2012 Challenge: Game On!

January 10, 2012

Don’t buy anything MADE IN CHINA. 

This resolution topped my list for 2012, mostly out of concern for human rights in Tibet. As of the tenth of January (2012) three Tibetan monks have self-immolated (since the 1^st of the year) to protest increasing Chinese oppression. 

At the end of 2011, as I was meditating about the coming year, I thought, “I have to stop buying things from China until they Free Tibet.” Then I said it aloud to myself. Later I wrote it down at the top of my New Year’s Resolutions list. 

Later I told my husband. He remembered the brightly colored bumper sticker on my little white convertible––FREE TIBET. That sticker stayed on the car for years, fading in the sun. Meanwhile, China stayed in Tibet and continued to  systematically oppress and overtake Tibetan culture. 

What difference could we make if we stopped buying products made in China? When I talk about this idea with friends and acquaintances, responses range from “good idea” to “good luck.”  Most people jump from the human rights issue to the issue of our very own, U.S. economy, shifting the focus to how few products are made in the US. 

It’s true. Finding products “Made in the USA” is tough. Even more challenging is finding necessities NOT made in China. I recently went to buy tennis balls. Not one tennis ball is made in the US. Of the four brands carried by the retailer, three were made in China. Dunlop tennis balls are made in the Philippines. That’s okay. We aren’t an island and it seems fair that we engage in world-wide trade, as long as we are reasonable about it, consider the consumption of fossil fuels for transport and watch out for human rights issues. 

I’m finding it interesting to read the labels and challenging to avoid some purchases. But I’m committed. It couldn’t hurt us to move toward a greater consumer independence of China. If enough people supported this movement, we just might make a noise to be heard around the world. Something other than the boom-boom of guns and artillery. Something even greater than the “ca-ching, ca-ching” of the cash register. How about when it comes to our economic dealings with China––We the People––exercise the Sounds of Silence. If we stop buying these products, we just might benefit the peaceful Tibetans, the exploited Chinese people and ourselves. 

Now that sounds like a New Year’s Resolution worthy of adoption. Will you consider it? Why not spread the word on your very  own social network platform? Maybe your Facebook friends will like you for it?

The Outsider's Point of View

I had to laugh a little at a recent lengthy and mis-informed letter to Ledger Dispatch regarding Sutter Creek and the Gold Rush Ranch development. It was written by Jane Keatley Harmer from little Campbell, California - a town with a population greater than all of Amador County.

The author praised the small town charm and camera-ready picturesqueness of Amador County with mention of six tourists from Atlanta who will enjoy their visit here. She then pronounced the doom to be expected if the Gold Rush Ranch development moves forward. Ms. Harmer expounded that a development like Gold Rush would “double the population of Sutter Creek Proper.” She recommends we study towns like Campbell, to find out how to preserve the historic quality of our old downtowns.

Duh. Those of us who live here realize that while the proposed development falls into the boundaries and jurisdiction of Sutter Creek, the old Allen Ranch property sits on Sutter Hill, between Ridge Road and the Cal-Trans dominated Highway 88. Hardly in the middle of Sutter Creek's historic Main Street. The letter presumes that our local government offices are populated by hay-seeds and hicks who have never traveled or lived outside of Amador County. I know from firsthand experience that our planning commissioners and councilmembers do their homework, not only listening to the input of the community and staff, but also researching successful models of small town preservation.

Ms. Harmer also tells us that leaders in quaint Campbell “constantly strive to add new revenue sources….” No doubt there are a few things to choose from in the heart of the silicon valley that the Sutter Creek council doesn't have as options. Why do people coming here from outside think they are the only folks with something other than air between their ears? Our local leaders didn't just fall of the turnip truck. Nobody thinks large development is THE ONLY ANSWER to the challenge of sustaining a rural economy. But if you really do your homework, you'll see many examples around the country of resort developments that contribute tax and impact dollars, attract tourists and shoppers to an area and create jobs. Gold Rush Ranch might be

I do not claim to have thoroughly studied this project or its impacts, so I take no position on the merits of Gold Rush Ranch in this letter. My point is this: It takes money to maintain an historic and quaint downtown. Allowing commerce on the outskirts is one way to get an infusion of funds without plopping “every-town-USA” stores smack in the middle of the old town. Sounds like what they did in Campbell. Imagine that!

