FORA board approves Del Rey Oaks RV resort, and makes other sausage.

For those who care about the machinations of local government bureaucracy, yesterday—Nov. 4—was a great day to see how the sausage gets made. 

At the 2pm board meeting of the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, three important items were decided upon, and the latter two discussed at length. 

First among them was a $568,000 contract amendment to allow Whitson Engineers to complete an environmental impact report for the Eastside Parkway, a controversial proposed roadway that would pass through the proposed Monterey Downs project, if it gets built. 

The amendment was approved by the majority of the board in October, but because the vote wasn't unanimous, it came back Friday for its required second vote.

And though the writing was already on the wall, County Supervisor Jane Parker—a FORA board member, and who was not at Friday's meeting—submitted 21 questions to FORA staff prior to the meeting, calling into question the process by which the roadway has thus far been met with approval. 

Among her questions were whether private meetings that have occurred between Monterey Downs developers and Whitson could be biased toward the proposed development, as opposed to a "fair consideration to alternatives that should be considered for the benefit of resource preservation and the communities' needs."

FORA staff's response stated, "The planning response requires some consensus among affected property owners as to the conceptual alignment of Eastside Parkway," despite the fact Brian Boudreau—the Downs developer—is not a property owner on the former Fort Ord, and may well never be. 

Without Parker at the meeting, only Marina councilmembers Gail Morton and Frank O'Connell and Monterey Councilmember Alan Haffa voted against the $568,000 amendment.  

Next up was the Del Rey Oaks RV resort, a planned project on 53 acres of Del Rey Oaks land north of Ryan Ranch. The project was approved by an unusual strategy that involved an initiative process wherein at least 10 percent of DRO voters signed a petition to approve the project. Under that process, it does not have be reviewed under the California Environmental Quality Act, and therefore did not require an EIR. 

But, maybe not. The law offices of Stamp Erickson, acting on behalf of the advocacy group Keep Fort Ord Wild, submitted an email letter to the FORA board at 1:15pm Friday calling into question whether they could ignore CEQA and approve the project. 

The letter correctly identifies FORA as the "responsible agency" for the project, and then recites back the CEQA guidelines—which FORA is meant to follow—highlighting that the "responsible" agency for a project (which FORA is, in all projects on the former Fort Ord) has "discretionary approval power over the project."

It also questioned the tiny Sept. 25 public notice in the Herald, which the letter said was "not noticeable."

County Supervisor John Phillips, a former judge and current FORA board member, said he didn't think the letter should be taken seriously because of its late submittal. 

DRO Mayor Jerry Edelen was also clearly frustrated by the letter, and said the project was not overly impactful, and only involves putting "210 slabs of concrete" in the ground. He also said the developers have retained Brian Finnegan as their attorney, whom Edelen called the "best land-use attorney in the county."

Finnegan was called up to speak, and said attorney Molly Erickson's letter was predicated on the assumption the project was subject to CEQA, which he said was false, and that it is not. 

The board then took a vote as to whether the project was consistent with the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan, and only Morton voted no. 

After that came the future of FORA: The board considered a staff recommendation to ask the state Legislature to find a way to extend the agency's lifespan through 2030. Presently, it is set to sunset at 2020, but the staff presentation made clear that FORA's obligations would not be met until 2037, more than 40 years after the closure of Fort Ord.

Much discussion ensued about the wisdom of maintaining the status quo, but a motion by Seaside Mayor Ralph Rubio to initiate those discussions was approved almost unanimously, with only Morton, O'Connell and Pacific Grove Councilmember (and congressional candidate) Casey Lucius dissenting.

In an interview after the meeting, Keep Fort Ord Wild's Michael Salerno was cynical about how the board is doing business. 

"If FORA is arguing that they need to be continued way out into the future, and if they don’t follow their own bylaws according to CEQA, why bother having FORA around?" he says. "They should just sunset. It’s ridiculous.

"They've become this dangerous comedy of errors."