News
Redwood City Saltworks Project: Two Sides to the Issue
Published in the Palo Alto Daily News
Unbiased public vote should send council clear message on Cargill project
BY IAN BAIN
For The Daily News 4/19/12
I’m dismayed by some of the letters I’ve been seeing about a potential advisory vote on the proposed Saltworks project. Some of the letters have taken aim at my colleague, Redwood City Council Member Rosanne Foust. I have worked with her for many years, and though we don’t always agree I have found her to be a dedicated public servant who is doing what she believes is best for the community. This kind of politics of personal destruction has no place in Redwood City and needs to stop. Let’s talk about the issue at hand.
Although I was not the one who proposed it, an advisory vote is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Many of us have not taken a position on the proposed project because of our role sitting on the body that will decide its fate. I liken it to a judge saying how he will rule on a case before all the evidence has been presented.
This is not out of respect for the project, but out of respect for the process.
What’s different about this proposal is that we do not have to consider it. The land that Cargill owns, and that DMB hopes to build on, is not zoned for housing, meaning that the city council would have to make a zoning change for something to be built. It’s a different situation than a proposal that meets current zoning, which would have to be considered. In this case, the council has the right to stop consideration of the project. If a public vote shows that a majority of residents opposes development, then that sends a clear message.
By the same token, if the public wants to continue a process for evaluating a proposal, then we would take that under advisement.
While some have suggested that the council is considering an advisory vote as a way to advocate for the project, I can tell you that is complete nonsense. The law clearly states that no public money can be used to advocate for or against a ballot measure. That means the measure needs to be neutrally worded, and I will personally work to make sure that it is. Council members can take positions advocating one way or another, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do if we really want to hear what the public thinks.
Right now we have dueling polls — some from the developer and some from groups opposing the developer. We can’t accept those as being the true feelings of the public. The only way we will know is with a public vote. Advisory votes such as this have been conducted up and down the state. City councils take the results of these votes and make decisions based upon them. By doing this in November, during a presidential election, we will get the opinions of the highest number of residents possible, not just those who talk the loudest.
Ian Bain is a member of the Redwood City City Council.
Council shouldn’t need an advisory vote to learn most oppose proposal
BY ALICE KAUFMAN
For The Daily News, 4/19/12
Like many others who have been watching Redwood City’s handling of the DMB/Cargill Saltworks proposal to build the equivalent of a small city on the Cargill salt ponds, I was surprised by the city council’s announcement that it will consider placing an advisory vote on the November ballot to ask voters whether it should continue reviewing the project. Considering that the constant message from the council for the past several years has been that it will not make any decisions about the project until after an environmental review has been completed, this seems like a complete about-face.
I was even more surprised to learn that the advisory vote was proposed by Council Member Rosanne Foust, who has been advised by the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) that she must recuse herself from all council discussions and votes on the Saltworks project. Due to Foust’s position as president and CEO of a lobbying organization that has endorsed Saltworks, the FPPC determined she has a personal financial interest in seeing this enormous development built on our shoreline.
This bias was apparent in remarks Foust made to the Redwood City Patch (http://bit.ly/IyYjBm), in which she stated that the advisory vote would list “all the benefits of the development” in its description of the project. “All the benefits?” What about all the risks and drawbacks? Shouldn’t voters get the whole picture before they decide? The Saltworks project will increase Redwood City’s population by 40 percent while it paves over restorable wetlands, puts people at risk from rising sea levels, and clogs our roads with thousands more cars daily. Does Foust include these issues among the “benefits” of this project?
The city council’s willingness to consider Foust’s proposed advisory vote is bewildering. For one thing, the city has already received plenty of public input on this project. With the review process barely begun, already nearly 1,000 pages of comments have been submitted to the city from members of the community — and about 90 percent of those comments have been opposed to the project. It is hard to imagine what additional information the city council feels an advisory vote might provide. If the mountain of negative comments the city has already received is not reason enough to abandon this project, how will a nonbinding advisory vote help council members make up their minds?
If the council shares Foust’s stated concerns about the “divisiveness” of the Saltworks project, it should halt the review process now and deny the project without going through the expense and delay of an advisory vote. If council members are unwilling to deny the project before the EIR process is complete (which has been their consistent stance all along), then what is the point of the advisory vote? If the council wants to know how the public feels about the project, it already has received more than enough feedback to answer that question.
Alice Kaufman is the legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills and a resident of Redwood City.
Another conflict of interest complaint filed against Redwood City council member over Saltworks
By Bonnie Eslinger, Palo Alto Daily News
A complaint against Redwood City Council Member Rosanne Foust's call for an advisory ballot measure on the controversial Saltworks project has been filed with the state.
The complaint by Redwood City resident Marsha Cohen comes almost two years after Foust was warned by the state Fair Political Practices Commission to avoid participating in discussions or voting on the controversial mixed-use development proposed on Cargill's salt flats.
According to Cohen's complaint to the same state agency, filed Tuesday, Foust has no business talking about the project because she is a paid executive of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association, which has endorsed it.
"She's using the bully pulpit of her position to put forward her opinions on this particular project, and she's been warned about that," Cohen said.
