THE
WHITE RANCH BUSINESS, PART 2: RESIDENTS SAY "KEEP IT RURAL"
Originally Published in the Anderson Valley Advertiser July
26, 2006
By
Tim Stelloh and Freda Moon
It
was only 75 minutes into last Tuesday’s three-hour White Ranch
community meeting when Jere Melo, the Fort Bragg City Councilman,
fled in a huff.
More
than a dozen residents had already all but condemned the proposed
development at the White Ranch Property – which would plop
288 homes onto 69 acres of open rangeland at Airport Road and Highway
One, just north of Fort Bragg – and the mood in Dana Grey
Elementary’s gym bristled with tension.
Not one of the 70 or so people who attended the meeting openly supported
the project. And by the end of the evening the verdict was clear:
In a table-by-table survey, those at the meeting said that they
wanted the land to remain in agricultural use or to be rezoned to
5-acre minimum lots. This would effectively squash the development
proposal that was submitted by Sacramento developer John Reynen.
As with previous City Council meetings, residents had an inventory
of concerns and criticisms: the development’s effect on traffic
and on Fort Bragg’s “rural lifestyle,” its non-eco-friendly
design, the dearth of well paying jobs in the area, the City’s
dwindling water supply and its outdated sewage system.
Colette
Meunier—the steely-eyed, deftly apolitical City consultant
charged with analyzing the project’s feasibility—hosted
the meeting. In a well-choreographed exercise in civic participation,
Meunier bounced back and forth in front of a montage of design plans,
aerial photographs and maps, each depicting a different view of
the White Ranch, as she answered the crowd’s questions and
nodded along with their sometimes-caustic comments.
One
audience member drew chuckles by questioning the wisdom of "overbuilding"
a town with no "economic base other than basically tourism."
Meunier
assured her that councilmembers would look into it.
Another
speaker, Steve Heckeroth, said the lack of preparation for “peak
oil” and climate change was a mistake. “If you don’t
orient the houses to the south,” said Heckeroth, “it
doesn’t matter what plans you have for solar in the future
— you’re not going to be able to take advantage of them.”
This brought a clamorous round of applause.
Many
audience members weren’t so interested in making changes to
the development plan, but in tossing it altogether.
“If
we decide we don’t want the project,” said another resident,
“what are our legal rights as citizens to stop it?”
As
it turns out, there aren’t many.
Meunier suggested that the community could petition for a referendum
vote on the issue, but quickly added that it's probably impossible
to get a referendum on the ballot by the November elections. Even
if a referendum were on the ballot, said Linda Ruffing, Fort Bragg’s
City Manager, voting would be restricted to City residents. Yet
many at the meeting live in the area around the White Ranch Property
and are outside of city limits.
Those
residents, in other words, have no representation on City Council,
which will ultimately deny or greenlight the project. Nor are they
eligible to run for Council themselves.
All
of this is mighty important in an election year. (This November,
three council seats are up for grabs, including those of Dan Gjerde,
Brian Baltierra and Mayor Dave Turner.) Widespread public perception,
as well as a source at City Hall, says that the Council is sharply
divided. Gjerde and Hammerstom are cautious of development, while
Baltierra and Melo would, as the source at the City put it, “vote
for any project, by any applicant, at any time.” Mayor Turner
is the wild card.
On
such a closely divided council, a relatively small investment in
ousting a non-development-friendly candidate could go a long way.
In Fort Bragg City Council races, candidates typically spend $2,000,
according to the Fort Bragg City Clerk. The profits from this project,
meanwhile, will likely bring the Reynens more than $23 million,
according to a written comment Councilman Gjerde submitted to the
City in February.
When
hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been spent on the
application process alone and tens of millions stand to be made,
even a $10,000 campaign donation—a massive contribution by
Fort Bragg standards—would be chump change.
And
there’s nothing to stop an eager contributor from throwing
big money at the upcoming City Council race. California campaign
contribution limits only apply to State campaigns—not local
elections. City ordinances determine those contribution limits,
and Fort Bragg has no such ordinance.
