By Meg Caldwell
The debate over the Saratoga Neighborhood Preservation Initiative (Measure G) raises important issues about representative government in general and our Saratoga government in particular. This measure would strengthen direct participation by Saratoga residents in major land-use decisions affecting our city.
I support Measure G, and the central reason for this is that government processes in Saratoga lack integrity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in land-use decisions where political patronage dominates and ultimately decides pivotal and irreversible decisions affecting our neighborhoods, our hillsides and our property values.
How does this patronage play out in Saratoga? The current City Council continues a long tradition of granting development approvals to outside developers represented by land-use consultants, primarily prior City Council and Planning Commission members.
The list of former mayors, councilmembers and planning commissioners who have lobbied and appeared in front of the Planning Commission or City Council advocating for developers--never for neighborhood or environmental interests--includes Virginia Fanelli, Linda Callon, Norm Matteoni, Gene Zambetti and others.
This practice makes a sham of the notion of unpaid, volunteer council and commission members. It creates the perception, if not the reality, that land-use decisions in Saratoga are for sale.
Opponents of Measure G first argued that no one should sign the petition to place the measure on the March 26 ballot because it would accomplish "nothing." Now, these same opponents are arguing that it subverts their political process and that it will accomplish too much.
Why are our councilmembers and their "patrons" so upset? Councilmembers are frantic that they will no longer have the power to unilaterally control development approvals in our city. That neighborhood interests might finally have parity with development interests when decisions on park land, other open space, or hillside acreage are at hand.
Their argument about "subverting the political process" is both ludicrous and telling. Since 1911, the California constitution has provided for initiative and referendum as integral parts of our government process. The same warnings about "ignorance and caprice and irresponsibility of the multitude" replacing the "learning and judgment" of our elected officials that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 1911 are now surfacing in the opponents' rhetoric.
Initiative and referendum were intended to provide a method of direct legislation and democracy when elected and appointed officials are not meeting the needs of the community.
There is nothing undemocratic or unseemly about direct democracy; it is simply harder to manipulate thousands of individual registered voters than five elected officials. (Unfortunately, we are already seeing voter manipulation with the enormously expensive and misleading telephone "poll" orchestrated by the opponents' campaign consultant.)
Having spent over five years on the Planning Commission, I can tell Saratogans from first-hand experience that the vast majority of our land-use decisions are driven by development interests and well-paid consultants. There is precious little concern for the kind of community we will have in our own lifetime and leave to our children.
It is past time Saratogans have a direct say in major land-use decisions that will irreversibly change our neighborhoods. It is also time to begin to restore some integrity to governmental processes in Saratoga. Measure G can do both.
Meg Caldwell is a former member of the Saratoga Planning Commission.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 14, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved