|
 |
||
|
Save Neighborhoods with an Initiative Nearly two years ago, Dale Tyler presented information to the Mission Viejo Planning Commission about his proposed ballot initiative, patterned after the successful Yorba Linda “Right to Vote” and Newport Beach's “Greenlight.” The idea is for voters to take control of major rezoning decisions. By passing the initiative, Mission Viejo residents would get to vote on each major rezoning decision. Without it, we will continue eating the dust of developers and having no voice in what happens. Consider how rezoning issues are currently decided with developers buying their way in with campaign contributions and in-lieu fees paid to the city. It has been a very unpleasant surprise to realize the residents can't count on even one person on the council to represent us on major rezoning decisions. It seems like every time some developer comes to town with money spilling out of their pockets, our Master Plan is changed, yet again, to satisfy their needs. Will the residents join in and get signatures on an initiative so we can quickly qualify it for the ballot? Although the council could do this for us by creating such a ballot measure – we wouldn’t need to gather signatures, I doubt the majority of council members would give up their authority (as well as cash for their campaigns from out-of-towners). As another matter, anything the council might concoct could have so many loopholes it wouldn’t change anything. Please consider that we need to take action to save our neighborhoods. Every time a council rezones property, it seems to have a profound negative impact on our residents. We’ve tried relying on council members to represent us, and it hasn’t worked out. Connie Lee |
||