DANA POINT : Group Wants City Vote on General Plan

A coalition submitted a petition to the city clerk Thursday demanding a referendum on the city’s recently approved General Plan.

Members of the Dana Point Action Coalition arrived at City Hall about 11 a.m. and turned over two boxes of petitions with more than 2,400 signatures of Dana Point voters seeking a citywide election on the plan. To force the election, the coalition had been required to collect signatures from 1,653, or 10%, of the city’s registered voters by 5 p.m. Thursday, 30 days after the plan was approved.

City officials accepted 2,309 of the signatures for verification, coalition officials said.

The coalition claims the General Plan was hastily prepared and represents the views of only a small minority of the city’s 32,000 residents. The state-mandated plan, which outlines plans for Dana Point for at least the next two decades, was unanimously approved on July 9 after 13 months of city staff review.

“We want to put this on the ballot and see if it is accepted or rejected by the community,” said Ernest A. Nelson, a local engineer and spokesman for the group. “This plan is what sets the profile of the community for the next 25 years.”

Nelson and others in the group believe the General Plan, as it stands now, will promote more development, cause traffic and circulation problems and change the small-town character of Dana Point.

City Clerk Mary Carlson has 30 days, or until Sept. 6, to validate the petition and the signatures. If both are valid, the City Council would be forced to either call a citywide election or rescind the General Plan, Carlson said.

Mayor Mike Eggers said he believes the petition was “deceptively promoted” as a drive to build a park at the Headlands, an undeveloped promontory.

“The real tragedy is I think some people have been led down the wrong path as to why they are signing it,” Eggers said. “Their signing a petition is not going to make the Headlands (into) a park. The General Plan, as adopted, represents the best planning document this city could put together, utilizing both professional and public input over a year and a half. “

After a warning two weeks ago from City Atty. Jerry Patterson that they were circulating an invalid petition, coalition members were forced to rewrite it and start over, a move that cost them about 600 signatures, they claim.