By Norm Ihle
Just a few thoughts on how things went with the planning commission and the upcoming vote by the board of supervisors on Cristallago.
Doesn”t anyone find it strange that these developers asked for a postponement of the vote on Oct. 9 and asked for another vote on Oct. 23? Could it be that Mr. Van der Boon was going to vote against it on the Oct. 9? After lunch, on the meeting of Oct. 9, they suddenly asked for the vote to be delayed as they thought Mr. Van der Boon was not up to speed on the project. What the heck? They had already given him a tour of the land and they thought he was already in their hip pocket before the vote. Sadly, Mr. Van der Boon caved into the Cristallago full-court press and voted for the project during the meeting of Oct. 23 even though the EIR was one of the most poorly written I have ever seen. But this is now water under the bridge and the planning commission feels we can deal with that later. A clear-cut case of putting their heads in the sand and gambling that no serious repercussions will arise, they should be ashamed of their actions
Doesn”t anyone else find it strange that the planning commissioners from the North District No. 3 and Northwest Side District No. 4 of the Lake have voted against this development? They could clearly see that this is a classic case of urban sprawl; 650 homes, four styles only, 350 timeshares, clustered together. The other three commissioners where this development is not going to be built have voted for it. I guess they feel, as long as this Los Angeles- style track housing project (with golf course) is not in their back yard, it is of no obvious problem to them. Funny how these three commissioners report directly to Rob Brown, Jeff Smith and Jim Comstock, who will do whatever they can to help out any developer. They have no regard for Lake County”s General Plan.
So, now this urban sprawl development will go to the board of supervisors where they will be asked to change Lake County”s General Plan to allow this urban spawl. The General Plan was put in place to stop these types of developments. Rest assured, the Cristallago folks have met with Rob Brown, Jeff Smith and Jim Comstock, the good old boys, on this project many times. The developers are very confident they have these supervisors” votes in hand. Just ask them. Do you see a pattern here?
So the question is, will the board of supervisors have the courage and integrity to not change it? So many citizens and employees of Lake County put hundreds of hours of hard work into the General Plan to ensure developments like this will not be allowed in the county.
Let”s hope the good old boys get the message and vote with the people and not allow this travesty to happen. Better yet, put it on the ballot and let the citizens of the county vote on it. Will they? I doubt it, because they know that, we the people, do not want another Los Angeles-style development in our beautiful county.
Norm Ihle
Lakeport
