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News and ViewsThe Press Democrat Letters to the EditorJuly 15, 2010
EDITOR: I have noticed that there is a recurrent theme of “slow growth” vs. “business-friendly” in The Press Democrat's coverage of local politics. I believe this political framing is false and misleading and is a biased presentation of the actual choice voters will make in Sonoma County's 2010 elections. The term “slow growth” went out of fashion years ago and political progressives now identify with, and promote “smart growth.” Smart growth involves careful land-use planning to preserve open space, in-fill development, urban growth boundaries and transit-oriented development and to support affordable housing, living wage ordinances and community impact reports. Smart growth is a fully formed policy orientation that has reams of academic studies to back it up and is not a fancy word for NIMBY. So, this generational and evolutionary change in public policy theory should not be reduced to a pejorative term such as “slow growth,” while the opposition is described affirmatively as “business-friendly.” Please try this on for size: “Smart growth” vs. “business friendly.” Fair and balanced. BILL PRANGE ______________________________________________________ The Press Democrat
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Gravel source - A decision last week in Sonoma County Superior Court overturned a 2008 Board of Supervisors decision to extend the deadline for terrace gravel mining in the Russian River. Pictured above are Syar’s gravel pits along the Russian River between Healdsburg and Windsor. - PHOTO BY Dennis Hill |
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Down the Wal-Mart Low Road: What Are the Costs of a Supercenter?
by Martin J. Bennett, SCCA Board Member
Wal-Mart recently announced plans to convert its existing discount store in Rohnert Park to Sonoma County's first 'supercenter.' Many cash-strapped cities are tempted to hastily approve retail projects that can generate substantial sales tax revenue given the current economic downturn. However, we should pause to consider, not only the benefits, but also the costs of the proposed supercenter for Rohnert Park.
A supercenter is a 200,000 square foot store that sells both general merchandise and groceries. Since 1988, Wal-Mart has opened 2300 supercenters nationwide. Wal-Mart announced in 2002 that it would build more than forty of these megastores in California. By 2008 only thirty-one were built, with organized grassroots opposition and environmental lawsuits blocking the others.
Wal-Mart is now the nation's largest grocer and pharmacy, with sales exceeding the combined total of major competitors, including Target, Safeway, Albertsons, Kohl's, and Kroger. How did Sam Walton develop a rural, southern discount store into the planet's largest retailer and the nation's largest employer?
According to UC Santa Barbara historian Nelson Lichtenstein in his new book, "The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created A Brave New World of Business," the main reason for Wal-Mart's phenomenal success is containment of labor costs by a relentless downward pressure on wages and benefits, and a near-perfect record thwarting unionization.
Most Wal-Mart workers are the 'working poor' in America. According to the company's own reports, the average wage for a full-time Wal-Mart worker in 2007 was $10.51 an hour. The average wage of a Wal-Mart employee is 26 percent less than other large merchandise stores, and
18 percent less than large grocery stores, according to the New York University Brennan Center.
Kaiser Family Foundation reports that less than 50 percent of Wal-Mart employees receive health care benefits. Full-time workers must wait six months to receive medical benefits, and part-time workers wait two years. Half the workforce turns over annually. As a result, part-time employees, who are more than one-third of the workforce, rarely receive benefits. For others, high deductibles, copays, and coverage limitations make the company-provided health plan unaffordable.
Wal-Mart ensures that wages and benefits remain low by a systematic, company-wide, policy to suppress unions. A report by Human Rights Watch about Wal-Mart concluded, "while many American companies use weak U.S. laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus."
Between 1998-2003 the National Labor Relations Board issued 94 complaints and found that Wal-Mart illegally fired workers for union activity, forced workers to attend anti-union meetings and video screenings, spied on workers who supported unionization, and claimed workers would lose pay raises and benefits or the store would shut down if the employees voted for a union.
Not one Wal-Mart store is unionized in the U.S. When Quebec workers voted for representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers in 2005, the company closed the store.
What are the costs when a Wal-Mart supercenter opens in a community?
First, good middle-class jobs are replaced by poverty-wage jobs.
Grocery prices at Wal-Mart are 15 percent lower than those of competing firms, and half of these major grocery chains, like Safeway, Raley's, and Albertsons, are unionized. The 'union premium'
for combined pay and benefits is 30 percent more than nonunion. In Southern Nevada, Wal-Mart opened sixteen supercenters and by 2002, 1400 union jobs were lost when Raley's closed eighteen stores.
According to Nelson Lichtenstein, 13,000 traditional supermarkets were closed and twenty-five regional chains forced into bankruptcy from 1992-2003 due to Wal-Mart.
Second, the taxpayers end up providing public assistance for Wal-Mart workers. A 2004 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, "The Hidden Costs of Wal-Mart," concludes that uninsured Wal-Mart employees in California rely on programs like Medi-Cal and Healthy Families at a cost of $32 million a year to the taxpayer. The report also demonstrates that Wal-Mart workers earning poverty-wages rely on federal and state programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, Food Stamps, Section 8 subsidized housing, and child care assistance to make ends meet at a cost of $54 million per year.
Third, local merchants are hurt when Wal-Mart enters a community. In 1995, economist Kenneth Stone found that, a decade after the opening of a Wal-Mart in rural Iowa communities, 60 percent of the retail sales captured by Wal-Mart came from existing retailers and hundreds of grocery, apparel, hardware, and drug stores closed. University of Missouri economist Emek Basker examined county-level employment impacts of Wal-Mart from 1977-1998. She demonstrated that, for every one hundred new jobs created by Wal-Mart, fifty retail jobs and twenty wholesale jobs were lost over the next five years.
