Kurt Zimmerman on the Revised Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Assisted Living Facility

(Mod: I was talking with Kurt yesterday about the "revised" document the City's Development Services department had just issued. While it appears that it is meant to be seen as an indication that this department had taken into account the large amount of resident feedback they'd received when the initial report was made available, it is actually something entirely different. Apparently for Development Services the concerns of the many people who wrote in meant very little. And the Planning Commission decision of a week ago Thursday even less. I asked Kurt to send me his thoughts on the matter, and here is what he wrote.)

The Revised Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Assisted Living Facility is now up on the City's website (click here). For those of you who don't have the time to read through this lengthy Study, I recommend that you simply turn to page 64 of the document. Once there, you will see that Development Services has decided that it's fine to simply ignore Planning Commission determinations.

Instead of reflecting the Planning Commission's decision from last Thursday to leave the current interpretation of Measure V well enough alone and apply a density limit of 13 dwelling units per acre for the project, the Study repeats the erroneous interpretation of Measure V from an earlier draft:

"The proposed assisted living facility is an insitutional use, and therefore the project's density is not defined in terms of dwelling units per acre. As such, the density limit of Section 17.35.040 does not apply."

In other words, Measure V's density limit does not apply to the assisted living facility project or any other "insitutional projects" in the downtown core.

Since the applicability of Measure V to the assisted living facilility project was the primary reason for the last Planning Commission's meeting, I'm appalled that the erronious interpretation in the draft remains in the revised version.

My couple of cents ...

It has always been my understanding that the only governmental body in town capable of overruling the Planning Commission is the City Council. Apparently that dynamic has changed, with the employees of our Development Services department now possessing the power to throw out, as if by fiat, any deliberative findings of this duly appointed City Commission. It really is quite radical a change in the way business is done here. You could almost call it a coup.

Also: I have always believed that in this country when a law is established by elected officials, it is the duty of those employed by the government to obey that law. And when that law has been established by a direct vote of the people, it takes things to an entirely different level. While a popularly enacted law is certainly no more (or less) valid than any established by elected officials, it does have a cachet not possessed by any other because it came from beyond the direct control of the government. And maybe that is part of the problem some officials have with it.

But again, the individuals employed by the Development Services Department apparently feel differently than I. And this revised document issued yesterday would seem to indicate that they believe neither the Planning Commission or the law has much of a hold over them, and they can do pretty much as they please. Which apparently includes extralegal advocacy for the financial interests of a developer who, like them, isn't even from this town. Or respects its people and laws.

Of course, it is improbable that Development Services went out and did this all on their own. Obviously they were put up to this by Mayor Buchanan. There is nobody else in town with the muscle at City Hall to force such so extraordinary an action. It also fits the Mayor's modus operandi to have surrogates do his dirty work while maintaining the fiction that he is somehow removed from such things. Overthrowing a City Commission and a voter approved City Ordinance, and all at one time, is no light task. Better to let the help take some of the heat.

It now seems clear to me that this is not actually about the ALF. If put to a Measure V vote that project would pass handsomely. Upon completion of the planning process I'd likely vote for it. It is an effective answer to the blighted eyesore that occupies that site today.

No, the real issue is Measure V itself. The City Council majority opposes a citizen review through the vote on downtown development, and their goal is to keep the ALF from going to such a vote. This would be the first Measure V election, and should such a vote take place it would further empower an ordinance that this Mayor never intended to honor. Despite all of his past fine words on the topic.

What we are seeing here is naked power at work. For people like John Buchanan the law is for those who have the lawyers. The City has those lawyers, and of course they are paid for by us. Yet they are being used by this Mayor and his enablers to take away our right to have a say on downtown development. Our tax money is being used here to deny us a right. In this case our right to something as fundamentally American as the vote.

Is this unlawful? Yes, it is. Do these individuals believe they can take our right to vote away, no matter what the laws on the matter might be? Of course they do. This is how naked power and corruption works.

It will take an enormous act of will to defeat them.

http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com/

(The photo seen above was lifted off the old Foothill Cities blog - click here. The photographer is Terry Miller.)