Growth initiatives before El Dorado County voters
By Tony Bizjak, Sacramento Bee
In El Dorado County, where growth wars have raged for decades, voters may face two or more dueling measures on the November ballot.
A group filed papers Tuesday for a ballot initiative it says will control growth, keep much of the county rural, fight congestion on Highway 50 and encourage more jobs. That petition drive, called Control Growth to Fix Our Local Roads Initiative, is led by Region Builders, a Sacramento group of commercial builders, architects and engineers that recently led the political fight to build a downtown Sacramento basketball arena
The group’s petition, if successful, would extend the county’s Measure Y slow-growth initiative until 2025, allowing the county to continue collecting traffic impact fees, used to improve roads to match development. It would require the county annually to report on how it is spending road money.
Oh boy. The pro growth people are back again. I think something similar was defeated by the voters in El Dorado County 12 year ago or so; as I recall Ted Long and Tom Davis were lobbying for a pro growth measure then. The must be testing the waters again.
What happened is the developers have tried to put their own initiative up to compete against the neighborhood groups fighting to protect zoning in place, water, and traffic. It is an effort to confuse people.
Justice. They know that people have short memory spans. Since Long had just got on the City Counsel when they tried last time, it may have been 8 – 10 years ago.
If the County was really that concerned about roads, they would have filled out more grants from the American Recovery Act when the had the chance, but NO, they did not want to take any “gubment” money… So other communities did their paperwork and fixed more of their roads.