Sixty concerned residents, business leaders, farmers and
ranchers took a first step toward addressing the San Benito County
Slow-Growth Control Initiative during a two-day consensus building
workshop Friday and Saturday.
Sixty concerned residents, business leaders, farmers and ranchers took a first step toward addressing the San Benito County Slow-Growth Control Initiative during a two-day consensus building workshop Friday and Saturday.
The workshop did not answer all of the questions surrounding the controversial measure – but then it was never intended to.
The workshop, organized by local ranchers Joe and Julie Morris, brought together concerned residents and officials to open lines of communication between initiative supporters and opponents in hopes of reducing some of the divisive rhetoric between the two factions that has threatened to tear the community apart.
“I’ve learned that there are more people out there who are passionate and earnest about doing the right thing and that gives me hope,” Joe Morris said.
The two-day forum held at the Portuguese Hall in Hollister was mediated by conflict resolution specialist Jeff Goebel.
Goebel was the project coordinator for Washington State University’s Holistic Management Project and the director of the Pacific Northwest Sustainable Community Consensus Institute at WSU funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
In addition to his consulting experience, Goebel’s experience includes directing regional centers for Holistic Resource Management in Texas and Oklahoma.
Throughout the workshop, Goebel focused the diverse group on “listening with respect,” and to refrain from name-calling and other argumentative behavior.
“Give people a chance to be civil with each other and allow those different points of views to be expressed and for people to learn from each other so they can create an outcome that fits for everybody,” Goebel said.
A large part of the workshop focussed on helping participants face their fears concerning what would happen if the growth initiative is approved by voters and what would happen if voters rejected it.
After two days of talks, nearly everyone at the workshop agreed that a plan to guide the future of growth in the county was needed.
“We can make that initiative irrelevant because we have a vision for this community and we have the tools to either build on it or from the ashes of it,” resident Tina Swanson said.
Goebel said the group made progress toward reaching a consensus at the workshop, although more work needed to be done.
“This is a good group of people and they care about their community, and that is the bottom line, and the common link that they have together,” Goebel said.
Several business leaders at the workshop recognized what an important opportunity the workshop presented for the community.
“I think this group has an opportunity to do something outstanding and I hope we can grasp that opportunity,” Free Lance Publisher Bill Barry said.
Even people at opposite ends of the growth issue said the workshop was worth the time they invested during the two days.
“I think it was a worthwhile endeavor. It’s just too bad that it wasn’t done before the initiative was written and passed around,” said Tom Tobias president of the San Benito County Farm Bureau and chairman of the Farmers and Citizens to Protect our Agricultural Heritage. “I think it could have saved a lot of hard work and a lot of heart ache.
“There is more common ground than we realized before, but there is that little bit of difference where we have a long way to go before we reconcile this.”
Tobias’ thoughts were echoed by initiative supporter Richard Sachs.
“I think it was educational, and I think our goals are very much aligned and I think that we share a lot of common ground,” Sachs said. “I think that there is work to do in the initiative process, but I hope that we can do it together as a community, and that the initiative does not become divisive but brings us together as a community.”
One of the pitfalls that residents were warned to look out for, were those hoping to capitalize on the divisive nature of the growth issue.
“Past experience is part of what I’m living now,” said Supervisor Pat Loe, one of the only elected officials to attend the workshop.
Loe, a strong proponent for managed growth, said she has seen how divisive the growth issue can be and hoped the workshop could prevent the kind of disputes about growth that nearly split the community a decade ago.
“I worked very hard on Measures L and M and I saw how divisive that was,” Loe said. “When you get involved with something like this, there are very strong feelings that get involved.”
Some of the strong feelings have apparently raised their ugly heads in the form of someone hiring a private investigator to spy on initiative supporters.
“He’s been going around asking questions about people,” Loe said. “He’s is trying to discredit people and making accusations about people that I know in my heart are not true.”
Loe said the debate over the growth initiative should be based on the merits of the measure and not on the politics of personal destruction.
“I just want to say that we have to stop the pettiness,” Loe said.
Tobias said no one from his group or anyone affiliated with the group has anything to do with a private investigator.
“I’ve heard that there’s an investigation, but I haven’t heard who is behind it,” Tobias said. “We have nothing to do with any investigation.”
The investigator may have been hired by an outside group looking to submarine the initiative for its own purposes.
“There is another faction here that is not dedicated to a peaceful resolution of this issue,” Pinnacle Publisher Tracie Cone said.
Goebel advised the group not to let outside influences ruin what could become a great chance to shape the community’s future in the image locals want.
“The initiative has brought you together, but you have to decide as a community if this is a good thing or not,” Goebel said.
Mike Yalow, the mayor pro-tem of the City of Orland, shared the success his city and county had in resolving its problems through the same consensus building techniques.
“In Glenn County, we went through a process similar to this,” Yalow said. “Simply by forming this group with no government control drew the ear of the supervisors which scared them to death because we were exercising our first amendment rights.”
The same concerns with growth that are plaguing San Benito are not much different than the ones other rural counties throughout the state are facing, he said.
“We’re all having the same problems, and there is help out there. But the cheapest help is right here,” Yalow said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t need a bureaucrat telling me how to solve my problems. You are the solution to your problems.”
Although the workshop did not solve the growth issue, it did spark many of the participants toward continued action in jointly resolving their mutual concerns.
“I’ve learned that getting involved makes everything better, and I’m going to continue to be involved,” rancher Mike Reeves said.
Resident Sarah Steiner shared the optimism coming out of the workshop.
“I look forward to going back to work and spreading the word about what happened here to my friends and coworkers,” she said.
The positive tone of the workshop bodes well for the county’s long-term civic health.
“I think it’s a great testimonial to our community that we have problems but that there are others out there who are willing to work together toward a solution,” Loe said. “What we all have to realize is that the power is not with the government. The power is here in this room with the people.”
“There is power in this group and we hold the seeds for the future here,” Joe Morris said. “We need to cultivate those seeds into a community we can cherish.”
Despite the better understanding, several participants said their minds were unchanged.
“I intend to work to defeat the initiative because it won’t work. You can’t amend it. And it just seems to me that that the best thing to do is to work to defeat it and have something better in place and ready to introduce,” Darlene Din said.
