HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-25-2016 PC Correspondence Item 01 (Pinard)Lomeli, Monique
RECEIVED
OF SAN LUIS OBISPO
MAY 2 3 2016
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
//.7 01.S -4:60 CO
Item: J --
RE: Planning commission Agenda: Chapter 8, Water and Wastewater Management
Element and the 2015 Urban Water Management Plan
Please make sure that the Planning Commission gets a copy of this email for their current meeting. Thank you.
RE: Review and provide recommendations on amendments to the General Plan, Chapter 8, Water and Wastewater
Management Element and the 2015 Urban Water Management Plan
Dear Planning Commission Members,
As you "Review and provide recommendations..." I hope you will bring some sense of honesty and accountability back
to the discussion of our city's water policies and practices.
Understand that, during the last drought, we were down to just months left of water. Residents had been subjected to
severe rationing with fines for non-compliance. They were very angry that the city had been giving inflated reports on
how much water we actually had left.
As someone who was on the council and who lived through all the anguish of that time, it was very clear what the voters
meant and what the charter was supposed to do. It was meant to protect the availability of a water supply for existing
residents... people who were already here and were facing a lack of water.
The San Luis Obispo City Charter was amended in 1996 by a citizen vote to include a "Water "Reliability Reserve" . This
citizen vote amended the Charter in two fundamental ways;
It legally incorporated the 2,000 acre feet "Reliabilit Reserve" called -for in the 1993 Water Management Element of the
General Plan into the City's Charter.
It legally required that this 2,000 acre foot reliability reserve would not be used "to allow additional
development".
While the City Charter is clear, city staff's subsequent "analysis and interpretation" under supervision of the City
Manager, has sequentially tried to;
(1) eliminate the legally referenced 2,000 acre feet
(2) "keeping a reliability reserve account, but having nothing in it"
(3) co -mingling the reliability reserve with other City water, and
(4) eliminate the City's long-standing prohibition of extending City water use outside of the City.
What has evolved is a repeat of the water availability "shell game." This is a shameful manipulation of the public trust. It
may result in benefiting speculative development interests, but it is at the public's expense.
Sincerely,
Peg Pinard
Former Mayor, City of San Luis Obispo and
Chairperson of the SLO County Board of Supervisors
The San Luis Obispo City Charter, Section 909, states:
"As identified in the Water Management Element of the General Plan, the City shall strive to acquire additional water
supplies as a "reliability reserve" to protect the City from future water shortages. Once the City has acquired a portion or
all of the reliability reserve, the additional water supply shall only be used to meet City needs during unpredictable
changes such as new worst case drought loss of one of the City's water sources, contamination of a source, or failure of a
new source to provide projected yield, and not to allow additional development."