Not in this Backyard

NIMBY•ism (nim’-be-izm) n. 1. Acronym from “Not In My Back Yard” referring to the tendency to resist actions or ideas affecting one’s own property or lifestyle, while otherwise approving of the action or idea in concept. 2. Objecting to something unpleasant or dangerous being located near his or her home while being perfectly happy to see it located elsewhere. 3. The abject opposition of anything new or different proposed to be implemented with a reasonable distance of one’s own home or business, especially when perceived of as undesirable. I’ve seen it. I watch for it. I watch for it in myself. During my years in public office, I’ve come to expect it from the general public who are none other than you and me in a different situation. Are NIMBYs absolutely a their own animal? A new breed? I rather suspect that NIMBY-ism has been going on since recorded history. As far as I know, there is no recorded date of the first sighting of a Nimby. You may not be aware of them but I can assure you that they lurk in your own community. They will be out, teeth bared, at the first perceived threat to status quo. Their status quo that is, not yours. Nimbys don’t care about your status quo. Seeing eye to eye with a Nimby, generally depends on whether the Nimby is your neighbor or someone who lives in another area. What we might view as absurd and “small” behavior from a distance, takes on an air of reasonability when it is close to home. Take it from me, when it comes to real NIMBY-ism, what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. It all depends on proximity. In our town there is a quiet neighborhood of what look like modest, single family homes or maybe half-plexes, with small patches of green lawns framing each one, clustered along two or three quiet streets which branch off a simple main drive that winds among the houses. To the passerby, this neighborhood has a well-kept appearance; you don’t see kids bikes, balls, shoes or skateboards lying about as you might in some areas. The streets are not crowded with broken down cars. The minimal lawns are mowed and attended to. This is our town’s successful affordable housing apartment complex of fifty-six units. The project was made possible through a kind of partnership between investors, developers, the City and the State. The city council did its due diligence, investigating the track record of the developer and visiting other projects managed by the development firm. The history was impressive. Nice projects, well-managed and serving the communities in which they existed. Some people who called themselves “Friends of [our town]” fought this little development tooth and nail, and when it was approved by the City Council, they badmouthed our competent and conscientious mayor (he lost in the next election) and filed a lawsuit against the city. This cost the local taxpayers (even the NIMBYs) a significant amount in terms of staff time and money to defend the City’s decision. The developer participated in the legal battle, so not all of this frivolous litigation fell on the hapless shoulders of local tax payers, but the cost was great in terms of ill-will within the community. During the project public hearing and approval process, project opponents spread rumors about the project and went door to door, playing on the fears of residents in the adjacent senior community. “You will be inundated with noisy latch-key kids, running through your quiet neighborhood,” said the nay-sayers. Seniors were warned that these same youth would commit all types of vandalism and generally create chaos in place of current peace and quiet. Of course, traffic would increase creating some indefinable bottleneck whenever the anyone tried to drive out onto the city street. And not to be forgotten, there is the little matter of the affordable housing nature of the complex attracting less than desirable residents of the—well, “low to moderate income” variety. If you want to know that you are face to face with a NIMBY, listen to what they have to say. Nearly all NIMBYs will begin their comments with this phrase: “I’m in favor of [proposed idea]. But this just isn’t the right location for it.” Or, “Don’t get me wrong, we need [proposed idea] just not in this place.” With this project we heard these words so often that we jokingly suggested the City Clerk (who’s job it was to take notes and transcribe tapes to produce the meeting minutes) could save much time by using a kind of copy – paste command repeatedly during the public comment portions of the hearings. Another common characteristic of NIMBYs is that they generally know where something doesn’t belong or shouldn’t happen—that is their own back yard—but they are short on ideas of where this same (otherwise good