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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

June 18, 2003

Day of reckoning for growth referendum vote

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They were counting signatures Tuesday and will reveal the number today. The Fairfield Voters Rights Group plans to turn the referendum in at City Hall this afternoon.

State laws says a referendum needs signatures from 10 percent of the city's registered voters to be valid - about 3,900.

Resident Juanita Schiel, who helped organize the referendum, called the effort "historic." She knows of no other referendum in Fairfield.

City Councilman Jack Batson signed the referendum, even though he voted for the growth law passed by the City Council and still supports it.

"If they can get 10 percent within three weeks, they have demonstrated there are a good number of people who want to vote on it," Batson said. "That's fine with me.

"I think people misunderstood what we did. What we did was gift the people with the ability to control growth in the future."

The latest growth controversy has roots back to spring 2002, when the City Council revised the General Plan. It overturned previous plans to someday allow subdivisions in middle Green Valley and north of Travis Air Force Base.

Council members ran for office on this platform. They said the new growth policies will protect Travis from getting crowded by the city and preserve farmland.

Resident Vern Van Buskirk and others then circulated a petition to reinforce the new growth policies. The petition sought to put changes in the hands of voters, not future City Councils, through 2020.

But critics said that would rob future councils of needed flexibility and could lead to soaring housing prices when the city pushes against the growth boundaries.

Proponents collected signatures from 15 percent of registered voters. The City Council under state law could have put the petition on the November ballot or adopted it into law.

The council adopted the petition into law, an action that upset Schiel. She had signed the petition herself thinking the issue would go to the ballot, she said.

"I want my vote back," said Schiel, who in the mid-1980s organized a successful petition drive to keep Lynch Canyon from becoming a landfill.

She and resident Sally King helped organized the Fairfield Voters Rights Group. The group had 30 days to get 3,900 or so valid signatures on a referendum, a deadline that falls Thursday.

The group's work ignited still more controversy, with both sides trying to define the referendum drive.

The Greenbelt Alliance on its Web site said developers circulated the referendum. If the referendum goes to the ballot, developers will use their money to confuse the issue with a negative campaign and bury the new growth laws, the site said.

Batson didn't go that far, though he noted the referendum drive used paid petition gatherers. There will be questions about the money raised to do this, he said.

"But nevertheless, they got a lot of signatures rather quickly," Batson said.

Both King and Schiel denied developers are behind the referendum.

"I wish they'd get off their high horse and stop accusing me of being a developer," Schiel said. "I'm a retired housewife."

She wouldn't recognize local developer Billy Yarbrough if he walked by her on the street, she said.

King and Schiel said the referendum is about giving residents a voice on an important issue.

Batson said he'll be happy to argue in favor of the City Council's growth law if the referendum is on the November ballot.

Barry Eberling can be contacted at beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

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