Clarity Blog

City councils in Azusa, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente each approved major land use projects over the past few months.  All three of these projects are now in a battle for survival as voters attempt to overturn project approvals through the referendum process.

These three incidents should serve as a cautionary tale for property owners:  You don’t just need the support of decision-makers; you need the support of more than 50 percent of the voters.  This support should be secured prior to a vote of a city council or board of supervisors because referendum signature gathering begins immediately after project approval.

As Orange County’s leading public affairs firm, we’ve helped clients defeat referendum drives. In one instance, our efforts helped give Yorba Linda its own high school, as our YLHS YES! campaign for Shapell Homes turned back opponents.

Here’s a review of the basic process under state law (municipalities may alter this process by ordinance, so be sure to check):

• Proponents have 30 days from approval of the ordinance to circulate a petition calling for repeal.
• There is no title and summary or publication requirement.  Proponents may commence circulating the petition as soon as the ordinance is adopted.
• The referendum must contain the full text of the ordinance or legislative act the proponents are challenging.
• Proponents must gather signatures from not less than 10 percent of the registered voters in the city according to the last report of registration.
• Any voter who has signed a petition may withdraw his or her signature by filing a written request with the elections officer at least one day before the petition is filed.
• The ordinance that is subject of a referendum is automatically suspended once the referendum petition qualifies [NOTE – this stops any activity on your property related to the approvals you just received].
• Once the city election official certifies the referendum has the requisite number of signatures, Council must either repeal the ordinance, or place the measure on the next regular municipal election, or call a special election to consider the ordinance.
• If a special election is called, it must be held no later than 88 days from the date the election is called.
• The City attorney prepares an impartial summary and the proponents and opponents prepare arguments for and against the referendum (and rebuttals) for the ballot statement.

A good reference:  California elections code section 9235-9242.  If you’re facing a referendum, or feel your project may face one upon Council approval, give us a call so we can talk strategy.

In case you missed it last week, Gov. Brown has released his “insider” appointments – the policy, press and legal folks that work “inside the horseshoe,” making the decisions and statements that will define the Brown Administration.

Our water and development clients should read Nancy McFadden’s bio very carefully, as the former PG&E policy Senior VP will probably be their primary senior interface with the governor’s office.  Public affairs and policy wonks are required to memorize the entire list.  Quiz Friday.  Here’s the full list, arranged alphabetically:

Elizabeth Ashford, 35, of Sacramento, has been appointed Deputy Press Secretary in the Office of the Governor. She worked at the Brunswick Group in London, England from 2009 to 2010. Prior to that, Ashford worked in the Office of the Chairman of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. From 2006 to 2008, she served as Chief Deputy Communications Director and then Chief Deputy Cabinet Secretary in Governor Schwarzenegger’s Administration. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $130,000. Ashford is a Democrat.

Anne Gust Brown, 52, of Oakland (Brown’s wife), has been appointed Special Counsel in the Office of the Governor. This position does not require Senate confirmation and Gust Brown will serve with no compensation. Gust Brown is a Democrat.

Gil Duran, 34, of Tulare, has been appointed Press Secretary in the Office of the Governor. Duran served as Communications Director for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein from 2008 to 2010. Previously, he served as Press Secretary to Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa from 2007 to 2008. Duran also served as an aide and Press Secretary to Governor Brown as Mayor of Oakland from 2004 to 2007. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $147,900. Duran is a Democrat.

Joshua Groban, 37, of Los Angeles, has been appointed Senior Advisor for Policy and Appointments in the Office of the Governor. Groban served as Legal Counsel for Governor Brown’s 2010 campaign and previously practiced law at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in Los Angeles. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $147,900. Groban is a Democrat.

Julie Henderson, 48, of San Francisco, has been appointed Senior Advisor for Policy in the Office of the Governor. Henderson was a Special Assistant Attorney General while Brown was Attorney General and previously was a Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Gap Inc. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $147,900. Henderson is a Democrat.

Jim Humes, 51, of San Francisco, has been appointed Executive Secretary for Administration, Legal Affairs, and Policy in the Office of the Governor. Humes was Brown’s Chief Deputy while Brown was Attorney General, and before that Humes was the Chief of the Civil Division under then-Attorney General Bill Lockyer. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $175,000. Humes is a Democrat.

Nancy McFadden, 51, of Sacramento, has been appointed Executive Secretary for Legislation, Appointments, and Policy in the Office of the Governor. She was senior vice president at PG&E from 2005 to 2010. Previously, McFadden served as senior advisor to Governor Gray Davis from 2001 to 2003, deputy chief of staff for the Office of the Vice President from 2000 to 2001, and general counsel for the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1996 to 2000. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $175,000. McFadden is a Democrat.