This is an appropriate moment for an informed public dialogue about the megastore proposed for Rohnert Park. For instance, cities across California have implemented a 'Community Impact Report' (CIR) for large commercial development projects. In 2008, Petaluma was the first city in the North Bay to approve a CIR.
A CIR, prepared by a city-designated consultant early in the development process, is much shorter than an Environmental Impact Report. The CIR analyzes the economic and fiscal impacts of a proposed project and provides a comprehensive assessment of the costs and benefits. Also, California municipalities are capping the size of supercenters. Most recently, Santa Clara and Salinas have prohibited any supercenters of more than 90,000 square feet. Residents of Rohnert Park and Sonoma County should consider the relevance of these policy tools to encourage smart, equitable, and sustainable growth.
Martin J. Bennett teaches American history at Santa Rosa Junior College, serves on the board of Sonoma County Conservation Action, and is Co-Chair of the Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County. For more information go to: www.livingwagesonoma.org.
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Judge blocks resumption of gravel mining along Russian River
by BLEYS W. ROSE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
November 16, 2009
An attempt by Syar Industries to temporarily resume gravel mining along Russian River terraces has been blocked by a Sonoma County Superior Court judge’s ruling that county supervisors exceeded their authority in granting a permit extension to the quarry company.
In a 12-page opinion, Judge Robert Boyd sided with river preservation activists and Healdsburg groups, which had filed a legal challenge to Syar’s gravel mining permit extension. Boyd said the county failed to conduct environmental reviews to support extending terrace mining permits, allowed under the Aggregate Resources Management plan, beyond their original expiration date in early 2006.
“All mining was ... to cease on April 15, 2006. This is not in dispute. The project’s very essence is that it allows mining beyond this date,” Boyd wrote.
Syar’s permit extension was a highly controversial policy decision when it was approved in September 2008 on a 3-2 vote.
Officials with the Napa-based company argued that administrative delays and equipment malfunctions had prevented it from extracting its previously permitted amount of gravel. As a result, they contend an extension did not constitute a violation of the long-term mining plan.
Supervisors Paul Kelley, Mike Kerns and Tim Smith sided with Syar. Supervisors Mike Reilly and Valerie Brown opposed the extension, arguing that all permits under the 10-year plan had expired and that rock from local quarries or importation by barge was available as alternatives. Smith and Reilly did not seek re-election and have been replaced by Shirlee Zane and Efren Carrillo.
Syar officials said Monday that it was too early to determine whether they will appeal the judge’s decision. Because of high river levels during winter months, terrace mining traditionally occurs from May into October.
“We are looking at the decision and we are evaluating what our options are going forward,” said Syar attorney David Spielberg.
Leaders of several groups that challenged the Syar permit extension said excavation of gravel pits, some 90 feet deep, have depleted storage capacity of the river’s aquifer, adversely affecting agriculture and well water supply. The permit appeal was filed by groups that included Russian Riverkeeper, Westside Association to Save Agriculture and North Coast Rivers Alliance.
“We hope that, with this ruling, the county will finally take seriously the environmental community’s resolve to end this extremely damaging and completely unnecessary method of supplying the county with gravel,” said Stephan Volker, attorney for the groups.
Syar’s request for a permit extension reignited a decade-old dispute over Russian River terrace mining. Ever since the mid-1990s, environmentalists and river-area residents have battled with gravel companies and construction operations over whether pit mining damages water quality, aquifer levels and fish habitat.
In 1996, the Board of Supervisors enacted an Aggregate Resources Management Plan, which remains in effect, although permits expired in 2006. A major goal of the plan was a shift toward quarry mining and barge importation of rock, both of which have generated opposition.
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Letters to the Editor
The Press Democrat
The Dutra asphalt plant siting at Haystack Landing challenges two voter-controlled land use ordinances.
Unique in California, Sonoma County voters have taken certain land use powers away from their elected representatives at the city, county and state legislative level by passing the Coastal Act, and with voter control over urban growth boundaries, community separators and our scenic corridor below Petaluma.
Why? Because electeds are subject to the same lobbying pressure and financing of campaigns currently being used by Dutra to influence the Board of Supervisors.
Previous boards promised voters that they would not change the county land use in a city’s urban growth boundary. That promise, if broken by a Dutra approval, is as disrespectful as the breaking of a 10-year promise to stop gravel mining of the Russian River.
Board of Supervisors’ approval of Dutra would circumvent a 76 percent countywide vote establishing a scenic corridor below Petaluma to the Marin County line. Siting an asphalt plant in our scenic corridor will require a vote of the people.
The Board of Supervisors, in voting for Dutra, would trample on an exceptional electorate who many times have expressed their landscape and environmental values at the ballot box.
BILL KORTUM
SCCA Board President Emeritus
Petaluma
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6/5/09
Press Democrat
Letters to the Editor
The Wrong Site
Dutra wants to build an asphalt plant next to the best park in Petaluma in spite of the noise and toxic fumes it will produce. The four asphalt plants that already support Sonoma County operate at minimal capacity and can handle all projected needs in our county.
Dutra is trying to buy a gravel pit on Roblar Road, reportedly so they can truck the gravel to their Petaluma asphalt plant. There goes the big, green, river-transport concept.
