The sweet smell of mendacity: Measure B redux

The following is a recap of the issue that came to be called Measure B, aka The Hotel Limitation Initiative. A lot of ink has flowed about this issue, covered by both our local papers and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat including innumerable letters and Op Eds. In disclosure it must be said that I was a proponent of the Measure, so this recounting is biased. I will try to give an honest account of things, but truth is certainly in the eye of the beholder.

A town divided? A vocal minority?

Certain matters came up over the 6-8 months saga of this Initiative that should be addressed. Often during the course of the issue – a political one that progressed from a petition to an initiative and then to a ballot measure – it was said by its critics to have “divided the town.” I disagree. I think what the issue did was reveal that there is a division in our town about what was at the core of Measure B, which is the question: What are those things, those qualities, most important to residents about living here? Preservation of small-town character or promoting tourist dollars?

In conjunction with that was and is the question of whose interests are paramount: those of the people who live here or the tourists who visit here or the investment opportunists who want to make a buck here?  What the issue of Measure B did was bring these diverging differences to the fore, not create an artificial division that did not heretofore exist.

During debate through our newspapers’ Letters and Commentaries sections, proponents of Measure B were offhandedly characterized as a “vocal minority.” This was proved to be factually incorrect. The final tally on the Measure was 2032 to 1909, a difference of 132 votes. It plainly indicates that there is and was a close number of Sonoma voters on both sides of the issue. There was no such thing as a vocal minority.

Poorly written law & unintended consequences

Another oft-used phrase in opposition to the Measure and to denigrate it was, “It’s poorly written law,” and generally tagged on to that slight was, “which will have [adverse] unintended consequences.” This kind of thing is repeatedly said in politics when one opposes some initiative or legal provision, but it’s rarely argued what specifically it is that’s “poorly written” besides an opponent’s not liking what the law does.

I found that to be the case with opponents of Measure B who proclaimed it “poorly written,” but offered no explanation as to how. As for “unintended consequences,” I’d like to know of any law that was ever written, or for that matter any decision that was ever made that didn’t produce unintended consequences. Every action we take can and will have consequences that were not planned or even considered prior to its taking.

Measure B was written to do one thing: limit the size of new hotels built in Sonoma to 25 rooms or less, until the annual hotel occupancy rate, roughly 65%, increased to 80%. That in sum total was the essence of that provision.

The consequences would have been hotels of 25-rooms or less and that was its purpose. Whether this would have meant less TOT (hotel tax) revenue for the City is a matter of how many new hotels were built and the ensuing occupancy rate, and the allure of Sonoma, which is purely a matter of speculation about what the future holds.

Trust the process

The people who brought the Initiative-Measure to a vote were accused of “not trusting the process in place,” and linked to that was a 3-2 majority of the City Council opposed to it, which would amend the city’s general plan, about which they feel proprietary. And herein lies a tale.

As to the bit about not trusting the process, i.e., leaving all planning and development decisions to the Council-appointed Planning Commission and the 5-member City Council, I admit guilt. Experience has shown that there are times and instances when city councils have not served the public’s interest, have gotten too cozy with developers, and have been too easily influenced by the Chamber of Commerce leadership and the local newspaper that was its editorial voice.

One oft-cited prime example was an initiative floated in 1999-2000 that would prohibit the sale of City (publicly) owned hillside property to a hotel-resort developer. But here’s the germane part: The matter was brought to the initiative process and subsequently a ballot measure vote because it was perceived by some in the community that a majority of the then City Council was going to vote to sell the prized property. That was the origin and the raison d’être of that initiative. And in an even more amusing bit of twisted irony (hypocrisy?) current City Councilman, Ken trust-the-process Brown, who vocally and vociferously objected to the current Hotel Limitation Initiative, was firmly in the pro-initiative camp and campaign back in 2000. A 180-degree political pivot. With that kind of flip-flopping can there be any doubt why the so-called process wasn’t trusted?

As one who had a front-row seat and a back stage glimpse of the goings on with Measure B there are other tales to tell. I will continue the saga in a following column because even though it seems like a relatively small matter in a small town it has far broader and deeper implications about commercial growth and development here and elsewhere, the real meaning of sustainability, the power and influence of one man and how it will all play out in Sonoma.