Below are 10 questions the Mayor and Council should answer for their constituents about the proposed sewage plant on the golf course. Dear Mayor & Council: 1. At the special meeting of the City Council on March 19, 2019, when Council considered whether to move forward on the purple pipe sewage recycle plant, Mayor Bailey abstained from the vote, citing concerns about the fiscal prudence of the project... at a proposed cost exceeding $25 million dollars, and projected to operate at an annual deficit for decades, is this project fiscally prudent, particularly during a time when the City's budget has taken a substantial hit with the pandemic? 2. As the City has characterized the sewage plant as an "environmental" project, why would you vote for a mitigated negative declaration instead of pursuing a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to study the "environmental" impacts of the project -- that is to say, if you are pursuing this project because you consider it environmentally friendly, why are you unwilling to study the actual environmental impacts of the project? 3. Have any other cities in California built a sewage plant of this magnitude without conducting an EIR, do you care that your constituents overwhelmingly would like an EIR instead of mitigated negative declaration, and do you really feel it is wise to ignore your constituents and customary protocol for a project of this magnitude by not doing an EIR? 4. Are you concerned that the proposed sewage plant on the golf course sits atop the Silver Strand Fault, one of the primary branches of the Rose Canyon Fault, and that the mitigated negative declaration will not examine the environmental impacts of this earthquake fault on the project, as a full EIR would do? 5. Are you concerned about the effects the proposed sewage plant and its related water features and chemicals may have on local wildlife, and will the mitigated negative declaration examine the impacts to wildlife that a full EIR would examine? 6. The City hired Brezack & Associates to draft the "bridging documents" (i.e., the designs and plans) for the sewage plant... why has the City not made the bridging documents available to the public, and how can the public properly assess the merits of the sewage plant without reviewing the designs and plans? 7. Do you have any concern whatsoever for the potential smells, impact to view corridors, commercial vehicular traffic, and adverse impact to home values related to the operation of the sewage plant for the residents who own property and live adjacent to the proposed sewage plant in the residential neighborhood on Glorietta? 8. Would you support writing a Council Policy #2 Memo to agendize a discussion whether to make this enormously expensive $25M+ sewage plant an "advisory measure" on the ballot similar to 2010's Prop H (tunnel project), or are you afraid to have such a public discussion, and do you not feel residents should have a vote on this project? 9. Can you please advise residents why it would be unwise, before moving forward on a $25M+ sewage plant, to explore potentially less expensive and more environmentally friendly alternatives for sustainable irrigation water such as the San Diego Formation Aquifer that underlies the golf course, by digging some test wells as Wes Danskin (USGS geologist and foremost expert in the world on the San Diego Formation Aquifer) has suggested? Note - this is the same aquifer Chula Vista is tapping across the bay for 10 million gallons of potable water per day... we only need 750,000 gallons of irrigation quality water per day to irrigate the golf course, parks and medians in town... the aquifer water would be mildly brackish and require desalination, just like the proposed sewage plant on the golf course requires desalination from groundwater pumped into the sewer from basement construction and groundwater intrusion into the storm drains in County Club. 10. As our existing sewage capacity is capped at 3.25 million gallons per day pumped transbay (pursuant to the Pure Water San Diego contract), will the proposed sewage plant that will increase our sewage capacity by approximately 1 million gallons per day facilitate development beyond what our existing sewage capacity will allow, and do we want to spend tens of millions of dollars of public funds to facilitate more overdevelopment in Coronado?
If you are not comfortable with the City proceeding covertly with construction of a sewage plant on our golf course, please take a moment to register an objection to the “mitigated negative declaration.” Otherwise, according to the legal notice published in the Eagle, the project can proceed swiftly and with no environmental review whatsoever. This is our only chance to speak up. Click on the link below to view the City's notice of intent and draft mitigated negative declaration docs: https://www.coronado.ca.us/government/departments_divisions/community_development/public_review Comments regarding the Mitigated Negative Declaration must be submitted in writing and received no later than 5:00 P.M. on October 16, 2020. Please address comments to: MaeColleen Balcobero, 1825 Strand Way, Coronado, CA 92118 or at: mbalcobero@coronado.ca.us
Piece submitted by Daron A. Case, Esq.
Resident letters submitted to Coronado Electorate News & Commentary (CEN&C) are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CEN&C. Submit letters to CoronadoElectorate@gmail.com
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