Bill Bates was the unofficial artist of Carmel, and often did cartoons on topical and political events. This was drawn in response by legislation introduced in the US Senate by Sens Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson, both of Califonria, to make Big Sur a National Park. There was a long and protracted battle between locals residents and business owners and the federal government. Alan Perlmutter, of River Inn, for example, made several trips to Washington DC to testify in front of the Senate. This was published in 1980. I got here at the end of this battle and sat around Jim Joseph’s famously huge dining room table for a couple o strategy sessions.
Date:Friday, October 2, 2026District:05 – Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz…
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Yes, the essences we love about Big Sur, it's wildness and ferocious beauty, would have been crushed if it had become Federalized...a major resistance to all that was achieved by Gary Koeppel, who created the Big Sur Gazette, a fearless newspaper that fought tirelessly against the diminishing of private property rights and the take over of Big Sur by our Federal Government....his editorials were a major influence in keeping Big Sur in the private domain....by the way, the Big Sur Gazette's publications are still available online, and a tremendous window to a past time in Big Sur as it was a complete newspaper with many human interest articles....
Perfect protest art. So good.
An eloquent cartoon/ comment ; Thank you Kate.
It seemed an immanently threatening prospect at the time.
RE the invasive species/contractor discussion....Down near the SLO county line contractors seem to have introduced "Beggar's Ticks" and we've been unable to control them as they spread north.
"Yes, the essences we love about Big Sur, it’s wildness and ferocious beauty" has personhood, maybe not official legally but emotionally since the very beginning, first with itself, as it naturally reconized and cared for itself, then as it embraced and effected its first human inhabitants, then the esselen, then the settlers, and with everyone that has been embraced with its unlimited love knows it is a relationship and concent is an active process.
https://www.centerforpreventionofabuse.org/i-need-help-for-someone-else/helping-abusers/
Read the article to this halted proposal at the bigsurgazzette (zoom into the art).
http://bigsurgazette.com/issues/025_August_1980.pdf
I remember this. The cartoon reminds me of Yosemite. lol. Glad it did not happen!