From what I've been hearing, the main agenda item was for the NIMBY-packed Planning Commission to criticize the Calera Creek Parkway project.
Behind-the-scenes speculation is that higher-ups in the city told the Planning Commission to cancel the meeting.
Posted by Steve Sinai
39 comments:
oh that'll shut 'em up
Caltrans 2
Hippes 0
On Sept 19th at the planning commission, interesting events transpired. First Leon had the agenda moved to allow oral communications before commissioner communications. They then took care of the only item on their agenda. At orals, former city attorney Hal Bohner spoke of the need for more time for comments on the Rt 1 fix. Now Mr. Bohner was on the list of people that received a DEIR as soon as it came out. Then Dinah Verby, another attorney, reiterated the request and need to an extension. Todd Bray, a former planning commissioner, spoke to the theme as did Sierra Club mouthpiece Bill Collins. The Commissioners then spoke. Leo Leon, long time commissioner and former chair, alluded to his long conversation earlier that day with Councilmember Sue Digre concerning an extension of the time for comments. Now mind you, normal time frame for comments to a DEIR is 45 days. Pacifica already asked for and received an extra 15 days for 60 total. Leon then droned on about the need for additional input and why the hurry. Commissioner Langille, herself an attorney, agreed as did Chair Gordon, yep, another attorney. When it was Clifford’s turn he turned to Director White and asked if they were in danger of violating the Brown Act. Director White’s reply was that in his opinion they already had. The conversation and debate went on for about 40 additional minutes. The sticking point was how to get a letter to Caltrans before the comment period expired on Oct 7th. Logistically it was not possible to have the formal public discussion the commission desired on the meeting Oct 3rd. After more maneuvering, it was decided, and Leo Leon moved that the commission send council a letter directing council to formally request a 30 day extension from Caltrans. That was seconded by Commissioner, and attorney, Celeste Langille. So we have an un-agendized item discussed at an open meeting, decisions were worked out, and a motion was made, seconded, and passed 6-0. When do you suppose they were going to take comments from those opposed to the extension?
Councilmember Sue Digre then had the item placed on the Council agenda for the meeting of Sept 26th. This was done late Friday.
This is to the best of my recollection. I would venture that it is a pretty good recollection. Why was the Planning Commission meeting of Oct 3rd cancelled? Good question. Give Sue Digre a call. She seemed to be deeply involved in this little exercise.
The NIMBYs know the window of opportunity for these things is only open for so long, and they're trying to delay as much as possible.
It's no different than when an attorney, knowing their client is in trouble, tries to delay, delay, delay.
The delay tactics work when they obstruct any attempt at local development, so why not go back to the well?
Old saying the judges always say.
a good attorney can prolong a case for years, a bad one months!
The Planning Commission was prevented from talking about the Calera Parkway DEIR. City Council and city staff do not want to talk about the DEIR. They know the DEIR is inadequate and it will be legally challenged, probably successfully. It would be so much more effective to identify and address the inadequacies. Then we might actually get a solution to the congestion rather than permanently fail and lose the funding.
Sad, but probably true. If this ends up in the courts we will be reminded that a compromise could have been worked out that would have been ok with all but the most zealous on each side. Council has an opportunity to manage a process they know must happen for this project to go forward in any form and so far they have failed miserably.
NIMBY 1: "This is a ridiculous project that is a complete waste of taxpayer money."
NIMBY 2: "I agree. Let's sue and waste tons of taxpayer money in frivolous lawsuits instead."
NIMBY 1: "Great idea. That way the money still gets wasted, but absolutely nothing happens, which is how I like it."
NIMBY 2: "Is there anyway that we can put that wasted money in Brent Plater's pockets?"
* What do Fix Pacificans call a person who uses the words NIMBY and hippy in the same post?
* Bilingual
* Why did the Fix Pacifican cross the road?
* He couldn't; there was a sound wall blocking his way.
* What kind of day is it when the Fix Pacifica website crashes?
* A good day.
* A Fix Pacifican was walking down the road with a pig under his arm. As he passed the community center, someone asked, "Where did you get that?"
* The pig, replied, "I won him in a raffle!"
* A Fix Pacifican read these Fix Pacifican jokes and got very upset, so she went out for a drive. A little way down the road, she saw another Fix Pacifican out in a field rowing a boat.
* The Fix Pacifican stopped her car and jumped out yelling, "You dumb Fix Pacifican! It's nut-jobs like you that give the rest of us a bad name! If I could swim, I'd come out there and give you what's coming to you!"
That's what happens when you play winner take all...everybody loses except the lawyers.
A NIMBY goes into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender places a book of stupid Polish jokes from 1970 in front of him. The NIMBY yells "This is great! I'm going to replace the word 'Pollack' with 'Fix Pacifican' and post these on the Internet!" Then, he organized a meeting on how he and other NIMBYs could bankrupt the city. The end.
Redd baby you workin' clean now but still some funny stuff
You might be a NIMBY if:
- Your personalized bobblehead doll is permanently stuck in horizontal mode
- Your favorite James Bond villain is Dr. No
- Your failing academic and professional advancement test scores reflect your inability to select anything other than "none of the above" in multiple choice questions
- "Increased traffic congestion" is your reason for blocking all development and public works projects, i.e., unless the project is about reducing traffic congestion in which case your reason is "there is no traffic congestion"
there's some real bitter people on here
Did Todd Bray screw this up? I was counting on speaking at the Oct 3 planning meeting about the highway widening. That's why Todd got the commission to push for the meeting in the first place, when Todd talked at the sept. 19 meeting.
