Editor’s note: This is the first editorial for the occasional inSierraMadre.com column “A Considered View.” Sierra Madre resident and retired journalist Jackie Knowles, who also proposed the column’s title, submitted this article to launch the new feature. Submissions are open for the column — pieces should be thoughtful and “considered,” as suggested by the column’s title. Please e-mail editorials about topics of interest to Sierra Madreans to: inSierra@inSierraMadre.com.
By Jackie Knowles
In introducing the initiative, referendum and recall processes 95 years ago, California Gov. Hiram Johnson said successful and permanent government must rest with sovereignty of the people. Who could argue with that?
Johnson thought the Southern Pacific Railroad – the “political master of the state” – would dispute that. Giving people a direct say through the ballot box was his answer to taking back the state from the “apostle of big business” bent on exploiting government for private gain.
In Sierra Madre, the initiative proposed by a political action committee (PAC) with “Take Back Sierra Madre” lawn signs across town would derail the Downtown Specific Plan (DSP) – a work in progress scheduled for completion in November 2007.
Fear that the DSP allows over-development is the perceived problem the PAC initiative will address in a March 2007 election. The promise is to uphold the town’s 1996 general plan. To those ends, the PAC proposal would require a vote of the people on all proposed developments that exceed two floors, 30 feet in height and a density of 13 units per acre.
In reality, the PAC initiative, dubbed 2-30-13, would inhibit and restrict the general plan. As it currently stands, the general plan not only allows exceptions to height limits and density, it also recommends rewriting zoning laws and formulating a precise plan, such as a DSP, to encourage “imaginative and sophisticated” development. The general plan specifically advises expanding the density to accommodate affordable housing.
The DSP is an effort to comply with all this.
A guide to development, the DSP is a model of good government because it includes education of residents and their input in the initial draft. Through a series of public hearings and meetings, it allows further community participation in the DSP as it is refined.
The PAC initiative to derail that process seems to fly in the face of good government. The existence of the initiative itself would suggest that our city government, if not corrupt, cannot be trusted.
Yet the DSP process of the city council and planning commission is out in the open, and everyone knows who the public players are. That is not true of the PAC, which does not name any of its leaders either on its website or in its initiative brochure.
To protect our town from irresponsible development is the avowed mission of the PAC, also known as Sierra Madre Residents for Responsible Development. No one would argue with that.
Given everyone in town would agree on the goal, instead of trying to derail the DSP, doesn’t it makes more sense for all city council members and all grass-roots folk to pour their enormous talent and energies into ensuring that the DSP protects our town from irresponsible development?
Any flaws detected in the future can be corrected quickly by the city council after it adopts the DSP. That would not be true for the PAC initiative. By law, any and all proposed changes to an ordinance adopted by the voters through an initiative must be resubmitted for voter approval. That is a long, arduous and expensive process.
Democracy is messy. But why make it messier without any good reason?
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