We’re working on our own story about this situation, but in the meantime, read the story at Capitol Weekly and the one at the Half Moon Bay Review.  We’ll post a link to the County Times story when it appears.

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, after questioning by council member Jim Grady, it was revealed that Half Moon Bay’s lobbyist in its efforts to get AB1991 passed was also being paid by developer Charles "Chop" Keenan. This revelation has damaged the city’s chances of getting any sort of relief from the state toward the $18 million settlement it has agreed to pay Keenan.

The city council authorized city manager Marcia Raines to pay California Strategies up $100,000 to lobby for the passage of the bill that would ease its settlement with Keenan in the Beachwood lawsuit.  AB1991 was intended to remove environmental and other regulatory restrictions that were keeping Keenan from developing the parcel. Raines agreed to pay Capital Strategies $20,000 a month beginning in mid-April.

What the city council apparently didn’t know until Tuesday night was that Keenan was also paying California Strategies $20,000 a month, reports the Capitol Weekly:

This allegation drew a sharp rebuke from [State Senator Leland] Yee. While Yee said "you could paint a pretty picture" about how the city and Keenan are now working together to pass a bill that will work in both of their interest, he was troubled that California Strategies lobbyist Rusty Areias met with him in May and June without disclosing they were also being paid by Keenan.

"I was shocked and dismayed that something like that would have happened," Yee said. "At the very least, you would think that California Strategies would reveal their potential conflict of interests."

Yee also noted that until the bill took its final form, it wasn’t clear that the city’s and Keenan’s interests were identical. California Strategies says it wasn’t being paid by Keenan to lobby:

California Strategies, he said, maintains separate consulting and lobbying businesses. Areias and other lobbyists have been working to ensure the passage of AB 1991. Meanwhile, the settlement agreement with the city required Keenan to work to make sure the settlement is successful. His development company signed a separate consulting agreement with consulting side of California Strategies. Kinney said they talked to Keenan about the "legal principles" of the agreement and what "would pass policy muster."

This mess further clouds the future of AB1991, which now sits in the Senate Rules Committee, with the legislative clock running out. According to Capitol Weekly, Yee said the bill will likely have to be amended in order to get out of the Senate.

And the city’s bill is unlikely to go any anywhere without the support of the Half Moon Bay’s senator, Leland Yee.

The fate of AB1991’s successor now hinges on the cooperation of the bill’s opponents in the environmental community, reports Julia Scott in the County Times.  This article does a great job of clarifying the arcane procedures of the state legislature that have made it so confusing to follow the bill’s progress and prospects. This is a must-read.

An amended bill would change the terms of the settlement agreement, which is tantamount to forfeiting the $18 million. It would likely also involve sending the amended language back to the Assembly for another floor vote, and possibly a new hearing by a committee. Before that can happen, however, the bill would need to be heard in a Senate Policy Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee by Aug. 15, followed by a floor vote in the Senate. (The bill has no Senate co-author, but could still be heard if a member volunteers to introduce it).

The last day both chambers can vote on any legislation is Aug. 31.

Paul Mason, legislative director for the Sierra Club in Sacramento, said the city had become much more receptive to negotiating an agreement in recent days when it became clear the bill was not likely to garner enough support in the Senate. AB 1991 is so controversial that every state Senator already knew about it by the time it passed in the Assembly, he said.

"Up until last week, they’ve been pushing forward with a kind of land, air and sea war to put their lobbyists on this — they were thinking, ‘If I ram hard enough, I’ll get what I want.’ And now it’s clear that’s not going to happen," said Mason. He would not describe the nature of the options under discussion, but said the talks were "initial and well-intentioned."

Mason suggested that an amended bill could still pass by the end of August.

"Extraordinary things can happen. A lot to this will come down to the city being realistic about what they’re entitled to," he said. "It should be clear by now that they’re not going to waive all environmental laws."

Half Moon Bay’s plan to save itself from actually paying its settlement in the Yamagiwa lawsuit is falling apart.

The city’s bill to make the settlement legal—AB1991—  has been withdrawn from the Senate’s Local Government Committee by author Gene Mullin and is headed to the Rules Committee, probably for big changes. Meanwhile, the city met in closed session with its attorneys on Tuesday, one day after Mullin pulled the bill.  It’s a cinch that they’re considering their options.

It must be dawning on the city council majority that the Senate is not going to let it rewrite the Coastal Act, as well as wetlands and endangered species protections, in closed session with a developer and present it to the legislature as a fait accompli.