Dutra and the county have both shown a lack of responsibility toward the public and local wildlife by sighting this plant next to Schollenberger Park. We, as a society, have learned much about toxic industries in the last 30 years.
Today, no one in their right mind would place an asphalt plant next to a large city park. I challenge anyone to show us a new asphalt plant next to a major city park anywhere in America. Such a crazy, irresponsible plan is unconscionable.
We have no issue with making asphalt, but Dutra needs to move its plant to a safer, out-of-town location, such as the Mecham Road landfill, where it will do much less damage to people and to wildlife.
GERALD MOORE
Petaluma Wetlands Alliance
SCCA Member
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State board finds fault with Saggio Hills geology study
By CLARK MASON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Monday, May 25, 2009
A state regulatory board issued a scathing report and ordered a geologist to pay a fine for his work on Saggio Hills, the controversial luxury resort and housing development proposal north of Healdsburg.
The Board of Geologists and Geophysicists cited William McCormick of Windsor for what it described as "professional negligence, incompetence and or/misrepresentation" in certifying a report on the Saggio Hills site.
McCormick disputed the board's conclusions and said he intends to appeal the ruling.
"In 23 years, I've never had a single complaint against me, or one of my projects," said McCormick, 48, who does peer geologic reviews for the counties of Sonoma and Mendocino, as well as the City of Santa Rosa.
The state board's citation and $2,500 fine issued April 29 said his report on Saggio Hills contained incomplete and inaccurate geologic cross sections, and among other things failed to accurately identify seismic fault hazards, and past and future landslides.
But McCormick said the state board misunderstood the purpose of his preliminary feasibility study, which was for planning purposes, not site-specific analyses.
Healdsburg officials downplayed the significance of the state board's action, saying the city drew on a number of other geologic studies prior to approving Saggio Hills, not just the work McCormick did for the developers.
And City Manager Marjie Pettus said before any construction occurs, there is a requirement for much more detailed geologic studies.
"It will be looked at comprehensively each time there is going to be a parcel designated for construction, whether a house or resort," she said.
Pettus predicted Saggio Hills will be built despite the current housing slump and a lawsuit filed against it.
The project - 130-room resort, 70 high-end homes and some affordable housing on 254 acres - was approved last October by the City Council after a marathon series of public meetings. But work has been stalled by the lawsuit challenging the environmental studies. A hearing is scheduled for a July 17 in Sonoma County Superior Court.
The lawsuit filed by Healdsburg Citizens for Sustainable Solutions focuses on other environmental issues, however, such as allegations the city failed to adequately analyze the impact on water supply and greenhouse gas emissions.
The challenge to the geologic studies was spurred by Jim Winston, a Healdsburg area resident and retired home builder who opposes Saggio Hills.
"I think it's out of scale for Healdsburg," said Winston, who claims the city was overly eager to approve Saggio Hills because of the millions of dollars in bed taxes that it could generate.
Developers also agreed to provide 36 acres for a community park, build a new fire substation and donate and grade 14 acres for an affordable housing site.
Winston hired his own geologist who was critical of the work done by McCormick on the Saggio site. More recently he took his complaint to the state board, which agreed McCormick's geologic and geotechnical investigation on Saggio Hills was flawed.
Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for state Department of Consumer affairs, said the board for geologists and geophysicists regulates more than 7,700 licensees. In the past fiscal year, he said 11 citations with fines were issued.
D. Scott Magorien, the principal engineering geologist for the state board, concluded "there are a number of inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the report certified by Mr. McCormick that constitute negligence and or incompetence, specifically as it relates to presentation of basic geologic data, geologic interpretations, public safety and geologic hazards associated with slope stability and active faulting, and exposure to naturally occurring asbestos materials."
He also said the geologists who were part of Healdsburg's peer review of McCormick's work should have disqualified themselves, because they both had performed geologic and geotechnical work associated with affordable housing for the Saggio Hill site in 2003.
Winston contends that the state board's findings put the city at risk. "They are basically on the hook if things start happening there," he said. "The science wasn't right."
But Healdsburg Planning Director Rick Tooker said McCormick's report was one of a half-dozen geologic reports that were evaluated for Saggio Hills. City officials said that before building permits are issued there will be foundation, lateral support and slope stability analyses, along with grading, retaining wall, drainage and erosion control requirements.
"The city is very thoughtful and very complete in its approach to dealing with geotechnical issues," Tooker said.--
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Controversial Preservation Ranch proposal braces for public review
by Frank Robertson
Sonoma West Staff Writer, April 22, 200, Sonoma West Times and News
PRESERVATION OR EXPLOITATION? - A map of the area that will be potentially affected by the Preservation Ranch. The 20,000 acre project will include more than 1,600 acres of vineyards, as well as a 2,702-acre wildlife preserve, 1,635 acres of Riparian Management Areas, 221 acres dedicated for the expansion of Soda Springs Reserve, and a 5-mile public trail easement.
ANNAPOLIS - Public review begins this week on the high-end vineyard and real estate venture called Preservation Ranch that proponents say would restore and protect nearly 20,000 acres of logged-over timberland between Healdsburg and the Sonoma Coast.
"Scoping sessions" to get public input on the project's potential pros and cons start next Wednesday (April 29) in Santa Rosa at the Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department and again on May 2 at Horicon Elementary School in the little hamlet of Annapolis which is near the site of the proposal.
