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In a 3-2 vote, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors rescinded its certification of a land use initiative and opted to delay placing it on the November 5 ballot until after the fiscal impact report becomes available to the county counsel. Supervisors Dom Zanger and Kollin Kosmicki voted against reconsidering the item and delaying it, with Zanger saying the move “seems off.”
The June 25 vote comes a week after the board unanimously granted the certification and approved the ballot question.
Supervisor Angela Curro said she wanted to delay the certification to make sure the information from the 9111 report was available prior to approving the ballot question, while proponents and supporters of the Empower Voters to Make Land Use Decision Initiative and two supervisors questioned the process and motives.
At the heart of the discussion was concern over the ballot language for the initiative, which when the supervisors granted certification read, “Shall an initiative be adopted to amend the County General Plan to require voter approval before re-designating (changing) Agricultural, Rural or Rangeland to other uses, and to remove the Commercial Regional Designation from four Highway 101 nodes?”
Curro said she was concerned about the question because the county counsel, who is responsible for drafting the question, has not received the 9111 report, which is intended to inform the supervisors and voters of potential impacts if a measure is adopted. She said the report is expected to be completed in mid-July and that the ballot question is “the most important” part of the process.
“Unfortunately the majority of voters read only the question and the most information possible needs to be in that question so voters are voting on as much fact-based information,” Curro said.
Though she said she would not provide any feedback to county counsel regarding the framing of the question, eight members of the public spoke against the move, including the initiative proponents’ lawyer. Four speakers said the move was politically motivated to sway voters to reject the measure. Initiative supporters also questioned the report’s neutrality and said the report is intended to be additional information to the voters and not part of the ballot question.
Andy Hsia-Coron leads the group proposing the measure, Campaign to Protect San Benito County. Hsia-Coron said the supervisors were trying to “create a question that puts the thumb on the scale that in some way adds additional votes to the ‘No’ side.”
Several supporters of the initiative questioned whether the fiscal impact report would be impartial, citing the 2022 report commissioned by the county for Measure Q, the first iteration of this initiative. Measure Q did not pass, with 56% of the voters rejecting it.
“I feel like you are doing the same thing again, making the language about a question biased,” Briggite Baumann-Thorp said.
Kosmicki and Zanger also questioned the process of revisiting the initiative.
Kosmicki, who called the ballot question “straightforward” said the board did not follow the process to place an item on the agenda and that the agenda did not include wording that addressed the request to change the rules and to rescind the June 18 vote.
County Counsel David Prentice said the board rules allow supervisors to bring back an item at the next meeting for reconsideration if it was passed. He said it could be done if the majority of the board did not object to the reconsideration.
Before discussing the certification, the board, in two separate votes, approved motions to add a board rule for reconsidering items and another to reconsider the Empower Voters initiative. Supervisors Mindy Sotelo, Bea Gonzales and Curro comprised the majority.
Zanger called the ballot question reasonable and questioned changing the rules.
“It just seems odd that we’re going through all this to change the question that our county counsel wrote and that seemed [to be] all good with the elections office, good with us in the past,” he said. “The whole thing just seems off to me.”
Two public speakers in favor of waiting for the 9111 report said it was important to provide voters with as much information as possible.
“When it comes to full information on an item, fiscal impact should be absolutely front and center,” Valerie Egland said.
In his May 14 presentation, County Counsel David Prentice said the 9111 report will include an impartial analysis of:
- Fiscal impacts
- Effect on internal consistency with general and specific plans, housing element and zoning
- Effect on use of land and the ability to meet the region’s housing needs
- Impact on infrastructure funding, such as transportation, schools, parks and open space
- Impact on the ability to attract and retain business and employment
- Any other matters requested by the Board of Supervisors
The supervisors are expected to consider accepting the certification July 23.
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