From its beginning, poor judgment has contaminated the Measure G
campaign.
It purports to
”
Keep our county’s rural character.
”
But how is that possible when its authors drafted Measure G in
secret, without any input from the farmers and ranchers who have
been mainly responsible for developing and maintaining that rural
character for over a century? Here is Measure G’s first and worst
instance of poor judgment.
From its beginning, poor judgment has contaminated the Measure G campaign.
It purports to “Keep our county’s rural character.” But how is that possible when its authors drafted Measure G in secret, without any input from the farmers and ranchers who have been mainly responsible for developing and maintaining that rural character for over a century? Here is Measure G’s first and worst instance of poor judgment.
Next, it focuses on county growth – which has been negligible – and ignores growth in Hollister – which has outstripped its infrastructure! There is no sense to this contradiction – other than poor judgment.
There’s more. Measure G, with its emphasis on lot size, makes the same error that it purports to correct. The land use problem is not lot size, but lot use. A 20-acre residence is hardly an improvement on four 5-acre residences. But, as several crop and orchard surrounded residences on Union Road and elsewhere in our county show, the latter are not unsuited for agricultural use. Measure G’s “one size fits all” approach is just the latest version of the existing Planning Code’s failure to require that usage in an agricultural zone be restricted to sustainable agricultural uses, not exempted from such restrictions simply by developing residences, whether of five acre or 20 acre dimensions.
Finally, and we admit that this is personal, Measure G supporters, without asking us, used landscape photography of our property and of our neighbors’ properties in their campaign literature. This, even though they know that we and our son, Joe Morris, and his wife, Julie, and our neighbors, are all opposed to Measure G. When we objected, did they apologize, offer to pull the mailer, issue a public retraction? Why no. They just simply e-mailed us a message: “Very beautiful. You folks are fortunate indeed.”
We have to ask ourselves, how can our fellow citizens be so devious? They’re using us to advance their campaign! But then, this is what we have come to expect. Regrettably, we conclude, Measure G is a case of poor judgment, very poor indeed. Please join us in voting No on Measure G.
Anne and Rich Morris,
San Juan Bautista
