Monterey’s land war goes on—and on.

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The longest battle in history—there is some debate about this topic, but most historians today point to the notorious Battle of Verdun. Indeed, it was a protracted, bloody slog.

In 1916, two years into the First World War, Kaiser Wilhelm II attacked the French fortress town of Verdun, 160 miles east of Paris along the River Meuse. Over the next 10 months, the Kaiser subjected the area to the most intensive artillery bombardment ever known.

The Kaiser’s plan made sense (within the insane logic of warfare): Rather than spread his artillery around, he concentrated all of it on the most well-fortified city in France. He was correct in predicting that this tactic would draw the entire French army to Verdun’s defense. Wilhelm hoped to wipe out his enemy’s forces in one fell swoop.

This week, we arrive back at square one.

The French and their commander, Joseph Joffre, believed fervently that Wilhelm II was an idiot for amassing his entire war-making machine in one place. They sent their armies to teach the Kaiser a lesson.

It didn’t work out the way either army hoped it would. Verdun was a disaster for both sides. There were more than 800,000 casualties, and the ground was so badly destroyed that today, 90 years later, nothing grows there. According to one description, the landscape now resembles “lunar shell-fields, crater upon crater.”

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I am reminded of the story of Verdun because, as this newspaper goes to press, the Monterey County Planning Commission is sitting down to discuss the General Plan. Again.

This is the beginning of a process that will last many weeks, involving many, many meetings, and many, many, many pages of testimony. This is the reengagement of a battle that’s been going on for six years.

Today, I read over the Planning Commission’s most recent report. It made me want to throw up. I don’t know if my reaction was the result of frustration or if it was a symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

When I arrived at this job, the General Plan fight had already been going on for a year, and over the past five years, I have edited and written so many words about it that the thought of it makes my head spin. So maybe I am just plain sick of the topic.

On the other hand, who in their right mind is not frustrated by this ordeal? Six years spent making a plan that is intended to guide growth in the county for 20 years. That’s ridiculous. And here’s the really sickening part: The first sentence on page one of the new report says: “The Board [of Supervisors] directed staff to update policies from the 1982 General Plan.” All of the meetings and all of the pages of testimony that have been accumulated since 2000—not to mention the $6 million that has been spent on the process—have been wasted. This week, we arrive back at square one.

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The Planning Commission report is quite complicated, and yet the issue is simple. Most readers know the story all too well: One side of this battle, slow-growth advocates, represented by LandWatch, seek a document that protects against sprawl; the other side, made up of landowners, developers and their allies, has successfully defeated every effort to create such a document.

And, OK, it is a bit of a stretch to compare the Monterey County General Plan fight to the Battle of Verdun. But in an effort to find a new way to look at this thing, comparing it to a bloody and fruitless battle makes a certain kind of sense, within the insane logic of local politics.

So who are the French, defending the homeland, and who are the invading forces of the Kaiser? Both sides obviously see themselves defending their turf. One side is resisting the onslaught of suburbanization that is destroying California; the other side is defending its right to grow and prosper. Meanwhile, the political ground around us is being laid to waste.

Clearly, land-use politics is not war. Yet the majority of our Board of Supervisors, perhaps beholden to the developers who finance their political ambitions, or perhaps out of stubborn (I would say misguided) principle, have refused to broker a cease-fire. And so we have this endless battle.

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One way or another, the fight will continue. The “General Plan Update 4,” which is being discussed by the Planning Commission this week, contains no fixed growth limits, and so every future development will be a fight. A LandWatch-sponsored citizens initiative land-use plan, which is now in the courts, would contain growth in specified areas—if it is allowed to come to a vote, it will be challenged.

And so we have our Verdun. We can only wish for leaders with more sense than Wilhelm and Joffre.