REDWOOD NEEDLES
REDWOOD NEEDLESPresented by the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter, The REDWOOD NEEDLES
Return to Article Menu
The Sonoma Group of the Sierra Club is delighted to report that in response to 26,500 signatures of Sonoma County voters, the Board of Supervisors put the Rural Heritage Initiative (RHI) on the ballot for the November 7 election. This action followed a staff report evaluating the impacts of RHI, and a legal critique of the report by the attorneys who drafted the Initiative. Although Supervisor Reilly has supported RHI from the outset and continues to do so, the four other Supervisors were compelled to place RHI on the ballot despite their opposition.
RHI was crafted by Citizens for Sonoma County's Future, a coalition of individuals and organizations, including the Sierra Club, Sonoma County Conservation Action, Friends of the Russian River, and Greenbelt Alliance.
The stated purpose of RHI is to protect the County's rural heritage, including its agricultural, open space, scenic, and biotic resources. Proponents of RHI find that the existing Sonoma County agricultural operations that would be protected by RHI contribute nearly $3 billion annually to the County's economy. Proponents also believe that these agricultural lands, as well as the County's open space more generally, are jeopardized by sprawling and leapfrog development.
Despite initial apprehension on the part of some members of the agricultural community, the staff report concluded that, "The Initiative is not likely to affect agricultural crop production or construction of new agricultural production or processing facilities." Voters can feel secure that by supporting RHI, they are protecting farm land from sprawling development in the same way that Measure J has been protecting Napa for ten years.
Impact evaluations can be written in a number of ways. One is to decide beforehand what conclusions will be reached and explore only those seemingly negative aspects that support the foregone conclusions; another is to assess all impacts, then arrive at a logical, fair conclusion based on the preponderance of evidence. The report ordered by the Supervisors ignored the merits of RHI. Despite its negative approach, most of the speculative impacts of RHI raised by Supervisors were not supported by the staff report. This approach seriously calls into question the fairness and objectivity of the report, (a matter of legal significance).
The report's lack of objectivity manifested itself clearly through a contrived and internally inconsistent interpretation of RHI. It raised a host of purely speculative concerns regarding the measure's alleged imposition of a voter approval requirement for nearly all regional parks and recreational trails. The Report's Executive Summary acknowledged that voter approval would not be required for parks and trails that are primarily dedicated to non-intrusive recreational uses. The report elsewhere asserted that voter approval would be required even for proposed trails, if those trails are part of a park that has ancillary facilities such as parking or bathrooms. This latter assertion cannot be reconciled with the statements in the Executive Summary, with the language of RHI, or with previous applications of the General Plan. This assertion is absurd and ironic because the Supervisors are the final interpreters of the General Plan and RHI's application, and it says more about the antipathy of the Supervisors towards the Initiative than it says about the Initiative itself.
Another example of a nonsensical problem pertains to CEQA. One of the Supervisors charged that as a result of RHI, changes to the General Plan that are enacted through voter initiative will not go through the CEQA review process. But this is true now without RHI. It's a matter of State law, and RHI can't change it one way or the other.
Farmworker housing is another example. The plain language of RHI establishes that its voter approval requirement could not possibly be triggered for farmworker housing, for two reasons: (1) construction of farmworker housing does not require a General Plan amendment; and (2) by definition, the farmworker housing that is permitted under the existing General Plan would not increase the density permitted under the General Plan.
Readers should expect to see more of this strategy of obfuscation as the campaign heats up between now and November. Don't be fooled! Despite the best efforts of four out of five Supervisors, the negative effects they sought in RHI remain unfounded, as disclosed by their own report:
Agricultural practices will not be adversely affected
Parks that have "primarily non-intrusive recreational or educational uses such as hiking and nature study"* will not be subject to voter approval.
RHI has no effect on State requirements for CEQA review
Farmworker housing is not affected
*Quoted from the Rural Heritage Initiative
RHI will prevent sprawl. Isn't that what we all want?
What you can do:
Specific needs between now and November include: staffing tables at ongoing festivals, writing letters to editors, running errands, putting up lawn signs, and hosting house parties. The campaign will sponsor a number of tutorials about RHI to raise the level of public understanding about the measure. For more information, visit www.ruralheritage.net . And while you're there, please be sure to follow the "What you can do to help" link. Or call the RHI office at 523-4744. We need your financial contribution, we need your energy, we need you to help save Sonoma County from sprawl.
Return to Article Menu