In a lot of ways, the battle against developers strongly mirrors that of the battle against fracking fought 10 years ago. Many of the same people who pushed for the ban on fracking are now pushing for the liberation of our county from the grip of large, corporate developers coming over the horizon. Instead of “San Benito United for Energy Independence” we have “San Benito Neighbors Against Traffic and Outside Interests.”
Remember all that talk about regulatory takings and lawsuits a few weeks ago? Scary stuff, right? Well, Citadel Exploration said a lot of the same stuff, and they actually had a better case.
Measure J did sort of restrict property rights and resource extraction. Measure A does not restrict property rights, but merely transfers rezoning decisions from the county supervisors to the people.
So what happened to that lawsuit over Measure J? Withdrawn almost immediately.
Measure A opponents love to claim that Measure A goes too far. Yeah, right! They always say that. Ten years ago, a former elected official said the same thing about Measure J in the article titled “Guest View: Supervisor contends Measure J goes too far.”
They claim that existing laws authored by higher powers either protect what we’re trying to protect or will result in heavy-handed intervention by the state. It’s a two-pronged manipulation tactic, designed to make potential gains appear small while exaggerating the perceived risks. Articles titled “Letter: Measure J supporters’ claims are ‘malicious fairy tale’”, “Letter: Why I strongly oppose Measure J”, and “Letter: Measure J based on fear, ignorance” show that the same manipulation we see now was also attempted back then.
You may have heard of people calling Measure A a “no-growth” initiative. This is one of the many contradictory claims they make, and one which is yet again borrowed from the opponents of Measure J, as evidenced by the Free Lance article “Guest View: Measure J is ‘no-growth, anti-domestic energy initiative’.”
Measure A opponents claim this measure is an outsiders’ measure, simply because we received assistance from outside environmentalists. I’m going to leave alone the apparent hypocrisy in both their claims and in their group’s very name, to instead point you to an excerpt from an article, titled “Letter: Propaganda tactics from No On Measure J side.”
In the article, John McDonald wrote, “Just as effective and insidious is the tactic to demonize or disenfranchise their opposition. Make them seem like an enemy.
“In this instance, the “No on J” campaign continually refers to the “Yes On J” people as “outsiders” who (somehow and vaguely) “threaten our way of life.” It is deceptive to say that the “Yes on J” campaign was: ‘Hatched by activists and lawyers from outside San Benito to serve their own political agendas.’
“In reality the campaign was started by locally concerned SBC residents who hired lawyers from San Francisco to draft the wording of their grassroots campaign to ban fracking in this county.”
I hope you’re catching on now. These tactics are very old. Time and again, my research has brought me to this conclusion: local history matters.
For instance, our beloved farm bureau, which opposes Measure A, had also fiercely opposed Measure J, as did the Cattlemen’s Association.
Measure A opponents say Measure A is not the answer, as did Measure J opponents of the past. Yet, they do not provide an answer themselves. Here’s my answer: Measure A. Vote YES on Measure A.
Joseph Howard
Hollister
