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Planning group seats new members and gets right down to business
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — New faces joined the table,
and discussions, at the Alpine Planning Group meeting held last
Thursday, Jan. 25; as new members were sworn in to serve.
Re-elected members Brad Bailey, Jim Easterling and Jane Fitz
were joined by new faces George Barnett, Linda Richards, Lou
Russo and Chuck Taylor.
The new members were quick to get involved with
somewhat heated discussions about parks, the Alpine high school
and group committees. Taylor took the reins as acting secretary
for the night, later being assigned the position for the year.
Taylor will also be serving as the chairman of the APG Private
Actions Subcommittee. Richards stepped up to chair groups trails
subcommittee.
With some rather controversial agenda items, the group
started the year with ferver; discussing the new sheriff
station, Alpine parks, high school sites and board officers.
(See next week’s edition of The Alpine Sun for our story on
Alpine parkland).
The APG and members of the community heard from San
Diego Sheriff Department Project Manager Jody Mays, Santee
Sheriff Greg Reynolds and local Sheriff’s Tony Salazar about the
latest news regarding a new Alpine station.
In December the sheriff’s department heard about a
local commercial building that was on the market, the current
Michael James building on Alpine Boulevard across the street
from Fred’s Burgers and the Alpine Ranch Market.
“We figured out that this building really met a lot of
our requirements for a new station,” Mays said. “A building
that, with some renovation, we could use as a station quite
easily and it has adequate space for growth. So with that we
decided to make an offer.”
According to Mays, the department has entered into a
purchasing agreement for the building. A date of Feb. 27 has
been set for a board of supervisors hearing to approve the
purchase of the building. Purchase and renovation of the
building is expected to cost about $3.95 million, said Mays. The
funding source for this project will be the General Fund,
Proposition 172 funds, and Indian gaming grant funds.
The 14,200-square-foot building would replace the
current cramped quarters of the Alpine sub-station in the Alpine
Creek shopping center off Tavern Road.
According to Salazar there is enough parking at the
site to accommodate the current staffing, and there is ample
space behind the lot to expand when more parking is needed.
“Just to give you a bit of perspective, the current
station, over at the shopping center, measures just shy of 5,000
square feet,” Mayes said.
“We’re actually, finally going to have a fully
functional sheriff’s station here in Alpine,” Salazar said. “The
Alpine station would become the hub of operations for the entire
East County and Back Country area, and our station would very
likely be the emergency staging area for the whole East County
in times of fire or other disasters.”
The current station serves as the base for 24 sworn
deputies and two office employees. The new station would be
manned by up to 51 employees within 10 years, Salazar said.
The Alpine Boulevard office building currently houses
Michael James Insurance, the Alpine Chamber of Commerce and
Primary Residential Mortgage.
APG officers
As always, in the first meeting of the New Year the APG
names officers to serve for through December.
Jim Mowry was renamed as group chairman, beating out
second nominee Barnett by a vote of 10-4. Mark Price was
unanimously named vice chairman of the group.
In addition to those named above, Chris Ramey will
remain as chairman of the Public Facilities, Services and Major
Public Policy Subcommittee; Brad Bailey will remain chairman of
the Parks Subcommittee, also gathering more voted than Barnett
(10-4); Pat Cannon will serve as Circulation Subcommittee
chairwoman; Price will remain Communication Subcommittee
chairman and Jim Easterling will head the Alpine Design Review
Board and the Alpine Safety ADHOC Committee.
When it came time to adjust subcommittee memberships
more heated discussion arose. Bailey moved, as chairman of the
subcommittee, to remove current members Barnett and Terri King
from parks due to conflict of interest.
“I’ve got two people from the Back Country Land Trust
on there now, and I think that’s representative,” Bailey said. “
Barnett argued that there was no basis for removing
wither himself or King from the group.
Price checked the group’s standing rules, which state that the
only way to get off a subcommittee is for a person to resign, to
miss two or more meetings unexcused, or to have a conflict of
interest issue, as lined out in the county’s I-1 policy.
“The discussion should be over. We don’t resign and
there is no basis to remove us,” Barnett said.
Bailey argued that it was not over because of a
conflict of interest that he perceives.
“You’re on the Back Country Land Trust, and yet you
don’t recuse yourself from votes that deal directly with
Wright’s Field,” Bailey said.
According to Barnett, he checked with the county about
possible conflict of interest issues regarding his BCLT
involvement prior to running for the APG position. In an e-mail
letter sent on Jan. 23 from DPLU Planning Commission Secretary
Cheryl Jones, she said that, “I’ve found no reason for you not
being allowed you to serve your group’s Parks Subcommittee while
serving as a member of the Land Trust.”
The matter was dropped, for this meeting. At the Feb.
22 planning group meeting, members will be voting to accept the
APG standing rules, which could possibly change certain aspects
of the group’s rules.
 E-mail
Christy Scott
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