Monday, July 8, 2013

An Open Letter to Susan Adams

June 27, 2013
 
Susan:
 
Thank you for hosting the meeting last night at the Marinwood Community Center. We've been asking for an open forum in the community for months (and should have started years ago had we known what was being planned) and I'm relieved to hear it's finally happened. Small coffees are fine if you want to have them for your own brainstorming or problem solving, but they are not public or open and do not substitute as community meetings (as is required by SB628. BTW next time a public meeting is being planned please assume we will need a larger venue and more than an hour to speak on these issues, which is all you gave us).

One of the first things I learned in Business School and as a manager is the importance of buy-in right at the outset of major change that is being proposed.
There are industries that have been created around the concept of 'change management' and the most crucial element is gaining buy-in at the outset. It doesn't sound to me as if that has ever happened for the housing issue. You may indeed have been speaking to people over the last few years about what was happeninng with Plan Bay Area, ABAG etc but I would guess you chose to have these discussions with people that agreed with you, or others that had a vested interest in this going forward. The fact that the Association of Realtors were not aware of this is alarming.

It is clear that the majority of your constituents have not bought into any of your plans around housing (and if you disagree - put it to the vote - you told me yourself there is plenty of $ in the county budget). The problem that I see is that this does not seem to bother you. You have given lip service that you are listening but your actions and rhetoric do not in any way show that you are fighting to represent the majority of your consituents.

It is disingenious for you to maintain that you were not aware of certain PDA maps for Marinwood, and for you to keep on saying "this is potential; just because someone has the right to build doesn't mean they will". That assumes we are either stupid or naive. As soon as the economy shows some muscle, and rezoning happens to 30 units/acre, the development will happen.

It is disingenious of you to say that Lucas pulled out of Grady because he was fed up with fighting with the Lucas Valley Estate folks when you know full well that it was beause of environmental issues he had not addressed and was not willing to amend.

It is disingenious for you to maintain that we could have all known about this issue for years had we taken the time to sift through the county website. That is not our job! We work to pay property taxes to pay your team so that they can represent our best interests. If Marinwood community center somehow can tell me when soccer camps are starting by posting signs on Lucas Valley Rd I'm sure your big budget can find a way to communicate effectively to the community about issues that will forever affect the schools, property values, traffic, the environment etc.

It is abhorrent that you have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, on consultants for this issue - which the majorty of us do not agree with

The frustration and anger you witnessed last night is not so much towards the plans (which are clearly made by ivory tower public servant bureaucrats being seduced by developers and dreams of lofty transportation grants) as it is towards your unwillingness to change your conversation and begin to mirror the majority of your audience. You have decided that this is what YOU want and nothing is going to change your mind. I, for one, do not believe you have any intention of fighting for the majority of us.

Consequently, given the lack of confidence, and to save this county the time and energy to recall you (which will happen), I would like to ask you to resign. If any of us in the private sector tried to pull any of this stuff off, we would have been fired a long while ago.

Sincerely,
Isabelle Finney       




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