Black out hits general plan reviewBy Maveric Vu Calaveras Enterprise Friday, October 6, 2006 11:13 AM CDT An edited version of a draft consultant report of the Calaveras County General Plan was released Monday after a citizen’s advocacy group applied pressure to open the document for public viewing. The draft report has several passages blacked-out by Calaveras County’s legal counsel. According to a letter from James Jones, the county counsel, the document is an “administrative draft” that features comments by the counsel that are protected under the “attorney-client privilege” and “attorney work product privilege.” It is also protected under the “deliberative process privilege … which protects the agency decision making process.” Jim Ewert, legal counsel with the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said the attorney-client privilege, which is usually reserved for doctors and lawyers, only applies if the county counsel is the agent who specifically hired the consultant to do the report for the counsel himself. At an April 3 meeting, the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors hired Sacramento-based firm Mintier & Associates to review the existing general plan. In the letter, Jones said the privilege “covers all confidential communication” between the counsel and the supervisors. The county released an edited version of the Mintier report with “portions of the administrative draft document that County Counsel has commented on” blacked-out, he said. Many of the blacked-out portions, however, appear to be conclusions the consultant reached after reviewing sections of the existing plan. According to Ewert, the county has the legal burden of the determination that non-disclosure of information clearly outweighs disclosure in regards to public interest. According to a representative at the County Counsel’s Office, an edited version of the report was released in order to give “expediency” to those involved with the general plan update. A full version will be released in about two weeks. Members from the citizen-based Community Action Project and the Calaveras Planning Coalition spoke at board meetings and submitted a Public Records Act Request for the immediate release of the Mintier report, which was supposedly due back in July. At a Sept. 18 meeting, chairwoman Merita Callaway said the county had received the initial report, but was holding the document so county staff members could comment on it and return it to the consultant.
Ward La Valley, with the Community Action Project that facilitates the planning coalition meetings, said the draft report validates issues and concerns the coalition brought forward to the county during study sessions in January and March. “We found the general plan to be legally very vulnerable,” he said. “There are numerous observations to that effect (in the report).” In the report’s general observations, it stated, “The most obvious problem is that the plan (is) outdated … (and) current General Plan policy is based on conditions, laws, and concepts from the early 1980s.” The report’s analysis of land use took up a large portion of the 72-page report. It stated that land use designations, such as single-family residential, for certain areas were inconsistent between different chapters and maps. “A more fundamental problem is the nature of the land use designations,” the report said. “It is unclear what the land use designations actually are.” The report also found that there is no combined description of existing land uses and “no analysis of development potential and holding capacity of unincorporated lands in the county.” The report recommends that land use designations should list the allowable uses and density guidelines in the county’s general plan. The Calaveras County General Plan was last amended in March 2006. It was adopted in December 1996 with little change in land use from an earlier plan. It addresses seven elements - land use, circulation, conservation, open space, noise, safety and housing. There are also amendments that adopt community plans. The draft version of the Mintier report is available at County Counsel’s office at the Government Center in San Andreas for $18.25, which reflects the cost of materials. A final version is expected in about two weeks. Contact Maveric Vu at mvu@calaverasenterprise.com.
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