AB1991 isn’t going to pass in its present form, but its future form must be decided in public. Chop Keenan has no incentive to cut the city any slack. Half Moon Bay is going to wind up owing Keenan $18 million and owning Beachwood. AB1991’s successor will probably include some kind of financial assistance, financing, or regulatory relief to help the city unload its newly-acquired white elephant.  It’s poetic justice that the value of that piece of coastal scrubland depends on the very people the city has vilified and ignored in the settlement process.

Whatever the city does on the property will have to be approved by the Coastal Commission, whom the city council majority have called liars.

And it will have to be consistent with state environmental laws. Senator Leland Yee, whose district is most affected by this bill, has insisted that any bill be vetted by environmental committee staff and that it not trash any of our state’s environmental laws.

The city council majority has the opportunity to undo a lot of the damage this settlement and AB1991 have done to our sense of community. They need to take responsibility for the mess the settlement has created. They must come up with a compromise that meets the needs of the stakeholders they’ve been trying to steamroll. They need to work with the people they’ve been slandering, disparaging, or simply ignoring. They need to acknowledge they’ve wasted about a million dollars on lawyers and lobbyists to get a result they could have achieved with a little openness and community spirit. And they need to do all this in public.

It’s debatable whether Tuesday’s closed session was even legal under the Brown Act, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. It should be the last closed session the city has on this matter.

A homeowners’ association is suing Half Moon Bay for $1 million, saying that the construciton of the Oak Avenue Park is taking place on their property, reports the County Times. [Google Map]

The lawsuit claims that the Cypress-by-the-Sea Homeowners Association and the owners of eight condominiums were not informed of public hearings on the park’s construction and were not aware that the city’s development of Oak Avenue’s north side would stretch west into what they consider their property.

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Though the city declares ownership of the land, the lawsuit claims that the plaintiffs have been paying property taxes on 100 percent of the land. "At no time since March 1976 have the records at the Tax Assessor’s Office shown that (the city) has any ownership interest whatever in the property," the lawsuit alleges. "There is no assessor’s parcel in (the city’s) name."

In 2004, the city began acquiring parcels of land 200 yards east of the property on the north side of the street through threat of condemnation, according to the lawsuit. That land was used for the construction of a footbridge across Pilarcitos Creek to Strawflower Shopping Center.

Steve Wilson, an attorney with Tobin and Tobin, the law firm representing the homeowners, said public hearings on the construction of Oak Park began that year, but his clients were not fully aware of the discussions.

The recent floods and fires taking place throughout the country should be a wake-up call to all homeowners to dust off their insurance policy and check out your coverage.  In most cases,  you will find that your home is underinsured.  Home prices have gone up from several years ago.  You may have done additions or renovations to your home (like new kitchen or new rooms) and forgot to tell your insurance agent.  Construction costs have also risen a lot over the past few years.  You may even have bought your wife or special person some expensive jewelry that wasn’t added to your policy.

If there’s a fire or some disaster and you haven’t updated your policy,  you are in a world of hurt.

This is pretty easy to do.  Call your agent and have them review your policy and changes you’ve done to your home. You’ll sleep a lot better knowing your biggest investment is well covered.

And if possible,  try and use one of our local agents.  They do a lot for the Coast with their support of so many causes.

Lanny Davis is not a stupid man, but he plays one on TV. Convincingly.

His job is to stick to whatever message his clients have paid him to disseminate, regardless of how boneheaded that message is. Such as the message that Hillary was not dead yet after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. Or the smear that it was antisemitic to say Joe “Vote McCain” Lieberman shouldn’t be Connecticut’s Democratic senate candidate. Or that AB1991 won’t set a precedent.

Half Moon Bay is paying Lanny Davis (probably thousands of dollars an hour) to lead its disinformation campaign around AB1991. Lanny Davis is the man behind the city’s Truth Squid.

Wednesday, Half Moon Bay’s Truth Squid shot a cloud of inky obfuscation in Coastsider’s direction over AB212 – a bill designed to overturn Los Angeles zoning regulations in order to turn a big swath of LA’s precious open space into yet another subdivision. So, let’s examine the Squid’s assertions one at a time and understand the truth behind the ink.

• Yes, AB1991 was introduced after AB212. But Half Moon Bay’s ticking stinkbomb has left the Assembly, and AB212 was waiting in the wings. AB1991 would have been a precedent for passing a bill just like AB212.

