Listeners may know about what might be called the University of California “pay rate scandal.” Recently, a number of UC faculty and administrators have received extremely generous salary and benefit payments associated with resignations and reassignments. At least some of these apparently violated the University’s own rules, and the Board of Regents, the ultimate authority at the University, doesn’t seem to have been aware of them.  Saturday’s Santa Cruz Sentinel announced that the Regents would soon “consider changes to executive salaries [and] benefits.” I assumed that a story with that headline would be about some sort of corrective action, but the proposal from the UC Administration is that the Regents should simply let the President give out whatever salaries he thinks is appropriate, up to $800,000 per year, without any review by the Regents.

This story reminded me of another recent Sentinel headline, announcing that “Santa Cruz Leaders Blast UCSC Growth Plan.” There is a land use connection! Because of the University’s unique status under the California Constitution, the University is simply not accountable to the local communities in which their campuses are located, despite the impacts that their land use decisions might have. In Santa Cruz, those impacts would be large. The City Council is looking for more land use accountability, and maybe the State Legislature should look for more accountability over all!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Get more information on CLUE by emailing

CLUE Website
http://www.santacruzclue.org/

UCSC Long Range Development Plan Website
http://planning.ucsc.edu/lrdp/draft2005lrdp/

Contact UCSC about the LRDP-

The Board of Supervisors of Monterey County is meeting today, and Item 17a on their Consent Agenda is important. The Consent Agenda is a listing of what are assumed to be “non-controversial” items, and is generally approved with a single motion. Item 17a would “approve [a] Professional Services Agreement with EMC Planning Group, Inc., to provide a legally certifiable Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Pajaro Valley Golf Course, not to exceed $70,302.50.”

What this means is that a golf course proposal is coming our way, though the proposal is not really for a golf course; it’s to convert an existing golf course into a large condominium development, along with some changes to the golf course itself. This is an area of chronic groundwater overdraft, with associated seawater intrusion, and the proposed project would place new residences right along the border of Elkhorn Slough, a globally significant wildlife habitat. The Salinas Road – Highway One intersection is probably the most dangerous intersection in Monterey County. There are lots of potential impacts.

I’ve got a picture there that is definitely worth a thousand words, as you try to understand what the Monterey County Board of Supervisors will soon be voting on.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Monterey County Board of Supervisors Agenda
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/cttb/agenda011706.htm

Friends, Artists and Neighbors of Elkhorn Slough
http://www.saveourslough.org/

Graphic overview of the golf course proposal
http://www.saveourslough.org/advocacy.html

The Santa Cruz County Transportation Commission will hold a “Transportation Policy Workshop” tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m., at 1523 Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz. This is definitely a public meeting, so you are invited to attend. There are two or three items on the agenda of both local and statewide interest.

In terms of local interest, how about public acquisition of a rail corridor running from Santa Cruz to Watsonville? This proposal has been in the works for at least four years, though that may discount history considerably. When I first ran for the Board of Supervisors in 1974, I promoted the idea that we should utilize the Santa Cruz to Watsonville rail corridor as a “non-highway” way to get around our county. Slowly (though not necessarily surely) this proposal is moving ahead.

The Commission will also consider transportation funding issues being discussed in Sacramento, most notably the Governor’s proposal to use revenues produced under Proposition 42 for more highway projects (even though our basic state budget continues out of balance). There will also be discussion of the infrastructure bond proposals that I talked about so extensively last week. If you are interested in the land use and transportation future of Santa Cruz County, this really would be a good meeting to attend, to find out some things you might not know!

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Transportation Commission website
http://www.sccrtc.org/

Agenda for the January 19th workshop
http://www.sccrtc.org/packet/2006/0601/
TPWagenda0601.htm

Staff Report on acquisition status
http://www.sccrtc.org/packet/2006/0601/w0601-09a.pdf

Staff Report on Infrastructure Bond Proposal
http://www.sccrtc.org/packet/2006/0601/w0601-07a.pdf

Good land use policies need to meet a threefold test. They need to promote and provide for a healthy economy; they need to respect, protect, and help restore our incomparable natural environment; and they need to assist us in meeting our social equity goals. These are the “Three E’s” of land use policy. We need to develop a land use policy equation that solves for each of these three variables simultaneously!

If you’d like to do some serious work on the first “E,” the economy, then let me recommend a meeting coming up tomorrow. The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments is hosting its 12th Annual Tri County Economic Conference at the Embassy Suites Hotel, in Seaside, beginning at 8:00 a.m. There is full information on the KUSP website. The program will feature a presentation on “County Economic Prosperity Initiatives,” with one of the panelists being Lew Bauman, the County Administrative Officer of Monterey County. Recently, Mr. Bauman spoke to the League of Women Voters of the Monterey Peninsula, and told them that rural land development is just about the worst thing possible for local government finances. Maybe the “Economic Prosperity Initiatives” he’ll discuss tomorrow will include the Community General Plan initiative that will be on the June 2006 ballot in Monterey County. That initiative measure, if enacted by the voters, will definitely stop the kind of unincorporated area sprawl that is putting the Monterey County economy in severe jeopardy.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Conference Program
http://www.ambag.org/events/Tri-CountyConf.html

AMBAG Website
http://www.ambag.org/index.html

I recently read one of my Christmas gift books, a book by Bill Bryson entitled “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” This book bills itself as a “rough guide to science,” and since my closest association with science is “political” science, I found it very helpful. Bryson covers everything from cosmology, geology, and physics to the world of biotechnology. His last chapter is called “Goodbye.” It’s really about extinction, and about what human beings are doing to the planet. As he puts it:

“Nobody knows quite how destructive human beings are, but it is a fact that over the last fifty thousand years or so, wherever we have gone animals have tended to vanish, often in astonishingly large numbers…The question that arises is whether the disappearances…are in effect part of a single extinction event; whether, in short, humans are inherently bad news for other living things.”

Without explicitly mentioning land use policy, Bryson definitely raises the question of whether we are even capable of doing it right. His book suggests that we need to focus in on the issue!

There is a local “Awakening the Dreamer” symposium being held in Santa Cruz on Sunday, January 29th. It will really focus on this very question, from what I think it’s fair to say is a “spiritual” perspective.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Awakening The Dreamer Website
http://www.awakeningthedreamer.net/

The Bill Bryson Website
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/
billbryson/flat/home.php