The Coalition for Limiting University Expansion (CLUE for short) has scheduled a meeting for 7:00 p.m. this Wednesday. You might want to check before going to the meeting, just to be sure. There’s full information below.

I think CLUE is anticipating what is likely to happen at a meeting be held tomorrow. That meeting will be held by the Committee on Grounds and Buildings of the University of California Regents, and will consider the UCSC Long Range Development Plan. The entire Board of Regents is meeting in San Francisco this week, and at least some of the Regents’ deliberations will take place in a “closed session,” since the public is not allowed to listen in as the Regents discuss their litigation strategy. As you may know, the University has sued the City of Santa Cruz, claiming that the City did not act properly in putting two ballot measures on this November’s ballot. The ballot measures are intended to give local residents more of a say about the future growth of the UCSC Campus.

In all fairness, the University of California does serve the entirety of the State of California, so it’s not completely unreasonable for the University to say that it can’t properly be by local controls that don’t take account of these statewide concerns. On the other hand, local impacts shouldn’t be ignored. Check out the transcript of today’s Land Use Report if you’d like to get involved yourself.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

The meeting of the Regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings, scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 19th, will be held at the UCSF – Mission Bay Community Center, 1675 Owens Street in San Francisco.

For more information on CLUE, contact: info@SantaCruzCLUE.org, or CLUE@baymoon.com

UC Regents Website
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/

Regents Meeting Agenda
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/
regents/regmeet/sept06.html

Agenda for September 19th Committee Meeting
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/
regents/regmeet/sept06/gb.pdf

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors was recently compelled by a local court to make public a lot of materials that the Board wanted to keep out of the public view. The Bush Administration isn’t the only governmental entity that wants to keep the public in the dark.

In the Monterey County case, a major development proposal in Carmel Valley (September Ranch) was the issue. The Board of Supervisors agreed to pay $91,000 of the taxpayers’ money to have the County’s EIR consultant hire a Los Angeles law firm to join the county in trying to stop the public from getting access to the materials that the court said they had a right to see. In other words, the Board was using the taxpayers’ money to help prevent the taxpayers from getting access to public documents. They will now use the taxpayers’ money to pay the lawyers who acted on behalf of the public. The taxpayers who are paying these hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorney’s fees might well ask their local officials why the county didn’t just save money on both sides of the equation by turning over the documents in the first instance.

I think I read that a spokesperson for the Board of Supervisors claimed there was a “matter of principle” at stake. In fact, though, the basic principle in California is that every governmental document is public, with very limited exceptions. If you’d like to read the law, check out the KUSP website.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

The California Public Records Act makes governmental secrecy illegal. See Government Code Section 6250. You can review the law at:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?
WAISdocID=42276826740+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

Here’s a brief quote:

Government Code Section 6253(a) - Public records are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the state or local agency and every person has a right to inspect any public record, except as hereafter provided. [Emphasis added. Exceptions are very limited].

The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission has established a very broad-based panel called the “Transportation Funding Task Force.” This group was formed by the Commission after the public soundly defeated a proposed tax increase which would have funded the widening of Highway One in Santa Cruz County. Among other things, the Task Force is examining what sort of transportation taxes the public might be willing to support. One model that might be examined is “Measure M,” a measure that will be voted on in Orange County, in November. That measure, obviously tailored for the Orange County electorate, combines funding for new road improvements with an extremely significant contribution to alternative transportation and transit, and (and this is the most unusual feature) includes a huge amount of money for the permanent protection of wildlife habitat, with that money coming “up front” in the funding cycle.

If you’d like to learn more about transportation funding, the Task Force invites you to “Transportation Funding 101,” a hands-on education on transportation funding issues. It takes place on Thursday, September 21st, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Live Oak Senior Center. That same day, CALTRANS and the California Center for Regional Leadership have scheduled a Bay Area presentation on transportation infrastructure bond funding. There is more information below.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Contact the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission at 831-460-3200

Transportation Funding Task Force Website
http://www.tftaskforce.org

SCCRTC Website
http://www.sccrtc.org

Measure M in Orange County
http://www.octa.net/measure%20m.asp

California Center For Regional Leadership Website
http://www.calregions.org/

For information on the Bay Area meeting contact Seth Miller at CCRL: smailler@ccrl.org

The Big Sur Land Trust gets deeply involved in the nitty-gritty details of conservation easements. In addition, it also sponsors outings that will let Big Sur Land Trust members experience the reality of the lands they’ve been saving. Or, in the case I’m about to mention, the lands they are going to save!

On Saturday, September 23rd, the Big Sur Land Trust will host a member outing at Marks Ranch, located immediately adjacent to Toro Park, in Monterey County. The outing will start at the Big Sur Land Trust office, which can be found at 126 Clocktower Place in Carmel Valley. Please be there promptly at 9:00 o’ clock on Saturday morning if you’re planning to participate, and be sure to RSVP first. You can get all the details below.

The Big Sur Land Trust is currently in the middle of a campaign to develop the funding to provide permanent protection for the Marks Ranch. If you are, or become, a Big Sur Land Trust member, you can get a first-hand view of this spectacular property this Saturday, and understand why it’s so important to preserve it. A local developer wanted to turn these spectacular hills into more rural sprawl, but a campaign led by LandWatch Monterey County helped convince the land owner that protecting the Marks Ranch was really the right solution. Thanks to the Big Sur Land Trust, it looks like that’s going to happen.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

To RSVP call the Big Sur Land Trust at 831-625-5523, Ext. #1

The Big Sur Land Trust Website
http://www.bigsurlandtrust.org/

Marks Ranch information
http://www.bigsurlandtrust.org/index1.html

Big Sur Land Trust Member Outings
http://www.bigsurlandtrust.org/index1.html

The Marks Ranch outing will depart promptly at 9:00am from the Big Sur Land Trust office at 126 Clocktower Place in Carmel. Please bring a bag lunch and water. No pets are allowed.

Ecology Action is participating with the United Way of Santa Cruz County in a “Community Assessment Project” for Santa Cruz County. The United Way is sponsoring the overall effort, which measures and assesses a whole range of issues, and then sets priorities for community action in upcoming years. The idea of a “Community Assessment Project” is to document achievable goals, and then to measure, over time, how well the community does in reaching them. In essence, it’s a kind of community “To Do” list. Ecology Action has taken responsibility for the “environmental” section of the Community Assessment, and you can get more information below.

Over 1,000 Santa Cruz County residents have participated so far, by voting on their top priorities for improving the natural environment in Santa Cruz County by the year 2010. Here are the top three goals:

1. The health of rivers and the ocean is improved by reducing erosion, reducing pollution, and increasing summer stream flows.

2. Open space is preserved and increased while the percentage of housing units is increased which are environmentally sound, green, affordable, and near transit and job centers.

3. Single passenger auto use is reduced by improving cyclist safety, increasing miles of bike lanes, and increasing public transportation.

That program sounds like a “smart growth” approach to our future.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Ecology Action Website
http://www.ecoact.org/

The Community Assessment Project
http://www.ecoact.org/cap/index.htm

Contact Kirsten Liske at Ecology Action: Telephone – 831-426-5925, Ext. 123; Email – kliske@ecoact.org