Dear Editor:
The Farm Bureau and its sister organizations seem confident that they can support the Stream Setback Ordinance and still enjoy their replant exemption. Recent experience with the Viewshed Ordinance suggests this may not be the case. During the Viewshed Ordinance public hearings, the Farm Bureau made it clear that it would only support that ordinance if agricultural structures were exempted. So an agricultural exemption was built into the ordinance, and the Farm Bureau voiced its support. At the very end of the process, however, when the ordinance was riding high on the Farm Bureau endorsement, the agricultural exemption was rescinded, and the modified ordinance was passed, leaving the Farm Bureau and all the rest of us holding an empty bag. What makes the Farm Bureau think the same thing will not happen this time? How many times must they be burned before they conclude that they are just being used to help promote someone else's political agenda?
The approach of offering exemptions to certain factions of the opposition is a means of dividing and conquering often used by the promoters of any new regulation. Once major players have been bought off with special concessions and exemptions, and broader public acceptance of the new regulation has been gained due to the endorsements of those major players, there is little to stop the regulation promoters from suddenly realizing at the last minute that for some reason or other they have to retract those concessions. And by that time it is very difficult for the major players to retract their endorsements without looking too self-serving, and probably too late anyway to undo the damage done by their earlier endorsement.
The Board of Supervisors has hammered home the point that this is an interim ordinance. That means the Board plans to change the ordinance in the near future. The Farm Bureau, et. al., might like to think that future changes to the ordinance would not negatively impact current farming practices, but it seems obvious to the rest of us that the Board could easily rescind the vineyard replant exemption in the future, and could increase setbacks along class 2 streams as well. The Board would not need an EIR to make either of these changes, as they could claim a categorical exemption under CEQA, just as they have for this interim ordinance.
Members of the Farm Bureau and its sister organizations should consider the possibility that they are being exploited. After all, this would not be the first time they have been double-crossed. Even in the absence of any ill will or intentional deceit, once the proposed ordinance establishes its (currently arbitrary) setback lines, all the various exemptions, "residential", "replant", or whatever, will be vulnerable to withdrawal under environmentalist assault. Everyone's safest course is to oppose this ordinance, at least until some rational, scientific basis for truly meaningful setback dimensions has been established. The Farm Bureau and its sister organizations joining with the rest of us to oppose it would tip the balance against the present ordinance, leaving this Trojan Horse outside the gates.
George Bachich
back