Briefs

I wanted to get this up here as well, following up on the profile we did earlier this week on the Rev. Kristin Stoneking who named to the Housing Element Steering Committee for the General Plan by Councilmember Don Saylor. This was a letter in yesterday's Davis Enterprise:

Stoneking is anti-neighborhood

Councilman Don Saylor's appointment of the Rev. Kristin Stoneking to the city's 2013 General Plan Housing Element Steering Committee (Page 1, Jan. 18) merits attention from neighborhoods around Davis.

Stoneking and her Cal Aggie Christian Association board have managed the feat of totally alienating Elmwood Drive neighbors who initially were willing to support a reasonably sized C.A. House development project. Stoneking and the C.A. House relentlessly insisted on a density that 1) city planning staff identified as inconsistent with the neighborhood character, and 2) required an amendment to the General Plan. Their justification was purely financial: The project wouldn't "pencil out" if they had to respect existing density and the surrounding single-family neighborhood.

Stoneking and her board operated like developers but insisted on and received special treatment because of their "mission" from Don Saylor, Steve Souza and Ruth Asmundson. During his election campaign, Saylor had sat in a neighbor's living room on Elmwood and voiced explicit opposition to the C.A. House project.

His choice reflects a lack of respect for the General Plan and planning staff, and support for the cynical, project-by-project process that allowed the C.A. House to proceed. There no doubt will be a rush to defend this appointment, on this page and elsewhere, by cloaking the facts in familiar C.A. House rhetoric.

Other committee members, and citizens who pay attention over the next six years, will make up their own minds along the way. My view, from personal experience, is that Saylor has assured the committee at least one anti-neighborhood, non- collaborative, pro-density appointment.

Michael Harty

We'll be continuing our profiling of several of the other members in future blog entries.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting