Regional Organization Formed : Slow-Growth Leaders Band Together

Slow-growth leaders from five Southern California counties on Saturday announced formation of a new regional organization--The Southern California Coalition for Responsible Controlled Growth--to oppose elected officials who are pro-development and to “protect the initiative process.”

“We put legislators on notice today--we are banding together,” Linda Martin, a San Diego slow-growth leader and a member of the steering committee of the new regional group, told reporters after a five-hour meeting of about 30 people in a private Riverside home.

The session was the first concrete indication that the slow-growth idea might be moving beyond local initiative campaigns to become a regional, perhaps even a statewide, political force.

Among those attending the meeting were people responsible for placing slow-growth initiatives on the ballot in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties, in June or November, as well as representatives from Los Angeles and San Bernardino.

Besides opposing local and state officials who are judged to be in favor of uncontrolled growth, the new organization will oppose legislation that seeks to impede the initiative process, which slow-growth leaders regard as their principal weapon.

Robert Buster of Riverside said the group is especially irked by a new bill introduced by Assemblyman Peter Chacon (D-San Diego) that would require all land-use initiatives to pass through an environmental review process before they could be placed on the ballot.

“We think the right to petition shouldn’t be abridged in any way,” Buster said. “The Legislature seems to be bought and sold by very large money interests--in this case, developer interests. . . . This produces a real sense of outrage.”

‘Sacramento Watchdog’

However, leaders of the new group said they would not hire a lobbyist to advocate slow-growth positions, but instead would depend on a “Sacramento watchdog” to keep them informed about potentially damaging legislation.

The coalition has not decided whether to endorse political candidates, nor has it decided how to raise the money needed to support its activities.

“We’ll be an action-oriented group,” said Sandy Brown, co-founder of Not Yet New York, an organization of controlled-growth supporters active on the Westside of Los Angeles. “We’re not just going to meet and talk.”

But as the meeting was breaking up, one member was heard saying to another, “We’ve got to find a way to make this more than just another ‘slow-growth group.’ Otherwise nobody is going to listen to us.”

The new organization hopes to provide a mechanism for local slow-growth advocates to share knowledge and experience.

“Each of us is going about our own local problem in our own way,” Martin said. “We need a broader base so we can have more influence on what happens statewide, especially in Sacramento.”

The group also hopes to devise strategies to combat what its members believe are the pro-developer attitudes of many elected officials and their staff members.

“There is a feeling of frustration because we are often left out of the land-use planning process,” said John Roth of Riverside County.

Roth and others insisted that theirs is not a no-growth movement.

“We’ve got nothing against people coming into the area,” Buster said, “but we want to meter the people who come in so we know we have the needed services, like roads, sewers and water.”