oh google, is there no irony you cannot **search algorithm interrupt, illegal buffer overflow, terminating**

On the one hand, any citizen has the right to take a position and engage in political speech regarding a candidate or ballot measure, even if that citizen is an appointed or elected official. On the other hand, if such a person makes statements that indicate bias or prejudgment of a matter that will later come before that person in his or her official capacity, that would be bad, since the person is sworn (and under California law, at least, specifically required, legally, with only a few exceptions), to make those official decisions objectively and on the basis of information brought out in the course of open public meetings.

The city attorney’s office in this case has advised the elected members of the City Council (and, by extension, the appointed folks like me on the Planning Commission), that taking a position as a private citizen against the Paredon Initiative is not a problem in terms of the Brown Act (the California law I was alluding to above). In fact, they’ve gone farther, and said it’s legally okay for the council to take an official stand on Measure J, as a body (which they’ve now done, voting to oppose passage of Measure J 4-1). The City Attorney argues that the project that Measure J seeks to authorize is actually substantially different than the project Venoco was previously pursuing through the normal review process. In the event Measure J fails, and if Venoco then chooses to go back through the normal process to try to get the approval they failed to get via the initiative, that would be a new project, and presumably a different one from the one described in Measure J, and the public officials’ having taken a position on Measure J would not compromise their ability to take official actions on the new project.

I guess in the scenario where Measure J fails, Venoco could choose to pursue a project via the regular channels that was exactly the same as the one they pursued via initiative, and thereby argue that city officials were disqualified from deciding on it by virtue of their previous actions? I’m not sure how credible a claim they could make of that. I’m also not sure that, given the policy consistency problems that have been identified with Measure J, an official-channels version of the project that matched the Measure J version could even get off the ground.

All of this is pretty inside-baseball, though. In a real world sense, it could certainly be argued that by taking a public stand against Measure J (whether as a private citizen or in an official capacity), I am making it easier for someone to argue that I’m biased against Venoco, compromising my ability to serve as a planning commissioner on any future items involving Venoco as an applicant. There’s a Measure J supporter who lives just a few doors down the street from me who has made public statements implying just that (she didn’t mention me by name, but it was pretty clear from at least one of her statements that she was including me in the group she was saying had done that). There’s actually a mostly-unrelated item involving Venoco coming before the Planning Commission in the next few months, before the election that will decide Measure J. It will be interesting to see if anyone makes that case at that hearing. All I can say for now is that I’ll be giving careful thought to that question myself, since if I honestly believed I could not be objective, I would need to recuse myself from hearing that item.

But returning to your original question, my response is basically this: My objections to Measure J are based on process issues specific to the initiative. I’m not prejudicing my ability to participate in an open, objective, public analysis of the underlying project; I’m just trying to make it so that that open, objective, public analysis can actually take place. If making that case compromises my objectivity in some people’s eyes, well, that’s unfortunate. But it’s necessary, in my view, in part by virtue of the very same oath I took when I became a planning commissioner that they see me as violating. I swore to defend the Constitution and uphold the law, and more specifically, to participate openly and in good faith in the carrying out of the city’s planning function. And objectively, doing my best to set any pre-existing bias aside, I honestly think Measure J represents an assault on that planning process, and that I’m obligated to oppose it, both in my official capacity as a commissioner and in my private capacity as a citizen.

To boil it down even more, I’d say this: If Measure J passes, I’m not sure how much value remains in even being a planning commissioner. So if opposing it somehow compromises my ability to do that job in the future, I’ll take that trade, if only so someone else has an opportunity to fill that role.

So we have Marquez, shrewd businessman, but a decent guy, give back to the community fairly honest but doesn’t mind gaming the system. He likes the regulations when it keeps his competitors out of the way, but finds ways around them when it doesn’t fit his plan. The city fathers, they are willing to give him a pass on regulations they fought so hard to obtain from a disaster just a generation ago for a few shinny coins. JBC is writing about is as a private citizen when he is in the loop, can he really do that? Then we have one of my pet peeves, voters voting on this, you have an intelligent city planner that has obviously done his homework that will be overridden by voters that quite possibly have read one letter from only one of the players.

And it will all come down to fate when the history is written, if the thing doesn’t blow up the city fathers will have gotten 5 mil for the children, Marquez will have made a little money and the case will be made that regulations are too tight, and they may be, or it may be that Marquez just ran his operation well, and the voters will pat themselves on the back thinking democracy really does work. But if it blows up…

Well, I’m off to check out, “ten days on the road and I’m a gonna make it home tonight.”

Sounds like Marquez has the simple front lines for main (public) battle well set-up, it may be a natural talent or a lot of work on his part or both. But you’re well on your way to out-flanking him on every point.

I’m betting that he took his approach because his artillary won’t hold up so he’s choosing to engage at close quarters.

On the isolation question, it is and it isn’t. The CPF is inside the city limits (which is why this whole issue even exists), but it’s out past the edge of current residential development. There’s a residential neighborhood to the west; it looks from the map as if it’s about 500 feet from the CPF industrial site’s property line, and a little less than 1000 feet from where the drilling would take place. There’s a parcel of land to the east of the drilling site that is considerably closer. It’s currently used for open field agriculture (that’s where William got his ride on the tractor), but there are various plans to develop it as a resort or housing at some point in the future. There also is an Amtrak train track that runs right by where the drilling would take place (less than 100 feet away, it looks like), and a nearby harbor seal haulout and pupping site with an overlook that gets a couple hundred human visitors on a busy day.

There was a process ongoing to evaluate an earlier version of the project, in the course of which the city would have been working with Venoco to address safety concerns. But that version of the project was pulled by Marquez when he switched to trying to pass it via initiative. If Measure J passes, it would basically write into law that the drilling operation is safe.

One of the concerns that have been raised about that is that there is language in the initiative that seems to say that as long as Venoco is pursuing the (fairly loosely defined) project described in the initiative, the company’s actions cannot be restricted or modified by the city, even if Venoco decides to modify its practices or sell to another operator.

Good luck with your endeavor, is there any way you can reach a compromise and at least have some of the safety concerns evaluated? Probably not, usually once you get a process in a government entity going it’s all in.