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In a July 2010 letter to Foust, the state commission wrote that the Political Reform Act "prohibits a public official from making, participating in making, or in any way attempting to use her official position to influence a governmental decision in which the official knows, or has reason to know, that she has a financial interest."
The letter stated that it would not penalize Foust for any past actions, but warned that if she participates in any future decisions affecting the Saltworks development she could face fines of up to $5,000 per violation.
Councilmember Proposes Vote on Cargill Saltworks Project
by Stacie Chan, Redwood City Patch
Near the end of a relatively quiet city council meeting Monday night, Councilmember Rosanne Foust boldly suggested that the council consider placing an advisory vote regarding the proposed Cargill Saltworks project on the November ballot.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and felt compelled to bring this up,” Foust said during the Matters of Council Interest portion of the meeting. She had recused herself from all Saltworks discussion when it was on the regular agenda because of the potential conflict of interest. Foust is the Executive Director of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association (SAMCEDA), which has expressed its support for the project.
“I’m concerned because the project has been incredibly divisive in the community,” she said of the 1,436 acre development.
Many environmental groups, like Save the Bay and the Sierra Club, have vehemently opposed the project, arguing that the opportunity for 100 percent wetland restoration is gone once the Saltworks land is developed.
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Foust told Patch that an advisory vote could measure the community’s feeling on the topic. Because of the presidential election that will take place November of this year, this particular election will have a higher voter turn-out.
She said the advisory vote would include “a detailed project description listing all the benefits of the development” not simply a question asking the public “yes or no” on whether they support the project.
Foust added that this one project has “taken a tremendous toll on city staff and council” while they could be working on numerous other projects.
“It’s overshadowing every single thing that we do,” Foust said.
To take any action, the Mayor and Vice Mayor need to agendize the topic for a future meeting, something Mayor Alicia Aguirre said she would discuss with the Cargill Saltworks sub-committee and the city manager.
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Reactions to Foust’s Suggestion
Groups with a vested interest in the proposed development didn’t react with any immediate call to action but wanted to wait for concrete action from the other six councilmembers.
DMB Pacific Ventures spokesman Jay Reed said the company awaits details of what the rest of the city council wants to do.
The citizens’ group Redwood City Neighbors United, organized specifically to protest this one project, was also hesitant to make a group-wide statement.
“I was very surprised,” Co-chair Dan Ponti said of Foust’s proposal. “I felt like it was a turn in direction from what the council’s ‘wait-and-see’ approach.”
He added that he wasn’t sure what problem an advisory vote could solve. If the city wanted to get a general sense of voters’ opinions, he said, the city could do this through workshops and polls that are cheaper and much less politically charged.
“If an advisory vote were placed on the ballot, would Save the Bay and DMB flood the masses to put out a campaign out?” Ponti said.
He also questioned how the verbiage would be phrased and if this could bias people’s opinions towards how to react to the advisory vote.
Redwood City considers putting Saltworks on November ballot
By Bonnie Eslinger, Palo Alto Daily News
After insisting for more than a year that an environmental review of the controversial Redwood City Saltworks project should run its course before any decisions are made, Redwood City council members may put a measure on the November ballot seeking voters' advice on whether to proceed after all.
The stunning turn of events was triggered by Council Member Rosanne Foust, who near the end of the council's meeting Monday night delivered an impassioned nine-minute speech on the project, which envisions as many as 12,000 homes, several office buildings, schools, play fields and restored wetlands on the Cargill salt flats along San Francisco Bay.
Noting that the council was being "dinged" by the public at every step, Foust said the project is dividing the community and overshadowing every other city effort. A vote to show whether the public is "supportive of any development on that property or whether they're not" would help the council determine whether it's worth the time and money to continue, she said.
In a phone interview Wednesday night, Foust said council members have been either accused of not having the backbone to ignore public criticism and stay the course or ripped by those "who say we're crooks and in the pockets of the developers."
"All of that is so far from the truth," said Foust, who has been advised against voting on the Saltworks project by the California Fair Political Practices Commission because she is president of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association, which has endorsed it.
One potential snag to placing an advisory measure on the ballot is the city's lack of an updated description of what the developer DMB Pacific Ventures proposes to build on the 1,400-acre site. In November, the company withdrew its initial proposal so it can make revisions based in part on public feedback.
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Redwood City Manager Robert Bell said he expects the council to decide next month whether to place a Saltworks measure on the November election ballot...
LTE: DMB’s ‘native habitat’
Published in the Palo Alto Daily News
Dear Editor:
I just took a trip to Scottsdale, Ariz. This is the hometown of DMB, the would-be developer of Cargill's salt ponds, and I learned a lot seeing what can be described as DMB's "native habitat." I was astonished by the level of sprawl on what was once stunning desert landscape.
The area is all about cars, and the traffic was unbelievable. Public transportation? Not even on the radar. Oh, and the water tasted terrible.
What did I learn from my Scottsdale adventure? That DMB comes from a land of sprawl, cars and undrinkable water. Gosh, that doesn't bode well for Redwood City, does it?
Nancy Arbuckle,
Redwood City