Three pre-scoping sessions also take place at Horicon School this Saturday, April 25, at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
"We want people to pay attention. We want the community to really take a good look at this," said Eric Koenigshofer, a consultant for Premier Pacific Vineyards, Inc., the vineyard development company that five years ago acquired the Preservation Ranch property and is proposing an ambitious long-term plan to restore the watershed as well as build homes, develop vineyards and dedicate hundreds of acres for wildlife preservation and public parks.
The project's most controversial aspect is the conversion of more than 1,600 acres of designated forestland to vineyards, a plan that enrages environmental groups such as the Sierra Club which has called the proposal "worse than a clearcut."
Preservation proponents counter that for every acre of timber converted to grapes, two acres must be dedicated and restored to permanent timber production under the terms of a two-year-old county timber conversion ordinance.
In addition, Premier Pacific is promising to plant a million conifers on the property, repair old logging roads to reduce sediment runoff into streams and dedicate wide protected streamside riparian corridors to help restore the Gualala River watershed's fish and wildlife habitat, said Koenigshofer.
If Premier Pacific's plan succeeds the 19,300-acre property would contain 1,861 acres of vineyards and nearly 15,000 acres of timberland managed in perpetuity as a sustained yield forest.
The controversial vineyards are the key to making the larger forest restoration projects work, say proponents. The vineyards "fund all the rest of the undertaking," said Koenigshofer.
Preservation Ranch needs state and county permits for the project that includes merging 160 recognized legal existing parcels that without the Preservation Ranch project could all be sold and developed separately.
The parcels, created before there was a county General Plan, exceed General Plan recommended densities by 85 parcels, according to an Initial Study completed by the county Permit and Resource Management Department.
"The applicant proposes to merge parcels so that the total number of parcels on the Site is reduced from 160 to 63, a reduction of 97 parcels," according to the initial study that can be accessed online at the county PRMD web site.
Portions of 26 of the existing parcels would be encumbered by a single 2,627-acre easement for a proposed Windy Gap Preserve and five parcels would be merged for a 221-acre dedication for expansion of Soda Springs Reserve, a county regional park.
A total of 17 vineyards are proposed plus 40 reservoirs to store winter rain water for irrigation. No groundwater would be used for vineyard production.
An environmental impact report will determine whether the project can include about 60 proposed new homes on large acreage parcels.
Easements over the site would determine and limit the vineyard locations and provide governance for ongoing timber and grape harvesting surrounding the potential new homes.
Public benefits identified by the applicant for in the initial study include:
* a 14,590-acre Sustainable Timber Management Area that includes preservation and enhancement of 11,355 acres of commercial timberland within Sonoma County,
* approximately 1,878 acres of Large Tree Management Areas and approximately 1,635 acres of Riparian Management Areas.
* a 2,702-acre wildlife preserve (Windy Gap Preserve) on which no commercial timber harvest would be permitted,
* 221 acres dedicated for the expansion of the existing Soda Springs Reserve,
* a 5-mile public trail easement, and
* increased county tax revenues for Sonoma County by producing higher quality varietal wine grapes on the project site.
The required environmental impact report will probably take at least a year to complete a draft, which would then be put out for public comment and hearings.
The April 29 scoping session at PRMD runs from 4 to 6 p.m. The May 2 session at Horicon School goes from 1 to 3 p.m.
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The True Cost of Gravel Mining in the Russian River
Northern California River Watch Activist’s Blog
Published June 7, 2008, at: River Watch Blog
How the public foots the bill, while miners truck out the profits.
[Editor's Note: Syar Industries, Inc. is requesting a permit for continued gravel mining in the Russian River from the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, June 10, at 2:30 pm. The permit was not approved by the Planning Commission in April but this action may be overturned by the Supervisors. Thanks to the Russian Riverkeeper: http://www.russianriverkeeper.org/gravelmining.html for providing information on the background and the true impacts of gravel mining in the river.]
Gravel Mining competes with a healthy sustainable watershed, you can import gravel but you can’t import a healthy fishery or plentiful and clean water supplies for our future!
What are the Impacts? In simple terms the largest impact from gravel mining is erosion. When material is removed from a river system it is replaced from increased erosion upstream and downstream. Gravel mining has lead to or increased impacts that damage public trust resources, but we pay for many of these impacts.
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Gravel mining has caused and continues to contribute to severe channel incision (deepening) that has eroded bridges, property, riparian habitat and led to steep to vertical banks that collapse during high flows.
(THIS PICTURE COURTESY OF HEALDSBURG
MUSEUM AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY)
Geyserville Bridge in 1932 had its support piers deeply embedded in riverbed gravel. Well before its New Years 2006 collapse, gravel mining had largely removed over 20 feet of the riverbed that used to support the bridge leading to a $25 million bill to taxpayers.
Gravel mining is the major cause of induced incision of tributaries as gravel removed from the mainstem is replaced with increased erosion of tributaries causing wildlife, property and structural impacts.
Gravel mining has caused braiding or splitting of the main channel despite the regulations that do not allow gravel mining to upset the rivers form.
Gravel mining has contributed to significant reductions in spawning habitat due to increased turbidity and ensuing embededness of gravels in fine materials that prohibits spawning in many mined sections of the River.
Gravel mining perpetuates a greatly degraded state of the River causing more bank erosion that is followed by bank armoring that increases channelization of the river and causes loss of riparian habitat.