idea) should happen. With this project no one seemed to have any idea of another more appropriate parcel, other than some general wish that perhaps it could be completely removed to the unincorporated area away from the main population. The City Council approved this project, with a vote of 4-1. A few months after the construction was completed, I got a call from one of my friends. “My daughter is living in one of the apartments with our grandson,” Lupe told me. “It took a long time for them to go through all the paperwork and approve her. They checked into everything! But now she is in and she just loves it there.” Lupe’s daughter is a single mother who works in a service position at the local hospital. From the time she applied until the time she was accepted as a tenant was about three months. I couldn’t have been happier. This little development is the kind of place I’d like my mother to live. She’s eighty-five and still quite independent, and she resists the idea of being “stuck somewhere with a bunch of old folks.” She’d prefer to have some children around. My mother recognizes the value of inter-generational contact. She’s not wealthy, but I’m not sure she’d qualify for the moderate to low income threshold. If she did, this would be a great place for her to live for as long as she is able to live on her own. On another shady block on the edge of our historic downtown there is a charming old Victorian. During the days of the gold rush and on into the nineteen hundreds it served as a bordello, but that business wrapped up at least fifty years ago. Zoned multi-family because of the number of rooms, entrances and overall capacity of the old home, it has served over the years as rental property. Vacant for some time, Loni, a state certified drug and alcohol counselor purchased the home to create a “sober living environment” (SLE). A sober living environment is a kind of “half-way house” providing a drug-alcohol free residence for addicts in early recovery. In California, a local jurisdiction cannot refuse to permit the existence of this type of residence as long as the number of “beds” doesn’t exceed six. The State overrides any local ordinances or authority in this matter. I got to know Loni before she bought the property and she persuaded me that there was a need for such a “business” in our community. “These are business people, professionals and other good folk who just need a little help getting their lives together,” she told me. “When they come to my house, they are already clean and sober. They’re required to be out during the day, working or looking for work. The maximum length of stay is four months. Then they’ve got to move out and move on.” Loni cleaned, painted and restored the old home greatly improving the appearance of the property. She set stringent rules and guidelines in place and quickly filled the six “beds” in her SLE. On any given day or time, you can walk down that block of north Main street and except for possibly noting the historic nature of the building, you would likely pass it without notice. Quiet, well-maintained and well-managed, house rules allow no drinking, drugs, or parties. Smoking is restricted to a backyard patio away from the street. Loni conducts random drug testing of residents to ensure rules are being followed. And true to her prediction, residents to date have included attorneys, medical professionals, and trades people of all ages who have needed a safe haven on their journey back from addiction and on to recovery and responsibility. After successfully operating for over a year without a single incident, Loni came to the city seeking approval for two more spaces. More clients would help make it more fiscally viable to work with grant-funded clients who couldn’t afford to pay the private rates. There was plenty of room in the house, but to add “beds” crossed the threshold of state protection and put the SLE in the domain of the city and yes, the local NIMBYs. Once again they emerged in droves. They all recognized the need for such a facility, but…. I don’t need to complete that sentence for you, do I? During the public hearing process, the most ironic comment we heard came from one of the residents on an adjacent street. “Until a woman came to my door to tell me about it, I didn’t even know we had such a facility in our neighborhood,” the NIMBY exclaimed, her voice quavering. I was afraid she would cry right there in front of the council and her rapt audience. “I’m shocked and disappointed that the city would allow it!” I’d wish I could report that our city council did the right thing, but the majority of council members caved in to the pressure and denied Loni’s request. NIMBY-ism prevailed. Or is that just my opinion because the house isn’t in my neighborhood?

