Preview/Spoiler: Montessori/Phairs recap (City Council shut it down) + Housing Element comes to a close Tuesday night (speak up at the meeting) + Orinda Watch Meeting tomorrow night (come one, come all) + "Have you Had Enough Yet?" + SB1 (be afraid).

We really want to see you at our meeting tomorrow night at 6pm in the Orinda Library Garden Room. It's time to talk about next steps, recap Montessori/Phairs, discuss the last shot at the Housing Element, SB1, Common Core (it's a doozy) educational standards being inserted into your children's education, and organizational matters. It's one you won't want to miss. We'll also discuss our upcoming Holiday party.

By now, you have heard that the Orinda City Council voted 3-0 to overturn the Planning Commission's 5-2 decision to approve the Montessori School Project on the 12-year-vacant Phairs site. Here is the article from the local Patch site recapping the event. Orinda Watch has received a larger amount of frustrated and angry responses from the community on the City Council's involvement here.

On the Housing Element, which comes up again, for a final vote on November 19th (that's THIS Tuesday), Orinda Watch has new information that the city is still planning on doing a comprehensive update of the General Plan in the early part of 2014 (via recent Orinda Watch correspondence with Planning Director Ursu) despite the citizens demanding this be removed from the Housing Element. It's as if we are playing a new game called How disingenuous can our City Council and Staff actually be? ...only, this isn't a new game.

We have also learned that the city still has language in the Housing Element that reflects the essence of the Infamous Downtown Plan from the PPRTF put together by Bruce Burrows and Clark Wallace that the citizens overwhelmingly fought against several years ago. Why? Why is this language which the City Council has explicitly asked by removed STILL in the draft? This would be the same Bruce Burrows with whom Councilmember Sue Severson was recently caught conspiring. For those of you that missed our last newsletter entitled, "The Severson Saga." you can view it here. And you can skip right to the Severson & Burrows correspondences & corresponding attachment here and here from that same newsletter in case you didn't have a chance to read those shocking letters.

More importantly, why do we, as citizens, put up with it? Have you had enough yet? We go into depth on this question below.

But, first, a little inspiration...

Please excuse the hyperbole here but we just thought these two videos exhibit pretty-close-to-perfect just how we feel right now. We were inspired and we thought you might be as well. Enjoy!

Have you had enough yet?

Why do put the focus of this newsletter on such a simple question?

First, by way of a brief history, our group was formed by a group of concerned Orinda citizens exactly one year ago after learning of the overreach and robbery of private property rights and theft of local control inherent in Plan Bay Area. We fought with large numbers of citizens until this Plan was adopted in July; version 2.0 is in the works and it means that the battle continues. Further, we have also tackled the Draft Housing Element Process in Orinda, citing the major one-sided ideology from city staff and the housing consultant and have had a number of those items removed, but shockingly, many of those items still remain, either in the Draft Housing Element itself OR in the future plans of the city council and staff. In essence, they've tricked us and the public into believing they were going to listen to our concerns and no longer pursue their ideology. How silly of us not to have seen this all along.

In any case, what we discovered in all of these cases (Plan Bay Area, the Housing Element, and Montessori/Phairs) was that monied and politically-connected interests are in bed with government, non-governmental organizations and paid advocacy groups at the expense of ordinary citizens who just want to live their lives and care for their families. This kind of cronyism appears to run rampant in Orinda.

We won't rehash everything here since you can read the history of each of these items through our website and our newsletters.

So we come back to the simple question that started this letter:

Have you had enough yet?

Seriously.

