FOREfront—Working for the People of Roseville

Volume 4, Issue 6 November 2001

READER QUESTIONS HONESTY OF SURVEY ON PRIVATE UNIVERSITY

By Geoffrey Davey, a Roseville resident*

Regarding the article in the Aug. 19 edition of The Press-Tribune about the private poll results concerning Placer County residents’ support for a private university. It’s great to see that Place County residents, like me, overwhelmingly like the idea of a four-year university being established in our county. My daughter attends the University of California, Davis, and I often wish there was a UC in Placer County, which was once considered before the decision was made to build the next UC in Merced. But I’m surprised by the way the poll was constructed so as to imply unqualified support for a private university in Placer County.

The specific proposal being thrown around by supporters is the establishment of the private university on land well beyond the city of Roseville’s boundaries, in an area without virtually any public infrastructure. While Mr. Tsakapoulos is apparently willing to donate 500 acres toward the establishment of the university’s land needs, it deserves notice that Mr. Tsakapoulos owns many more acres around the site, and the clear implication is that if the university is ever built on the site, he’ll get to develop the rest of his land around the site, as would other developers who own land nearby.

So perhaps the poll questions should have been: “Would you support the annexation by Roseville of several thousand undeveloped acres west of the city limits for the purpose of opening the area to development, including a private university?” and, “Would you support Roseville having a significant increase in size and population in order to see that a private university in Placer County was established?” I’m sure if the poll had been more honestly worded in such fashion, the high support levels from the respondents might have been less impressive.

Let’s be honest that while the idea of a Placer County university is very appealing to almost everyone, this specific proposal is as much about developing open space as it is about establishing a university. I hope that “Placer University” can avoid the controversy that has surrounded UC Merced, where similar proposed development of a campus far outside the city of Merced has resulted in threatened lawsuits and very slow progress in getting the university off the ground.

* This article appeared in The Press-Tribune September 12, 2001, and is printed with Mr. Geoffrey’s permission.

TRAIN AUTOMATED HORN SIGNALS

Due to a technical flaw in Senate Bill SB 1491, to amend the State Public Utility Code, residents will see a delay in the installation of the automated train horns at the city’s railroad crossings. Corrective legislature, SB 62, is on the governor’s desk. It is anticipated that the automated horn, which is already in use in many states, will be a more neigborhood friendly substitute for the locomotive horn. Despite the delay, city officials plan to continue preparing for implementation.

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Will Rogers

SPRAWL IN ROSEVILLE

Anita Creamer, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee newspaper, labels sprawl in Roseville as “A spin-spin situation on the sprawl front”. That was the title of her article which appeared in the Bee July 19, 2001.

She writes almost as though it were tongue in cheek when she refers to sprawl in Roseville. She labels housing tracts that have rustic sounding names combined with words such as oaks, highlands and heritage even though there are few oaks remaining and little evidence of heritage. Her description of the new developments, near the Galleria at Roseville, as framed skeltons of homes-to-be and contrasts them to a fairly ordinary-looking apartment complex half completed labeled a “luxury rental community”. She goes on to explain that nice labeling controls the game and the public’s perception, and creates a new reality.

Either this new frontier of the “landscape is either one of the area’s new frontier of suburban sprawl, or it’s not”, says Ms Creamer. A new study has noted that Sacramento and the fast growing West has sprawled less than the acres like New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania says Ms Creamer. She also notes the reason so called less sprawl is that more homes are built on an acre than on Eastern lands so as to wring the most profit from the land, which in itself is “to crowd the highlands with a bristling new heritage of houses”. She notes that a Brookings Institute’s study says, what looks and feels like sprawl really isn’t. Her comment to look around South Placer’s collection of new homes huddled together on cul-de-sac patched with freshly soded lawns, roads clogged with traffic and the newly planted trees and the new shopping centers you trap you into an old “Old Sprawl mentality”. Her view is that by the new sprawl standard and its language you are mistaken.

Ms Creamer goes on to explain that the new language gets twisted and redefined by think-tank studies and “clever gimmickry by advertisers, the self-serving corruption of political campaigns, the overwritten self-importance of legalese, the bureaucratic manglings of government documents and the careful evasions of medical phrasing - we live surrounded by trickery”. She makes an analogy of the coded language saying a certified auto mechanic is a mechanic, a politician’s “good friend” is his mistress. Her view is that in this land of hype and outright lies we are constantly being finessed and manipulated. “Plain talk is hard to find”, she writes.

Ms Creamer’s colorful descriptions of “... in the newest suburbs of Roseville, a sprinkler system arcs graceful silver spray across someone’s yard. Brightly colored flags snap in the breeze, advertisements for the development company, signs of growth.” She is telling us that one doesn’t have to look to the past where the fields and farms go West from the Placer foothills to the Sunrise Mall and were interrupted only by a small town or a farmhouse.

