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The San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 has withdrawn its approval of a land use initiative, opting to delay its inclusion on the Nov. 5 ballot until the financial impact report is received by the County Council. Supervisors Dom Zanger and Kollin Kosmicki voted against reconsidering and delaying the item, with Zanger saying the move “seems wrong.”
The June 25 vote will take place one week after the Board unanimously approved certification and the ballot question.
Supervisor Angela Curro said she wanted to delay certification to ensure information from the 9111 report was available before the ballot question was approved, while advocates and supporters of the Empower Voters to Make Land Use Decision initiative and two supervisors questioned the process and motives.
At the heart of the discussion was concern over the wording of the initiative’s ballot, which when approved by the Board of Supervisors read: “Shall an initiative be adopted to amend the County General Plan to require voter approval before rezoning (changing) agricultural land, rural land, or pastoral land for other uses and to remove the commercial regional designation from four interchanges on Highway 101?”
Curro said she was concerned about the question because the county council, which is responsible for drafting the question, had not received the 9111 report, which is supposed to inform supervisors and voters of potential impacts if a measure is passed. She said the report is expected to be ready by mid-July and the ballot question is “the most important” part of the process.
“Unfortunately, the majority of voters only read the question and that question should contain as much information as possible so that voters vote based on as much fact-based information as possible,” Curro said.
Although she said she would not provide feedback to the County Council on the wording of the question, eight members of the public spoke against the move, including the attorney for the initiative’s proponents. Four speakers said the move was politically motivated to get voters to reject the measure. Initiative supporters also questioned the report’s neutrality, saying the report was intended as additional information for voters and not part of the ballot question.
Andy Hsia-Coron leads the group proposing the measure, the Campaign to Protect San Benito County. Hsia-Coron said supervisors tried to “frame a question that would put the thumb on the scale and somehow bring additional votes to the ‘no’ side.”
Several supporters of the initiative questioned the impartiality of the financial impact report, pointing to the county-commissioned 2022 report for Measure Q, the first iteration of that initiative. Measure Q did not pass, with 56% of voters rejecting it.
“I feel like you are doing the same thing again by biasing the language on an issue,” said Briggite Baumann-Thorp.
Kosmicki and Zanger also questioned the process of relaunching the initiative.
Kosmicki, who called the voting issue “straightforward,” said the board did not follow the procedure for adding an item to the agenda and that the agenda did not contain language addressing the request to change the rules and reverse the June 18 vote.
District Attorney David Prentice said the board’s rules allow supervisors to bring an approved item back for reconsideration at the next meeting. He said that can happen if the majority of the board does not object to the reconsideration.
Before discussing certification, the board approved, in two separate votes, motions to add a board rule to reconsider items and another to reconsider the Empower Voters initiative. Supervisors Mindy Sotelo, Bea Gonzales and Curro were in the majority.
Zanger described the voting question as reasonable and questioned a change in the rules.
“It just seems odd to me that we’re going through all this to change the question that our county council wrote and that seemed to be perfectly fine to the election office and to us in the past,” he said. “The whole thing just seems weird to me.”
Two speakers who advocated waiting for the 9111 report said it was important to provide voters with as much information as possible.
“When it comes to providing complete information about an item, the financial impact should be absolutely the focus,” said Valerie Egland.
In his May 14 presentation, District Attorney David Prentice said the 9111 report will include an impartial analysis of:
- Fiscal impact
- Impact on internal coherence with general and specific plans, the housing element and zoning
- Impacts on land use and the ability to meet the region’s housing needs
- Impact on the financing of infrastructure such as transport, schools, parks and open spaces
- Impact on the ability to attract and retain businesses and jobs
- All other matters requested by the Supervisory Board
Supervisors are expected to consider accepting the certification on July 23.
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