Incumbent candidate Patrick Slayer has been a dedicated, hard-working and competent Council Member. I am running for office to replace him on the Council not because of any deficiencies in his character, but because of the way he has voted and acted, in opposition to a number of major public interest issues that I, and many in our community, have advocated for during the past four years.
As CVS is the most newsworthy of these issues at the moment, and since Mr Slayter took me to task during our debate last week over what he said were my mischaracterizations of his position, I would like to present quotes from the public record and let voters judge for themselves.
My current "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" flier comparing Council Member Slayter's actions on major issues with mine, can be viewed to the right (click to enlarge) and below. My flier states that Council Member Slayter, “Championed and voted for the faulty traffic report and the CVS Project.”
At the debate, Mr. Slayter said, “Well first I'd like to address the idea that I somehow championed a traffic study. The minutes of that meeting indicate that I had one simple question regarding how the parking was calculated. If somebody wants to interpret that as championing a traffic study that's fine.”
The meeting that Council Member Slayter refers to took place on July 5, 2011. Full minutes of that meeting took can be read here.
The “mitigated negative declaration” of that traffic report was passed that evening, despite a finding that there was no significant traffic on Pelini corner, the most congested crossroads of our City. Once the Council passed the faulty study, it became impossible for the Council to even consider traffic as an issue (that's why Sebastopol Tomorrow had to take the CVS developer to Court to stop the project). As I later uncovered in the most extensive investigation done about the faulty traffic report and the role that Planning Director Kenyon Webster was playing in pushing the project through, the report claimed that it took less that 35 seconds to get through Main Street from Bodega Avenue heading eastbound during afternoon rush hour. It found this only because Sebastopol’s Planning Department provided faulty information to the Aeon traffic study company, telling it to measure traffic on Bodega from High Street, instead of Jewell Avenue, where everyone knows it begins.
Had Patrick Slayter and Council Member Kathleen Shaffer not led the Council to approve this faulty traffic report, the CVS project would never have advanced without a full environmental impact and traffic study. A full study would likely have led to a conclusion that bringing 2,000 cars into this congested corner in West County would cause too large an impact on the community. The project probably would have ended right there, before any lawsuits or drawn out hearings.
Yet the only Council Member who questioned the need to ratify the faulty report that evening was Sarah Gurney. Mr. Slayter, as he suggested, asked a question about parking. As provided below directly form the minutes in blue (with bold used by me for emphasis, Mr, Slayter had a lot more to say about the necessity of approving the CVS development:
"Councilmember Slater moved and Councilmember Shaffer seconded the motion to certify the MND [Mitigated Negative Declaration of environmental and traffic impact] as prepared and as was previously submitted to the Planning Commission."
Bringing the traffic impact study to a vote was only the beginning of Council Member Slayter’s advocacy work for the CVS project that evening. These are his three other relevant comments, taken directly from the minutes of that very long meeting:
“Councilmember Slayter stated this project is an interesting case study and is a big land use issue. He stated he has heard that this project is too large, too much, reaches too far, and tonight he has heard that it is too small. He stated it is stuck in goldilocks conundrum in how to enliven the community, economically, density wise, functionally, aesthetically, etc and stated he believes that this project is threading those needles.”
“Councilmember Slayter thanked the applicant for seeing the project through and following the guidelines, ordinances and City laws. He stated that changing the rules in the mid way is not fair and not good and would be disingenuous and not respectful of the process. He stated the applicant has followed the rules of the game to the letter and has been responsive. He stated this project has evolved from community meetings and that the applicant volunteered for the preliminary design review meetings. He stated this is a private site not owned by the City and the zoning ordinance dictates how the property can be used.”
“Councilmember Slayter clarified that it has been brought up in comments that the General Plan has not been followed. He stated that the General Plan is a loose guideline and can be interpreted a number of different ways and that the zoning ordinance is the required standard to be followed.”
This last statement was significant in that it was a misleading interpretation of the law, diminishing the importance of the General Plan. In this month’s Sonoma County Gazette here Helen Shane wrote about the is questionable interpretation, although she refers to a later debate in which Council Member Shaffer repeats what Mr. Slayter first stated to the public months earlier. Ms. Shane explained:
“Later in 2011, during a City Council debate about the Design Review Board's finding that the proposed CVS project did not meet the Board's guidelines, City Council Member Shaffer stated that the General Plan is only an aspirational document. The City Council must follow the zoning code, which is the actual law, she said. She asked Planning Director Kenyon Webster to back up that statement.
Mr. Webster calmly affirmed Shaffer's statement, saying that the Zoning Code is the document that states and implements City policies. This assertion dodged the fact that the State of California established General Plans as the controlling documents for development of its cities and counties. Guidelines on State websites confirm that “Whatever form of zoning a community adopts, its zoning ordinance must be consistent with the General Plan, and if the Zoning Code is inconsistent with the General Plan, the Zoning Code is invalid.”(emphasis added).