BRUCE KRANZ AND COMMUNITY PLANS- NOT EXACTLY A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

I was dismayed to hear that Bruce Kranz, Placer County Supervisor, at the February 11th meeting with the Donner Summit Area Association Board, basically reiterated his disturbing comments to the Sierra Sun as reported on January 6,  2008.  

As you may recall (or not), when asked by the Sierra Sun about the Donner Summit Area Associations' work to craft a community plan for the Summit,  Supervisor Kranz indicated his opinion that a community plan wouldn't make any difference for Royal Gorge. Supervisor Kranz basically said, that since Royal Gorge owned so much of the land at the Summit, anything they did would, "..almost become the community plan by default." Kind of like saying they'd sucked up all the air in the room, in my mind. He also indicated at the February DSAA meeting that he'd made no judgments on Royal Gorge's proposals, as then he'd have to recuse himself from decisions involving them.  If it's true that he's already received $10,000 dollars or so in campaign donations from Foster/Syme Royal Gorge in 2006, as reported by savedonnersummit.org,  would that also be grounds for his recusing himself? As I was unable to attend the board meeting, I was not able to ask that. That's a big chunk of cash, though, isn't it?  But it's gotta be expensive to run for supervisor in the Lake Tahoe/Donner Summit area, right?

I must say, it's quite disconcerting for me to know that our local supervisor believes we have planning, and maybe even government by default, and apparently, citizen participation by default too.  Supervisor Kranz, at the meeting,  complimented Michael Livak, Royal Gorge's director of development, for involving the local community in Royal Gorge's plans.  From my viewpoint, the only recent involvement for the local community has been a crash course in the ins and outs of the California Public Records Act.  From the time Royal Gorge made their secret, pre-arranged submissions to Placer County planning department, with the apparent complicity of the head planner, Michael Johnson, the day before Thanksgiving,  and until after New Year's, and following multiple public records act requests under California law by myself and my husband, and The Union Newspaper, augmented by an actual court date with Serene Lakes Property Owners Associations' lawyer to seek an injunction preventing Placer County sending public records back to Royal Gorge LLC in the teeth of the law, I'd give Royal Gorge LLC, and Placer County (and what was going on there?) a grade of F, or lower in public involvement.  Heck, I wouldn't even give them a grade.  As far as I'm concerned, Placer County and Royal Gorge LLC were no shows in terms of their responsibility to involve the public in all aspects of the planning process.  Maybe though, in Supervisor Kranz's view, and perhaps other elements of Placer County, and undoubtedly in Royal Gorge LLC's view,  those annoying, tax-paying locals just get in the way of, well, progress. or money. or whatever.

Well, I believe it was Tip O'Neill who coined the phrase, " All Politics is local."  That's bad for us up here at Serene Lakes, as so many of us are second homeowners, and can't vote for the local supervisor, despite the fact we pay a hefty amount of property taxes, and despite the fact we'll all be affected by boneheaded decisions about development. That's a real pity, because, just imagine, if someone were running for supervisor who really cared about how we felt about our situation at Donner Summit, we wouldn't be able to vote for him or her.  Of course, we could help feed their election kitty. Oh, and Supervisor Kranz-- he knows there's only a small number of voters up here-- so where's the downside in telling our community plan to go fly a kite?  (I refrained from using a much ruder term--it's Lent)

Think about it. Because I have a feeling that if Bruce Kranz doesn't think community plans matter up here, he's probably equally dismissive of the little folks in the rest of his district.  A bad man to invite to a community building pancake breakfast, in my mind. Well, if you want to eat any pancakes... before the developers do, that is.

Oh, and the pancake thing---go rent the somewhat off the wall movie  "Danny Deckchair"- it's got a decidedly Australian take on media, fame, politics,  and pancake brekkies, along with mild romance- tomorrow's Valentine's Day, after all. (Well, I started off with a match made in heaven, so I thought I should follow up on the theme....)