SMW Supports the Karuk Tribe in State’s First Cultural Burning Agreement
Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger Partner Sara Clark has for several years supported Tribal efforts to put more “good fire” on the ground in California. For millennia, Indigenous North Americans have used fire for ceremonial purposes, to manage and produce food, fiber, and medicine, and to manage the landscape for protection against larger, uncontrolled wildfires.
CEQA Article In Top Ten Most Read
The July 25 Daily Journal article demonstrating that CEQA is not a cause of California’s affordable housing crisis, authored by SMW Of Counsel Andrew Schwartz, was cited as one of the top 10 attorney-written columns that resonated with Daily Journal readers in 2024. Read more: https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/382629-10-attorney-written-columns-that-resonated-with-readers-in-2024
CEQA Not The Cause of California’s Affordable Housing Gap
SMW Of Counsel Andrew Schwartz authored an article published in the Los Angeles-San Francisco Daily Journal refuting the contention of the California Building Industry Association and California government officials that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is responsible for the shortage of affordable housing in California. As experts have documented, the principal barriers to housing […]
Land Restored to Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation
Winter King, Andrew Schwartz, and Tori Gibbons won a victory for the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation of the Cortina Rancheria after a six-year battle to retake possession of the Nation’s land leased to a waste disposal company. The company failed to timely build and operate a waste disposal and recycling facility on the Nation’s land […]
Rematriation of Shellmound in Berkeley
Andrew Schwartz, Of Counsel with the firm, assisted the City of Berkeley in partnership with a coalition of the Indigenous Ohlone tribes, the Confederated Villages of Lisjan (CVL), to rematriate a 2.2-acre site in Berkeley to CVL. The City’s purchase is one of the first instances of a city transferring land back to its original […]
New Report Calls for Transformational Change in Our Relationship to and Stewardship of Fire
Photo: Analisa burning with a pitch stick. Photo credit: Alex Watts-Tobin Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger partner Sara A. Clark is lead author on a new report, Good Fire II, that addresses barriers to the expansion of cultural burning and prescribed fire in the United States and provides recommended solutions. Good Fire II builds on the original Good […]
Mid-Cycle 2022 CALGreen Building Code Update Re: Changes Coming in 2023 to State Energy Code and Green Building Standards
California Building Standards Commission adopts updates to electric vehicle charging requirements for new multifamily buildings Since we first wrote about the latest Energy Code and energy-related CALGreen updates that went into effect statewide in January 2023, some additional important updates have been made to CALGreen. Following this regular triannual update, the California Building Standards Commission […]
Tribes, Agencies, Other Experts Collaborate on Wildfire Mitigation Strategies
From the deadly conflagration in Hawaii to the toxic smoke blanketing the East Coast, this year’s wildland fires have driven home the reality that wildfires are a huge and growing threat. In response to this national crisis, in 2021 President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law created the federal Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, which has just released its final report.
SMW Attorney Presents on Disaster Response to the Association of California Water Agencies
Severely eroded portion of the California Coastal Trail. All photos courtesy of City of Half Moon Bay. SMW attorney Catherine Engberg presented on the topic of disaster response to the Water Quality Committee of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA). The 2023 winter storms / atmospheric river severely impacted SMW client City of Half […]
Sara Clark Leads Panel Discussion at Yosemite Environmental Law Conference About Beneficial Fire
At the fall 2022 Environmental Law Conference, SMW partner Sara Clark moderated a panel titled “Restoring Beneficial Fire in California.” The conference, sponsored by the California Lawyers Association, is held every year at Yosemite National Park. Panel participants Lenya Quinn-Davidson, Craig Thomas, and Don Hankins discussed the history of fire exclusion in California and the […]