Metroactive
Silicon Valley News Notes
August 13, 2008
Greens Strike Back
South Bay environmental groups have taken a vote of no confidence in the Local Agency Formation Commission — the group charged with refereeing growth to balance development with environmental concerns. But this has been a long time coming — the Committee for Green Foothills and the Loma Prieta Sierra Club have struggled with the power shift on the board ever since the right-leaning San Jose Councilman Pete Constant took his seat as the chairman 19 months ago. Before that, the makeup of the board was such that environmentalists got used to having the votes go their way. But after a series of 3–2 split votes that tended to favor property rights over an environment agenda, environmentalists said enough was enough. They decided a vote of no confidence in the commission would point out how it has consistently ignored its own staff recommendations and environmental policies that are supposed to protect the South Bay from unbridled growth. Constant replaced former San Jose Councilwoman Linda LeZotte, who was much more sympathetic to the environmentalists. Things got really bad for the greenies after the commission (again 3–2) agreed to let San Martin folks incorporate their community. Environmentalists don’t have a problem with incorporation, but they think the commission is letting them build out too far, without leaving enough buffers between cities, said Brian Schmidt, legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills. The Pete Constant factor is bothering them enough that the Committee for Green Foothills recently had a heart-to-heart with the staffers in Mayor Chuck Reed’s office, expressing their concerns. Their vote of no confidence is a wake-up call to the agencies who appoint their elected officials to LAFCO, Schmidt said. “We didn’t say, ‘Remove your people causing problems and replace them,’” Schmidt said. “We did stop short of that.” Constant says he’s not about to back down from his positions. “They are mad we are not interpreting things their way,” Constant said. “To be blunt, their position on the issue doesn’t sway me.”
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