This is the document referred
to by Supervisor Roger Dickinson in his email of October 10, 2001, where
he uses this document to justify his October 3, 2001 verbal attack on Ms.
Byrne. Click here to read that email.
Mr. Chairman, Supervisors
I believe that there have been systematic attempts by the Planning Department to exclude the CPAC, and therefore the community, from this process. This is not just a case of simply neglecting to return a few phone calls. For a long time, although far too much effort has had to be expended merely to get information, I was willing to chalk it up to a pattern of indifference. However, this pattern of not including the CPAC, followed by the CPAC's discoveries of available information not mentioned, much less supplied, followed by apologies and promises to do better in the future begins to take on the appearance of deliberate exclusion.
I am providing you with detailed documentation. I am doing so as a prelude to submission to the Sacramento County Grand Jury. The purpose of submitting this to the Grand Jury is:
Many people are under the impression that I am personally against this power plant and use as evidence the great efforts I have been going to with respect to this project. I estimate that for the past nine months, I have attended, on average, at least one meeting per week, not to mention the reams of documentation I have waded through, and the countless hours on the telephone, mostly from people in the community calling me about this project. The effort I have been expending is not as a proponent or an opponent, although ultimately, having heard from the community that the community does not want this plant, I feel a duty to make sure that the community's opinion is heard. The goal of my effort, as should be the goal of the Planning Department is to act as an impartial "keeper of the process," although as a CPAC member, I feel my specific role is to make sure that the community is included..
My personal crusade, as a supposedly important part of the County process as a member of the CPAC, is to have the County follow its own procedures, and in doing so, not just go through the motions. This has proven to be a Herculean, and so far unsuccessful crusade. So far, I haven't even been able to get County Planning to go through the motions.
FPL Power Plant Project
CPAC attempts to receive documentation and give community input
1. In the fall of 2000, Tricia Stevens met with representatives from FPL regarding land use. This in itself is not inappropriate, Planning staff meets with applicants all the time. What appears to be inappropriate is assurances that were made, according to FPL by Tricia with respect to whether this site was appropriate for a stand-alone power plant.. Of course, these are verbal in nature, but FPL seemed to think that there were such assurances, and have acted accordingly.
2. On June 5, 2001 a letter from Tricia Stevens detailing these assurances was issued to the CEC. At this point, members of the community had been coming to CPAC meetings for months expressing concern about this project. The CPAC expressed concerns specifically about the land use aspects of this project. Planning staff was aware that there was keen interest in this issue, yet continually brushed aside these concerns as not being relevant. At the June 12 regularly scheduled CPAC meeting, when the land use issue was again brought up, the CPAC was informed about this letter. At that time, we requested a copy be sent to us. The copy finally mailed to me was postmarked June 21 -- long after one had been sent to the Sacramento Bee by the Planning Department. I had a conversation with Tricia Stevens asking why we hadn't at least been cc ed on this letter, especially given the amount of interest in the community. She said that the CPAC should probably have been included.
3. When I asked County Counsel for specifics as to what legal justification had been given for the letter, I was told that that was "attorney-client privileged information." Thankfully, Mr. Dickinson's office made the determination that this was public information and allowed the CPAC to receive a copy of a memorandum detailing the justification.
4. I also found out from CEC staff that there had been a meeting between County Planning staff, County Counsel, and CEC land use staff in June. I asked for information as to what had been discussed at that meeting and asked that the CPAC be included in any future meetings. The answer as to what had been discussed was non-responsive. They basically said that they had talked about a lot of "stuff' and gave no specifics. I asked for copies of notes from this meeting and was told that Planning staff had none! CEC staff was much more accommodating, and gave me a two page memo that detailed what had been discussed. This is the type of documentation I had been hoping to receive from County Planning staff.
5. The Planning Department was not going bring this issue to the CPAC, and therefore get any community input, before it was heard by you on August 29, so the CPAC scheduled its own meetings. To prepare for these meetings, the CPAC requested copies of the files of the three previously filed SEPCO applications as a starting point, along with a copy of the EIR for the Community Plan. On July 23, I met with Tricia Stevens and Leighann Moffitt to discuss the CPAC's role, or lack thereof, in this process. I had been told that I would receive the requested SEPCO files at this meeting. Just as an aside, a member of the community had been requesting this same documentation since approximately last September. He finally got it in June. The files were not ready for me, and in fact had not yet been sent out to be copied, according to Tricia. With respect to the EIR, they could only come up with Volumes I and II of three. They gave them to me at this meeting and told me that the third volume was unimportant, and that I didn't really need it. They went on to say that they could not locate one single copy of the third volume in the Planning Department and DERA did not appear to have one either. The third volume contains the technical studies, which have proven very important in our review of consistency with the Community Plan. These studies are referenced throughout the first two volumes. At my insistence that the CPAC should at least have available a complete copy of the EIR underlying its Community Plan, a copy of the third volume was secured some weeks later, as were the requested SEPCO files.
6. The staff report for the August 29 meeting, which was clearly inadequate, was handed to me two days before your meeting, as it was to you. I only even knew about it because I happened to spend most of the day Monday and part of the day Tuesday at the Board chambers.