▪ Haven't you had enough of your local representatives failing to respond to major regional and local issues like Plan Bay Area? Issues that can and will impact your life and the life you've chosen through a fair bit of luck and plenty of blood, sweat, and tears which can be changed at the stroke of a pen from a few in power?
▪ Haven't you had enough of your city council ignoring the really big issues (like Plan Bay Area with all of its forced central planning insanity and cronyism disguised as "choice" and "environment"), and getting heavily involved in the minutia of seemingly less important ones, imparting their own personal ideology instead of the views of the citizens? We thought politicians were meant to serve their citizens interests, not dictate their own agenda.
▪ Aren't you appalled that your City Council and Staff would allow (advocate, even?), rather than push back and fight back, a higher density than the 20 units per acre rezoning, even though we have found 'safe harbor' laws in the 20 unit zoning and no legal justification for the state's Housing and Community Development Agency to demand a 25 unit per acre density (yes, we know they say 20 to 25 units per acre, but we all know how these things work.)? Isn't the town built out enough? Do we really NEED to force a rezoning of property from 10 units to 20-to-25 units per acre?
▪ Haven't you had enough of your representatives either quietly fighting the citizens or ignoring their colleagues' and their staff's unscrupulous behavior? Don't expect to see an official inquiry around the Planning Director's behavior around the Housing Element or the recent Severson shenanigans.
▪ Have you had enough of city council members like Mayor Amy Worth serving two masters as Chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission? Have you asked yourself who's interests the Mayor is serving? Really asked yourself?
▪ Haven't you had enough of Council Members claiming that there is no loss of local control from overreaching regional agencies and later being completely and genuinely shocked when the regional agencies have threatened to hold back funding for monies that were earmarked for subsidized public works projects like $552,000 for the Ivy Drive Project? Yep. It's true. Victoria Smith is genuinely surprised to find out the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has decided to withhold $552,000 in Public Works Funds unless the City plays ball with MTC. HERE.
▪ Haven't you had enough of monied interests deciding that they know best how your community should look for the future, while your representatives open the public coffers for them? Those 'non-profit' developers that prosthelytize the virtues of caring about filling needs for affordable housing, yet quietly reaping God-like "fees", waivers, and all with relatively little skin in the game. It's so much easier to sell when the wording appeals to our sentiments, isn't it?
▪ Why have we given so much unsupervised power to a set of human beings, here in Orinda and outside our community, whose values are no more important than our own, to make our decisions for us without their seriously considering our wishes?
▪ Have you had enough of City Staff members like City Manager Janet Keeter claiming, through very careful crafted bob-and-weave language, to know nothing of plans for a future condo project (otherwise known as downtown revitalization) when she was cc'd on various correspondence and getting away with such mistruths as in the Severson saga?
▪ Have you had enough of development-centric interests cozying up to City Council members, almost assuredly greasing the skids to get their agenda through? The Severson Saga is one instance. Here is another. Council Member Victoria Smith and Orinda Vision's Carol Penskar cozying up to one another and trying to discredit and distance Orinda Watch and our work on behalf of the citizens. We can see just how close the relationship is between Ms. Penskar and Victoria Smith in this letter and presumably Ms. Worth as well, given Ms. Penskar's tone towards Ms. Worth in her language (but of course, this is our own conjecture.) HERE We already know that Ms. Penskar is very close with Ms. Severson from the picture here.

Theft, once-removed...

A quick aside...why don't more people step up and take these issues more seriously.

▪ Is it because we are busy with our own everyday lives, what with school, work, and home taking up the bulk of our time and energy that we just couldn't bare the thought of adding more challenge to our lives?
▪ Is it purely because we assume someone else will eventually handle it?
▪ Or maybe, just maybe, we have been so conditioned and separated from our rights and private property that we don't see the connection anymore...a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, if you will? Is the fact that our blood, sweat and tears has already been separated from us that we don't feel the sense of loss when this happens and therefore we do nothing about it?

Close your eyes and imagine a thief stealing your wallet right out of your back pocket. Be there in your mind for a moment. Has this ever happened to you? Does it bring up all sorts of visceral feelings of anger and violation? Now instead of a thief, imagine a smiling, well-dressed representative who you trust promising you that your wallet will be in good hands. What you don't see is that our slickly dressed individual turns around and hands it to the same thief, taking a little bit off the top for him or herself. It's still still your hard-earned property but the difference between the two scenarios is just that since it's now once removed, you may not feel the same sense of violation when your money is taken from you, because it's already out of your hands. But shouldn't we? Shouldn't we feel violated? Couldn't that blood, sweat, and tears, now in the hands of a steward have been used more efficiently to represent your interests? Instead of being wasted, couldn't it have gone to those thing

When?

