The California Native Plant Society is a statewide group, but with strong local chapters, and both the Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz County chapters are particularly active and engaged. If you’d like to find out more about CNPS (as they’re often called), I invite you to click on the Land Use Report link on the KUSP website. The transcript of today’s Land Use Report has more information.

If you’d like to meet some CNPS activists in person, there’s a great opportunity to do so this evening. At 7:30 p.m., the Santa Cruz County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society will be holding a general meeting at the Fitz Wetlands Educational Resource Center, at the new Pajaro Valley High School, located at 500 Harkins Slough Road in Watsonville. The program will focus on an in-depth look at the Pajaro River watershed, and will feature a screening of “Stuck in the Mud,” a video that tells the story of how the Pajaro River levies and riverbanks were stripped of virtually all riparian vegetation after winter floods in 1995.

For the past six years, the Sierra Club has had a Pajaro River Watershed Committee, working to prevent more destructive projects on the Pajaro. Next year, the Army Corps of Engineers will present a plan for the river, and residents in both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties should be informed.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

CNPS State Website
http://www.cnps.org/

Monterey Bay Chapter of CNPS
http://www.montereybaycnps.org/

Santa Cruz County Chapter of CNPS
http://www.cruzcnps.org/

Santa Cruz County Newsletter, The Cypress Cone, with event information
http://www.cruzcnps.org/CurrentNewsletter.pdf

This morning, let me highlight a couple of items. First, just to get it on your radar screen, I want to alert you to a meeting scheduled for tomorrow evening, at 6:00 o’clock, to discuss important issues at the Marina Coast Water District, and specifically including the compensation package provided to the new Water District General Manager. If you’re a resident of the Marina Coast Water District, you might want to put tomorrow night’s meeting on your calendar.

Today, beginning at 4:00 o’clock this afternoon, the Monterey City Planning Commission will be meeting at the Monterey City Hall, and they have a couple of significant items to discuss. They will be considering a zoning action on Cannery Row, to provide an official “OK” for the conversion of some commercial property to open space use. The property is 6,000 square feet, and is located adjacent to the Spindrift Inn. The plan is to develop the property for a City park. Usually (though not always), that’s considered good news by city residents.

In addition to that item, the Planning Commission is going to consider design guidelines for mixed-use areas in the downtown and East downtown areas. The new City General Plan significantly increases mixed-use designations inside the core downtown, meaning that both commercial and residential uses are planned, and design issues are paramount. This particular policy discussion is an important one for the future of the city.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Marina Coast Water District Website
http://www.mcwd.org/

September 12, 2007 Agenda of MCWD Board
http://www.mcwd.org/docs/agenda_minutes/
09-12-07Agenda.pdf

Monterey City Planning Commission Agenda, September 11, 2007
http://www.monterey.org/boards/planning/
agendas/2007/0911pcagenda.pdf

If you care about good land use planning, you should not only be paying attention to what’s going on within your city, and at the County Board of Supervisors, you should also have water supply issues on your radar screen. This means that you’ll have to devote some attention to the water agencies that deliver your water.

In some cases, cities deliver water to their residents. The City of Santa Cruz does that, for instance. It’s probably even more common for independent water agencies (either public or private) to provide water. In Monterey County, that’s definitely the model, and the Marina Coast Water District will play a key role in the future growth and development of the Monterey Peninsula.

As a public agency, how the Marina Coast Water District conducts its affairs is critically important. If you’re a District resident, or care about growth and development in and around Marina, there’s an important meeting tonight that you’ll probably want to attend. The meeting begins at 7:00 o’clock, but get there early, since the meeting room is small, and there is likely to be a crowd. The expected controversy centers on the hiring, and the compensation and benefits package provided to the new General Manager. His starting salary was set at $218,500 a year, with what looks like health care for life. A number of concerned residents think that this is excessive, and will be at the meeting, asking for some sort of explanation. There is more information on the KUSP website.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Marina Coast Water District Website
http://www.mcwd.org/

September 12, 2007 Agenda of MCWD Board
http://www.mcwd.org/docs/agenda_minutes/
09-12-07Agenda.pdf

The meeting tonight is scheduled for 7:00 p.m., at 11 Reservation Road, in Marina. Local residents who question the hiring process used to select the new General Manager, and who believe that the compensation and benefits package is excessive, think that there will be (or should be) a big turnout for the meeting. They advise interested persons to get there early, even by 6:00 p.m.

I’m kind of a “meeting junkie,” and am often plunged into what amounts to utter fascination with the agenda of one or another public agency. And that’s even when I don’t really know what the items on the agenda are all about. Take the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission, as an example.

As a resident of Santa Cruz and Sacramento, respectively, I have a less than detailed knowledge of the geography, geology, and politics of San Luis Obispo County. I do, however, regularly review the agenda of the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission, in order to be able to give information on important items here on the Land Use Report. Today, that Planning Commission is meeting, starting at 8:45 a.m., and I commend that meeting to you. I’ll provide more information in the transcript of today’s Land Use Report.

Looking at today’s agenda for the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission, I am struck by the breadth of involvement that our local planning agencies have in the life of the community. The Planning Commission will be deciding on a number of subdivisions that would turn rural lands into more housing, and whether a new booster station for the Los Osos Community Services District should be approved, and whether or not a wireless communications facility should be constructed in Cambria. Plus, on the policy side, the Commission will talk about transfers of credit and hold a study session on agricultural land use policies. From big issue to small, these meetings determine our future.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

San Luis Obispo County Website
http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/site4.aspx

Planning Commission Agenda
http://slocounty.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?
view_id=3&event_id=33

Staff report on transfer of credit item
http://slocounty.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?
view_id=3&event_id=33&meta_id=62900

Staff report on agricultural land use policy issues
http://slocounty.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?
view_id=3&event_id=33&meta_id=62902

The land use and planning issues that confront California are nothing short of daunting. As we continue to follow the land use patterns put in place around the end of World War II, we are systematically destroying both the farmlands and the natural resource lands that make California so attractive, and so economically productive.

No area in California seems to be immune, from the great Central Valley to the Sierra. The only bright spot is along the coast, where the people acted, in 1972, to impose a special set of rules and regulations. I guess we’d also have to identify a small number of local communities that have put locally adopted growth management systems in place. In the Central Coast region that includes both the County of Santa Cruz, and the City of Santa Cruz. In fact, though, thinking of things from a statewide perspective, we’re in deep trouble where land use is concerned.

As daunting as our challenges are, here in California, there are places where things are much, much worse. If you’d like to see something truly terrible, track down the transcript for today’s Land Use Report and find out about mountaintop removal mining. At a time when the global warming crisis means that we should be running away from coal as an energy source, as fast as we can, the Bush Administration is trying to empower the coal industry to disregard even the most basic environmental safeguards, as it strips coal from mountains by essentially eliminating entire mountaintops.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Environmental Action.org
http://www.environmental-action.org/

Action Alert on Mountaintop Removal Mining
http://www.environmental-action.org/
enviroaction.asp?id=2435&id4=HP