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KUSP LandWatch
News
Week of January 5, 2009 to January 9, 2009
Week of January 5, 2009 to January 9, 2009
KUSP provided a brief Land Use Report on KUSP Radio from January 2003 to May 2016. Archives of past transcripts are available here.
Week of January 5, 2009 to January 9, 2009
- Monday, January 5, 2009
New Supervisors on the Coast
- Tuesday, January 6, 2009
SLO County Agenda
- Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The State Budget and Conservation
- Thursday, January 8, 2009
Economic Stimulus And Transportation
- Friday, January 9, 2009
Coastal Voting Chart
The following Land Use Reports have been presented on KUSP Radio by Gary A. Patton. The Wittwer & Parkin law firm is located in Santa Cruz, California, and practices environmental and governmental law. As part of its practice, the law firm files litigation and takes other action on behalf of its clients, which are typically private individuals, governmental agencies, environmental organizations, or community groups. Whenever the Land Use Report comments on an issue with which the Wittwer & Parkin law firm is involved on behalf of a client, Mr. Patton will make this relationship clear, as part of his commentary. Mr. Patton’s comments do not represent the views of Wittwer & Parkin, LLP, KUSP Radio, nor of any of its sponsors.
| Monday, January 5, 2009 New Supervisors on the Coast |
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Those serious about having an impact on the land use policy and project decisions that so clearly affect our future, need to think “politically.” Bob Dylan has a song called “Political World,” and I must say that his portrayal of “politics” isn’t very inviting. I always try to give a little more positive perspective, though I’ll have to agree with Dylan that the political evils that his song catalogues are all too present in what passes for “politics” in the world today. My experience with “politics” has largely been at the local level, where there is an actual opportunity for local communities to use the tools of representative democracy to improve our lives together. Such improvements definitely include the formulation, enactment, and implementation of land use policies that can advance economic, environmental, and social equity goals. Starting this week, there are newly elected County Supervisors in San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties. And each one of the new Supervisors made land use policy a major part of his or her campaign. If you’d like to get more involved in land use policy, then you should get to know San Luis Obispo County Supervisors Frank Mecham and Adam Hill; Monterey County Supervisor Jane Parker; and Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Leopold. They all take office this week. And welcome to them! For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Tuesday, January 6, 2009 SLO County Agenda |
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There are some interesting items on today’s agenda of the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, but nothing that rivals the Santa Margarita Ranch project, which has so preoccupied that Board over the last month or so. The decision of the “old” Board to approve the Santa Margarita Ranch project cannot now be easily reversed by the “new” Board. However, if a lawsuit successfully challenges the project (and such a lawsuit is in the wings), then it’s likely that the Court will return the project to the “new” Board to deal with the problems that the Court identifies. The “new” Board would then have the discretion to make a different decision. One lesson here is that a court challenge of a project has the best chance of actually changing a decision if there has been some intervening “political” change. When a legal challenge is successful, the Court almost always sends the item back to the Board for further action, and if the Board hasn’t changed, the outcome might not change either. In this case, the fact that there is a “new” Board probably means that a successful lawsuit will lead to a reversal of this project approval. There is a second point, too. If the lawsuit is successful, the taxpayers of San Luis Obispo County will likely be paying $100,000 or more to the attorneys who challenged the approval, since the Courts generally grant attorney’s fees to successful challenges that advance the public interest. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Wednesday, January 7, 2009 The State Budget and Conservation |
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Solving the state’s budget problem (as opposed to finding some kind of accounting “trick” to get through another year) will almost certainly involve pain. There will be painful cutbacks in expenditures that will have real impacts on people’s lives. There will be new taxes and other revenue increases, too, which will undoubtedly cause discomfort, and maybe real pain, to those who will have to provide more money to the state government. Today, I want to highlight one impact of the budget impasse that hasn’t been much discussed. State taxpayers have set aside bond monies to support conservation activities, which often include the purchase of either land or conservation easements. A typical transaction, involving the permanent conservation of over 500 acres of agricultural land in Santa Cruz County, was announced on January 1st. There are probably hundreds of such efforts taking place statewide, including a transaction that will lead to the permanent protection of 242,000 acres of incredible habitat on the Tejon Ranch in Southern California. Many of these conservation transactions are now in jeopardy not because there isn’t available bond money, but because the imminent shutdown of virtually all of the state’s financial activities will make it impossible to complete conservation transactions already underway. In some cases, this may mean the permanent loss of incredibly important conservation opportunities. This is another painful impact of the state’s budget crisis. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Thursday, January 8, 2009 Economic Stimulus And Transportation |
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The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission is meeting today, and will discuss how federal economic stimulus efforts may impact proposed transportation projects. As we all know, our new President is taking office as the nation faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He has already announced plans for a major effort at “economic stimulus,” to be patterned, it appears, on the economic stimulus efforts undertaken under Franklin Roosevelt. That means spending on public works projects, among other things. The staff of the Transportation Commission is anticipating that the federal government will want to get cash out into the economy quickly, and they want Santa Cruz County to get some! The idea is to have “ready to go” public works projects that can proceed immediately. This idea, of course, is not unique to Santa Cruz County. Local and state governments around the nation are scrambling to identify such “ready to go” projects, to claim the largest possible share of the anticipated federal expenditure windfall. Here’s the rub: many of the projects that are “ready to go” are traditional road projects, increasing our dependence on the individual automobile, and making our global warming crisis worse, not better. We need to turn around our economy in a more fundamental way than by simply spending more money on strategies that have actually undermined our environmental and economic security. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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| Friday, January 9, 2009 Coastal Voting Chart |
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The state laws governing land use planning give local governments wide discretion to establish land use policy. Cities and counties (not the state government) largely establish and then implement the land use policies that have such a determinative impact on our local communities. There is no legal reason that the state government couldn’t provide more significant policy direction with respect to land use, and the decision to let each city and county government exercise what amounts to “local control” over land use policy is simply a political decision made at the state level. The current system does have some positive aspects, as well as some negative ones. There is one area of land use planning, however, in which the state plays a much more important role; specifically, within the Coastal Zone, state policies must be followed, and there is state supervision over local decisions (through a State Coastal Commission) to make sure that local governments in fact implement these state policies to protect coastal resources. Environmentalists, naturally, closely follow how well both local governments and the Coastal Commission implement the land use policies relating to coastal protection. The Sierra Club, in particular, maintains a “Conservation Voting Chart” for the California Coastal Commission, and I’ve provided a reference in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report. If you care about the coast, you should check this out; there are some surprising revelations within the latest edition. For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.
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Archives of past transcripts are available here
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