Quarry Development: Pacifica Pushback

Signatures Filed

NextDoor Posts

Pacifica Tribune

Jane Northrop interviews friends and foes of the proposed quarry development (click Pacifica Tribune link above). For Riptide's continuing coverage of the quarry story, see all our other May 4 posts. Join the conversation at the Comments link below each post.

Comments

[todd bray]

Dear All:

Please don't be distracted by our own rhetoric. The development team this Heule guy has put together is very dedicated to using every tool, every trick, and every dollar they spend on putting the quarry under the trowel to build housing to make money. If it's here or somewhere else, this development team is just a land-eating monster.

There can be no underestimation of the length this development team will go to for success. The misinformation and manipulation we've seen to date is but a drop in the bucket of what is to come if they get a ballot measure for November's election.

This is a new beast. Trammell Crow and Peebles were amateurs compared to the team this Grand Rapids, Michigan fellow has hired to literally ramrod our town into voting to build an entirely new neighborhood. 200+ of any housing is bigger than my neighborhood.

In the coming months, I believe we will see the worst lowdown dirty yes campaign to date.

[Wm. Boyce]

"What happens if the current developer goes bankrupt a day after the ballot initiative passes?"

Vote NO and take care of business.

[Big Banker]

Jay Bird:

Maybe you should put it on the record and ask the tough questions to the city attorney and demand answers at a City Council meeting.

[Jay Bird]

We agree with http://pacifica.city/

We think the Pacifica city attorney (a subcontracted law firm) should again answer written questions from the public on the current quarry ballot initiative, including: 
"What happens if the current developer goes bankrupt a day after the ballot initiative passes?"

Remember: Anything other than the exact text on the ballot initiative is irrelevant. The developer can promise everyone the moon or a pink pony, but only the exact legal text on the ballot initiative matters.

[Laurie Soca]

Another point the developer ballot initiative only hints at is traffic impacts.

Worth watching: discussions on the inappropriately sited ''Big Wave" project and its impact on Highway 1 traffic south on the Midcoast. Decisions there are related to, and will impact, Pacifica traffic.
http://www.hmbreview.com/news/big-wave-dismisses-call-for-roundabout/article_64dd5f7c-1ed1-11e6-a419-0fa473adec1c.html

[Jay Bird]

The behavior of the petioners, in at least one case, is suspect as well

"...I was across the street from the Pacifica Post Office and there was a quarry petitioner there. I started telling people they shouldn't sign the petition. He told me to go f--- myself several times and called me a c---. One of the postmasters came out of the post office and told him he couldn't have his table there because it was federal property. He called her a bitch and a c---. The police were called ... "
http://www.pacificariptide.com/pacifica_riptide/2016/05/new-quarry-mailer-more-smoke-mirrors.html

[todd bray]

What Mislead said!

[Why the need to mislead?]

Here is an example of how signature gatherers inflate their numbers:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/multiple-voters-confirm-for-denver7-their-signatures-were-forged-on-keyser-petitions-for-us-senate

Once we can obtain access to the alleged signatures, we may need to take the validation process into our own hands. In a town this small and vocal, it should not be too hard to determine whether the process was legit. If it was, we need to move on and direct our efforts to the election.

[Big Banker]

Maybe all those Oakland residents who signed up for the last petition can all be over here on the same day and sign.

I always wondered why weekend traffic was so heavy coming across the Bay Bridge and going through downtown San Francisco.

Everyone was coming to Pacifica to sign petitions.

[alan wald]

California Elections Code Sec. 9030-9035 covers validation of signatures on local initiatives:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=09001-10000&file=9030-9035

[Laurie Soca]

"... I see no reason to trust that these paid 'volunteers' would start being honest and ethical now."

Statistically, the odds do not favor gaining as much in one week as it took in preceding months.

How are signatures validated?
Pacifica residents, who will be voting on this issue, must recuse themselves.

[todd bray]

Right on, John:

The development team members were a little too proud of themselves. I hope the city and county really do look at every signature, not just a cross section of names -- if they will even do that.

[John]

It's amazing how many signatures were gathered at the last minute. When a bunch of the petitioners met on the morning of May 11, they had 1,588 signatures. I know exactly how many because they had breakfast at a local restaurant and loudly occupied the table next to mine, and this number was repeated several times, along with the existence of about 200 more they could "get" in the form of some incomplete mailers. I believe every signature submitted should be scrutinized and validated, because if these paid signature gatherers were paid by the signature, they could feel the incentive to maybe play fast and loose with some signatures. Somehow in the next week apparently they found as many as their deceptive campaign was able to gather in the preceding months. Given the level of deception exhibited by this Michigan-based LLC, I see no reason to trust that these paid "volunteers" would start being honest and ethical now.

