Tuesday, February 21, 2006 – TAMC’s Fee Program
TAMC is the “Transportation Agency for Monterey County.” To give the agency its full description, TAMC is the “Transportation Agency for Monterey County and Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways.” Let’s call it TAMC.

TAMC meets tomorrow morning in Salinas, and there is an important item on the agenda relating to a proposed “Regional Development Impact Fee Program.” As usual, you can get more information at the KUSP website.

As you probably know, developers often pay fees to the local governments that review and approve their projects, to make local improvements to the streets impacted by the development. A new shopping center might have to install a left-turn lane and a traffic signal, for instance. There is not, however, any systematic way for developers to pay for the “regional” transportation impacts of their individual projects. There are such “cumulative impacts,” if you will, but no system currently in place to deal with them. That’s one major reason that the public is suspicious of development. It just happens to be true that the public ends up subsidizing the developers, either by having to pay for needed transportation measures later, or through the kind of increased congestion we know so well. To its credit, TAMC is trying to address this problem. How well and how fairly the current proposal would do that is up for discussion. So, think about that meeting tomorrow.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006 – Coyote Valley Community Meeting
The single most important planning decision facing Santa Clara County, and impacting not only Santa Clara County but San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz counties, is what will be done in the Coyote Valley. The Coyote Valley is the place where Cisco Systems proposed a gigantic new office development, with 22,000 surface level parking places and no housing. The City of San Jose City Council resoundingly endorsed this proposal, which would have been a planning disaster for every surrounding community, and for the natural environment. Although approved by the City Council, the “business cycle” apparently vetoed the idea, and the Cisco project never went forward.

Now, the City of San Jose is trying to do an overall plan for the Coyote Valley, and the City is at least planning for some housing to accompany the new job generating building that is the economic driver of the proposed development. Coyote Valley is agricultural, but it is included within the current city limits, and has long been slated for development. The stakes couldn’t be higher, as the City moves towards adoption of a plan to galvanize Coyote Valley development.

If you’d like to find out what’s going on, and participate, consider attending a “Community Meeting” scheduled at the Coyote Creek Golf Club, located on Golf Club Drive, off Highway 101. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow. For more information, check the KUSP website.

More Information
City of San Jose Website - http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/
Background information on Coyote Valley - http://www.sanjoseca.gov/coyotevalley/

Thursday, February 23, 2006 – The Urban Water Conservation Council
I want to highlight Item #5 on the Consent Calendar of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, which meets this evening. As you probably know, the “Consent Calendar,” sometimes called the “Consent Agenda,” is a parliamentary technique utilized by most local government agencies. A large number of presumably non-controversial actions are listed on the “Consent Calendar,” and then are approved with a single motion. This frees up the meeting schedule for items which really call for extensive debate and discussion, or which require public input.

For a member of the public who wants to keep track of what his or her public agencies are doing, it’s  important to remember that the items listed on the “Consent Calendar,” even if truly non-controversial, are not necessarily less “important” than the items that take more time, and that are placed on the “Regular Agenda.”

Consent Calendar Item #5 discusses an historic Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, proposed for adoption tonight by the Water Management District. The MOU commits participating water agencies to a set of fourteen “Best Management Practices.” You can get more information at www.kusp.org, and I encourage you to do that, and to find out how we can meet our future water needs through a very practical set of conservation strategies, that don’t require costly and environmentally-damaging new dams and similar water projects.

Friday, February 24, 2006 – Initiative Reform
California State Senator Debra Bowen will be speaking in Santa Cruz County on Saturday. I do want to make a disclaimer up front. Her presentation is being sponsored by the Democratic Women’s Club, and she is an announced candidate for the Secretary of State position currently held by local resident Bruce McPherson. So, there is a definite political “overtone” to this event. I’m advertising it, however, because one the topics announced is so important to those who care about our system of local and state land use laws and regulations. Specifically, Senator Bowen will highlight proposals to “reform” the initiative process.

There is no doubt in my mind that the state’s initiative process has some flaws. I think that so-called “reform” efforts, however, have the potential to undermine the ability of local residents to use the initiative process to put important land use policy matters before the voters. Monterey County provides a great example. Whatever the voters ultimately decide about the Community General Plan Initiative, it’s a good thing that they get to take a position on the future growth and development of Monterey County. If you care about preserving the integrity of the initiative process, it might be worthwhile taking in Senator Bowen’s presentation tomorrow, to make sure that the positive things about the process don’t get lost in well-intentioned “reform” efforts.

More Information
Senator Bowen’s presentation will go from 10:00 a.m. to noon, tomorrow. She will be speaking at the Live Oak Grange Hall, 1900 17th Avenue in Santa Cruz. For more information call Pat Shand – 831-688-2931.

Anyone who has an event with a relationship to land use issues should feel free to let me know about it, so I can get the word out to KUSP listeners who follow these matters. You can contact me at the following email address: land@kusp.org.