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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Tree Foundation to receive funding for jobs
by Kathleen Haley, published on October 15, 2009 at 8:56PM
Storyline: Federal Programs Affecting Sacramento
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A non-profit group that promotes an “urban forest” through programs to plant and maintain trees is likely to receive a $750,000 federal stimulus grant to hire additional staffers. The Sacramento Tree Foundation has been selected to receive the American Recovery and Reinvestment grant and is ironing out the details for how it plans to use the money.
The federal stimulus dollars will be distributed through the U.S. Forest Service and will be administered through California ReLeaf, a Davis-based environmental group.
“We’re privileged as well as excited to receive the grant from the Forest Service,” said City Councilman Ray Tretheway, who is the foundation’s executive director. “It hits at an acute time where non-profits are normally struggling.”
The money has already been secured, said Martha Ozonoff, executive director of California ReLeaf. The funding will be obtained through reimbursements and the billing process will likely begin in December, according to Ozonoff and Tretheway. The grant program will last through early 2010, Ozonoff said.
The foundation is pinning down the specifics of how it plans to use the money. The funding is for jobs, but the total number of positions and the job descriptions have not yet been settled. The foundation wants to use the money to hire four staffers, Tretheway said. Resources such as equipment and vehicles to carry out the work would also be part of the proposal for the $750,000 in funding, he said.
However, Ozonoff said she wants to work with the foundation to see if more than four jobs can be created.
Tretheway envisions that four staffers would be regional coordinators for the foundation’s Greenprint initiative, which he explains is a framework for building “the best urban forest” in the region. One of the main framework objectives is to double the tree canopy in the region by 2025, Tretheway said. The undertaking will require planting 5 million trees in the following six counties: Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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Thretheway needs to be ran out of town, I am sick and tired of corrupt.politicians running this town.
Tretheway claims on his IRS forms to work 40 hours a week at the Tree Foundation, which is a lie on a government tax return, while pulling in a salary of over 65K per year plus retirement and benefits.
At the same time he claims to be working at the Tree Foundation, he spends mostly in City Hall as a Council member selling out his constituency to developers desires, while collecting another roughly 65K per year plus retirement and benefits.
The Board of the Sacramento Tree Foundation has almost entirely been made up of developers, or those that make a living from unsustainable urban sprawl. Thats right, big surprise, not made up of environmentalists. These same developers raise money to pay his salary. Tretheway also votes on zoning and other important land deals before the city council. He votes on matters that effect the same very developers and related businesses that pay his salary - Gee no conflict of interest there. (side note: if a City employee in a decision making position did this it would be a criminal offense...but Tretheway uses a loophole in the law which allows politicians to rake in money while working for "non-profit" organizations...it seems that Tretheway has profited heavily from his position at the Tree Foundation)
He is pushing the annexation of thousands of acres of farm land, for his buddy and benefactor the Tsakopoulos mob so they can develop and build tens of thousands of more stucco tract houses and strip malls, on irreplaceable farm land, all the way up to the Sutter County line, creating a donut of urban sprawl which will soon surround the airport. He then has the audacity to face the People of Sacramento and claim in be an environmentalist. Try to name a more duplicitous politician in this town...go ahead and try...
He has created quite a sweet life for himself. Being a politician is quite lucrative. He owns four or five homes and a very nice cabin near Tahoe, while collecting his fat salaries. It must be nice being a public servent. He makes more than three times what the average Sacramentan makes.
He is universally disliked by everyone in his district...I cant wait until the election to finally get him off of the council.
And for those of you who hate the Strong Mayor initiative...he was the swing vote needed to put the measure on the June ballot; that ought to stick in your craw.
Tretheway is the epitome of a the kind of politician our city does not need. One who lines his own pockets and only supports issues that benefit him personally in some fashion.
An unprovable and hyperbolic statement like this is likely to cause readers to doubt the rest of the points being made.
Tretheway will go the way of Heather Fargo, his close friend and political compatriot. Fargo lost in her own neighborhood overwhelmingly 70-30. I am confident that Tretheway will see the same fate, as he should.