By DAVID ROSS
Recently about 20 “brave souls” walked the length of Valley Center Road from Woods Valley Road to Miller.
The walking group included members of a VC planning group subcommittee on Valley Center’s road widening and representatives of county Dept. of Public Works, the agency that will do the widening to four lanes.
The group was afoot on the road to see face to face (or even face to trunk) some of the issues that have concerned the committee, such as the taking of several hundred trees along its edge, and to scope out possible locations for pedestrian paths near the road.
Sandy Smith, the planning group member who chairs the committee, reported at Monday’s planning group meeting about the progress of the work with County.
When the committee was created several months ago, the planning group required that it not ask the County to do anything that would increase the cost of the road project nor delay it in any way.
Mrs. Smith reported that so far, through several meetings with the County, that no delays have been caused to the road project.
The walking group included Deputy DPW director Doug Isbell.
One large goal was to look at ways to extend walking pathways along the road.
They also visited the big oak in front of Valley Center Oil Co. which has been tagged for cutting down at some point. The group is trying to save the tree.
“We gave our pitch for fitting it into the median and Isbell said he’d take another look at it,” said Mrs. Smith.
They continued walking up to Pepperoni’s, on a path that runs on the west and north side of VC Road.
“You tend to whiz by in a car and not notice it, but when you walk along there it’s one of the most beautiful walks,” said Mrs. Smith.
Her group is also meeting with various business owners who have property along Valley Center Road. The subject is final decisions on where median strips go. No one wants to put them where a merchant doesn’t want one.
“We’re making sure no one’s driveway is being impeded without their permission,” said Mrs. Smith.
The County will take all of the information the group has given it and do one more road redesign.
The subcommittee’s activities have “caused no delays,” Mrs. Smith emphasized, because DPW is still in the process of acquiring rights of way along the road. “We should hear back from them in a couple of weeks,” she said.
The committee’s next meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 7 p.m. at the VCMWD board room, will be “how to beg, borrow and steal all the money to save all the trees, build the landscaped median and build a pathway,” she said.
The San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club is unhappy with Valley Center’s General Plan 2020 map. It doesn’t go far enough in cutting density.
The conservation group sent out a letter last month that articulated its concerns about various community plans currently being worked on. Among them was Valley Center’s GP2020 map.
The letter states: “In the unincorporated rural community of Valley Center, the plan proposes a density of 1du (dwelling unit) on 2 acre and 1du on 4 acre parcels which will encroach on riparian wetlands and transitional habitats along Keys Creek (Lilac).
“Considering there are 5 large parcels in that area, the Sierra Club feels it is appropriate to change this designation to a minimum parcel size of 40 acres per dwelling unit.
This will reduce the semi-urban sub-divisions along the creek and be much more protective of the overall sensitive resources that surround creek habitats and corridors. Dividing the line between semi-rural and rural categories is essential in Valley Center to protect drainage areas and provide a better defined country town.”
The letter continues: “The rural category from Weaver Mountain to Cole Grade Road should be strengthened by changing the 1du on 20 acres to 1du on 40 acres. The area north of Valley Center should also be 1du on 40 acres. There are large avocado groves in this area. Also in this area, there are many parcels now that are over 20 acres and only a few that are less than 20 acres that would be considered ‘non-conforming.’”
The Sierra Club also weighs in on what has been the most controversial aspect of the VC planning process: the homes and property around Hellhole Canyon Preserve.
“Smart Growth planning principles, topography (steep slopes), sensitive habitats, and lack of infrastructure constrain development in the Hellhole Canyon area; the Hellhole Canyon area provides a transition from adjacent public open spaces, National forest and backcountry areas designated with 1:160 du per acres in the east and north to semi-rural designations in the Paradise Mountain area, south and west of Hellhole Canyon. In addition, Hellhole Canyon serves as a regionally significant wildlife corridor. We therefore support the staff recommendation of 1 du on 40 acres in the Hellhole Canyon area.
“The area surrounding Moosa Creek should be designated 1 on 40 acres. It is currently 1 du on 20,” says the Sierra Club letter.