Todd can you explain the meeting cancellation??
Heck yeah, there ARE some bitter people on here, but at least their grammar is a little better than yours.
They're bitter because of their frustration with a minority of well-organized enviros who have run this city into an extremely deep ditch. At least in my case, the frustration isn't necessarily with the NIMBYs themselves, who are just using the political process to advance their cause (however selfish and naive it might be). It's the apathetic majority that allows this to occur who should be ashamed of themselves.
Could this lead to the demise of the hippies. The termination of planning commissioners and maybe a couple city council members?
Stay tuned. This is going to be good!
Oh yes, good for the lawyers. They view Pathetica and its various battling factions as the Motherlode. Watch them drool over all those billable hours. It's like that movie, "The War of the Roses".
anon@1112 my bad, you're sad, and we have all been so had.
Some amateurish back-room collusion between the planning commission and local nimbys, huh? The city kept some planning commissioners out of jail by nipping this in the bud.
I wonder if the smoke in that back-room was from cigars or medical marijuana.
Doubt any of them lose their gig over this but we've seen planning commissioners get thrown out before. Don't most of them end up posting on here? Still, it is good to thin the herd once in a while...
The Hippie Code of Honor has been violated. The sentence is no medical marijuana for two weeks.
Didn't one of the planning commisioners get thrown off once before?
Three thrown out that I recall in the last seven or eight years. A few others quit due to potential conflicts of interest.
Did the Indian fast-food place at Rockaway go out of business? The last few times I've driven by, it looked empty inside.
"Did the Indian place at Rockaway go out of business?"
Steve (523), I noticed the business looked empty too. One of the two NIMBY ascribed "thriving businesses" that would be put out-of-business with the highway widening; the other being Boston Bill's not yet in business. Don't you just love NIMBY logic?
Hard for any small business to thrive these days but I respect anyone who dares to try. Too bad if they're gone. Nice people and pretty good samosas.
In the 80's the friends of pacifica won 3 of 5 seats on council. At their first meeting they fired the whole planning commission and packed it with their cronies. That was John Curtis' commission. How we doing with that legacy now?
"How we doing with that legacy now?"
Ghost (740) try: crumpling cliffs with the strategy of "managed retreat in a populated area, some residents pay for their own road repair, we all pay for sewer lateral replacement, city hall is not ADA compliant, key city jobs are outsourced, big volunteer worker increase, highway traffic bottleneck identified 24 years (still waiting), a neglected sewer system that stinks of lawsuits, unloaded productive city land to "open space" (for a viable city potentially the dumbest move of all).
However, an effective NIMBY propaganda network was built not letting fact, reason or city infrastructure need get in the way. And the coastal NIMBY network joined/joins campaigns doing what they can to advert city/regional progress at all human cost. Meantime, most citizens continued/continue to trust that their civic leaders would/will "do the right thing", after all we learned that in high school and college civics.
In any event, "Ghost of Barbara Carr", NIMBYS managed to dump you and your pal Maxine Gonsalves off city council in 2002. Remember you two were for developing the quarry, building another fire station, stabilizing the city budget, fixing highway 1, improving the city, clean government (supporting the needed forensic audit of Sanchez Art Center, NIMBY stronghold). 3 strikes (Quarry, fixing highway 1, auditing NIMBY stronghold).
Now we have a long-term NIMBY City Council majority, which appointed a NIMBY Planning Commission, 3 of whom are NIMBY attorneys. The surviving legacy is 30+ plus years of NIMBY obstruction against significant development, growth and economic progress-- A NIMBY heaven for sure: full of "tricks", causing ordinary citizens hell which NIMBYS view as just "activist democracy".
Kathy, while I agree with most of what you are writing, you reference to a "NIMBY stronghold" is outdated and false. Even andrew Leone's studio is up for grabs in the lottery system required by the IRS. Things have changed.
"Things have changed."
Anon (10/4, 637) my comment was directed to the "the Ghost of Barbara Carr", with regard to the 2002 election, and was never intended to be current. Your comment is manufactured as current, and if ALL studios are NOW subject to the same fair practice rules, that's an improvement.
"Things have changed"? I hope so. Of course, the new 10 year lease looks a whole lot like the old lease, except the public really only saw some old lease revisions. And, the new lease presentation at city council, talked about the artist center being an "economic plan", which it isn't. Its a civic amenity.
Previously, corruption and lack of fair practice were the issue some of us had with the artist center. Things have changed? The organization structure has evolved based upon IRS remedy, but probably from the organizational authority (including bank account) switch.
I really like the old Sanchez school turned Art Studios and Civic Center.
Steve
The indian place went out of business a couple weeks ago. They moved everything out and closed up shop
There was a hippie group even before friends of pacifica
save out hills
Before Save Our Hills was Keep Pacifica Scenic.
when was that early to mid 70's?
Indians were the original hippies.
Indians were the original NIMBYs.
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