'Butterfly Village' lost in fog of election
Measure D asks voters to decide

Posted May 8, 2007

By DAWN WITHERS

Of the four measures on the June ballot, only Measure D has stayed out of campaign groups' crosshairs.

Measure D asks voters to endorse or overturn Monterey County supervisors' approval of the Butterfly Village project in the Rancho San Juan area north of Salinas.

The measure is not directly tied to either of the competing general plan measures, A and C, which have captured headlines in the weeks leading up to Monterey County's June 5 special election.

In November 2005, supervisors approved Butterfly Village, which some billed as a more-palatable 671-acre, scaled-down version of an original proposal
to develop about 2,500 acres of Rancho San Juan.

Voters rejected the larger proposal, and the smaller version didn't win over many opponents.

"(North county residents)

are looking upon this development as an infringement on their way of life," said Supervisor Lou Calcagno, whose district includes Rancho San Juan and north county communities.

Calcagno said constituents in the rural area of his district have concerns about concentrated development and the problems it can create, such as water
shortages and additional traffic.

But many of the chief opponents to Butterfly Village aren't focusing their energy on Measure D.

Instead, they're campaigning for Measure A, the general plan initiative, because it would eliminate Rancho San Juan as an area for future development in the unincorporated county.

In other words, while winning on Measure D would stop Butterfly Village, winning on A would prevent Butterfly Village - plus any other proposed
developments for Rancho San Juan over the next two decades.

'Too busy' to take on D

Further, Measure D was never intended to appear on the June ballot, but ended up there by court order.

After the Board of Supervisors approved Butterfly Village in 2005, opponents started gathering signatures to qualify a referendum for the June 2006 ballot to repeal that approval. Signature gatherers provided petition information only in English, leading to allegations that Spanish-speaking voters were disenfranchised and to a lawsuit alleging violations of federal law. This led supervisors to remove the referendum from the ballot.

An appellate court has since overturned a ruling in a separate case that provided the legal basis for the lawsuit, leading a judge in March to order the
referendum onto the June 5 ballot - on which the general plan had already captured the spotlight.

Andre Charles, campaign manager for Plan for the People, the group behind the "No on A" campaign, said his team is too busy trying to beat the initiative to address Measure D.

"'No on Measure A's' base is extremely diverse, and our members don't all agree on (Measure) D," Charles said.

One Prunedale resident, Julie Engell, chairwoman of
the Rancho San Juan Opposition Coalition, said her
group has focused its energy on building support for
Measure A, because that's the big battle for June.

"We can either spend the rest of our lives referending Rancho San Juan bit by bit," she said, "or we can put a stop to it right now and put the people back in the driver's seat" by passing Measure A.

County faces $100M suit

Chris Fitz, executive director of LandWatch Monterey County, a primary backer of Measure A, agreed."With people so confused (about the ballot), we have to focus on what's most important."

Engell said she doesn't know of any organized opposition fighting Butterfly Village during this election.

Despite the supervisors' efforts to create a more politically and publicly viable project in 2005, the timing of their vote on Butterfly Village incensed
many Rancho San Juan opponents.

They approved Butterfly Village a day before 76 percent of voters overturned supervisors' approval of the larger Rancho San Juan project.

Calcagno voted in favor of Butterfly Village but against the original Rancho San Juan. He declined to comment on Measure A, saying he doesn't want to
condemn the measure, but said Rancho San Juan has put the county in a difficult situation.

If voters reject Butterfly Village, the county could take the biggest hit. The county is under court order to approve a specific plan for the development, and if voters prevent that, the county could end up paying $100 million to developer HYH Corp.

"Measure D is an illegal referendum that seeks to overturn a binding court order," said Mark Blum, an attorney representing HYH. "Since the voters' power is merely a derivative of the board's power, the voters can't overturn the court order either."

Blum said Butterfly Village would put more water back in the ground than it takes, provide 339 affordable-rate homes, and provide $16 million in road
improvements for Russell Road, North Main Street and dozens of highway segments and intersections.

But Engell said the existing water, traffic and road problems in the area should preclude Rancho San Juan from development until supervisors have the money and plans to address those issues.

Contact Dawn Withers at withers@thecalifornian.com.