The VC Planning Group will have this matter on their October agenda.
By DAVID ROSS
It must be election season.
Planning group candidate Jon Vick, Monday accused the planning group chairman, Larry Glavinic, of “abuse of power,” and blasted several planning group members who voted against the GP2020 density map allegedly without reading the text that went along with it.
Vick also accused several members, without naming names, of having “criminal” conflicts of interest in voting for or against certain parts of the land use map.
Vick took Monday night’s forum as an opportunity to blast the planning members who have opposed the map (and accompanying changes in density to 30% of the Valley) that he helped to create during his year on the land use subcommittee working on GP 2020. In the process he also plugged his own candidacy, indirectly.
Near the end of a speech in which he called for the planning group to “provide leadership to achieve a better community,” Vick zeroed in on Glavinic: “Your chairman should be ashamed of the subversive techniques and abuse of power he used to bring these motions before you, especially when several of who voted have not had the opportunity to even read the proposed land use text.”
The three minute “public forum” portion of the planning group’s meetings has traditionally been a time for community members to air their grievances or promote causes, or talk about anything that’s not on the agenda.
Vick uses the forum almost every month, usually to chide the planning group for not doing something that he wants it to do.
For example, for months he lobbied the planning group to revisit its support for the County’s plans to widen Valley Center Road to four lanes, which he opposed.
When the group did revote the issue, it reaffirmed support for four lanes. But it also voted to create a committee to work with the County Dept. of Public Works on ways to make the road safer, more pedestrian friendly and more “rural.” It did all this with the requirement that none of the suggestions given to DPW either delay or add cost to the road widening.
Vick was referring to this when he said, “Take VC Road for example: As a result of your reluctant appointment of a subcommittee to re-visit the design, the County has agreed to revise the County’s standards for rural highways and to make VC Road safer, slower and more attractive. Now you should empower that subcommittee with a mandate to insure that VC Road complies with the VC Design Guidelines and save many of the 360 oaks destined to be destroyed. It is not too late. Would you agree to do this for the community?”
Vick also accused planning group members of “numerous possible criminal violations of conflict of interest rules committed by several of your members who own land and business along VC Road, who deal in real estate, or who somehow have personal financial benefit from decisions made by the VCCPG. I urge you not to risk the future of our community for your own personal financial interests.”
At the end of Vick’s statement, Glavinic looked up, grinned and said, “Ah, campaign speech!”
Kael Laue, another candidate for the planning group, in a shorter statement, said, “I’m shocked that any of them could have voted without sitting on any of the subcommittees, or reading of the text.” She also criticized Planner Robert Hancock for his opposition to the planning map: “You never should have stood and screamed like that,” she said.
Vicky Sheedy, another candidate for the planning group, took an opposite point of view, supporting the actions of Hancock and others. “I’m tired of hearing about how all of you have volunteered on this land use subcommittee and spent all that time, so ‘Why don’t you accept it?’ Well, I volunteer in the schools all the time, and I would never think of stealing your kids. When everybody found out what this was all about, that’s when everyone got upset about it.”
A Valley Center woman wants to raise $5000 to save three mature oaks in front of the Lilac Elementary School building site from being cut down.
The oaks are right in the way, and construction of a new bridge that will enable construction of the school can’t progress until they are removed.
Paula Curtiss appeared before the VC Planning Group Monday and appealed for help in raising the money to relocate the trees, possibly to the playground of the school.
Curtiss said she has been told by oak moving specialist Mike Ritemour that it will cost about $7500 to save the trees. John Bailey, CEO of Bailey Construction, which is building the school, has promised to donate $2000 to the effort.
The school construction will cause the removal of quite a few oaks, and, although the school must replant them at a ratio of ten to one, “planting an acorn counts as planting a tree,” according to Mrs. Curtiss. “To me, ten acorns do not look, feel or are used the same as a mature tree. Established mature trees enhance the beauty of the beautiful new school and provide shade and shelter for the kids.”
Interested in donating to save the trees? Call Paula Curtiss at 742-1880.
The Valley Roadrunner
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