Gravel mining has caused a drop in Middle Reach aquifer levels roughly equivalent to the loss of 450,000 acre feet of water or six and a half times the current SCWA water usage from the river.
These graphics show what has occurred in the Middle Reach of the Russian River between Healdsburg and Forestville, over 25 feet of bed level degradation has lead to a major loss of aquifer storage, it has been calculated to be over a hundred thousand acre feet of water.
Gravel mining continues to threaten our naturally filtered water supplies by reducing the natural bedload transport and perpetuating a greatly incised river channel.
Another major gravel mining impact we will pay for as taxpayers is dealing with the hundreds of acres of Open Pit gravel mines that are unstable, pollutant filled holes in our future water supplies. Open Pit mines exist in the Middle Reach below Healdsburg and in the Ukiah Valley. Fine sediment filled pits release fine sediment back into river when floods frequently connect Open Pits to the river called “capturing”. Open Pit mines are far deeper than the River and water always finds a low point as will the River some tragic day in the future. All Open Pits have no engineered levees and instead are just left over strips of unmined land…waiting to collapse.
Other damage due to gravel mining:
- Permanent loss of prime agricultural lands
- Permanent loss of tens of thousands of acre feet of aquifer waters
- Causing increases of Mercury loading in local fish & bird species
How do we Pay?
Gravel mining companies pass along most of the environmental costs called “externalizing costs” of gravel mining to our community that has paid and will continue to pay for decades after mining has ended. In the last 60 years we have paid for:
- Fixing bridge foundation damage to Highway 101, Cloverdale First Street, Geyserville, Westside Road
- Paying for riparian & fishery restoration work
- Filtration plants to filter out sediment from water supplies
- Property loss from bank erosion and collapse
- Erosion control and stabilization work at the $6 million dollar Riverfront Park complex that was Kaiser Sand & Gravel Open Pit mines
Our children will be burdened with the future costs from past and current gravel mining in the Russian River such as:
- Cleaning up Mercury pollution in former Open Pit mines
- Stabilizing eroding Open Pit mines and preventing them from capturing the river
- Future bridge replacements and retrofits
- Restoration of the Chinook Salmon spawning grounds and other fishery restoration
- Stabilizing eroding stream banks and preventing sediment delivery
Why hasn’t Russian River mining stopped?
All those gravel industry profits make for great political campaign donations to influence local politics. In many other areas of the state and country, if you want to mine gravel from a public resource like a river you pay the state for the privilege of taking away a public trust resource. Not so in the Russian River. Due to a misguided Supreme Court decision (Rehnquist), the Russian River is treated like private property as far as gravel extraction is concerned so miners can take gravel with no compensation to the state or community. This makes for great profits and the desire to protect these profits.
Over the last four election cycles, individuals and companies linked to the gravel mining industry have poured tens of thousands of dollars into Sonoma County Board of Supervisors elections. The results are predictable such as one Supervisor saying, “We are sitting on a gold mine (of gravel) and we should use it”. Of course if this person were working for the community they would have thought - We ARE sitting on a gold mine, a sustainable water supply - and made decisions based on the best long-term use of competing resources.
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CIR will steer us in right direction
April 3, 2008, Petaluma Argus Courier
Guest Commentary
By Paul Francis
There has been much talk centered on community impact reports these days. Some of it has been accurate, but much of it has been misreported. In most part, the opinions regarding the intentions behind the inception and implementation of this new policy/ordinance have been distorted.
One misconception in need of clarification is that the presentation of an idea like the CIR came from a political body or some other form of organized entity outside of Petaluma. In fact, the CIR requirement was part of a larger list of standards drafted by a group of Petaluma residents over a series of weekends and evenings last year to address their concerns regarding large-scale retail development in our city. This document is titled Responsible Retail Development in Petaluma. It can be viewed in complete form at www.ipetitions.com/ petition/keeppetalumaeggcentric.
Later in 2007, after seeing an array of irresponsible decisions being made by four of the seven City Council members, Petaluma residents decided they needed to do more to assure that Petaluma's elected council members heed the community's wishes in making economically prudent dec-isions regarding building more chain-store retail along East Washington Street and McDowell Boulevard.
In an attempt to get the City Council and staff up to speed with many other communities, similar to Petaluma, across the country that have already adopted the CIR as a method of analyzing "chain store" impacts on their local economies, the residents found it necessary to form a coalition.
By bringing together residents from various other community groups, the intent was to address a few basic fundamental concepts of the General Plan and the city doctrine that were being neglected by some of the council members.
The above-referenced Responsible Retail Development in Petaluma document was eventually formatted as a petition and circulated through Petaluma last summer. The document garnered overwhelming support and gathered some 1,700 plus signatures and continues to do so. This document, among other things, includes a CIR requirement for projects over 25,000 square feet.
Nevertheless, given the document's clarity of intent and the overwhelming support by the residents, there still lies an isolated minority that continues to oppose the CIR by fabricating fallacies to knock it. One of the fallacies that I, personally, would like to clarify is that the adoption of a CIR ordinance would somehow stop development here in Petaluma. This is a ridiculously made assumption and maliciously hypes an extreme-case scenario that simply doesn't exist here in Petaluma.
Frankly, it's insulting to put forth an idea that the residents would be so naïve to think that an economic analysis or any other development requirement would halt development in Petaluma forever. After all, why would we take the trouble to request the implementation of these basic guidelines, for development, if we wanted no development?