Jonathan Renner, 40, of Sacramento, has been appointed Legal Affairs Secretary in the Office of the Governor. Renner was Senior Assistant Attorney General for Government Law while Brown was Attorney General. Prior to that, Renner practiced law at Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard, in Sacramento. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $147,900. Renner is a Democrat.

Nick Velasquez, 30, of Los Angeles, has been appointed Director of External Affairs in the Office of the Governor. Velasquez served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Governor Brown’s 2010 campaign. Previously, he headed the California Accountability Project at the Democratic Governor’s Association. From 2006 to 2009 he served as a senior communications and policy aide to Los Angeles City Attorneys Rockard Delgadillo and Carmen Trutanich. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $80,000. Velasquez is a Democrat.

Evan Westrup, 28, of Sacramento, has been appointed Deputy Press Secretary in the Office of the Governor. He was Deputy Press Secretary on Governor Brown’s 2010 campaign after serving as Deputy Press Secretary in the Office of Attorney General Brown between 2009 and 2010. Prior to that, Westrup was Deputy Youth Vote Director on President Obama’s Campaign in New Mexico in 2008. He was Associate Communications Director in Governor Schwarzenegger’s Administration from 2007 to 2008. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and the compensation is $71,000. Westrup is a Democrat.

Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse for NIMBYs – the Not-In-My-Back-Yard activists who have plummeted in decision-makers’ perception from noble protectors of neighborhoods to crybabies wanting to win a big jackpot for their “hardship” – we came across this:

In their lawsuit, the homeowners say the project, which involves mixing soil and cement deep underground along the levee line, will be disruptive and could damage their homes and yards. They’re also concerned about noise from equipment that could approach 90 decibels, about as loud as a motorcycle.

Sounds like a run-of-the-mill NIMBY complaint, right?  But wait … these aren’t just any NIMBYs.  These are the folks who live along the 17th Street Canal in New Orleans – yes, that canal, the one famous for failing during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, leading to the destruction of entire neighborhoods.  And this is just the latest skirmish in a simmering battle between homeowners and the government that has spawned lawsuits, appeals and multiple court rulings.

The canal, by the way, was built about 100 years ago, long before any of these folks purchased homes alongside it.  At that time, they apparently thought it was a fine thing to have water cruising by their back yards at the level of their roofs.  But let’s not let that get in the way of them upping the decibel level of their whining.

Laer is becoming quite the prolific op/ed writer.  His latest appeared today on the Pacific Research Institute’s CalWatchdog blog.  Here’s an enticing bit of it:

If Gov. Jerry Brown has any chance of draining California’s budget swamp of red ink, he’s going to need more than aggressive spending cuts and votes for more taxes, as he proposes. He’s also going to need a resurgence in California’s business environment, but at one of the state’s few commerce success stories, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, there are more signs of classic California non-competitiveness than there are of a return to health for the state’s business sector.

Yes, activity is up by single digits over last year at the ports, which are America’s busiest, as companies slowly bring in more goods from Asia to rebuild inventories they had let drop through the Great Recession. But even as more than 12 million containers will be unloaded at Southern California docks this year, there are grave threats to the future of Southern California’s logistics behemoths, and they’re posed by exactly the same elements that threaten the rest of the state’s economy – powerful unions and California’s incessant compulsion to be a world leader in the environmental movement without thought to the cost.

Please read the rest of the op/ed by clicking through to CalWatchdog.

In the world of political tea leaf reading, no brew is stronger than the appointments a recently inaugurated politician makes, so California’s political pundits – myself included – have been watching Jerry Brown very carefully.  And today there’s an extremely clear message in the bottom of my teacup.

One of the biggest questions asked of Brown is whether he’ll have the stomach for a fight with the public employee labor unions that paid for his campaign.  (Brown is independently quite wealthy, but unlike Meg Whitman, he didn’t spend a dime of his own money on his gubernatorial run.)  His appointment to the top job at the Department of Personnel Administration would be clear signal of whether there will be continued kowtowing to the powerful unions, or whether Brown would bite the hand that fed him and take the steps necessary to rein in out-of-control spending on public employee salaries, benefits and retirement programs.

Today, Brown as much as told us he sees continued groveling in his future as he appointed a big-time pro-labor lawyer, Ronald Yank, to the position.  Yank practiced law at the Carroll, Burdick & McDonough  law firm that has represented California’s prison and Highway Patrol officers and several powerful public employee unions.

