Re: Threat to Private Property Rights in Colusa County and Professionalism in Journalism
Dear Mr. Green:
I write today to ask that your paper take a fair and balanced look at an issue that affects every taxpayer and every landowner in Colusa County.
You may not know me, but I’m a local landowner, the Chair of the Reclamation District 1004 Board of Trustees in Colusa County, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Colusa County One Stop Partnership, and the CEO of Colusa Industrial Properties, a small business that has been developing land near our County’s small airport for over 40 years. We have been working to build homes in what is now the south end of the City of Colusa since back in 2005. Despite the fact that we got that construction approved by no less authority than both the City Council and the County Board of Supervisors years ago, a local County staff member decided they would try to stop the project with a frivolous environmental suit long after we were well under construction. That effort threatens the security of the private property rights of everyone in this County and is continuing to waste tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars a year after the Judge in the case denied the County’s demand to stop the project and informed it that the lawsuit to stop the homes is going nowhere.
What has prompted me to write you today is coverage that suggests to me that your paper has been simply accepting and parroting the talking points forwarded by the County’s lawyers without vetting them before publishing them as though they were journalism written by one of your reporters. In the article dated 12/15/22 by Susan Meeker titled: Hearing Scheduled in Housing Project Dispute, Reporter Meeker gets a whole lot wrong about what is going on in the Courthouse and on the ground.
What you might have missed from the coverage is that the Court immediately rejected the County’s demands to stop the project and explained to it in detail that this environmental suit is going nowhere. Or that the most recent order in the case, once again, confirmed that the County’s demand that the City’s 2016 approvals be set aside are years too late. Despite that fact, the County continues to plow tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep Sacramento lawyers pursuing it. Meanwhile, the County just had to borrow $9.5 Million dollars from road and district funds to keep the General Fund solvent.
What is also newsworthy is that this effort to trample private property rights is blatantly unfair and threatens every property owner in the County. You see, the County itself approved this very development in 2007. In 2016, the City’s actions actually reduced the number of people living and gathering near the 50-acre open space we designated for the published flight path in and out of the airport. The County had no objection. Half a decade later, after we spent a ton of money to get sewers, water, streets, gutters, and many complete houses built, the County suddenly changed its mind and demanded we stop building the things that were approved by the City back in 2016.
Fortunately, the law doesn’t give the County that power. Some unelected bureaucrat isn’t allowed to just change their mind after years of open public meetings and approvals from no less authority than the County Board of Supervisors and the City Council. My lawyers tell me it is called the “vested rights doctrine.” Unfortunately, the reality is that if they are willing to file a frivolous environmental lawsuit and drag it out for years just to tie you up in court, they can do a whole lot of damage to any landowner by using something called the California Environmental Quality Act as a weapon.
If they can do it to me, don’t you think they can do it to you too?
Now the article itself had several inaccuracies, rooted in a transparent attempt to twist the facts here. I suggest to you those misrepresentations make it plain as day who the ultimate source of that article was.
I want to just address a couple of them with you here:
1. The article misleadingly suggests that the City’s 2016 approval increased the people living and gathering near the open space flight corridor beyond what the County itself found was perfectly safe and proper back in 2007. That simply isn’t true.
In 2007 the County approved 114 homes in the project, along with a golf clubhouse with a large banquet facility and related buildings that would have gathered hundreds of people right next to the flight path open space, the area the County now suggests is too dangerous for even fewer people to be in.
The 2016 City approval reduced the total number of people who may be in that area during times when small planes generally take off and land at the County airport. Under the 2016 City approval, hundreds of people who the County approved to gather right on the flight path will not be there.
If the reduced number of people living and gathering on that border approved by the City in 2016 is such a problem, why did the County approve plans including more people doing so in 2007?
The County can’t answer that question because what they are doing isn’t about that. It’s about power – some local County potentate has commanded that the construction the City approved must stop and he’s not going to let a little thing like fairness, the law, or anyone’s private property rights stand in his way.
2. The article also misleadingly suggests that the 2016 City approvals were in some “closed door” setting. This is absolutely false and slanderous. In fact, the public meetings at the City Planning Commission and City Council were properly noticed and occurred over a period of years. That local County bureaucrat leading the charge here – he was personally emailed the notice of those hearings and the 2016 City approvals. Those decisions were made in open public meetings. Several of them. The County didn’t object. Why would they? We were reducing the very issues the County now claims are new news in a project the County itself had already approved.
3. The article also insinuates that mitigation measures have been ignored by the City. This too is false. It is perhaps more notable as evidence of the actual source of the article – this argument was only recently injected into the case a year after it was filed, as the County has begun backtracking from its demand to overturn the 2016 City approvals.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened with this story – Reporter Meeker already had to issue a retraction over inaccuracies in a prior article about this environmental lawsuit. Worse yet, before you published these articles, Reporter Meeker didn’t bother to call anyone on our side to get the rest of the story in a case where every order issued by the two judges has gone against the County.
I ask that you come talk with me about the County’s attempt to set-aside the City’s 2016 approvals before your paper publishes the County’s talking points again. We’ll sit down with you, show you the orders from both Judges, the documents that show the County itself approved this Project before the City did, and that both did so many years ago in an open public process. We’ll show you the emails where the County was given full notice of the 2016 City approvals the county tried and failed to stop at the Courthouse. We’ll show you that we have a right to build the homes we’re trying to build on our private property and that we’re standing up, on behalf of all private landowners in the County, to one of the worst impulses of local government here – the idea that the law, fairness, and private property rights can be damned if any one of them stand in the way of what some local official has decided suits his fancy on this particular day.
