LandWatch News Update
May 4, 2006

Dear LandWatch Members:

As many of you are aware, two ballot measures supported by LandWatch have now been taken off the June 2006 ballot. First, on March 23 Federal District Judge Ware retroactively applied a Ninth Circuit Court decision (Padilla) to justify the refusal of the Board of Supervisors of Monterey County to put the General Plan Initiative on the ballot. Second, the Board of Supervisors used the Ware decision to remove the Rancho San Juan referendum from the June ballot, without obtaining a court order as required by the election code.

Status on the Initiative
We filed our appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court immediately after Ware’s decision and the Ninth Circuit Court has decided to “rehear" the Padilla decision before they consider our appeal. The date for the rehearing of Padilla is June 22nd. Now that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has joined the attorney generals of four other states urging the Ninth Circuit to reverse the Padilla decision, we are even more confident we will prevail and the court will order our Initiative to be placed on the ballot. In order for our Initiative to be on the November ’06 ballot, a court order must be issued by mid-August. We believe this is possible, but the timing of the Court’s decision on Padilla and its consideration of a court order are uncertain.

Status on the Rancho San Juan/Butterfly Village ReferendumImmediately following the Board of Supervisors’ flagrantly illegal act of pulling the referendum off the June ballot, we filed a lawsuit to force the County to put it back on. The timing of the Board’s action made it impossible to get the referendum back on the June ballot. Our lawsuit has been moved to the Federal District Court and is likely to be heard by Judge Ware in early June. Since the Ninth Circuit has ordered that the Padilla decision no longer be cited in judgments, we are hopeful the referendum will be back on the November ballot.

GPU4
While our Initiative and Referendum are in legal limbo, the Board of Supervisors is moving forward with the fourth draft of the General Plan Update (GPU4). The draft has been out about a month and LandWatch has begun a thorough analysis. Even a quick look at the document makes it painfully clear that, in the words of Supervisor Dave Potter, “Monterey County government is STILL broken!"

GPU4 is grossly inadequate. Stunningly, it provides no build-out data, that is, the projected number of buildable units and developable acreage. Build-out data and associated policies are the most fundamental components of a general plan, vital to assessing future water demands and the adequacy of road capacity. Without this information, GPU4 is legally insufficient and constitutes less than half the basic content required in a sound and fully integrated general plan.

GPU4 favors the Board’s “campaign friends" with development handouts. This plan includes 60 property owner requests to develop specific projects in areas that were not allowed for development in the 1982 General Plan. Most of the recipients of these “special arrangements" are property owners active in Common Ground, the Refinement Group, Plan for the People and the various other organizational names under which the radical pro-development interests have flown their flag.

GPU4 is a recipe for unbridled suburban sprawl. Unlike the Community General Plan Initiative, which limits growth in the unincorporated area to five community areas, GPU4 identifies seven community areas and 14 “rural centers" as priorities for significant and intensified growth. Among the rural centers are Carmel Valley, Prunedale, the Highway 68 Corridor, and River Road — all areas with long-standing water overdraft problems, overcrowded roads and other problems associated with over-stressed infrastructure.

Here is just a partial list of additional serious problems with GPU4:

• GPU4 allows development in the rural centers without adequate road and water capacity.
  
  
• GPU4 increases the emergency response time from 15 minutes (in GPU3) to 45 minutes.
  
  
• GPU4 allows wells and septic systems on inadequately sized parcels, which discourages public water systems, even in the rural centers, which are conceived as higher density areas.
  
  
• GPU4 allows commercial and industrial development to leapfrog throughout the county and unfairly compete against incorporated cities where this development is more appropriate.
  
  
• GPU4 does not protect farmland. Policy AG-1.3 allows subdivisions on all farmland if it can be demonstrated that subdivisions would not be detrimental to the agricultural viability “of the adjoining parcels."

In short, GPU4 is an irresponsible plan that serves private interests at the expense of public interests. As GPU4 works its way through the public hearings of the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors over the summer, LandWatch will be organizing public demonstrations to make clear to the public how bad GPU4 really is. We will keep you informed about these demonstrations and hope that you will be able to participate.

The people of Monterey County will not get a responsible General Plan until the citizens are able to legislate directly through the initiative process or we get four new County Supervisors. (Supervisor David Potter, the lone exception, has been a fabulous leader and supporter of responsible planning.) We need to take advantage of every opportunity to remind the public how desperately we need the Community General Plan Initiative, so that when it is put on the ballot, we will have built the necessary momentum to win the election!

We will keep you posted!

Regards,

Chris Fitz
Executive Director
LandWatch Monterey County

[Action and News Alerts Index]

Posted 05.04.06