Nearly a year ago, the city asked 11 people to volunteer their
time and energy to serve on a task force that would determine the
best farmland preservation policy for Gilroy.
Nearly a year ago, the city asked 11 people to volunteer their time and energy to serve on a task force that would determine the best farmland preservation policy for Gilroy.
The members of the committee carefully crafted a policy that weighed what are often competing interests – those of the city, of farmers and of open space preservation advocates, all of whom were represented on the task force – and presented a plan to City Council last month.
The task force recommends that mitigations be triggered when more than 10 acres of prime farmland or 40 acres of farmland of statewide importance outside the city’s growth boundary east of U.S. 101 are developed.
There are two important reasons this policy was recommended by the task force to City Council:
• to avoid encouraging piecemealing of agricultural acreage into difficult-to-farm and unprofitably small pieces;
• to avoid economically damaging small farmers who might want to build on one or two acres of a small ranch.
The 11-member task force thoughtfully weighed the pros and cons of many approaches to farmland preservation and decided with a unanimous vote (with one abstention) to endorse this plan as the best one for our community.
But (surprise!) that wasn’t good enough for outgoing Mayor Tom Springer. Suddenly mindful, apparently, that his legacy to Gilroy will be acres of parking outside huge retail big box behemoths and memories of Machiavellian-style politics, the mayor called on outsiders to help force his plan on Gilroy, despite the hard work of nearly a dozen local citizens representing a wide range of viewpoints and interests.
Accompanied by San Francisco-based attorneys for an open-space preservation group, the soon-to-be former mayor showed his contempt for the hard work of the task force by lambasting their recommendation and pushing his acre-for-acre preservation plan.
The hypocrisy of Springer’s action in the face of his approval of such large-scale developments atop farmland – such as Glen Loma Ranch – makes his sudden green leanings highly sickening.
It makes us even more eager for Al Pineheiro’s swearing-in day.
We urge the current City Council to sit tight and wait for its newly elected members to take office before acting on this important legislation. Then, the new Council should meet with the task force, get up to speed on the ins and outs of the task force’s proposed farmland preservation policy, and come to a reasonable consensus. We note, by the way, that even candidate Bruce Morasca, one of the most passionate open space advocates running for City Council, supports the task force’s recommendations.
In general, short of egregious errors in the process used by task forces, City Council has a duty to honor the process it establishes and the hard work done by volunteer task force members by adopting their recommendations.
And the outgoing mayor’s apparent realization that he missed the boat on a better legacy than bargain-priced shopping and spotlight hogging should have no influence on that decision.