And in Ms Creamer’s words, “This isn’t sprawl. It only plays sprawl on TV”.

FORE AWARDS SCHOLARSHIP

Friends of Roseville proudly announces the award of a $200.00 scholarship to Alexander N. Cochran.

Having completed 45 units at Sierra College with a 3.42 grade point average, Alexander was accepted by U.C. Davis. All the units will transfer to U.C. Davis where he will major in Political Science. FORE wishes him good luck in his studies.

FORE’s next scholarship application period is in March 2002. Roseville residents who are students at a four-year college or university majoring in Government or Political Science are encouraged to apply. Application is by letter and information is available at the scholarship office at all local high schools and on the web at www.friendsofroseville.org .

“Certainties are arrived at only on foot.” Antonio Porchia

ENRON ELECTRIC POWER PLANT

Questions were raised and commented on during the “Roseville in Review” TV program, a Friends of Roseville channel 8 program on proposed “The Enron Power Plant”. It aired in October. They are:

Q Why was the name of the Enron power plant changed to the “Roseville Energy Facility”?

C The name was changed probably to mislead the public into believing the power plant is to be owned by Roseville. It places a spin on who really owns the plant.

Q Does that mean that Rosevile will own the plant or be a partner in the plant?

C Roseville will not own the plant or be a partner in ownership of the plant. The agreement the city entered into with Enron states that there is no city ownership or partnership.

Q How can the city then say the plant is a Quasi-Public facility?

C The plant will be on public property and the city planning director made a personal finding that since the plant is on public property it is quasi-public. That is a far-fetched stretch of imagination. It will be a privately owned plant on leased public lands. The Enron company has an option to purchase the land.

Q What will be the size and location of the plant?

C The plant will be 900 megawatts - a very large plant on 22 acres, off of Phillips Road less than one mile West of Sun City.

Q How much power will Roseville get from the plant?

C Roseville will not get any power from the plant. Discussion about Roseville getting power from the plant is not on the table.

Q Why would Roseville enter into an agreement with Enron that Roseville would promote building the plant before any studies (feasibility and environmental e.g.) were made and public input taken?

C Evidently, the city may have believed that the public would see the project as too good to be true and would upset the city’s grab for money.

Q Will the plant pollute the area?

C The plant will be gas-fired with three 150 feet high smokestacks; however, yearly, it will put 10,000 tons of pollutants into the air.

Q Are there other new or proposed electric plants in California and is the State getting too many?

C There are 17 plants approved; 12 of them are under construction and 18 others are under review.

The 35 plants will generate close to 20,000 megawatts. With the power plants on line that is nearly twice the electricity the State needs. Most the power will be shipped out of State. It seems the companies see a cakewalk to build.

Q Will Roseville be impacted by these new plants?

C The Rio-Linda power plant, Sutter Power Plant in Yuba City, and Delta Energy Center in Pittsburg are all large plants, plus others that directly impact Roseville by their discharge of pollutants.

Q What else will the plant need to produce electricty besides natural gas?

C It requires a lot of water - 4,752,000 gallons per day for the cooling towers at 750 megawatts but more at 900 megawatts. The city guarantees that amount on a first-serve basis. The water, recycled wastewater, will come from the new wastewater treatment plant which will be co-located with the plant. It will take two years after the electric plant begins operation for the treatment plant to meet the electric plant’s needs. Potable water, what you drink, will be furnished. Since the plant gets first call on water, what arrangements have been made with NEC who is guaranteed 1 million gallons of potable water a day?

Q How will the water needs of the community be met during a drought?

C First, as the city builds out, more water is put into the wastewater treatment plant so that the golf courses and parks get ample recycled water. Second, the city has a finite amount of potable water per year, 30,000 acre feet from the Bureau of Reclamation (Folsom) and 32,000 acre feet from the Placer County Water Agency. During a drought, available water goes down, the treatment plants get less wastewater and a squeeze is on. But not for Enron, they have first call on WATER.

Q The California Energy Commission will decide on the Enron plant. Is the Energy Commission considering streamlining its meeting procedures to reduce public input?

C It is proposed that the presiding member may encourage or require parties to present their testimony in written form in advance of a hearing and may restrict the use of oral testimony and cross examination. This would effectively limit the public’s ability to participate in the administrative and environmental review process. The State’s handling of the energy crisis has been cloaked in secrecy which keeps the public from understanding the complex issues involved. From their actions, it appears Roseville would like to curtail public input and keep as much from the public as possible.

Q Since the city does not own the electric plant and is not a partner, what does the city get?

C Enron will pay $50,000 yearly renting the land and $1 million a year for 25 years for the electric rate stablization and general funds. Roseville says the money will benefit children and seniors. Does that make up for the pollutants they will enhale? Is the city selling the soul of Roseville for a few shekels?

