Nobody guessed it would come to this. And nobody is very happy about it.

Monterey County Supervisors shocked just about everyone three weeks ago, when they unanimously voted to put the future of the county in the hands of voters.

Ever since county planners and consultants began writing the newest version of the General Plan, dubbed GPU 4, it’s been widely assumed that four of the five supervisors would rush the pro-growth document through the approval process. Similarly, nobody predicted that they would reconsider the General Plan Initiative authored by slow-growth activists.

But then, at the Board of Supervisors’ last meeting of 2006, Supervisor Lou Calcagno stated his opinion that the two-year growth document has “got to be approved by the voters,” and made a motion to consider placing GPU 4 and the General Plan Initiative on the ballot. The Supes unanimously approved Calcagno’s motion, agreeing to vote on the matter at their next meeting, on Jan. 3 (past the Weekly’s deadline for this issue).

LandWatch Executive Director Chris Fitz immediately cheered the Supervisors’ decision while Common Ground Executive Director Tom Carvey said he was “disappointed.”  

“[GPU 4] has been thoroughly looked at by the public, and that will never happen with the General Plan Initiative.”

Prior to this week’s meeting, county planners prepared a staff report that gives supervisors three options. Option One adopts GPU 4. Option Two adopts the plan and calls for an election to place it on the ballot, subject to repeal by voters. Option Three adopts the plan, puts it on the ballot, and “if legally permissible,” also places the General Plan Initiative to a vote.

This worries Fitz. He says Option Three is the best option, but that it’s “highly problematic.”

“They are setting the seeds here for some awful treachery,” he says.

The way the staff report is worded, if Supervisors approve GPU 4 on Jan. 3, it becomes law after 30 days. Thirty-one days after approval, the Board could legally vote to remove GPU 4 from the ballot.

“Nobody is saying that’s the reason they’ve done it this way—I’m not saying that,” Fitz says. He wants the Supervisors to change the wording so that the General Plan will not take effect until an up or down vote by the people.

Unless the Supervisors ensure that GPU 4 does not go into effect until county voters have their say, Fitz says he and others will start collecting signatures to guarantee that voters decide GPU 4’s fate.

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County Counsel Charles McKee says he understands Fitz’s concern.

“Technically, he might be right,” McKee says, “but I think it’s almost impossible the Board would do that, because once they say they are putting it on the ballot, reversing course and taking a completely opposite take would be seen as a complete affront.

“Once the Board takes the action of voting to place [GPU 4] on the ballot—which I expect they will do—having a plan in place for five months means the Board has also satisfied the critics who have said that the board should not put it up for a vote.”

And, he says, the vote should also satisfy the slow-growth types on the other side. “The action to adopt [GPU 4] subject to repeal satisfies those folks. It’s saying, ‘Give it to the voters and have them repeal if they think it’s illegitimate.’

“I think the vote subject to repeal meets the middle ground. And, as many people before me have said, government is about compromise.”

Fitz says his concern isn’t far fetched. He points to some of the Supervisors’ past actions that denied citizens the right to vote on Rancho San Juan, Butterfly Village, the General Plan Initiative and the Carmel Valley incorporation.

“We need to have the voters decide GPU 4, or the Board needs to be clear they’re back in the same mode—[that] they don’t give a damn about the people, they’re just doing the business of the Refinement Group,” he says.

He also points to a recent Monterey County Herald article in which Supervisor-elect Simón Salinas says he doesn’t support a vote on the General Plan, although the Board is slated to make its decision before he takes office on Jan. 9.

“I’m in favor of public participation but [Supervisors] get paid to make tough decisions,” Salinas, a former state Assemblyman, told the Herald. “We’ll have to wait to see what the situation is when I get into office.”

Fitz worries that Salinas might spearhead a move to pull GPU 4 off the ballot. It would only take two more votes.

But in an interview Tuesday, Salinas said he will support whatever action the current board takes at its Jan. 3 meeting.

“One of our main responsibilities as Supervisors is to go through the General Plan process, and I think it should be our responsibility,” he told the Weekly. “But I certainly understand the history here, and I will respect whatever the board decides [Dec. 3].”

“I think we ought to be spending all our energy to draw affordable housing money, parks money. We’ve got good opportunities to bring state money to the county. I want to spend our energy on those issues as opposed to reopening the General Plan debate.”

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Common Ground’s Carvey wants Supervisors to adopt GPU 4 on Jan. 3, without calling for a public vote. He says the plan is already the result of a very democratic process—some 36 open meetings, a 1,000 page Environmental Impact Report with 37 comment letters and the endorsement of the Planning Commission.

“This thing has been thoroughly looked at and gutted by the public, and that will never happen with the Community General Plan Initiative. There was never one single meeting with the Initiative where the language was examined and discussed and debated.”

Additionally, he says, placing GPU 4 on the ballot demands a lot of work from the public.

“The Initiative is 93 pages,” Carvey says. “GPU 4 is 275 pages and the EIR is 1,004 pages. That’s a lot of homework. But if voters are willing to do the work, they are going to find out that GPU 4 has been a very inclusive process. It’s good for agriculture. It’s going to provide housing. It’s superior to the Community General Plan Initiative.”

Carvey calls the initiative a “hijack” of the process by LandWatch, and says land-use planning at the ballot box is a bad idea.

Oddly, Fitz agrees with him on this last point.

“Voters initiatives are not the best way to do land-use planning,” Fitz says, but sometimes, they are necessary.

“We have a system here in California that gives the people tools when they feel their elected officials have failed them, when they feel that their elected officials cease to represent what is in the public’s interest.

“It is very clear what citizens need to do to exercise those rights, and that’s the situation we have in Monterey County. As a last resort the people exercised their rights under the California Constitution, and to underscore how broken the system is in Monterey County, these elected officials ignored the California Constitution and broke the law.

“Is it a lot of stuff to wade through? Sure. Is this is way that land-use planning should be done? No. We’ve got a desperate situation here in Monterey County.”