• Yes, AB1991 is supported by the Half Moon Bay City Council, while AB212 is opposed by the LA City Council. However, AB1991 is designed to overturn the authority of the Coastal Commission, which adamantly opposes it – just as AB212 was designed to overturn the authority of the LA City Council, which adamantly opposed it.

• Yes, AB1991 is narrowly tailored to fit a special set of circumstances. But, so was AB212. That’s the nature of special-interest legislation. It is designed to benefit a single, narrow interest by overturning the law at the expense of the public good.

• Yes, AB1991 is not a “precedent” in the way that attorneys use that word. It’s a precedent in the way that 99% of the public uses that word: a justification for future behavior. As I pointed out in another context, if you have sex for money, you don’t create a legal obligation to do so in the future. But you do increase the likelihood that you’ll be offered money for sex in the future. That is called a “pre • ce • dent”. You can look it up. Go ahead. I’ll wait while you do it.

The city needs to make their best possible case, and that requires disputing the facts and interpretations with their opponents. But they crossed a line two weeks ago when they accused their opponents of lying to the legislature and to the public.

Lanny Davis has no stake in the damage his disinformation campaign is creating. He doesn’t have to live in our bitterly divided community. He has no stake in whether the city wrecks its relationship with Coastal Commission. And he has no stake in the integrity of the Coastal Act. But the Half Moon Bay City Council will have to live in the wreckage this divisive campaign is leaving in its wake.

In an obvious parallel to Half Moon Bay’s AB1991, a Los Angeles developer is attempting to get the state legislature to pass a special exemption so he can develop 229 homes on a golf course that the city wants to keep as open space. As a bonus, the law appears to be a gift to the developer in exchange for a campaign contribution, reports the LA Times.

The company, MWH Development Corp., wants to construct 229 homes to replace the 63-acre golf course in Tujunga, which is not in Fuentes’ Assembly district. The firm is headed by San Fernando Valley developer Mark Handel, who said former Los Angeles Building Commission President Scott Z. Adler is a partner in the project.
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"I was disgusted," said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel. "We believe Sacramento should not be trying to dictate land-use policy on city matters. We also don’t believe legislation should be designed to benefit one developer."
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Greuel said Handel’s true goal is not to develop the property but to sell it at a profit. At the same time he is pushing the legislation, he is talking to the city about a possible sale of the land to the city, which would maintain it as open space. Greuel says Handel wants permission for the high-density development to raise the property’s value so he can get a better price.

The Times says the bill "was written so it applies only to the city of Los Angeles and makes changes that would specifically address Handel’s wish to build on the golf course site."

Click poster for MCC, click below for agenda.

The city of Half Moon Bay has released a financial analysis of the cost of developing Beachwood should the state legislature decide not to accept its settlement.

The city’s investment bankers, Piper Jaffray, estimate that the city will lose $48 million if 19 houses can be built on the site, and $9 million if 129 houses can be built.

We’re going to dig more deeply into these numbers in the near future, and we’ve already got some ideas about what to do, but tonight, you can download the Piper Jaffray’s analysis [pdf] and an Excel spreadsheet of their numbers from Coastsider.

What do you think of the city’s numbers? What would you be considering if you were presented with this analysis? Add your thoughts in comment to this story and we’ll add your ideas to our analysis of the city’s analysis.

Committee for Green Foothills has for the Santa Clara County to reconsider environmental reforms that would reduce the number of new hillside "monster mansions" in the wake of the ongoing, 4,000 acre Summit Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  "Taxpayer money and firefighters’ lives should not be risked for more and more inappropriate, ‘monster mansions’ on the hillsides," said CGF Advocate Brian Schmidt. 

"Two years ago, the Committee for Green Foothills and other environmental groups sponsored the Measure A environmental initiative in Santa Clara County in 2006 that would have reduced new development in hillside areas, specifically including the area in the County that is now on fire. Our initiative failed by less than one-half of one percent, due to a half-million dollars spent by outside Realtors’ groups from Southern California and from their national headquarters in Chicago.  We now call on Santa Clara County to undertake new measures to limit inappropriate new development."

Committee for Green Foothills argues that more development in the hills increases the chance of someone doing something that starts a fire, while also making firefighting more dangerous and expensive as firefighters seek to rescue people and protect property.  Schmidt said, "We’re not trying to take away existing homes or even ending all new construction in the hills, but we need to stop adding to sprawl by putting more and more buildings in these fire-prone areas, especially large mansions that are difficult to protect and harder to rescue people from."