Q Does Roseville get anything else?

C Roseville gets the benefit of Placer County, Rocklin, Lincoln, and Loomis backing the project because the cities will receive $200,000 and the county will get $250,000 a year for 25 years. Community backing is important to the California Energy Commission during the project’s review. One could say the county and cities have been bought off even though their children and seniors will get the pollution.

UNIVERSITY “A TROJAN HORSE”?

The proposed gift of 500 acres of land by Angelo Tsakopoulos’ company, AKT Development, to be the site of a private university has been labeled “a trojan horse” by at least three groups. Attorney Robert G. Holderness, a spokesperson for Tsakopoulos supports the idea. The “gift” of land sits on 3000 acres that Tsakopoulos owns in West Placer County. The land is undeveloped West of Fiddyment Road. It also abuts thousands of acres that other land speculators now own.

Friends of Placer County Communities, an Auburn based organization, is concerned that farm land is disappearing at an alarming rate and that Placer County’s farm land in Western Placer County is at least as good, if not superb quality land growing crops that other lands in the United States cannot duplicate. The group cites a case in point. Even the finest Iowa cornfield has its counterpart in a number of other states and America grows so much corn that it is perennially in surplus. The group goes on to note that California is one of only a few regions on earth with a true Mediterranean climate - mild wet winters and dry summers - producing more than 250 different crops. The group maintains that in any state, the farmland protection versus development dilemma symbolizes the tension between individual property rights and the long-term interests of society at large.

They also say, “What we ought to be saving today is in many cases farmland of good or excellent quality that replaced farmland of superb quality, now forever lost to development. Farmland paved over is gone for — eternity.”

The Sierra Foothills Audubon Society sees another side with their argument. They offer that while members of the environmental, educational and governmental organizations have suggested that while AKTs’ offer, looks attractive and generous on the surface, may disguise a blatant effort to convert agricultural land into massive-sprawl development. They maintain that the real purpose of the “gift” is to vastly increase the value of the land. Spokespersons opposing the proposed gift stress that the major issue is “location, location, location.”

“We are not opposed to another institution of higher learning, said Ed Pandolino, a member of the society. He also said, “In fact, we believe that, given the increased population of school children, the growth of senior communities, and the need of increasing numbers of people to complete degrees or change occupational fields, the need for a new university probably is warranted.” The university would be the engine to develop the remaining thousands of acres which constitute some of the last remaining agricultural open space and precious wildlife habit in Placer County. Thousands of migratory birds use the land and the rice fields as their foraging grounds, and if the land is turned into housing, they (wildlife) will simply disappear from Placer County, he said.

AKTs’ plan would be leapfrog development, according to Pandolrmo who goes on to say the land offering is more questionable because of plans for the proposed Placer Parkway. It is to connect highway 65 with highways 70 and 99. In the planning process for more than three years, the Parkway as currently conceived would be a freeway with no off-and on-ramps from Fiddyment Road on the East to the city of Pleasant Grove on the West. The Placer County Transportation Commission and SACOG approved this concept of the Parkway, as well as the concept of a buffer strip of from 500 to 1000 feet wide on either side of the Parkway to preserve as much land as possible for open space along the right of way.

Alan Green of the Sierra Club who has attended planning meetings for the Parkway for the past three years said that Tsakopoulos knows of this plan from others who have attended the meetings, but until now has raised no objections or said anything about his hopes to support a university near the planned Parkway. “I have no doubt that this offer is an attempt to bypass the planning process being carried out by the PCTPA (Placer County Transportation Planning Agency), thus violating the commitment to public involvement in planning in the County” Green said and he also stated, “Whatever I think about the merits or demerits of the Parkway, the fact is, that if Mr. Tsakopoulos is successful in selling his proposal to the County, public money will be subsidizing his development in the amount of anywhere between $250 and $300 million, the cost of the Parkway.”

Holderness sees the “gift” differently. He says the planning process is not being bypassed and that the acreage west of Roseville is valued at about $100,000 per acre and AKT’s 3,300 acres may be worth $330 million. He said, ... “that AKT would sell another 700 acres to help raise $100 million to set up a college endowment fund.” He maintains that AKT has nothing to gain from such donations and that the university would off jobs, access to cultural and sporting events and its location would be ideal for a light-rail project. -

There is a lot at stake, so we encourage Roseville residents to find out as much as possible about this issue of - land vs university so that they may make informed decisions if they wish to support or oppose it.

“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” D. D. Eisenhower

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ROSEVILLE TO APPEAL UTILITY USER’S TAX COURT RULING

The Howard Jarvis Association offered, through negotiations, to settle the utility user’s tax lawsuit in which Placer County Superior Court Judge Gaddis ruled against Roseville. However, the offer was not accepted by Roseville and the City has opted to appeal the ruling rather than settling the lawsuit.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Author unknown

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