Then, I’ll ask you to put a new article in your paper. Not a 10-point font retraction hidden on page B12, but an article addressing the County’s trampling of private property rights and insistence on spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to keep Sacramento lawyers pursuing a frivolous case to bully a local landowner and the City.
Perhaps you could put it next to one about the ambulances, flood control, water storage, parks, affordable housing, or any of a thousand other things we need to spend money on in this County more than we need another frivolous environmental lawsuit blocking much needed middle-class homes.
Sincerely,
Ed Hulbert, C.E.O.
Colusa Industrial Properties
PUBLISHERS RESPONSE
Mr. Hulburt:
It’s never a good sign when an individual starts a letter with a pedigree. It elicits the perception that an individual is pushing their weight around.
I am well aware of your existence, as I have known you professionally for the last 16 years. You are even part of the group of individuals who have been in discussion to keep this publication financially viable.
Regarding the article you question, the County of Colusa has sued the City of Colusa for alleged CEQA violations for a project in which Colusa Industrial Properties and others are named as real parties of interest.
We may agree that this is a grotesque misuse of taxpayer dollars, and nothing more than a glorified pissing match between two government entities, with the public and property owners caught in the middle.
The details obtained for the most recent article you mentioned were entered into the courts and purchased by the Pioneer Review from the Sacramento County Superior Court. These were not documents forwarded to us from county lawyers. Until the city files a response to the amended complaint, officials will remain silent, as they don’t discuss pending litigation.
The suggestion that this publication is a shill for any government entity is repulsively arrogant at best.
You are welcome to meet with Susan Meeker, the editor and reporter of this publication, to explain and present your information. If you don’t already have it, you can email Susan at susan@colusacountynews.net, give her a call (530) 458-4141, or stop in our office located in downtown Colusa, 430 Market St.
Susan has covered this issue for two years, and updates the public as to the most recent court proceedings, the amended lawsuit to be specific. We are aware that this process takes place over several years, and we anticipate that our readers follow the progression.
Here are some excerpts from the news articles we have published on this matter that address some of your complaints to this newspaper:
“The city has maintained since the county first filed the lawsuit in January 2022 that the project, as approved in 2018, will not adversely impact the ability to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, nor adversely impact the orderly expansion of the airport.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, Jan. 19, 2023
“It’s been nearly one year since the Colusa County Board of Supervisors filed a lawsuit against the Colusa City Council over expanding the housing development near the county’s only airport without subsequent review under the California Environmental Quality Act. A hearing is scheduled in Sacramento County Superior Court at 3 PM on Friday, although the county’s claim the city violated CEQA may ultimately be barred by the statute of limitations, based on court rulings so far.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, Dec. 15, 2022.
“Hundreds of pages of documents have flowed back and forth between the court and attorneys representing the county, city, and developers who have argued their cases. Attorneys for the city and developers claimed the county’s opinion had “no evidentiary value” because it was offered without reasoned explanation of why the underlying factors led to their ultimate conclusion that the public and airport operations are at risk.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, Dec. 15, 2022.
“Colusa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Thompson said that while the County of Colusa has claimed that an increase in the project from its original 84 homes to 180 is a public safety risk, the County does not take into consideration the elimination of the multi-family units and congregate community facility. ‘It is impossible to say if the net effect constitutes irreparable harm,’ Thompson said. Thompson also affirmed his denial of the injunction and request for a restraining order because he felt the County’s case would not likely prevail because the County took no action on the project in the years since it was approved, and that the previous airport manager commented on certain aspects of the project at the time it was under review, negating claim that Colusa County was not fully aware the scope of the project had changed.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, April 19, 2022.
“Following the annexation of property into the City of Colusa in 2015, the Planning Commission and City Council, in 2016, approved a development agreement and subdivision map amendments that added more single-family homes, but eliminated the multi-residential units, thus resulting in a net reduction in the number of people that would be living in the development.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, Jan. 26, 2022.
“City officials admitted there were some procedural processes that were skipped when the Planning Commission and City Council allowed the developer to eliminate the high-density apartments to increase the number of single families from 84 to 180, but that the project was well vetted in both 2014 and 2018, public notices had been properly published, notices of the changes were sent to the airport manager, property owners within 300 feet of the project were notified, and multiple public hearings were held.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, Nov. 4, 2021.
“Colusa Community Development Director Bryan Stice dispelled the belief that the city is “picking and choosing” what mitigation measures they wanted to follow because some measures were no longer applicable or practical after CIP’s annexation into the city, such as money for a new jail. The public also asked for developers to pay the full impact fees established by the City of Colusa and/or put additional funds into an escrow account for future capital improvements. But Colusa officials said that was unnecessary because the city has a different funding mechanism than the county for paying for services and infrastructure, and believe the economic benefit of residential growth in the form of increased sales taxes, gas taxes, and property taxes will provide the mechanism to absorb the impacts. Additionally, homeowners within the housing development will be assessed annually to cover lighting, landscaping, and other site-specific improvements, officials said.” – Colusa County Pioneer Review, Oct. 21, 2021
I would like to state clearly that no retraction was ever published. However, we did publish a correction notice on page 6, in the July 28, 2022 edition:
” The July 21 article on the Colusa County lawsuit against the City of Colusa should have read “the housing developers have disputed the county’s factual basis for the lawsuit, and claim the statute of limitations has passed, making the county’s arguments invalid.”
Additionally, the Pioneer Review’s does not have a ‘B’ section, and our standard font type is “Miller Text” and printed in size 10pt. All correction notices if deemed appropriate would be published in the same manner.
As a member of the Society for Professional Journalists, I hold the highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism to serve the public to act independently. It is my responsibility to avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts; Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility; Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage.
Ed, thank you for the time you took to write and submit your letter. Susan is looking forward to your contact.
Regards,
Lloyd Green Jr
Publisher