Reynen
has already spent $375,000 on LSA Associates, the Berkeley-based
consulting firm for which Meunier works. Gjerde estimates in his
public comment that the Sacramento developer will spend an additional
$2 million before the application process is done. Some in the community
speculate that the upcoming Council race will echo the 2004 City
Council election in Davis, when one of Reynen’s longtime business
partners, Steve Gidaro, dumped $21,000 into campaign warchests of
candidates who, according to news accounts, supported his massive
development project.
About
3,300 people voted in Fort Bragg during the last non-presidential
election. If this year’s election is anything like that one,
roughly 1,600 people will determine who represents not only the
City of Fort Bragg, but the folks within the City’s “Sphere
of Influence.” This is the area that, according to Ruffing,
represents “a logical expansion of City boundaries.”
These
Councilmembers will represent people like Jack Beer and Cynthia
LeDoux—both of whom live in the “sphere” and will
be directly affected by its development—even though neither
Beer nor LeDoux can vote on a City ballot come November.
“I’m
in the sphere of influence annex, but yet I have no vote, Colette,”
said Cynthia LeDoux at the community meeting. “To me, that
just seems un-American. I have no vote about what’s happening
to my land ownership.”
Jack
Beer, an Airport Road resident and former-millworker, took it a
step further. “We’re all in the county, most of us,
so we don’t get a chance to vote for City Council,”
said Beer at the tail end of an expansive critique of the development,
which ranged from barbed to jumbled to hilarious. “We can’t
run for any of those positions, but we do get to vote with our pocketbooks.
We do know who these people are—we know who they’re
related to.”
The
gym erupted in laughter at Beer’s meandering commentary. Even
Meunier cracked a smile before reigning him in by transitioning
out of the Q&A portion of the meeting.
Councilman
Melo, however, had had enough.
According
to sources who attended the meeting, he said that the audience was
being "rude and brash". ( Melo did not return a phone
call seeking comment.)
Next,
the audience hashed out Fort Bragg’s “community values,”
as envisioned in the City’s General Plan—something of
an irony, one man pointed out, considering that most of the attendees
live outside the City. They added values to the list and—in
the celebrated green-dots-on-graph-paper ritual—voted on those
that they hold most dear. “I don’t want to offend anyone,”
said Jack Beer, “but is there any room on there for common
sense?”
There
was not.
Value
Number 23, “Preserve rural character,” a sort of mantra
for those opposed to the White Ranch Development, was added by the
audience and became the top vote getter of the evening.
City
Staff lead the crowd as they broke off into nine-person groups to
discuss the values once more. With questions like, “How can
the proposal be changed to reflect Value Number 20, ‘Preserves
land for agriculture,’” the staff gauged whether the
crowd was amenable to compromise.
As
it turns out, the group decided that there’s no way to create
a 288-house subdivision that preserves agricultural land, is “compatible
with its surroundings” (unless it’s surroundings are
tract homes) or maintains “darkness and quiet.”
At
each table, markers and graph paper were used to record the group’s
views on how to meet the City’s values—and at every
table it was the same: 5-acre minimums, rural residential zoning.
Reynen's
project designer, Sandy Vance, of the engineering firm, Wood Rodgers,
said that he has never seen a high-density project—like the
White Ranch development proposal—be scaled back to a low-density
plan, like the one envisioned by community members.
In
a telephone interview, John Reynen said that he’s only developed
one property with 5-acre lots. That land, which is in Reno, is about
seven times the size of the White Property—at 500 acres—and
contains about 250 acres of open space. He said that if the White
Ranch Property is not annexed to the City, he will not develop the
property at all—or, at least, it would be "a whole different
project."
If
last Tuesday’s meeting is any indication, that’s exactly
what much of the community is hoping will happen.
I'm a staff writer for the Stamford Advocate, a daily newspaper
in Southwestern Connecticut. I cover the environment and land-use
issues — everything from mismanaged landfills to big developers,
bad landlords, dying wetlands and the always troubled Long Island
Sound. 
