The county board Tuesday is set to weigh what constitutes exemptions as laid out in the Measure J initiative on the November ballot.
Supervisors at their 9 a.m. Tuesday meeting at the County Administration Building, 481 Fourth St., are set to consider the exemption portion of the measure aiming to ban fracking, cyclic steaming and well acidizing while barring all petroleum activities in rural residential zones.
As stated in a staff report being presented by Planning Director Byron Turner on Tuesday, the county is addressing what to do about the exemptions. Those general exemptions include instances where the measure would violate the U.S. Constitution, cause an unconstitutional taking of property or when people who have vested rights granted by the state for low-intensity operations.
Catherine Engburg, the attorney who helped to draft the measure, has called those portions of the initiative “standard language” and referred to them as “boiler plate” to ensure no constitutional violations occur.
