They Know Not What They Do

NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 virus, the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors has offered public comment on agenda items to be submitted via email before 5 pm on Monday and the comments will be distributed to the board. This was emailed to the Clerk of the Board at 1:20 pm on Monday, March 16, 2020

Public Comment Agenda Item.6.B.11 - Valley Home MAC

Supervisors,

I read through the agenda item for changing the Valley Home MAC from elected to appointed, and while I understand and sympathize with some of the points you make and the issues surrounding this, I do not agree with the change. As I have shared with you previously, the MACs in Alameda County are all-appointed and the supervisor will only appoint people to the MAC who follow his views. My nickname for the Castro Valley MAC is "The Stepford Wives MAC". And as I said at your January 2019 workshop during public comment, not being able to choose who represents you is about as un-American as you can get.

I also find it ironic and rather contradictory that Supervisor Olsen said at this same January 2019 meeting that she didn't "understand why the people of (another board) couldn't choose who represents them." I agree with her - the board she was referring to should be chosen by election of the people! And the same goes for Valley Home MAC!  (Also, I DO remember the name of the board she mentioned; just choosing not to throw her under a bus by saying it in public comment.)

I know you are dealing with apathy of getting people to serve - but their time is a valuable commodity. Please consider coming into the 21st century and offering a stipend to serve on MAC boards. The Stanislaus County Planning Commission has a small stipend but it's enough that you never once hear a planning commissioner say, "I'm just a volunteer" as MAC members are. Salida Sanitary District also offers a small stipend and they never lack for board members. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Katherine Borges

Salida

The due diligence of transparency, taxes, and development

My Public Comment to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 9 am:

"Good morning, just to quickly address the email request I sent you to cease the practice of private meetings with MAC members: while it may be in compliance to the Brown Act, there's no way for the public to independently gauge the County's due diligence if there's no record via public attendance or minutes to record what transpired. I wrote to all of you because I don't know if this is something new or something that you all do, but I only know it because Salida MAC members have told me and my supervisor mentioned it at the last MAC meeting. The solution should not be that the supervisor stops mentioning it because that makes it all the less transparent; it just would be better to cease the practice and shine the light of transparency on all governmental meetings.

I do think, with much thanks going to Salida MAC, that the County HAS been (with the exception of the closed door meetings) demonstrating appropriate due diligence in regards to the proposed CSA10 tax increase meetings. My honest opinion is that $33 a year is not a big deal, but I am against the tax in principle. The principle being that it seems the County's first solution for any shortfall is to raise taxes on the constituency as opposed to finding another solution. I do know that the County did look at sub-contracting the landscaping work out and that prevailing wage killed that option. However, I don't think the County has exhausted all other options like applying for grants to xeriscape around the developments or reapportioning our property taxes to include more for park maintenance. 

And I take exception to County employees referring to those, like myself, who do not live in CSA 10 tax homes as “freeloaders”. Just because the County decided to raid CSA10 for my neighborhood's storm drain maintenance at some point between 2013 and now, does not turn my neighborhood into “freeloaders”. One of the biggest reasons I chose my house

Some CSA10 Parks & Streetscape budget for 2012-2013

is because it DID'NT have Mello Roos or CSA taxes on it. My realtor didn't say, “Well be prepared because in 27 years, the County is going to put a tax on you that you didn't sign up for, unlike the people in Mello Roos homes. In 2013, I asked Matt Machado what covered my storm drain maintenance and he replied, “the gas tax”. So yes, $33 isn't a big deal right now, but it all adds up in the long run. I think that if anyone deserves a tax increase in Salida, it's our fire department and the County should exhaust every available option including grants before proceeding with this CSA10 increase.

Now onto the topic of Vizcaya: it's appalling to expect the working people of Salida to plan to attend a neighborhood meeting with only 6-8 days notice which is what you are doing to them since you just announced the date yesterday. Why can't you give them two weeks notice at least? What's the rush? The short notice ensures a low attendance and that is poor due diligence for a county which is “striving to be the best in America”. Give them a second meeting at least for the people who cannot make the first one. And perhaps on a Saturday. 

I was reading the Salida Community Plan (SCP) over the weekend and it struck me what a strange limbo Salida is in with it. It says that “...one of the primary purposes of the Amendment Area is to provide for a mix of land uses that can facilitate the Salida Community's financial and fiscal self-sufficiency” but if you allow these two gas stations and other businesses the loophole of a “drafting error” to not be included in the SCP then that hurts the existing community. I believe that Jeff Grover had good intentions for us with the SCP but I one hundred percent disagree that a man who is a building contractor would have allowed a "drafting error" to proceed for 13 years, especially when it affects his cousins' land. Put yourself in the shoes of the people who live in Vizcaya, which also does include County employees: would YOU choose to buy a home by two gas stations and two hotels? What will that do to their homes' resale value? 

I can tell you how the potential of a 4-story hotel impacted MY neighborhood: when a home went up for sale across the street, two buyers backed out just from word that a hotel would be built on the lot behind us and this home didn't even border it! No one wants to walk out of their house and see hotels, or live with the noise, air, and light pollution of gas stations.

I also ask that when Planning does the environmental studies, to do them by a place with at least two gas stations to measure the pollutants that will be influencing the air quality around the homes. Thank you for your consideration."