• City Council Special Meeting August 2021 Tres Lagos

There's no point in completely rehashing this matter. If you would like more backstory, please click the keyword Tres Lagos at the bottom of the blog.

It's just a hastily cobbled-together mock-up to give a rough idea of what it might look like. I have no idea if the "French Style" will look anything like this or not, and the windows aren't the same. It's just to give you an idea of what three-story buildings on those ten acres might look like. 

I want to thank the residents that came in person (and those that watched on zoom or live stream). It was a full house considering the lingering covid restrictions, and despite the fact that this was a foregone conclusion since day one.

To sum up the meeting without getting into the weeds, it started with Wildomar's city attorney explaining a series of laws that Sacramento has passed over the years. 

Capped off by the odious SB35 that threatens elected officials to not say things that could even "chill" the project. I'm sure that they weren't using the modern slang version of "chill" which is the super hip way of saying "cool".

Even though there is scant similarity between classic "cool" and modern day hipsters and their "chill" neither is anything remotely like the "chill" mentioned in reference to SB35 and what Scott Wiener intended when he wrote the bill. 

After the attorney was finished speaking, the planning director gave an overview of the project. Followed by another presentation by the developer.

Next was public comments, and I counted nine residents that spoke in the chamber and another five online. They were all good comments, but the two that were stellar in my view came from Janice Hare and then over zoom, Kory Stare. 

This isn't the academy awards where I'm going to thank everyone involved, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention Mari Bacon by name, and acknowledge her tireless efforts in getting the word out to the community through her group Save Windsong Valley.

Like I mentioned at the top, I don't want to give an exhaustive postmortem on this meeting. The link to the complete video is below and I encourage you to watch it if you have a spare three hours lying around. 

As a quadruple reminder, this meeting didn't legally even need to happen 

SB35 allowed for all the paperwork to be done by the planning department and the city council could have thrown up our hands and said, "Aw shucks folks, the power was taken away from us."

I'm so appreciative that when I was going over Tres Lagos in a one-on-one meeting with staff, and I said that we had an obligation to go in front of the community, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, they agreed without hesitation.

Believe me, lesser city councils would have gladly dodged this bullet. Remember, Wildomar didn't. 

The way that city councils work in California is that a voting majority cannot work on an issue together (the vaunted Brown Act). That means only two members can discuss any one item. I worked on this item with Bridgette Moore for at least this entire calendar year.

She was very helpful and carried my Dragon A-- more than once as she arranged many Zoom meetings with countless concerned residents. 

For all the things already on her plate, she added this monster to it. Even though the project is well outside of her district, and it would have been completely understandable had she not been able to find the necessary time. I think she actually gets 36 hours in a day and just hasn't told anyone else about it. 

She and I were both contacted by the developer in the final weeks before the August 26th meeting. I inquired with staff whether Palm Communities had been willing to change the things that the Save Windsong Valley group had asked for.

When I'd heard that there were no changes made, I couldn't imagine the point of meeting with them. However, Bridgette did opt to meet with them, and afterward thought she might have a deal in the works to at least move the buildings off the property line.

I don't want to speak for Bridgette, but I know that she wouldn't have brought the subject up at the meeting if she wasn't fairly certain that it would be accepted based on the meeting she had had. 

It was in hopes of moving the buildings further back from the property line and having the parking closer to the street. If you want to see how that part went down, go to this part of the meeting video: 2:27:30 

Remember, with SB35, this type of project gets to dictate the process. They are the ones that can demand conditions and waivers, the city cannot.

When given the chance to prove that they were indeed, good neighbors (as they'd been proclaiming), they balked and said, "We've met the city's guidelines." 

They also said how they'd already spent tens of thousands of dollars as part of the reason why they weren't interested in making this concession. 

Imagine what they could buy with that kind of largess... probably a corrugated patio cover with a disco ball, maybe one of those rusty metal T-Rexs for their front yard, and a couple of cases of Coors Light for their yearly Christmas party.

There are soooo many more important things to use those funds on than the neighborhood they're in the process of wrecking... and since the state said they could run roughshod over anyone they damn well please, they did. 

Congrats, time to contact the humanitarian of the year organizers and get to nominating them. (What, I poured it on too thick there? Fine, strike that part about humanitarian of the year from the record)

Then it was my turn to speak

I had some prepared remarks that pointed the blame to myself first, then to staff, followed by the developer of course, but then reminded everyone that it was the one-party rule that has been in Sacramento for decades... and those that keep voting them in that owns the root cause of this whole fiasco.

The thing is, all levity aside for a moment, that area was failed by the very people put in place to keep a watch out for them. Sad and pathetic!

"But now that they have the power of SB35 behind them —they're in charge. Not too dissimilar to when a preschooler is in possession of a loaded Glock wanting a cookie. It's their show and their demands must be met." 

The above was part of my comments... check out the video.

Being in love with the camera, I actually set up my phone to take some reverse-angle footage of when I was speaking. If you think my blogs can get convoluted, take a look at my nearly eight-minute verbal diatribe below. 

Note to self: next time don't use the water bottle as a tripod, you might get thirsty and have no way to wet your whistle. 

That was it, we voted on it and the final vote was 4-1 to approve the waivers and conditions. 

I'm not some hero here

The others knew that we had no choice but to approve it or face a losing lawsuit from the developer, not even attaining a Pyrrhic victory... (is a Pyrrhic defeat a thing?)

Which could have cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend, or to put this back on the next agenda to then switch the vote... and I would have switched mine before costing the city money on a no-win situation.

If this would have been allowed to go through the standard review process I have relative confidence that it would have been a 4-1 or a 5-0 vote to deny it.

It was a long meeting, with just one topic, and if you choose to watch the video you'll get the complete picture of what transpired. 

The only other thing that I'll address, and here I'll go back to glossing over something that is actually rather serious, but it doesn't directly affect the residents... so if you can read between the lines, cool. 

Towards the end, staff seemed to forget the pecking order of things and who works for who. Let this be a friendly reminder, that such actions won't go unanswered in future meetings.

You do not attempt to throw your employer under the bus, much less all five of them —especially not on a moot point that has nothing to do with what's being voted on, and delude yourself into believing that is acceptable.

If you have a difference of opinion and you want to clear the air, that's what backrooms and woodsheds are for, not an open meeting. I'm not here to kiss anyone's hindquarters.

But Joseph, isn't a blog just as inappropriate a place for such a thing? 

Hmmm.... you may have a point there. 

PostScript. After the meeting, as I was making my way out of the council chambers I met up with one of the developers and remarked, "Well, you survived. You absorbed the arrows well."

Despite my palpable dislike for Tres Lagos, I don't carry that over to the people involved. He seemed to understand our positions, even if not to the point of changing anything. Sort of the difference between empathy and compassion. I wished him a good evening and a safe trip back home. It is possible to disagree and still be civil.