Messages can be words or they can be actions – and we all know actions speak louder than words.  While Brown has talked about tough times and tough decisions ahead, his appointment of Yank tells us that he’s not planning on being too tough on the unions.  And that’s too bad for California.

Judge Oliver Wanger today dropped a bomb on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and its supporters in the environmental movement by ruling that the Service’s efforts to protect the delta smelt by cutting off water supplies to folks and farmers from San Jose to San Diego lacked scientific justification.  In a 225-page decision issued late this afternoon, Wanger threw out the biological opinion (“BiOp”) written by the Service, and used by the Service to severely limit pumping of Sacramento-San Joaquin delta water to thirsty users to the south.

“[T]he public cannot afford sloppy science and uni-directional prescriptions that ignore California’s water needs,” Wanger wrote, as he endorsed some of the Service’s science as just fine, but called other elements “arbitrary and capricious,” that it “represents a failure to use the best available science,” and that the Service failed to address or explain “material bias” in the data.  He also said these mistakes “fatally taint” other scientific findings used by the Service to cut water deliveries.

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Re-cap from the MWDOC Water Policy Forum

Future reliability of water supplied from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is top-of-mind for water wonks across the state.  At the Municipal Water District of Orange County’s (MWDOC) Water Policy Forum and Dinner last month, the topic was the center of keynote speaker Gregory Wilkinson’s remarks.  Wilkinson, a lawyer who specializes in water allocation cases, warns that the feds aren’t budging from their stance that puts the needs of the Delta Smelt above the water needs of millions of Californians, but water agencies aren’t giving up on alternatives that help both fish and people.

Laer attended the dinner with iPhone in hand to live-tweet Wilkinson’s remarks.  Those tweets have been packaged as an article in the current issue of MWDOC’s E-currents newsletter, which can be read in its entirely here.

What were the three biggest late-breaking California water stories?  Well, the news-heads and policy wonks here at Laer Pearce & Associates have compiled them for you here.  You’ll find the Big Three here, or you can follow LPALand on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news and analysis. You can also sign up to receive the Big 3 via email here.  This edition:

CARB Sets a Standard It Can’t Meet

The California Air Resources Board apparently didn’t read the First Amendment before it decided to propose a regulation prohibiting false statements made to its board or staff.  Now we don’t condone lying, but if enacted, the new policy would have CARB deciding what’s true and what’s not.  Scofflaws could face various “penalties” to be named later…by CARB.  And as we’ve seen with CARB’s recent use of phony data and resumes to push its agenda, any dissenting opinion may be fair game for this new carbon-clouded truth Gestapo.

CARB’s public notice on the proposed regulation

Read Laer’s Cal Watchdog op-ed on the policy

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Given how deft Sacramento is at hiding taxes as fees in order to avoid the mandatory two-thirds vote for taxes, who didn’t vote for Prop 26, so fees will also be subject to a two-thirds vote?  Well, actually 4.3 million Californians didn’t, by current count. Fortunately for wallet-watchers, 4.7 million voted yes.

But California is nothing if not the Land of Unintended Consequences.  Now it looks like Prop 26 could be a nifty new way for state regulatory boards like the California Coastal Commission or a Regional Water Quality Control Board, which are subject to its provisions, to delay new development projects.

Development fees are not subject to Prop 26, so if a new project is dinged a nice little bucket of cash to improve signals at some intersections it’s impacting, no special vote  is required.  That’s fine – the authors of the California Chamber-sponsored proposition anticipated that, and wrote the measure to protect developers.

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Thanks to Laer Pearce & Associates, professionals that work with water policy around the world now have a LinkedIn group where they can discuss topics related to helping set and navigate water policy.  The Water Policy Professionals group encourages members to discuss legislation, communication strategies, regulations, incentives and news regarding policy on water supply, quality and pricing.  It will also include job postings and other networking functions.

Laer set up the group because he believes idea-sharing and open communications can help to find consensus on highly contentious issues – or at least move the discussion forward instead of having it bog down in rhetoric wars.

The group is a sister to LP&A’s other LinkedIn group, Water Conservation Professionals, which has 513 members. Seven people joined Water Policy Professionals in its first 30 minutes.

LP&A has been working on water-related issues for more than 20 years and is actively involved in helping to set policy for water issues on local, regional and state-wide levels.  We currently serve four water and wastewater agencies and CalDesal, a nonprofit advocating for pro-desalination policies and regulation in California.