The current climate in California in which the state government is usurping local authority over planning and zoning is degenerating into a blame fest as local officials pin responsibility for approvals of non-conforming proposals on the "bastards" in Sacramento. The Mercury News reports:
Carefully, like a doctor explaining treatment options to a sick patient, a consultant for a tiny Peninsula city laid out a stark choice: Allow 2,000 homes to be built on a barren 684 acres or risk tangling with state lawmakers who have threatened to jam through a development twice as large.
“We talked to the council about everything between doing a full-throated fight with Sacramento to doing a very quick and dirty compromise, which is done in Sacramento all the time,” attorney Tom McMorrow told the small group of residents at a recent Brisbane City Council meeting, assuring them that a full environmental clean-up of the contaminated Baylands site was part of the deal.
In the Capitol, he said, “Issues don’t just go away because you’ve defeated them once. The way you get them to go away is responsible compromise.” Read More
