Council Report Card

Prevent Los Angelization Now recently released a “report card” on the performance of the San Diego City Council. We want to take issue with one of the votes used to evaluate the council.

PLAN criticizes the City Council majority, and Council Members Linda Bernhardt and John Hartley in particular, for supporting an exemption to the Resource Protection Ordinance for the Sorrento Hills land swap. The area in question is 166 acres adjacent to Interstate 5 that would be traded to Newland Corp. in return for approximately 250 acres of land in the heart of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve.

Because much of the Sorrento Hills site contains steep slopes, strict application of the RPO to the project would have reduced the project to the point where the land swap would have been jeopardized.

The land that Newland will receive under the land swap has minimal environmental value, while the land that will become part of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve as part of the land swap is one of the most environmentally sensitive parcels of land in San Diego.

The purpose of the RPO is to protect sensitive lands, but in this case, the effect of removing the RPO exclusion would have been to preserve the slopes next to Interstate 5, while the land in the center of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve remained in Newland’s ownership and subject to future development.

It is bizarre that PLAN would support this alternative, let alone select this vote as one of the 12 council votes of the year on which to base its evaluation of council members.

JEFFREY STEVENS & PAMELA STEVENS, San Diego