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December 19, 2000
Mayor Jim Perrine and Council Members
Marina City Council, City Hall
211 Hillcrest Avenue
Marina, CA 93933
RE: Council Meeting of December 19, 2000 -
Agenda Item J Implementation of Measure E
Dear Mayor Perrine and Council Members:
On December 5, 2000, the City Council officially
certified the results of the November 7, 2000
election in the City of Marina. Measure E was
adopted by a majority of the voters in that
election, and it is now in effect. I understand
that your Council will be discussing implementation
of Measure E on its December 19, 2000 Agenda.
LandWatch supported Measure E, and we are,
naturally, delighted that the people of the City of
Marina have decided to establish an Urban Growth
Boundary along the northerly portion of the City,
and to take the associated actions specified in
Measure E. LandWatch would like to be of as much
assistance as we can as the City implements the
provisions of Measure E.
I have reviewed the staff report that you will
consider at your meeting this evening, and have
three comments that directly respond to issues
raised in that staff report:
- The staff suggests that the Council might
"reschedule consideration" of how to implement
Measure E "until after the statute of
limitations for Measure E has run out." This
would delay implementation for ninety days.
LandWatch strongly urges you to follow the
requirements of Measure E, which do not allow
for such a delay. The voters of the City of
Marina have adopted measure E, and it is now the
law of the City. Measure E specifically provides
that its provisions shall be incorporated into
the General Plan "as soon as possible"
[Section 5(b)]. Please follow the
requirements of Measure E, and implement its
provisions as soon as possible.
- The staff suggests that one option for
implementation would be to hire a new
consultant, to integrate the provisions of
Measure E into the "new" General Plan recently
adopted by the City. Staff indicates that this
would probably take longer than using the
consultants who helped prepare the new General
Plan, and that this option could well be more
costly. It seems likely that it would both take
longer and be more costly to hire new
consultants, who would presumably not be
familiar with the work so recently done.
LandWatch assumes that the City Council will
want to retain much of the recently adopted
General Plan, as it incorporates the provisions
of Measure E into it, and we think that this
will most quickly and efficiently be
accomplished by using the consultants already
familiar with the issues, and the General Plan
document recently adopted by the City.
- The staff suggests that Measure E might be
integrated into the "new" City General Plan by
treating it as an "overlay" on the recently
adopted document. LandWatch wants to caution the
City that while the Urban Growth Boundary
imposes a "line" on the northerly side of the
City, the effect of that decision by the voters
has very significant implications of a number of
provisions in the recently adopted General Plan
document. In our opinion, the City cannot
achieve a legally sufficient, internally
consistent General Plan by simply imposing the
Urban Growth Boundary as an "overlay" on the
current land use map.
Besides responding directly to the staff report
that will be before you this evening, we have the
following comments:
- The implementation of Measure E is
complicated by the fact that the City Council
adopted a new General Plan just prior to the
November 7, 2000 election. Had the Council not
done so, Sections 2 and 4 of the initiative
would have been "self-executing," and would have
been inserted directly into the General Plan
existing as of the date the Notice of Intention
to circulate the initiative was submitted to the
City. Measure E, however, did contemplate the
possible amendment of the formerly existing
General Plan, prior to the effective date of the
initiative. Section 5 of Measure E, entitled
"Implementation," directs the City Council to
take action, "as soon as possible," to amend the
Marina General Plan to conform it to the
provisions of Measure E, if that General Plan
has been "amended" since the date that the
Notice of Intention was filed with the City.
- In view of the provisions contained in
Section 5 of the initiative, I believe that
there are two possible ways for the Council to
proceed. One way would be for the Council to
integrate Measure E into the "new" General Plan
recently adopted by the City. The staff report
before you assumes is that this is how the
Council will proceed&emdash;and in one sense,
unless the Council wants to "start over," which
doesn't make much sense&emdash;the Council will
ultimately want to integrate Measure E into the
"new" General Plan. There may be another way of
approaching the task in the short term, however,
which I think you should consider.
- Another way of proceeding is for the Council
to determine that the General Plan recently
adopted by the Council has not yet been finally
"adopted," and that the General Plan in effect
when the Notice of Intention was filed has not,
in fact, yet been "amended," within the meaning
of Measure E, because State law provides that no
General Plan amendment for the City of Marina
can be effective until it is certified as
consistent with the FORA Reuse Plan. As you
know, the "new" General Plan has not yet been
certified by FORA. Thus, I believe the Council
could properly determine that the "old" General
Plan is in fact still legally in place, and was
legally in place on November 7, 2000, and on
December 5, 2000, and that Section 5(a) of
Measure E has resulted in the insertion of the
voter-adopted provisions into the "old" General
Plan. This manner of proceeding would give the
City a General Plan that immediately integrates
Measure E into the General Plan in an internally
consistent way, which is advantageous to the
City. The City, having such an internally
consistent General Plan in place, could then
proceed to work on an amendment that would
properly integrate the provisions of Measure E
with those provisions of the "new" General Plan.
I believe that the Council should ask its legal
counsel to review this possibility, to see
whether it would have advantages for the
City.
- While I am still studying this matter, I
believe that FORA should not, and legally
cannot, certify the "new" General Plan as
consistent with the FORA Plan, both because of
some inconsistencies between the new land use
plan and the habitat protection provisions of
the FORA Plan, and because the "new" General
Plan is, itself, not now a complete statement of
the land use policies that are actually in force
in the City of Marina&emdash;i.e., the "new"
General Plan does not incorporate the provisions
of Measure E. If I am correct that FORA will not
be able to certify the "new" Marina General Plan
at an early date, the benefits of taking the
alternative approach I discuss above become
greater.
Thank you for taking our comments into account,
as you consider how to implement the provisions of
Measure E.
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