Calaveras Enterprise: Community Members Address Supervisors on Open Space Issues
By Lance Armstrong
January 22, 2026
lance@calaverasenterprise.com
The first of the public speakers to address the board on Jan. 13 regarding the open-space plan update was Linda Diesem, a member of the Calaveras Planning Coalition (CPC), a community group dedicated to “protecting our rural environment by promoting citizen participation.”
Diesem urged the county to complete its overdue open-space update. “Since the (county’s) planning department did not meet the (Jan. 1) deadline, we agree that completing this update should be a top priority for 2026,” she said. “At the same time, we can improve the clarity of the open-space plan without adding new goals, policies and implementation measures.
“We can do so by identifying the list of general plan provisions that comprise the open-space plan by providing a preliminary schedule for completing open-space plan implementation measures and by explaining how the existing open-space plan provisions work together to meet the statutory purposes of the open-space plan.”
Diesem noted that she understands that the county’s planning department is currently focused on complying with the provisions of SB 1425.
She also told the board that she believes that there is a “need to fix other weaknesses” in the open-space plan.
“We must engage in landscape-level planning to conserve open space wherever possible, and to create an integrated network of open space, include all the statutorily required parts of an open-space plan using common open-space conservation tools, and retain natural resource protections intended to apply to a broad spectrum of discretionary land-use decisions,” Diesem said.
Vallecito resident Sue Holper stated that she supports the open-space plan assessment by Calaveras Planning Coalition member Muriel Zeller, and the proposed changes to the open-space plan that were submitted to the board by email in November on behalf of this community group by its facilitator, Tom Infusino.
Holper also encouraged the county’s planning department to engage in landscape-level planning.
“I encourage you to engage in landscape-level planning to conserve an integrated network of open space,” she said. “A central feature of the existing open-space plan is a set of implementation measures to reduce the harm to open-space resources from future discretionary development proposals.”
She added that this landscape-level approach can also be used to sustain agriculture, timber and mineral production, ensure public safety, and protect cultural resources.
Murphys resident Penny Sarvis told the board that the county’s untimely work has placed local landowners in a bad position when they try to compete for state conservation funding.
“The (Sierra Nevada) foothill counties with which Calaveras landowners must compete, including Plumas, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Tuolumne and Mariposa, complete their open-space plans with some form of implementation timeline,” she said.
“Please add an implementation timeline to our open-space plan to help us compete for those funds.”
Also addressing the supervisors was Infusino, who asked them to recall the Biblical story of how God sent angels to announce the birth of a savior to humble shepherds, and how that savior would eventually be known as the Good Shepherd.
He also spoke about Thomas Jefferson, who wrote about his hope that America would remain a nation of farmers.
“I have seen firsthand that Jefferson is correct,” Infusino said. “Wherever I go, I find farmers and ranchers and their children serving on boards of supervisors, on planning commissions and in other valuable leadership roles. As a county, as a culture, as a country, we cannot afford to lose these people.
“You all know there are many threats to the future of local ranching that we in this room cannot control outside economic competition, federal laws and regulations and climate change, just to name a few. But there is one thing squarely and exclusively within your power and authority as supervisors that you can do to support the private investments of so many in the future of local agriculture. You can fix the open-space plan, as suggested by the CPC speakers today.”
Valley Springs resident Marti Crane stressed the need for the supervisors to adopt a valid open-space plan update.
“As the Board of Supervisors, it is your job to adopt a valid open-space plan,” she said. “It is absolutely not your job to water down an open-space plan to the point where it does not conform to the law, simply to preserve a unanimous board approval.
“Furthermore, if you choose to live with your current, (non-)updated and substandard open-space plan, then any and all blame for the harm that stems from that plan, be it from wildfire or flood or the decline of the resource production sector of our economy, falls squarely and rightfully on your shoulders, because you did not do your job.”
Joyce Techel, a public speaker who identified herself as a resident of supervisorial District 1, noted that the open-space plan extends well beyond “protecting bunnies and birds.”
“This is about people being safe in the face of worsening wildfires, making sure that ranchers have enough water for their livestock in the face of drier years, securing available funding from the state of California, so willing, local landowners can reduce wildfire risks, supplement water supplies, improve rangeland productivity and sequester additional carbon,” she said.
“The benefits of success are many. The consequences of failure are serious, and delay is not an option.”
Because the six public speakers who commented on the county’s open-space issue did so during the meeting’s public comment period, the supervisors did not respond to their statements. The board is prohibited from taking action on any matter that is not posted on the agenda, unless it is determined to be an emergency by the board.
Bret Sampson, the county’s planning director, declined to comment for this article, noting that he was unable to meet this publication’s deadline.