As the largest investors in Petaluma, we the residents want only the best possible opportunities for our community and its future. A responsible economic plan takes us past the short-term payoff of initial lump-sum development fees and perceived tax revenue and brings us closer to building a sustainable local economy that continues to fund the city for generations to come.
A community impact report ordinance will help steer us in the right direction economically while promoting the philosophy of why we live here.
(Petaluma resident Paul Francis is co-founder of the Petaluma Neighborhood Association. Contact the group at petalumaneighbors@yahoo.com)
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Big-Box Bingo: Petaluma Grapples with Deciding the Entire Impact-both Fiscal and Communal-of Construction. True Cost
Petaluma Considers Evaluating Economic Impacts
March 5, 2008, North Bay Bohemian News and Features
By Patricia Lynn Henley
Everyone wants to make prudent financial decisions, both individually and on a community-wide level. But what's the best way to go about it? How much do officials need to know to make a decision?
Nowadays developers expect to do an environmental impact report (EIR) for any large-scale construction project. But are physical results like noise or traffic and the ecological balance the only things decision-makers should evaluate to determine if a proposal will help or harm the local community? In Petaluma, activists are proposing requiring a community impact report (CIR) to assess the true fiscal costs and benefits of potential projects.
Environmental impact reports have entered the standard public lexicon. Are CIRs the next step?
"Twenty-five or 30 years ago, the environmental impact report was also a new tool, and now it's standard," asserts Marty Bennett, a Santa Rosa Junior College instructor and co-chairman of the Sonoma County Living Wage Coalition, part of the group that's urging Petaluma to adopt the CIR requirement. "From my point of view, 25 years down the road, we will say that a CIR has become standard in the approval process for new developments. That will be a huge step forward."
But Petaluma resident and Sonoma County Planning Commission member Don Bennett (no relation) thinks that's a bad idea. Community impact reports, he says, would be used as "a tool to keep things from happening within the community."
He argues that the proposal is anti-chain stores and anti-big-box retailers.
"It comes down to a philosophical thing, whether you think the role of government is to control business and management, and who you're managing it for," he says. "Who's going to decide who you want in? That's the problem. Whose will do you impose?"
Cities such as Los Angeles and San Jose already require CIRs as part of the approval process for major projects. Usually less than 50 pages, a CIR looks at five main impacts: fiscal, employment, affordable housing, neighborhood needs and smart growth. Unlike an EIR, a CIR isn't binding and doesn't require mitigation of any impacts.
"For me, [a CIR] is a win-win for both sides," says Melissa Abercrombie of the Petaluma Neighborhood Association. "You look at the information, you weigh it and you figure out what works." There's an urban-growth boundary to protect Petaluma against sprawl, Abercrombie points out. "Any project that's built within that should be the best, because it's a limited amount of space."
Petaluma is already looking at plans for new Target and Lowe's stores within city limits.
Among other items, a CIR would evaluate the number and types of jobs, including salary levels, that they would bring to the area. It would look at whether they would bring new sales tax revenues to city coffers or just cannibalize the sales taxes already being collected by other, usually smaller stores.
For Abercrombie, a CIR is just a way of looking at the big picture before making a decision. It's similar to what developers do before deciding to build a project, she argues, and isn't at all anti-development. "I would welcome a development that I thought would benefit our community, and I don't think analyzing that makes it not happen."
But Don Bennett sees a CIR requirement as a "fact-finding thing to determine what you don't want in your community." The CIR proposal, he asserts, is being supported by those who don't want more chain stores in Petaluma. But if a lot of folks didn't like big-box retailers, he says, they wouldn't exist.
"If the majority of people didn't want to shop in those places, they couldn't keep their doors open." In his view, it's more important for people to be able to shop, work and live in Petaluma. A CIR, he argues, is an attempt to have the government decide what can be built on private property based on the social aspects of the project.
But Abercrombie sees things differently.
"A CIR is just a tool so we can have a clear picture for our decision making."
The coalition presented its CIR proposal to the Petaluma City Council in late January. Coalition members are now working with city staff to answer a number of questions raised by the council members, including how much CIRs cost and how they've been implemented in other communities.
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West County Wastewater Tsunami
By Brenda Adelman
January, 2008 West County Gazette
A wastewater tsunami exploded in mid-January, leaving behind a totally altered landscape in western Sonoma County. The repercussions will be vast and no one knows exactly how it will play out! There were four cataclysmic meetings in three days where the drama was intense, and sheer coincidence that they all happened at about the same time.
On Monday, January 7th, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board hosted a meeting for community activists, interested citizens, numerous Regional Board staff and County and State agency representatives. It had been organized by Board member Bill Massey.
Bill stated that he had recused himself from all Regional Board votes on West County wastewater issues so that he could play an active role in helping to address concerns about anticipated new regulations in Assembly Bill 885, which will heavily affect the lower Russian River Area.
While we do not know yet exactly what the new regulations will include, we do know that septic systems within 600' of waterways will receive a great deal of scrutiny. Those water bodies that have been identified as impaired, especially for pathogens and nutrients, will be closely studied. The section of the Russian River impaired for pathogens is from Fife Creek in Guerneville (near Safeway) and Dutch Bill Creek in Monte Rio, although Regional Board staff indicated that this designated area of impairment may be expanded further.
