Vanguard View: No Good Reason To Change Measure J

The purpose of Measure J was to give citizens the ultimate say any time the city expanded beyond its current boundaries or converted agricultural land into urban use.  The Measure has been used exactly twice and both times the proposals were resoundingly defeated.  First in 2005, the Covell Village proposal lost by a 60-40 margin.  And most recently in November of this year, the Wildhorse Ranch Proposal was defeated by an even larger 75-25 margin. 

While I may have seen merit in the most recent proposal, the voters had the ultimate say and they resoundingly said that now is not the time for a new peripheral development and they probably said now is not the time for more houses at all.  I do not see any tweaking of this process that would have changed the result.  The people spoke and Measure J may not have produced my preferred outcome, but it reflected the will of those who caste their votes in November.

It is a bit unfortunate that the discussion began by Kevin Wolf prior to Thanksgiving turned personal at times.  There is no good reason for that to occur.  And while there may be legitimate questions to be asked about Mr. Wolf’s motivations, we believe the strongest case against the proposal is on the merits.  Thus, while we appreciate the effort that Mr. Wolf has taken to foster discussion, in the end, we are left in the same position that we began, there is no good reason to change Measure J.

After reading two of Mr. Wolf’s pieces and the more than 120 comments on the Vanguard on the most recent article and more than 60 on my original response to Mr. Wolf’s proposals, I just do not see an advantage that an early vote on Measure J would produce.  In fact, I do not see an advantage from anyone’s perspective.

If we take Mr. Wolf’s argument at face value, he believes that an early vote on Measure J would save us a lot of time and effort.  I do not agree with his conclusion.

I had a very interesting seat to watch the unfolding of the Wildhorse Ranch proposal.  It involved very delicate negotiations for well over a year and a half with the neighbors on the project specifics.  In the end, I think all parties will agree the final project was far better for that process than the original.  In the end, the neighbors still opposed the project, which was their right, and their view prevailed at the polls.  However, from that process itself, it is clear that we need more outreach efforts of that sort not less, and there is no way they could have brought a project in concept to the voters.  The devil was in the details and the details needed to be worked out.

Issues throughout the campaign were raised about the details of the project and about whether the promises made by the developers were enforceable and would be kept.  These questions would not have disappeared in an early campaign, they would have been louder and the developers would have been less able to convince the voters that they intended to keep their promises.

I originally believed that it was Mr. Wolf’s goal to make it easier for developers of peripheral parcels to move their projects forward.  That may or may not be his goal, but regardless I think now that attempting to do this would actually make it more and not less difficult to move a project forward.  The public wants the gory details.

I simply do not see the functionality or advantage of bringing a project to vote that have restrictions such as setback easements, traffic ratings, maximum and minimum housing density levels, land set asides, parks, flood restrictions, water usage, net energy usage, etc., but not a final map with street layouts, housing design, and final number of units.  In all honesty, I wonder how much Mr. Wolf understands about the development process.  They did not have final housing designs in the Wildhorse Ranch development and the street layout and final number of units are small additions once the density and set asides are configured.  Based on that description, it is not even clear that Mr. Wolf’s proposal is saving a lot of work other than the fine details.  The public generally wants the final details anyway and from what he is proposing to include, it does not seem like we are skipping many steps.  In short, the early vote is not that early anyway.

If the actual goal is to make Measure J a less costly process, I am uncertain that this will produce that result.  In fact, it seems more likely to require two votes and thus make it more expensive.  I agree that projects need to go to a fuller array of city commissions, something that the developers of Wildhorse Ranch pushed for, but city staff resisted.

Ultimately though, right now, I think it is going to be exceedingly difficult for any project that proposes housing on the periphery of Davis to gain approval.  The council needs to take that into account when look at additional projects because the vote was loud and clear.  One could look at the results of the Covell Village vote and suggest that the problem was the size and the traffic impacts.  One cannot make the same conclusion with Wildhorse Ranch.  The problem here is clearly the housing market and people’s unwillingness at this time to approve new housing.  When will that change?  Will that change at all in the near future?  No tweaking of Measure J is going to change that fact.

The polling I have seen suggests public support of 75% for Measure J in its current form.  That was taken prior to the Measure P vote.  It seems the public is satisfied with the Measure J vote requirements and was more than willing to utilize their discretion in the latest election.  I see no way in which the cost of pushing through a Measure J project will be reduced, I see no certainly by which a developer can get a sense as to whether the public will approve a project before it goes to a final vote.

The bottom line here is that an early vote is simply not feasible.  The voters will want to see the final version of a project before they are willing to approve it.  The possibility that the council might change the project following the early vote will lead to many opposing the project and may actually lead to a second vote.

Mr. Wolf suggests that a “new Measure J could be written to really strengthen the quality of citizen input that goes into the process.”  That is something that needs to be done anyway.  It needs to be done for all projects, not merely those that face a Measure J vote.  One needs to look no further than what has happened at Chiles Ranch and now Willowbank to realize the citizens and desires of the neighbors need more voice in the process and the city council needs to heed those concerns. 

A better effort at this point would be directed at making the provisions for public participation in all land use processes more explicit and detailed.  That would likely be the greatest benefit that could be produced.  We are simply not going to be able to expedite the Measure J process and I suspect that if we attempt to do so, the public will balk.

I have debated whether or not to make this a separate discussion, but I want to raise it here at least briefly.  There have been many questions about Kevin Wolf’s affiliation with the Covell Village developers and whether that affiliation is behind this push.to create an alternative Measure J.  That is a legitimate question even as we attempt to steer the discussion away from the more personal issues that have been raised about Mr. Wolf himself as opposed to his project.  Mr. Wolf denies any financial relationship between himself and Covell Village developers, we will take his word at face value here, however it does raise an interesting point.

Why do we not have more transparency in terms of disclosing who receives money for working on projects that come before the city council?  This question could easily be addressed if we had disclosure laws that required all paid staff working on city projects to file disclosure forms similar to requirements that lobbyists have to register with the FPPC in order to get paid to lobby.  The reason for that law is the need for transparency and to know who is lobbying for a project as a citizen as opposed to who is lobbying for a project because they are being paid to do so.

With such laws, people would not need to question Mr. Wolf and his affiliations, because we would already know.

It is interesting to note that Kevin Wolf published his alternative Measure J proposal on another blog here in Davis.  That blog is operated by an individual, Kemble Pope, who is a paid consultant to Davis Neighbors, the developers who used to be  called the Covell Partners, and who are presently pushing for a senior housing development at the Covell Village site.  We know this because this individual, Mr. Pope, is also the member of a commission in Davis  and thus had to fill out a form 700 as required to disclose his activities.  Mr. Pope disclosed his duties as a “PR Consultant.”

The Vanguard has sent an email to the Davis Neighbors requesting information on all other employees and consultants, but never received a response from the developers.  Again it is unfortunate that Kevin Wolf would have to be asked these kinds of questions, but these questions are only natural in an environment with a lack of transparency.

Given the amount of money spent on these projects before they go to Measure J votes and thus require disclosure, it would behoove the council to create a greater measure for transparency so that we know who developers and others hire to advocate for projects on their behalf in our community.

—David M. Greenwald reporting