So far, although far too much effort has had to be expended merely to get information, I was willing to chalk it up to a pattern of indifference. However, this pattern of not including the CPAC, followed by the CPAC's discoveries of available information not mentioned, much less supplied, followed by apologies and promises to do better in the future begins to take on the appearance of deliberate exclusion.
This is followed by an actual overt, attempt to exclude the CPAC from the process.
7. At the end of the meeting on August 29 where this item was first heard by you, I asked that the Planning Department correspondence to the CEC also be shared with the CPAC. The reply of the Chair, I believe was, "hopefully that should happen anyway." Well, I too hoped that it would happen anyway, but I would like to share with you now what I have received since then from the Planning Department, correspondence and otherwise.
That night, after the meeting, Tricia Stevens approached me and said that if it was okay with the CEC, the Planning Department was okay with me attending the meeting that the Planning Department was going to have with the CEC. The CEC representatives who were present said that they would like to have someone from the CPAC at that meeting. Later that week, I was contacted by Mark Hamblin, the Land Use staff person at the CEC to get my schedule. At the beginning of the next week, he called me to tell me that the meeting was going to be Monday morning, September 10th, at 9:00 a.m. The time of the meeting is important, as you will see presently.
On Friday, September 7, I left my house after 3:00 p.m. Sometime after I left, I received a message on my answering machine from Tricia Stevens asking me to call her with my schedule so she could set up a meeting with the CEC. That seemed at little odd to me, as the meeting was already scheduled for first thing on the next business day, Monday morning.
I found out later that the Planning Department had apparently regretted their hasty decision to include the CPAC and was planning to set up different meeting with the CEC for the CPAC to come to. They were apparently not planning to tell me about the meeting they had already set up, and didn't realize that the CEC had included me in the meeting. They were apparently surprised, and not pleasantly, to see me at the meeting when they arrived.
At this meeting, the Planning Department representatives asked every question from the point of view of "how do we tell the CEC that the County approves this project?" I objected, and said that the question shows a bias on the part of the Planning Department. This has been part of the CPAC's problem all along, - that the Planning Department should be an unbiased protector of the codes and regulations of the County with regard to land use, not a proponent of any project. An unbiased question would have been, "what participation do you feel is necessary from the County of Sacramento in this process?" So I asked the question, "Or what does the CEC need to hear from the County if the County does NOT approve of this site for this project?" so as to allow for both possibilities.
The CEC was quite detailed in its response. It even gave examples from other projects in the state. The CEC again reiterated that it has, only once in its 25 year existence, gone against a local agency in licensing a site.
8. Two days later, on Wednesday, September 12, the CEC had another Data Workshop regarding the Land Use issue. No one from County Planning came. If someone had come, they would have heard Caryn Holmes, the Land Use attorney from the CEC, say that the County should be processing this project "as if it were a 49 MW power plant." In other words, as if the County had jurisdiction, and not just abdicate its responsibility to the state. Caryn went on to further state that a policy by policy comparison of the project with the General Plan and the Community Plan would be a good place to start.
9. After the workshop, I phoned Tricia Stevens to tell her what the CEC had said. She said that that was not the Planning Department's understanding after Monday's meeting, but regardless, they would be sending a memo of their understanding to the CEC. I have yet to receive a copy of that memo. I don't know if one was ever done.
10. Last week, I spoke with Leighann Moffitt. She said that FPL had not yet given the Planning Department the information they were waiting for, and therefore the staff report would not be done in time for this meeting today. We had a nice chat about the fact that it only made sense that time not be wasted on a staff report at this time anyway, since FPL had not been scheduled to file their supplement with the CEC until Monday, October 1.
This supplement would have information that up to now has only been verbal with the CEC, regarding a new proposal for where the plant is to get its water supply. It would also hopefully have more information on the plume abatement system that represents a major change from the technology that FPL was going to use as described in their original application. Since then, FPL indicated that they were not going to file their supplement by October 1, but would probably file it in November.
Leighann said that the Planning Department was going to continue the item, but that they were concerned that the community would be upset by this. I said that I didn't think that the community would be upset by a continuance. On the contrary, it would give the Board an opportunity to schedule this at a night meeting so more of the community could attend, and the even if it couldn't be at a night meeting, the delay would allow a more thorough analysis of the information once it is provided by FPL.
I knew that Leighann would not be in her office on Friday. I was at the Planning Department on Friday on another matter and asked if Tricia were available. I was told that she was not in either. I called on Monday, October 1, and left a voicemail asking to confirm that the staff report was not going to be done and this item was going to be continued today. I received no reply. I called again on Tuesday and left the same message. Again, no reply. At 4:45, I called again and tried to talk to Leighann or Tricia. No luck. I transferred to the Supervisors office and was informed that the item was not going to be continued. I transferred back to Planning, where a clerk told me that the staff report was issued Friday. I had not been notified. At 9:15 on Wednesday, October 03, 2001, Leighann returned my call and said that the report had been finished on Friday, as I had already discovered. She said that Friday, Tricia had the copies for distribution. I guess I didn't ask the right question when I was at the Planning Department on Friday so that I could have been informed about the existence of this report.
Conclusion
I believe that the process is broken. I hope that review by the Grand Jury will result in some way to mend the process, to again make the public feel as if their input is not only important, but is desired and even actively solicited throughout the process.
Sincerely,
Deborah Byrne
Chair, Rio Linda/Elverta Community Planning and Advisory Council