Within the next few years, the Regional Board will conduct studies that will determine whether septics along the river are actually causing pollution problems. Any particular septic found to be causing problems will have to be repaired within legal guidelines. In extreme cases, where repairs simply cannot be made, properties can be condemned. While this situation may be years down the road (studies will take a long time and there will be a public review process before any actions are taken), nevertheless, Director Massey urged those in attendance to begin thinking about possible remedies, including creative solutions using less expensive, innovative technologies. There was also an emphasis on local control. We will write much more about this in future articles.
On Tuesday morning, the Board of Supervisors considered and voted to shut down the planned Monte Rio wastewater project that had been eight years in the making, because it was at least $2.6 million dollars short with no additional funding in sight. The County had hit a brick wall in terms of funding problems, which is indicative of the times. While a majority of people in the community twice voted to tax themselves to pay for part of the sewer, there were many concerns that it was getting far too expensive for the number of hookups and didn't even serve many of the properties having the worst pollution problems. Monte Rio property owners are now aware that they have to address these issues in some other manner and will be exploring alternative and affordable solutions to the problem.
Meeting number three took place Tuesday evening at the Camp Meeker Recreation and Park District. It was a dramatic evening since much of the power was still out for the fifth day because of a fallen tree and the meeting had to be moved from Anderson Hall to the Fire District meeting room. About 30 people were squeezed in the tiny room. The main item on the agenda was a decision to certify the environmental impact report (EIR) on the $22 million dollar pipeline project to the Russian River County Sanitation District (RRCSD). The problems with this project have been frequently described in prior news articles.
The drama was intense. Everyone thought that the vote would be unanimous in favor of certification because Occidental was threatened by heavy fines by the Regional Water Board for being out of compliance with their discharge permit. The prevailing idea was that the EIR could be certified, thereby getting Occidental off the hook, but that the project would not be built. At that price, no one wanted it. Yet many in the room felt the EIR was deficient in serious ways noted by Board members, and the project had too many unknowns in regards to needed RRCSD upgrades. We have no space for details now of who did what, other than to say that, of the five Board members, one could not vote because of a possible conflict of interest, two supported certification, and two felt the EIR was deficient and for that reason voted against it. This killed the EIR.
The very next morning, our group was scheduled to attend a meeting with key Regional Board staff about West County wastewater issues.
The meeting had been scheduled almost two months prior. We broke the news to staff about the vote. We are not sure, but it seemed as though they were more open than they had been to looking at local, affordable solutions, such as community septics and septic management districts. For years, they had supported the concept of big pipeline projects and regionalizing the RRCSD, and over those years, we had stated over and over why we believed that would not work.
All of a sudden, it feels like the dynamic on West County wastewater issues has changed. We don't know where it will go but we hope many people will get involved in seeking new solutions. Our role will be to keep you informed.
Brenda Adelman is chair of Russian River Watershed Protection Committee. They can be reached at rrwpc-1@comcast.net
SCCA Report Card
Sonoma County Conservation Action’s Environmental Report Card is one of our premium grassroots functions. Created by a team of City Council and Board watchers who attend meetings and study their local environmental politics, the SCCA Report Card evaluates the performance of the local elected officials by grading them on their vote for the environment for the year, and on how well they are listening to their constituents.
The SCCA Report Card is a watchdog tool that holds our local elected officials accountable for their actions. Check and see how your local electorate scored!
Click here to see the 2008-2009 Report Card in PDF format.
Click here to see the 2007-2008 Report Card in PDF format.
Click here to see the 2006-2007 Report Card in PDF format.
Click here to see the 2005-2006 Report Card in PDF format.
Click here to see the 2004-2005 Report Card in PDF format.
Click here to see the 2003-2004 Report Card in PDF format.
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Letters to the Editor
No asphalt plant
April 14, 2009, Press Democrat
Santa Rosa, CA
EDITOR: Poultry, pedophiles, potholes (and ... pollution?)
Let’s face it, when you hear about Petaluma on the national news, it’s in regard to one of those things. Must we also be known for pollution? Are we going to be known as that little Northern California town that touts itself as “green” but has a polluting asphalt plant at the city’s entrance?
How did we get to this point?
There is enough blame to go around, whether it’s the Petaluma City Council for jumping into the battle too late, or for the good ol’ boy/gal network that is the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.
The city needs to attract more business as tax revenue is badly needed for the appalling infrastructure here. How ironic to think we may have to drive through toxic blue smoke from an asphalt plant to get on the freeway to shop at Target, giving tax revenue away to another city and county.
JULIE WENDENBURG
Petaluma
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Letters to the Editor
The Press Democrat
The Dutra asphalt plant siting at Haystack Landing challenges two voter-controlled land use ordinances.
Unique in California, Sonoma County voters have taken certain land use powers away from their elected representatives at the city, county and state legislative level by passing the Coastal Act, and with voter control over urban growth boundaries, community separators and our scenic corridor below Petaluma.
Why? Because electeds are subject to the same lobbying pressure and financing of campaigns currently being used by Dutra to influence the Board of Supervisors.
Previous boards promised voters that they would not change the county land use in a city’s urban growth boundary. That promise, if broken by a Dutra approval, is as disrespectful as the breaking of a 10-year promise to stop gravel mining of the Russian River.
Board of Supervisors’ approval of Dutra would circumvent a 76 percent countywide vote establishing a scenic corridor below Petaluma to the Marin County line. Siting an asphalt plant in our scenic corridor will require a vote of the people.
The Board of Supervisors, in voting for Dutra, would trample on an exceptional electorate who many times have expressed their landscape and environmental values at the ballot box.