If you answered "Yes!" to any of these questions, ask yourself this.

▪ When am I going to stand up and do something?
▪ When am I going to say enough is enough and engage?
▪ What will it take for me to decide that mine and/or my family's future and livelihood is at stake?
▪ What will it take for me to turn off the TV, pick up a pen and paper and write down everything that is wrong and about what I see around me in my community and find a place to insert myself in the process, in smaller or in larger ways?
▪ What will it take for me to take the time out of my busy work and personal schedules to get involved?
▪ Will I wait for another Plan Bay Area, Housing Element, Montessori/Phairs debacle to stand up and say, "that's the last straw"?

Become part of the Orinda Watch Team: we need everyone across all skill sets. Given how strong the response from the public was, we would hope that we will see many fresh faces at this upcoming meeting. We need both "chiefs" and "indians" to help us in our endeavor. Yes, you do have what it takes. You care. You love your community. You want to protect your family. That's all you need to be part of Orinda Watch.

Our next General Meeting is from 6pm to 8pm, TOMORROW NIGHT in the Orinda Library in the Garden Room.

ACTION ITEM: Please download, print and sign the declaration (here) and send it to our mailing address (here).

We talked about this at our last meeting and we'll present it again tomorrow night but here's the "quick-and-dirty" from one of our members, an Orinda resident:

Senate Bill 1 (co-authored by Steinberg/DeSaulnier) is one of the most threatening pieces of legislation that our cities and townships could see in California. From the financing of our schools to the rights of private property ownership - little remains unaffected with implementation of this Bill.

The Bill passed in both the Senate and Assembly this year, but was temporarily withdrawn until January for fear that it would be vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. At this time, negotiations to sweeten the Bill for the Governor’s signature or amass legislative support to override a veto are in progress. We cannot allow this Bill to go unchallenged when it is reintroduced.

Some provisions within the Bill are as follows:

▪ Sets up Joint Powers Authorities seriously diminishing local control of development in Orinda/Lafayette/Moraga;
▪ Creates a new unelected, unaccountable government agency within cities and/or counties to extract property & sales taxes to fund subsidized real estate developments without voter approval;
▪ Grants an "Authority" to determine where, what and when subsidized housing or commercial enterprises are financed;
▪ Redefines "Blight" as "inefficient land use patterns" vs. property deterioration caused by long-term neglect.

Signing the Declaration

A Declaration in Opposition to SB 1 is a State-wide, non-partisan effort and will be presented to Governor Brown before the January legislative session. The deadline for signing the Declaration is December 16, 2013. Please note that you must be a registered voter of Contra Costa County to sign the Declaration. (Other counties have the same Declaration.) Please participate in this endeavor to keep our tax dollars in our schools and retain local control of Lamorinda development.

Click here for the declaration and click here for the full primer.

To stay on top of SB1 developments, you can always go to our website, then to the Research drop-down menu, then to SB1. (Here)

KEY EVENTS:

November 18th - Next Orinda Watch General Meeting

Time: 6pm to 8pm
Location: Orinda Library in the Garden Room

November 19th - Orinda City Council Meeting on Draft Housing Element

Time: 7pm
Location: Orinda Library Auditorium

Future Orinda Watch General Meeting Schedule

Nov 18, Dec 16, Jan 27 2014, Feb 24 2014. All anticipated to be from 6 pm to 8pm.
Location: Orinda Library in the Garden Room

In-Home Presentation?

-Date: Your Choice!
-Time: Your Choice!
-Description: Orinda Watch has been doing in-home presentations for various households in Orinda at homeowner requests, with anywhere from 5 to 40 people. This is a way for folks who want to gain a much deeper understanding of the issues at either the local level within Lamorinda (Orinda Housing Element, Lafayette or Moraga Developments, etc) or at the regional level (Plan Bay Area, MTC, ABAG, etc) or BOTH. It is a much more intimate and comfortable setting where you and your friends and neighbors may hear a formal presentation and/or ask questions for a couple of hours. Call or email us at our website if you are even mildly interested. We are your neighbors and have kids in Lamorinda schools and we are friendly and professional.