recall campaign has been threatened against three Sonoma City Council members by Robinson Road residents who oppose a 40-unit affordable housing development proposed near their homes.
On Jan. 21, the council looked at a preliminary proposal for a $14-million project comprising rentals for low and very low-income families. They voted to partner with Affordable Housing Associates (AHA), one of several developers that submitted proposals, on developing the design of the project.
City council members split the vote 3-2 with Laurie Gallian, Ken Brown and Steve Barbose voting in favor of moving forward.
Ron Mazzaferro, who lives on Robinson Road, was a vocal participant at that meeting, shouting out from the audience. Two days after the meeting, he dropped off a letter at City Hall threatening a recall campaign against Gallian, Brown and Barbose.
For the moment, the letter is simply a threat since it does not qualify as an official intent to recall because it is not signed. The official notice of intent must have the names, addresses and signatures of at least 20 proponents. That’s just the start. The notice would have to be followed by a petition signed by 25 percent of registered voters (1,679 of 6,716 Sonoma residents) to take it to the ballot. Then a majority of voters would have to vote to recall the council members in question.
The legal question
At the meeting, Rick Deringer, who developed the townhomes project that also abuts the proposed project, said that the City Council was violating California Environmental Quality Act procedure because the city had not done an Environmental Impact Report. He cited the California Supreme Court case, Save Tara vs. City of West Hollywood, which Mazzaferro references again in his letter.
Councilmember Barbose pointed out at the meeting that it is impossible to do an environmental impact report without a concrete project proposal, and Sonoma City Attorney Tom Curry also didn’t agree with Deringer’s analysis of the court case.
“It was an issue that was thought out and really analyzed very carefully,” said Curry, who took CEQA into account when wording the agreement with city staff.
The legal question revolves around at which point in the development process does the city need to start the CEQA review. He said the conclusion of the Save Tara case was that in some cases, a development agreement, depending on how it is written, is a commitment by the city to go ahead with a specific project.
“Frankly, we have no commitment and no project we can analyze. How can you meaningfully talk about the potential environmental impacts of something if you don’t know what that something is?” said Curry.
