County Gets Petitions for Rural Growth Initiative

Wielding pitchforks and pushing wheelbarrows packed with petitions, 17 people--accompanied by drum roll and cadence--marched into the offices of the county registrar of voters Friday, bearing enough signatures, they said, to assure that a “rural preservation” slow-growth initiative will appear on the November ballot.

“We’re upset about this ridiculous, rampant growth,” said Jan Erie, 53, who lives on a farm in Bonita. “They’re paving over paradise. The traffic conditions are intolerable. And now the rural areas--our areas--are starting to be developed as much as city areas. It has to stop.”

The petitioners needed about 58,000 signatures but came up with more than 88,000, which one woman pointed out represented enough people to “almost fill the Rose Bowl.” As each parcel of petitions was unloaded from the wheelbarrows, the protesters cried out in unison, “One-thousand! Two-thousand! Three-thousand! . . . “ and so on, until they had reached 88,000-plus. Workers at the registrar’s office on Ruffin Road in Kearny Mesa looked on or giggled between bites of lunchtime sandwiches. The registrar’s office now has the task of verifying the signatures for the initiative to qualify for the ballot.

Cap on New Housing

The Rural Preservation and Traffic Control Initiative would put a numerical cap on new housing in the county’s unincorporated areas, based on a percentage of the units built there in the previous year. It would also limit commercial and industrial growth, give local planning groups the right to veto any project that requires increased density or smaller lot sizes than the county’s general plan now allows and place strict controls on any development in “sensitive areas” such as stream beds, archeological sites or steep hillsides.

Chief organizer of the ballot initiative, and of the protesters, is Bill McNeely, 72, who lives near an avocado grove not far from La Mesa. He also spends a lot of time on a ranch in Potrero.

“Rural residents have become disenfranchised on land-use matters,” McNeely said, the anger in his voice rising. “Our votes have become meaningless, and we’re bitter. An unholy alliance has been formed between the county Board of Supervisors and developers over land-use matters.

“Developers are putting massive amounts of money into the election campaigns of supervisors, who in turn feel obligated to reward these jerks. It means to me nothing less than the destruction of a democratic system. Government by the favored for the favored. The reason voter turnout has descended to embarrassing numbers is because of this: People have cut themselves off from a system that’s corrupt.”

Hopes to Curb Growth

He hopes his initiative, coupled with a city-backed “quality of life” measure, “will stop the rapid growth of congestion on freeways, increasing air and water pollution, overcrowding in schools, recycling of criminals through overcrowded jails and increasing water shortages and costs.”

“People have a right to their opinion. I just don’t happen to agree with theirs,” said John MacDonald, who represents the mainly rural 5th District on the Board of Supervisors. “It’s true, however, that elected officials all over the state have not acted fast enough to slow growth down.

“We have criticism left and right, but this board has been prone to act faster on the subject of growth than previous boards.”

MacDonald said the board would “probably consider a softer alternative measure,” having been unable to reach a compromise with McNeely’s group.

Asked whether supervisors are in cahoots with developers, as McNeely claims, MacDonald said angrily: “That’s an easy thing to say. We certainly receive contributions from developers--me included--but we also get money from Sierra Club members and others who favor slow growth.

“I will say emphatically that no member of this board is captive to developers.”

McNeely’s group is the “rural division” of Citizens for Limited Growth. Its initiative will be available to voters throughout the county but won’t affect areas within San Diego city limits. The city’s “quality of life” measure qualified for the ballot some time ago.

If approved, McNeely said, the initiative would force the Board of Supervisors to adhere to voter interests and not those of “billionaire developers.” He forecast a “multimillion-dollar advertising campaign hurled against our initiative by developers.”