Paula Authier, Mark Banks, Beetle Barbour, Ron Kopf, Jim O’Neil, George Segarini, and Jim Todd.

Give up?

Not only are they friends of mine, but they put aside a long history of contention and came to agreement so that the county could begin to address a major issue – the creation of more affordable housing here. They are the “interested parties” – housing advocates and building industry representatives – that hammered out the Ordinance approved by the BOS yesterday.

Giving credit where credit is due, without both sides’ ultimate cooperation, we wouldn’t have had 3 votes yesterday to approve the Ordinance. You see, there were at least several on the Board who want affordable housing, but wouldn’t vote for an Ordinance that everyone couldn’t live with. So they worked together and got it done for us… and our kids… and our future.

***

Laura Cianci wrote (http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=25836):

“The controversy surrounding the Tuolumne County Inclusionary Ordinance has had developers, real estate agents and affordable-housing advocates arguing for years about what should be included in the ordinance and what constitutes market affordability.

Last month, the two sides together drafted three versions of the ordinance, finally agreeing on the terms of one, and leaving the three remaining contentious issues for the board to resolve. More than a dozen people showed up at the board meeting to present their sides of the debate and persuade the supervisors to vote for their position.”

***

Is the Ordinance perfect? Certainly not. Over time we may learn it needs to be tweaked in one way or another. We will deal with that as we go forward.

But let there be no doubt. Both sides definitely gave. And in the process, contributed to a new degree of public participation in government!

Credit and accolades for compromises and hard work is well-deserved by both sides. Thanks to Mike Laird who facilitiated, and Dick Pland for participating, as well.

Together they did! I’m proud and you should be too.

Even though all of us believe some kind of legislative action is necessary to address a serious lack of affordable housing that’s contributed to a significant outmigration of our youth and workforce, the devil was in the details. And within the constraints of the way we conduct Board matters, we couldn’t quite reach agreement on how the policy should address the issue.

Affordable housing advocates pleaded with us to go ahead and adopt the proposed ordinance, warts and all. After 4 years of committee meetings and considerable time and emotion invested, they just wanted us to pass it – amend it later, they said. They understand our present “3 votes on a Tuesday” system all too well.

“If there is no new information, why are we still talking about the ordinance?” asked Beetle Barbour, housing resources director at the Amador-Tuolumne Community Action Agency. “You don’t have to believe anybody, you just have to look at the ordinance.”

Beetle was partially right. There was no new information contained in the proposed ordinance, but there was something new last Tuesday. For the first time, the Board of Supervisors – all 5 of us – discussed it amongst ourselves. We looked for the place of agreement, but time just flat ran out and our decision-making tradition proved too strong to overcome. Will that be the case in October? I hope not.

Under the Brown Act in California, no more than 2 supervisors may discuss any item we will be voting on except in a properly-noticed public meeting. The Brown Act was created to protect the public from backroom deals and rightfully so. But it also has the effect of discouraging thoughtful collaboration and limits the amount of time the Board has to work through the complicated details of important policies. Both of those effects combine and make coming to agreement for best outcomes on controversial issues much more difficult and sometimes impossible.

So after 4 years of work by advocates and detractors , a 10-page document that had fairly wide support turned into 20 pages that many of the original authors can’t fully endorse. The Inclusionary Ordinance became if not a multi-headed hydra, at the very least difficult to recognize.

Those who worked on the issue for years were understandably disappointed last Tuesday. The Board was too. It doesn’t make sense that the body charged with governing the affairs of the County and its residents is relegated to wait for legislation to arrive with no mechanism for official input on its development and progress. To be fair, two Board members were involved in the drafting of the proposed policy, but that wasn’t enough.

The system in Tuolumne County favors building alliances between competing interests – 3 votes on Tuesday. It doesn’t favor working together to come up with positive and innovative solutions to very real problems. That’s a pity.

I know, I’m idealistic. But let’s start figuring out how better to use the existing system within the limitations of the Brown Act and let’s do it soon. I’m convinced there’s a better way.