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Potrero planners set conditions
for Blackwater approval
Decline to set date for own recall
election
By Miriam Raftery
The Alpine Sun
POTRERO — Heated exchanges between
citizens and planners punctuated a two-hour meeting of the
Potrero Planning Group on Thursday, Aug. 9. After taking up two
controversial items on its agenda, the board found itself served
with papers for yet more legal action and faced complaints from
citizens alleging Brown Act and County policy violations.
The official agenda included two items, both stemming
from controversies over Blackwater USA’s proposal to build a
private military and law enforcement training facility on land
adjacent to national forest land in Potrero.
First, the planning group reconsidered its Dec. 14 vote
on the Blackwater project and voted to add several additional
conditions for approval of the project. Second, planners now in
the hot seat for favoring Blackwater found themselves in the
highly unusual position of being forced to call an election for
their own recall.
Planners passed a resolution calling for the recall
election, after receiving notification from the Registrar of
Voters that enough signatures have been certified on recall
petitions to mandate an election. The planning group refused to
set a date for the election, however, despite protests from
citizens in the audience. By law, the Registrar of Voters must
now set the date later this month.
“That will put the election probably in the first part
of December,” said recall organizer Carl Meyer, who is also a
candidate running to replace Chairman Gordon Hammers. “I don’t
know why I get upset when this Board does not follow procedure.
I should be used to it by now. Or, maybe they knew exactly what
they needed to do, and that was to forestall this recall
process.”
In December, the planning group voted unanimously to
recommend approval of the Blackwater project, with only one
condition: A noise test. That condition has not yet been met,
nor has any confirmation been provided to the community in
writing that a test will occur. (Newly elected member Jan Hedlun
was not present at that meeting, but opposes the Blackwater
project.)
At the Aug. 9 meeting, planners voted to attach
additional conditions to amend its original forms sent to
county. The new conditions include:
A traffic management program to restrict Blackwater traffic to
“little more than historical norms,”
wind studies to assure that Blackwater operations will not
impact environmentally sensitive communities,
an economic impact model showing potential benefits to the
community, preference,
preference to Potrero residents for jobs hiring,
a promise that no helicopter or mercenary training will be
allowed at the site and that customer service and management
flights will be limited,
selection of a Blackwater community liaison to resolve issues,
copies of all environment studies will be shared with the
Potrero Planning Group as studies are developed to allow sharing
of findings early in the process.
A resolution to adopt those conditions was passed by
planners; only Hedlun voted against its adoption.
“The conditions will be difficult to meet and seem more
like placatory gestures to community members,” Hedlun said in an
e-mail to this reporter. “A lot of those `conditions’ were
supposed to have been made based on community input but nothing
was done to reflect the community, nor changes made. All the
community wanted was a “No” answer to send to the DPLU
[Department of Planning & Land Use].”
She criticized the board for presented a form that she
believed was “skewed to show that the community was in favor of
the facility, when it is the exact opposite.”
Several residents objected to the resolution’s wording,
which stated that the December meeting was “well attended” and
that those in attendance showed “overwhelming support” for the
project. (20 people attended the meeting, but some members of
the community present on Aug. 9 stated that they did not receive
prior notice of the December meeting.)
At Hedlun’s insistence, Hammers read aloud a letter
submitted by the Serrano family, owners of Boulder Oaks Ranch.
The Serranos’ letter stated that they have conducted two and a
half months of wind tests. Those tests found that the wind
frequently blows from the north and west; the Serranos expressed
fears that diesel, gasoline and firearm chemical fumes would be
blown onto their land.
“My daughter and I are extremely disabled from
pesticide and aluminum poisonings in Los Angeles 25 years ago,”
the letter continued, adding that the two have become
sensitively sensitive as a result. The Serranos’ physician has
warned that any increased chemical from exposure would “endanger
our lives,” the letter concluded.
Hedlun expressed dismay that the resolution passed.
“The entire resolution should have been set to the side and
voted on by the new board after the recall election,” she said.
Three seats on the Potrero Planning Group have been
declared vacant after research by citizens’ revealed that
appointees named to fill vacancies were never appointed by the
County Board of Supervisors.
At the meeting, Hammers addressed the oversight.
“There’s been a lot of finger pointing at this board for having
members not certified,” he acknowledged. Hammers insisted that
all information was turned into the DPLU and to Supervisor
Dianne Jacob’s office.
Planning group member Thell Fowler said when he visited
county offices recently in an effort to resolve the confusion,
the county still had an outdated planning roster with names
pre-dating last year’s election. “Their whole office was messed
up,” he said. “Communications between DPLU and Jacob’s office,
that’s where the information failed.”
A citizen noted that outdated planning rosters were
printed on the County’s 2020 plan, which Hammers said he hadn’t
had time to read. The citizen retorted, “Should you be chair if
you don’t have the time?”
Hedlun objected to a letter sent by Hammers on July 25
to the Board of Supervisors, requesting that two of the
unconfirmed members (Mike Rubalcava and Eric Berger) be
appointed at a meeting five days later. “It went against the
Brown Act and Policy I-1 as a board member (myself) wasn’t
informed, ergo implying a secret meeting,” she wrote in an
e-mail on Aug. 14, “and the community wasn’t included. The
process was circumvented and it was only the BOS’s (Board of
Supervisors) good sense that prevented him from successfully
going behind the community’s back.”
Meyer confronted Hammers at the meeting, accusing him
of being “underhanded” by violating I-1 rules by not advertising
the appointments one month before a meeting.
“Carl, either shut up or get out,” Hammers responded,
adding that he had a paper trail showing that notice was given
when the members were originally named.
Hedlun argued that the recall proves citizens are not
satisfied with Berger and Rubalcava and that their names should
not have been resubmitted to the Supervisors. She also objected
to not receiving copies of the appointment recommendations.
“They did it without my knowledge at all,” she said, then asked
that the next agenda include a standing rule change to require
that copies of all correspondence with the county be provided to
all board members.
Hammers revealed that he has requested a roundtable
with County Counsel regarding the recall, but that counsel has
not agreed to participate.
“We need to investigate this situation with board
members who have not been confirmed by Supervisor Jacob and yet
have been serving as if they are confirmed,” stated an Internet
discussion group posting by Citizens Oversight chair Ray Lutz.
“This ploy of stating that they weren’t confirmed may be a way
to get their names back on the ballot. Members who were recalled
cannot run again if the recall is successful. Those members who
weren’t recalled CAN run again,” he noted. “How convenient.”
A Sept. 24 hearing has been set for a lawsuit filed by
Zoe Rosell, Hammers revealed. That suit alleges Brown Act
violations and asks the court to set aside the Dec. 14 vote.
Hammers stated that he believed the judge would set aside the
lawsuit.
As a grand finale to the evening’s fireworks, Rosell
served Hammers and the Planning Group with notice of additional
legal action. As of press deadline, Rosell was not available for
comment and legal documents could not be obtained for details.
E-mail
Christy Scott
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