A Lesson in Patience

I would like a chance to set a few things straight on the proposed Jackson Hills project and the City Council’s actions. There are people who have said that the council “put the cart before the horse.” I’ve even heard the developers suggest that the City should have allowed them to work out a development agreement prior to certifying the Environmental Impact Report (EIR). While hindsight shows that things might better have been “sequenced” differently, I offer an explanation of why things were done in the order they were done in and why the process moved forward in the way it did.

A project like Jackson Hills begins when a private property owner decides to sell property to a developer. The developer eventually scopes out the idea of a project and presents this to the staff at the city level as an application for a project. This is the bare beginning. The City gives the developer a list of requirements and begins an iterative process with the developer, city planning staff and planning commission. For a development of any significance, these requirements include preparation of an EIR.

During the time following the application--which can take years (in the case of JH the process started in 2003)--it is the City Council’s job to make sure the steps in the process are being followed. Council members are to remain as objective as possible so that when the project finally is presented for approval, a sound and objective decision can be made.

There are interim decisions in the process. These usually come to the Council from the Planning Commission in the form of recommendations. One of these interim decisions is certification of the final EIR. In the case of Jackson Hills, in order for the project to be approved, a zoning change on existing property inside the city limits, as well as annexation of some land outside of the city limits would also need to be approved. These interim decisions DO NOT approve the project.

Besides “conditions of approval” specified early in the project application process, there is another piece of the puzzle that is commonly included in the process. This is the negotiation of a development agreement that will specifically detail all additional requirements in order for the developer to gain approval. You might say that the EIR clearly shows the potential negatives of the project; the Development Agreement clearly spells out the required positives. These two documents together will hopefully allow for a balanced decision, one that would weigh the negative against the positive, so that the right choice might be made.

In September of 2007 the Planning Commission sent recommendations to the Council regarding two interim decisions on the Jackson Hills project. The Planning Commission’s process being slightly different than that of the council, these interim decisions were accompanied by a recommendation about the overall project. The Planning Commission recommended certification of the EIR – which in essence says the document adequately analyzed and described potential impacts and mitigations of the proposed project. The Planning also recommended that the council disapprove the project.

At the next City Council meeting, Staff presented two resolutions reflecting interim decisions: certification of the EIR and rezoning of land within the scope of the project. The decision regarding the approval of the project was postponed, pending negotiation of the Development Agreement – needed to complete the information package before the Council could vote on the project.

Here is the critical point in the process wherein opponents are charging the cart before the horse issue. Why not work through and prepare a development agreement before certifying the EIR or before approving a zoning change? And it is at this point that we come to a crucial difference between the workings of government and business. In business we might call the executive team together, argue things out and have knowledge of how members of the team feel about things without making and announcing public decisions. In government, as a council member – and in this case as the Mayor – I have no way to know where my fellow council members stand on specific items, such as the adequacy of the EIR. I learn about their thoughts and feelings when we meet publicly, receive information and public input, and discuss an issue.

In the case of the Jackson Hills project, I could not in good conscience recommend that staff, planning commission members and council engage in hours of negotiation and preparation of a Development Agreement without knowing if the council would even approve certification the EIR. In hindsight, I believe we should have delayed consideration of the zoning change, but both conditions were placed on the agenda, and knowing we can rescind zoning changes, we dealt with both at the same meeting. If the council voted to deny those two resolutions, there would be no need for the hours involved in working through a Development Agreement. Again, until the public meeting, we don’t know how the other council members will vote on an issue.

Opponents of the Jackson Hills project who decided to take the project to the public via the referendum process pulled the trigger a bit too soon. The subject of the recently dropped referenda was not approval or disapproval of the Jackson Hills development but measures to force the council to rescind certification of the EIR and the accompanying zoning amendment. Neither of these resolutions approved the Jackson Hills project.

Finally, when the developer appealed to the Council to retrench and regroup due to obvious resistance to their project and a general downturn in the housing market, we saw no reason to impose the cost of placing the issues on the ballot on the already thinly stretched City budget. Council’s legal means of avoiding the confusing and rather senseless referendum issues, was to rescind the previously adopted resolutions.

This is the logical sequence of things and while some in the public seems to feel that those individuals who in essence donate their time to serve on local planning commissions and city councils need a lesson in leadership – I would suggest that they need a lesson in patience.Take a little more time to ask questions and honestly seek to understand the process under which public servants are required to serve. In other words, if you want to learn about patience, try serving in public office. The wheels of government grind slowly, indeed. And public meeting requirements, while helping to ensure transparency, do not make for efficiency and often muddy the water.