BILL KORTUM
SCCA Board President Emeritus
Petaluma
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Down the Wal-Mart Low Road: What Are the Costs of a Supercenter?
by Martin J. Bennett, SCCA Board Member
Wal-Mart recently announced plans to convert its existing discount store in Rohnert Park to Sonoma County's first 'supercenter.' Many cash-strapped cities are tempted to hastily approve retail projects that can generate substantial sales tax revenue given the current economic downturn. However, we should pause to consider, not only the benefits, but also the costs of the proposed supercenter for Rohnert Park.
A supercenter is a 200,000 square foot store that sells both general merchandise and groceries. Since 1988, Wal-Mart has opened 2300 supercenters nationwide. Wal-Mart announced in 2002 that it would build more than forty of these megastores in California. By 2008 only thirty-one were built, with organized grassroots opposition and environmental lawsuits blocking the others.
Wal-Mart is now the nation's largest grocer and pharmacy, with sales exceeding the combined total of major competitors, including Target, Safeway, Albertsons, Kohl's, and Kroger. How did Sam Walton develop a rural, southern discount store into the planet's largest retailer and the nation's largest employer?
According to UC Santa Barbara historian Nelson Lichtenstein in his new book, "The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created A Brave New World of Business," the main reason for Wal-Mart's phenomenal success is containment of labor costs by a relentless downward pressure on wages and benefits, and a near-perfect record thwarting unionization.
Most Wal-Mart workers are the 'working poor' in America. According to the company's own reports, the average wage for a full-time Wal-Mart worker in 2007 was $10.51 an hour. The average wage of a Wal-Mart employee is 26 percent less than other large merchandise stores, and
18 percent less than large grocery stores, according to the New York University Brennan Center.
Kaiser Family Foundation reports that less than 50 percent of
WalMart employees receive health care benefits. Full-time workers must wait six months to receive medical benefits, and part-time workers wait two years. Half the workforce turns over annually. As a result, part-time employees, who are more than one-third of the workforce, rarely receive benefits. For others, high deductibles, copays, and coverage limitations make the company-provided health plan unaffordable.
Wal-Mart ensures that wages and benefits remain low by a systematic, company-wide, policy to suppress unions. A report by Human Rights Watch about Wal-Mart concluded, "while many American companies use weak U.S. laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus."
Between 1998-2003 the National Labor Relations Board issued 94 complaints and found that Wal-Mart illegally fired workers for union activity, forced workers to attend anti-union meetings and video screenings, spied on workers who supported unionization, and claimed workers would lose pay raises and benefits or the store would shut down if the employees voted for a union.
Not one Wal-Mart store is unionized in the U.S. When Quebec workers voted for representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers in 2005, the company closed the store.
What are the costs when a Wal-Mart supercenter opens in a community?
First, good middle-class jobs are replaced by poverty-wage jobs.
Grocery prices at Wal-Mart are 15 percent lower than those of competing firms, and half of these major grocery chains, like Safeway, Raley's, and Albertsons, are unionized. The 'union premium'
for combined pay and benefits is 30 percent more than nonunion. In Southern Nevada, Wal-Mart opened sixteen supercenters and by 2002, 1400 union jobs were lost when Raley's closed eighteen stores.
According to Nelson Lichtenstein, 13,000 traditional supermarkets were closed and twenty-five regional chains forced into bankruptcy from 1992-2003 due to Wal-Mart.
Second, the taxpayers end up providing public assistance for Wal-Mart workers. A 2004 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, "The Hidden Costs of Wal-Mart," concludes that uninsured Wal-Mart employees in California rely on programs like Medi-Cal and Healthy Families at a cost of $32 million a year to the taxpayer. The report also demonstrates that Wal-Mart workers earning poverty-wages rely on federal and state programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, Food Stamps, Section 8 subsidized housing, and child care assistance to make ends meet at a cost of $54 million per year.
Third, local merchants are hurt when Wal-Mart enters a community. In 1995, economist Kenneth Stone found that, a decade after the opening of a Wal-Mart in rural Iowa communities, 60 percent of the retail sales captured by Wal-Mart came from existing retailers and hundreds of grocery, apparel, hardware, and drug stores closed. University of Missouri economist Emek Basker examined county-level employment impacts of Wal-Mart from 1977-1998. She demonstrated that, for every one hundred new jobs created by Wal-Mart, fifty retail jobs and twenty wholesale jobs were lost over the next five years.
This is an appropriate moment for an informed public dialogue about the megastore proposed for Rohnert Park. For instance, cities across California have implemented a 'Community Impact Report' (CIR) for large commercial development projects. In 2008, Petaluma was the first city in the North Bay to approve a CIR.
A CIR, prepared by a city-designated consultant early in the development process, is much shorter than an Environmental Impact Report. The CIR analyzes the economic and fiscal impacts of a proposed project and provides a comprehensive assessment of the costs and benefits. Also, California municipalities are capping the size of supercenters. Most recently, Santa Clara and Salinas have prohibited any supercenters of more than 90,000 square feet. Residents of Rohnert Park and Sonoma County should consider the relevance of these policy tools to encourage smart, equitable, and sustainable growth.
Martin J. Bennett teaches American history at Santa Rosa Junior College, serves on the board of Sonoma County Conservation Action, and is Co-Chair of the Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County. For more information go to: www.livingwagesonoma.org.