[Mitch Reid]

I've received five "Preserving the Quarry" official ballot petitions in the mail; they clearly have more money than brains. Each of them contains a "Business Reply Mail" envelope -- no postage necessary.
I suggest here to residents to take the opportunity to mail them a note expressing your thoughts on the proposed project. I will be mailing out five notes.

[todd bray]

Dear "Pacifica Residents for Preserving the Quarry": If there was a Pacifica resident in your Michigan PAC, I'd agree with your second point, but I think you should save the Holier Than Thou stuff. It isn't effective coming from a developer-sponsored and -funded political action committee registered out of state.

[Butch Larroche]

"Using the phony name." Really, Jay Bird? I assume that is not your real name either.

[Jay Bird]

Just the facts:
1) Anyone can get a Pacifica mailing address. It does not make them a Pacifica resident.

2) No ballot initiative is needed for any of the commercial development. Only housing element requires a vote of the people. And this ballot initiative takes away that vote for any future housing projects in the quarry under 206 multi-family units.
http://www.pacificariptide.com/pacifica_riptide/2016/05/new-quarry-mailer-more-smoke-mirrors.html

3) Once the property is entailed with 206 or less housing units, its value in the marketplace increases by millions of dollars, making it relatively easy to sell as is, at a tidy profit.

4) Adding what amounts to a small town in the quarry with 206 housing units, 200-room hotel and conference center, amphitheater, trails, added roads, and other infrastructure is not a grassroots Pacifica proposal; it is a proposal by an out-of-town developer able to fund out-of-town petition signature gatherers, mailers positioned as being from "Pacifica Residents..." and more to add housing entailment to his recently acquired quarry property.
http://www.pacificariptide.com/pacifica_riptide/2016/05/rockaway-quarry-development-opposition.html

[Pacifica Residents for Preserving the Quarry]

@Jay, @Chick: First, just to the facts, just because one person posts something that is not true in a blog comment, and then you repeat it, does not make it true. For the record, it is not true that:

''the political action group 'Pacifica Residents, Tax Payers and Small Businesses for Preserving The Quarry' is registered in Michigan, not California."

That committee is registered in California. The treasurer is in San Rafael and it has a Pacifica mailing address.

Similarly, the meeting at Nick's was pretty well attended given we organized it on short notice. About 75 people came through over the course of the evening, asked good questions, and just wanted to learn more. It was a good night. No one was shouted down.

Second, while it may not be wise for us to do this, we will offer one piece of political advice. If you continue to insult and belittle the Pacifica residents who happen to have a different opinion on this issue than you do, you are not doing your side any favors. A lot of people in Pacifica would like to see the environmental restoration at the Quarry, along with the other amenities and appropriate development. Every time you state that they must have been "fooled or misled" you do your cause harm. By all means, continue.

[Jay Bird]

How many people were fooled into signing?

As already noted, ''the political action group 'Pacifica Residents, Tax Payers and Small Businesses for Preserving The Quarry' is registered in Michigan, not California."

One has to assume that even the blogger on this thread using the phony name "Pacifica Residents for Preserving the Quarry" is someone here from Michigan, out to make a quick buck in California.

The developer's meeting at Nick's was mostly the developers and real estate people. Very few Pacifica residents except for a few who wanted to ask about traffic, water, sewer, etc. And were shouted down or just not answered.

http://www.pacificariptide.com/.a/6a00d8341c795b53ef01b8d1c4c99f970c-pi

If it's so great, why all the deception and subterfuge?

[Chick Filet]

But how many of those people who signed were fooled or misled by the wording of the initiative and the PR spin put on this whole campaign? I bet if you asked those people, most of them thought they were signing a pro-environment petition rather than a pro-development petition. Shame on you.

[Pacifica Residents for Preserving the Quarry]

@Jay Bird: The City Clerk does a raw count and then sends them to the County Registrar of Voters for verification. That happened today. Since we submitted 3,200 signatures and need 2,200 valid, we likely have enough.

[Alan Wald]

Its proposed main street "Avenue Q(uarry)" evokes images of "sock puppets," as they are known, that create the illusion of support for this project.

Reference: http://avenueq.com/?gclid=CKuG8Pr44cwCFQJsfgodkU4ODA

[Jay Bird]

Do the signatures have to be validated, or have they been already?

[www.Pacifica.city]

Quite a few police reports about the petition gatherers last month.

Big thanks to Jane and Horace of the Pacifica Tribune for covering the quarry stories.

[Laurie Soca]

"... political action group 'Pacifica Residents, Tax Payers and Small Businesses for Preserving The Quarry' is registered in Michigan, not California ..."

Is this online somewhere?

The developer Eenhoorn is from Michigan:
http://eenhoorn.com/contact.html

Did the developer set up the political action committee (PAC) for Pacifica?