City of Santa Cruz residents will have an opportunity, tomorrow, to hear their elected officials discuss the City’s proposed “Capital Budget.” The Council is holding a special Council meeting at 4:00 o’clock tomorrow afternoon to discuss the City’s proposed Capital Improvement Program. Capital projects, of course, tend to require large expenditures, and usually result in the construction of some new, and more or less permanent, physical thing. You can get a copy of the current proposal on the City’s website.

How a community spends its resources reveals not only what kind of community it already is, but also what kind of community it intends to become. One of my favorite Bible verses quotes Jesus (acting like a sociologist) as saying, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” How we invest our money not only reflects our values, it actually creates our values.

The proposed CIP shows that the City hopes to be able to spend about 3.5 million dollars for parks and recreation projects in the next three years, and about 14.5 million dollars for transportation and road projects linked to the gas tax. To take a look at the specifics, track down the link in the written transcript of today’s Land Use Report. If you attend the meeting tomorrow you can make comments yourself about the City’s proposed Capital Budget.

More Information:

City of Santa Cruz Website
http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1

Council Agenda, Special Meeting of April 20th
http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/Modules/
ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=13347

Proposed Capital Improvement Program
http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/Modules/
ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=13348

Matthew 6: 19-21
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
?search=matthew%206:19-21&version=NIV

Here are some upcoming meetings that should be of interest. The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments is holding its “Monterey Bay Regional Economic Forum” this coming Friday, April 23rd, from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The Economic Forum is an annual event; this year, it is being held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Seaside. Strictly speaking, it is already too late to register, but if you act quickly, there may still be some space available. The event is not free, but it does provide information of vital importance to all who are concerned about future land uses in the Monterey Bay Region.

A series of upcoming meetings will be held by the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, which is seeking to involve residents in a discussion of how best to shape a “Conservation Blueprint” for Santa Cruz County. The first meeting is tomorrow, April 21st, in the Watsonville Community Room in the Civic Plaza in Watsonville. The meeting will run from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Mayor Luis Alejo will provide both a welcome and an introduction to the Conservation Blueprint process.

Future meetings are scheduled on April 27th, at the Simpkins Swim Center in Live Oak, on April 29th, at the Seymour Center in Santa Cruz, and on May 4th, at Highlands Park in the San Lorenzo Valley. Check the transcript of today’s Land Use Report for links to more information.

More Information:

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

Economic Forum Registration Form
http://www.ambag.org/events/2010/registration_form.pdf

Land Trust of Santa Cruz County Website
http://www.conservesantacruz.org

Conservation Blueprint
http://www.conservesantacruz.org/Content/10018/preview.html

Last week, on “Tax Day,” there were “Tea Party” protests against taxes all around the country. I heard that there was a tax protest in Santa Cruz, too, but one that protested not taxes themselves, but how our tax money is being spent for past, present, and future military engagements.

In general, taxes are not that popular, but there are those who believe that “taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Such persons actually welcome taxes because they see the main job of our democratic government as deciding how much money should be spent for what, and who should pay for that. This is what “politics,” in the best sense, is all about. Nonetheless, human nature being what it is, the following little rhyme about taxes does tend to reflect the political reality: “Don’t tax you; don’t tax me; tax that person behind the tree.”

In the City of Santa Cruz, talk about raising taxes and tax equivalents is becoming a bigger part of the community discussion and debate. One proposal, backed by the tourism industry, would impose a new “assessment” on tourist visits that would raise more money, but just for tourism related expenditures. Another concept is to raise the so-called “Transit Occupancy Tax,” to generate more money from tourist visitors, but with the proceeds going into the City’s General Fund, so it could be spent for whatever the Council decided were the City’s highest priorities.

More Information:

The Gary Patton “Two Worlds / 365” Blog on Taxes
http://www.gapatton.net/2010/04/103-taxes.html
http://www.gapatton.net/2010/04/104-taxes-2.html

Oliver Wendell Holmes on Taxes and Civilization
http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/6696

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors will soon get another chance to adopt a much-delayed General Plan Update. The County is currently working on General Plan Update Version #5, and the County Planning Commission is holding hearings. Your testimony at these hearings is welcome. You can find out more by using the links in the written transcript of today’s Land Use Report.

Recently, a Prunedale resident who is definitely following the Monterey County General Plan Update process, wrote what I thought was an excellent “Letter to the Editor,” published in the Monterey County Herald. He asked what I thought was a very pertinent question: “What Happened To The 12 Guiding Objectives?”

In the first versions of the Monterey County General Plan Update (versions that the Board of Supervisors rejected), a set of twelve basic principles, called “Guiding Objectives,” played a key role. These “Guiding Objectives” would have set standards by which every other policy in the General Plan would have been judged. They were “composed, refined, and unanimously recommended [to the Board] by all 10 planning commissioners.”

The “Guiding Objectives” were not just rhetoric. They would have had a very powerful legal effect on future land use decisions, and would have ensured a “smart growth” future for Monterey County. What did happen to that broadly supported set of principles? Maybe it’s not too late to put them back in.

More Information:

Letter in the Monterey County Herald
http://www.montereyherald.com/letters/
ci_14866706

Monterey County General Plan Update
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/planning/
gpu/GPU_2007/gpu_2007.htm

LandWatch Monterey County Website
http://www.landwatch.org

Each Land Use Report can be accessed in different forms from the KUSP website. You can listen live on the web; you can download audio podcasts; and you can get a written transcript of every Land Use Report ever aired, going back to July 26, 2001. The KUSP website also has a set of “Land Use Links,” and it’s easy to use the website to send me an email, to make a comment, or suggestion, or complaint.

Recently, I got an email, which said, “I'm not sure if you’re the right person to contact, but I wanted to tell you that as a student teacher working on a lesson plan, your page was a great source of information.” Unfortunately, there was also a gentle complaint. The page that this student teacher was using had a failed link. Unfortunately, neither the KUSP Webmaster nor I can commit to go back and update all the links in every transcript for the last nine years or so, so my advice is to use those links quickly! They are good when first put up on the site.

In this case, the lesson plan must have involved GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, because the student teacher gave me a different web reference that I want to pass on to you. GIS is a great tool for anyone who cares about land use policy. Thanks to her email, I can now refer you to the “Parts Geek” site, as well as to materials maintained by the US EPA. Check the KUSP website!

More Information

GIS Resources From The “Parts Geek”
http://www.partsgeek.com/parts/gis_resources.html

US EPA website references on GIS
http://nlquery.epa.gov/epasearch/epasearch?
querytext=geographic+information+system+%2
8gis%29&fld=&areaname=&areacontacts=http%3A
%2F%2Fwww.epa.gov%2Fepahome%2Fcomments.htm
&areasearchurl=&result_template=epafiles_default.xsl&
filter=sample4filt.hts