Dear Friends and Supporters:

Something historic happened in Monterey County on Thursday, October 20, 2005.

LandWatch joined 17 community groups, Supervisor Dave Potter, other prominent elected officials, and dozens of community leaders and citizen activists to announce the filing of an initiative measure with the County Elections Department. Called the Quality of Life, Affordable Housing, and Voter Control initiative, this landmark measure amends the Monterey County General Plan to incorporate good planning principles and return control of land use decisions to the public. Among many benefits, the initiative:

Gives voters the right to make important land use decisions themselves.
Enhances the quality of life of all Monterey County residents.
Increases affordable housing opportunities for working families in Monterey County.
Helps preserve prime agricultural land by stopping its conversion into subdivisions and shopping centers.
Promotes positive transportation solutions and helps stop ever-increasing traffic congestion.
Requires that an adequate water supply exists before developments are approved.
Supports our overstressed police, fire, and educational agencies; and
Protects the natural resources of Monterey County.

Over the past six years, LandWatch and other public interest organizations have been urging the Board of Supervisors to adopt a General Plan for Monterey County that will protect our quality of life, increase affordable housing opportunities, and stop sticking taxpayers with costs that developers ought to pay. The current General Plan, adopted in 1982, is grossly outdated. Dozens of large new developments never contemplated 25 years ago are over-drafting local water supplies, putting excessive traffic on local roads, undermining County financing, overstressing local school, police, and fire services, and damaging both natural resources and the County’s incredibly productive agricultural land. Even worse, current County policies have largely turned their back on the affordable housing crisis that is harming working families.

Despite our best efforts and thousands of hours of citizen involvement, the Board of Supervisors has been unable to act— this after spending more than $6,000,000 of your (taxpayer) money. Special interests, including large developers and their hired-gun attorneys, have taken control over land use decisions from County residents. With the exception of Supervisor Potter, the Board of Supervisors more often acts to support private interests than public interests.

The Quality of Life, Affordable Housing, and Voter Control initiative returns control of land use to the public. The initiative supports good planning and stops costly and poorly planned developments, such as Rancho San Juan. It ensures that the public interest will not be compromised to private out-of-county developers or anyone else hoping to profit at the taxpayers expense.

Within the next ten days or so, the County will review our initiative in accordance with California state law. After that, you will see us on street corners and at shopping centers all over Monterey County gathering signatures to qualify the initiative measure for the June 2006 ballot.

We will need your help with gathering as many signatures as possible from your friends and neighbors. Please contact Josh Stratton (831) 210-1080, jqstratton@hotmail.com and he will provide you with the necessary petitions. We have a limited amount of time to accomplish our goal. We did it with Rancho San Juan with an even shorter amount of time and we will do it again with this initiative!! Thank you for your help.

Very truly yours,

Chris Fitz, Executive Director

LandWatch Monterey County

Box 1876, Salinas, CA 93902

Email: cfitz@mclw.org

Website: www.landwatch.org

Telephone: 831-422-9390