Local News in Brief : San Clemente : Rewrite of Slow-Growth Measure Is Expected

In a move that Mayor Thomas Lorch warned is a “direct attack on the will of the people,” the City Council is expected to hire a law firm early next month to rewrite portions of a slow-growth measure adopted overwhelmingly by the city’s voters June 7.

City Manager James B. Hendrickson said the council does not intend to alter the spirit of the initiative but rather intends simply to “fine-tune” the 18-page document, which he said has proven too arbitrary in some areas.

The city’s mayor pro tem, Brian J. Rice, who supports the council’s action, agreed: “The ordinance is open to various interpretations and thus the potential for lawsuits. . . . We’ve got to clean it up so we don’t wind up spending thousands of dollars in the legal arena.”

For example, Hendrickson said a provision requires that 85% of future development can be reached within five minutes by a paramedic unit. To satisfy that guideline, yet allow reasonable growth, he said that it would cost the city about $1.3 million to hire two new paramedic units.

Hendrickson said he believes that the intent of the measure is that some sort of emergency aid be less than five minutes away but not necessarily highly trained paramedics.

But Lorch, the only council opponent of the move to rewrite the measure, said he is “appalled” by the proposal to rewrite the measure and believes that the decision to do so “brings into question the credibility of those talking about it.”