City Hall Fires a Cannon - Another Dud!
Moderator
City Hall Fires a Cannon – Another Dud!
Roy L. Byrnes, M.D., former Mayor, San Juan Capistrano
August 15, 2009
Plainly alarmed by the growing public disapproval of his efforts to promote the CLC Development Company's high-density senior housing project at Rancho Capistrano as an "Open Space" project, San Juan Capistrano Mayor Mark Nielsen wrote an extended defense in a local newspaper on August 14.
The Mayor called it, Straight Talk: Open Space Truth Versus Spin. You decide who was spinning:
The Mayor wrote, "The CLC project must go through the normal public review and approval process."
This is fundamentally misleading. Sure, the CLC development project will be reviewed by the Staff, Planning Commission, Park Commission and others BUT, since the Council has already officially approved the main structure of the Plan, the commissions and public will be able to make only minor cosmetic alterations because the "Option" Agreement is actually a co-development commitment.
The Mayor does not give us the direct honest facts concerning double-tracking of the railroad in our town. The truth is that the CLC project makes it necessary to double-track the railroad. Here’s why: The Agreement requires the City to provide a public roadway permit for the road on the CLC land. Metrolink and OCTA who control this matter will not grant this permit unless the City agrees to double-track the railway through the city. That is the price and the city is stuck.
Instead of telling us the truth — warts and all, the Mayor said, "If the city decides in public hearings to make any concessions to outside agencies regarding a public crossing for the railroad, that could be taken into consideration for tradeoffs with the developer as part of the project."
I’m disappointed to get this doublespeak from our Mayor. The fantasy tradeoffs he describes are already blocked by the Agreement! I want direct, honest answers and the Mayor is not giving them to us. Everybody will suffer if this CLC development goes forward.
The Mayor went on to say, "The city has the option to not pay a single dollar and leave the 114 acres in the hands of CLC even if it were to approve the project." More doublespeak. The Agreement does not say that at all. When you read the actual document (7 MB pdf), you’ll appreciate that it’s a devilishly complicated patchwork of legalese and the Mayor is pulling a little wool over your eyes when he says, "It does not in any way tie the city’s hands, the Council is free to decide in public and after public hearings whether it will approve the project."
That is a wild exaggeration — more an expression of a hope than a fact. The public is being mislead — for shame!
Finally, Mayor Nielsen concluded, "I take personal offense at the attacks on the integrity of the process and the people involved in the process."
Hold it, Mr. Mayor! The uproar is over the project itself and the Council’s excessive, unnecessary secrecy. Nobody has attacked the people who have constructed this monstrous debacle; many are my admired friends and I respect their hard work in passing the bond issue last November. So cut it out!
Also, what are the "unnecessary tactics that rely on innuendo and accusations of bad faith which are personally very upsetting"? You have absolutely no justification for this cynical mock posturing.
Just what is an "attack on the integrity of the process"? If the Mayor means that excessive, unneeded secrecy has been utilized in order to subvert public access, and that the Brown Act has been shredded, and State conflict-of-interest disclosure laws have been ignored, then I would agree that an attack on the integrity of the process has indeed occurred but it has been the Mayor’s attack.
Straight Talk: Open Space Truth Versus Spin reminds me of what old Chicago politician used to say (the Mayor is from Chicago; this may have been one of his mentors):
If you have The Law on your side, pound the Law. If you have Truth on your side, pound Truth. If you have neither the law nor truth, pound the table!
So, I say, "Please, Mr. Mayor, stop pounding the table!"
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