The Party’s Over
Both sides of the land use battle agree that the special election didn’t resolve anything

Monterey County Weekly
Posted on June 7, 2007

By Zachary Stahl

When the initial results came across the projector screen on election night at the National Steinbeck Center, the No on Measure A camp didn’t cheer. They
stared at the screen, let the results sink in, swirled their glasses of wine and continued chatting at cloth-covered tables. Plates of meatballs, prime rib
and cake were scattered about the room.

Tom Carvey, executive director of Common Ground and one of the leading voices against Measure A, walked into the conference room and got a report on the results. “Just say no,” he said.

“All ‘no’ is good,” a woman chimed in over the mariachi band.

Andre Charles, No on A campaign manager, sipped red wine poured by winemaker Steve Pessagno. “The most important thing is that voters have convincingly rejected Measure A,” Charles said.

Voters also rejected Measure C, the
supervisor-approved General Plan. In fact Measure A received about 700 more yes votes than Measure C, according to absentee and precinct votes counted by the Weekly’s deadline.

In response to a suggestion that voters were confused, and inadvertently voted no on Measure B, which would have repealed the supervisors’ plan even though they had rejected that same plan by defeating Measure C, Charles blamed his opponents for putting Measure C on the ballot. “To claim that it was a confusing ballot is falsely misleading because they are the ones that
added an additional measure,” he said.

Alfred Diaz-Infante, CEO of affordable housing builder CHISPA, was also pleased with the results. He said Measure A, which would have required a countywide vote for subdivisions outside designated areas, might have
forced him to add a new department in his office just to focus on campaigns.

“We’re affordable housing builders,” Diaz-Infante said, “not campaigners.”

Bob Perkins, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, gestured as if he was wiping sweat off his brow.

“If A would have passed, it truly would have been the beginning of the end,” he said, adding that there would have been an exodus of ag business from the
county.

He said he hopes Measure A supporters will join in on discussions centering around a compromise plan.

“I sincerely want to see the other side come back to the table,” he said.

Supervisor Fernando Armenta was not quite as conciliatory. Holding a mug of coffee, Armenta criticized LandWatch for taking the general plan initiative to the ballot box. “Who has been the leader of confusion and exclusion?” he asked. “They have.”

Armenta said the debate over land use is far from over, despite the supervisor’s intent to let the voters choose their plan. “This fight about land use is going to continue.”

Meanwhile, at Mountain Mike’s in Marina, Measure A supporters huddled around booths eating pizza.

LandWatch director Chris Fitz said the number of yes votes was impressive, given the fact that the opponents of the Citizens General Plan Initiative
outspent Measure A’s supporters.

“It was a confusing election,” Fitz said. “It’s hard to defeat the status quo. It’s hard to bring about progressive change.”

Glenn Robinson, president of the Carmel Valley Association, said the county supervisors should go back to GPU 3.

“The people of Monterey County didn’t support either plan, so let’s go back to the compromise plan,” he said. “Right now we have this badly polarized Monterey County and it’s up to the supervisors to make things right.”

Measure A supporters also touted the overwhelming rejection of Measure D, the Butterfly Village Initiative, as evidence that voters are dissatisfied
with the supervisors land use planning. Voters rejected Rancho San Juan, a massive development north of Salinas, by a similar margin in 2005, but just
before the election, the supervisors approved Butterfly Village, a 671-acre piece of Rancho San Juan.

“Butterfly Village was the poster child for the Board of Supervisors’ approach to land use,” said Phyllis Meurer, a member of the League of Women Voters of the Salinas Valley and Yes on A volunteer. She added that the supervisors should take home a message that voters don’t approve of their land use decisions.

The voters’ rebuke of both the anti-sprawl Measure A and the developer-friendly Measure C could leave the county right back where it started seven years ago, with an outdated general plan.

Cliff Staton, a campaign consultant for Measure A, said GPU 4 never became law because it was put before the voters for approval. With the defeat of Measure C, he said, GPU 4 is dead.

“We are back to square one,” Staton said. “We are back to the 1982 plan.”

But Lee Blankenship, assistant county counsel, disagreed. He said that in his view, voters upheld GPU 4 because the majority voted no on Measure B.

Before the election night parties were even over, it appeared certain that this divisive general plan debate was not settled at the polls, and is heading
back to the courts.