Spread the word! It’s super simple, you’ll just sign up with me, I’ll get you with your team captain who will lead you through your part of the presentation and you’ll even have a script that you can just read, or re-write for yourself using your own words. If you don’t want to talk, just show up anyway! We can do this if we have a lot of support.

Just email me at this site… if you have emailed me before and I didn’t respond, I apologize. just know I am on this like a hawk the next week. See you all soon!

We did not include in our last post that Ascente will be going back to the CAB on May 11th! Make sure you spread the word and lets get as many people out as possible. Showing up in numbers to these meetings is an important step in fighting the development.