Madison Up in Arms With Rexroad's Vote

On Tuesday, the County continued with their general plan update, although most of Davis was quiet this time as Davis was not on the agenda. The same cannot be said for places like Dunnigan which faces the potential 7500 new homes.

One of the less controversial votes was a 4-1 vote by the Board of Supervisors to apply the new specific plan designation to approximately 398 acres which could include up to 1,335 homes and 160 acres of commercial/industrial development.

The one dissenting vote was Supervisor Matt Rexroad. One the surface of it, it is an odd vote. The people of Madison are in favor of the development. Furthermore, the Supervisor who actually has Madison in his district, Duane Chamberlain, was in favor of the development and Chamberlain is a strong opponent of new developments.

Nevertheless, Rexroad's "no-vote" has the people of Madison talking recall despite the fact that they won the vote 4-1 and despite the fact that Madison is not even in his district. I am not certain how that will work, but I am fairly certain that you have to be in someone's district to recall them and I am even more certain that the people who live in Rexroad's district are not about to try to recall him over what he voted on in Madison. Needless to say however, Rexroad is all shook up about this. On the phone last night, he could not stop laughing.

The funny thing is, is when you look at the proposal and the arguments employed by Mr. Rexroad, I have to agree with him that this probably not the place to develop.

First, the people of Madison have argued that this would provide homes for the casino workers, but as Rexroad points out that housing in Esparto would make a lot more sense since it is closer to the casino, there are existing schools, and it is not a flood zone.

Speaking of flooding, Rexroad argues that most of the problems with flooding will be resolved by road improvements to Highway 16, and once that is done, the rest of the flood solution can be resolved by the existing residents.

The issue of revenue for the county comes up as well, however the economic people in the county project that the county will not make money unless the homes are $400,000 plus and they are not building those kind of homes in Madison.

Based on these arguments, I have to agree with Matt Rexroad, this proposal makes little sense. I would however like to here from the good folks in Madison about why we need this new development.

As I suggested at the beginning on this piece, the folks in Davis have largely stopped following this process once Davis literally dropped off the map, although I really expect this issue to arise in the future. The heat got too hot for some in the county, but I suspect that the core reasons for their support for development remain. However, honestly, from top to bottom, I am appalled and outraged at some of the proposals that have come forward and that will be supported by the county.

The county somehow believes that they are going to grow themselves into new revenue. I really wish they would study other counties and municipalities who had the same belief and see how that turned out for them. I would venture to guess you will have a hard time finding a county in the black, regardless of growth policies. I suspect that will leave us with two alternatives, a good look at what we are spending money on currently and a good look at how the state can do a better job of funding counties for the services that they provide to citizens.

In the meantime, I would hope that the folks of Madison have something better to do than to try a vengeance recall effort on someone else's county supervisor, but who knows.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Questioning Changes in Yamada's Votes On Two Development Projects

On February 6, 2007 the Yolo County Board of Supervisors met for the entire day to discuss the Yolo County Planning Commission's recommendations and supplemental staff recommendations for the general plan update.

Included in there was a recommendation to produce massive developments in Dunnigan and a substantial development in Knights Landing.

The Dunnigan specific plan calls for 1995 acres of development for 7500 homes and 230 acres of commercial and industrial. That number was raised from the original proposal of 2500 new residential units.

The Knights landing specific plan calls for 145 acres and up to 800 homes with an additional 38 acres for commercial and industrial development. The staff recommendation at the time was to reduce the number to 650 lots but it was eventually passed for 800 homes.

At the February 6, 2007 Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Yamada cast a no vote for both projects. The Knights Landing project passed by a 3-2 vote with Yamada and Chamberlain voting no.

However, at the July 17, 2007 Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Yamada voted yes for both projects, even though the facts involved were essentially identical. Moreover, the yes vote on the Knights Landing project passed by a 3-2 margin, making her vote the decisive vote. Supervisor Matt Rexroad had switched his initial "yes" vote to a "no" vote out of concerns that the development was in an area prone to flooding.

These votes are highlighted because the financial disclosure for Supervisor Mariko Yamada's State Assembly Race has come out.

In that disclosure we see that the developers for both projects gave her substantial contributions. Miksal, is associated with the developer involved with the Dunnigan Hills agricultural project donated Yamada $1000 on June 30, 2007, just two and a half weeks prior to the Board of Supervisors meeting.

Meanwhile Castle Development has donated another $1000 to Yamada on June 29, 2007. Castle Development is the developer working on the Knights Landing development.

Given the realities of campaign finance, it is often necessary to take development money in order to finance campaigns that are going to run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if not higher. However, the rule of thumb has to be that you must be able to insulate yourself from charges that the money is influencing your votes.

Based on the facts alone we cannot make that determination, all we can do is ask the question—other than receiving a campaign contribution did anything else change between February’s vote and July’s vote and what caused Supervisor Yamada to switch from opposing both developments to supporting both developments?

The Vanguard will in the future be looking at the financial disclosure of West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon to see where his money is coming from. Likely we will see a slew of development interests there as well.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting