Editorial Editorial (April 16, 2004)

Sour grapes

Whether it was political grandstanding by a possible future candidate for City Council or a disgruntled Planning Commissioner who didn't get his way, the strong criticism by Matt Sullivan last week of council members who voted in favor of expanding the waterslide park at Shadow Cliffs seemed far afield from Sullivan's usually more tempered approach to controversial issues. Although sounding more like sour grapes than constructive follow-up, his remarks were disturbing because of the influential politically appointed positions he holds, one as chairman of the city's new Energy Committee and the other as a six-year member of the powerful Planning Commission, which he also chairs on an annual rotating basis. Which is why many were surprised to hear him accuse the council of "abandoning a long and successful partnership of community involvement with the approval of California Splash." By innuendo, he linked Mayor Tom Pico and council members Kay Ayala and Steve Brozosky - who supported the expansion - to "a long list of staggering, hidden irregularities associated with this project." He also questioned the council's integrity, suggesting that one or more of its members may have placed limitations on Youth Commission discussions about the waterslides, assembled a group of neighbors to work with the developer in implementing the project and met privately to develop a consensus plan. He asked: "Is California Splash the tip of an iceberg of a new council direction that disregards public input?"

We have no quarrel with anyone addressing the council, even those who sometimes stretch the limits of its Community of Character guidelines. Nor do we fault Sullivan for expressing his disappointment over its 3-2 vote to allow the expansion, which the Planning Commission, in a 3-2 vote last December, voted to deny. But in accusing council members of "shutting the public out of the process," he failed to acknowledge the hundreds of hours that city officials, staff, citizen groups and waterslide park owner Glenn Kierstead and his development team have put into this effort over the past year. Members of the Planning Commission and City Council, alone, have held more than 20 hours of public hearings on this single issue. Here at the Weekly, we have gone through hundreds of public e-mails and documents, covered scores of lengthy meetings and reported extensively on the California Splash proposal, starting with a cover story last June when project planning got under way. It hardly seems that anyone in Pleasanton has been shut out of the process.

Sullivan's beef also concerned the council's unwillingness to reverse an earlier rezoning action that both it and the Planning Commission had approved. That changed the land use governance of the waterslides to a conditional use restricted to open space and park-like uses. Even though that also disallowed public referendums to change permitted uses, it gives the city of Pleasanton, as well as the East Bay Regional Park District that owns the land, control over what can go there as well as ongoing regulatory control over operations. Sullivan also failed to say that he and others on the Planning Commission never publicly voiced their opposition to the waterslides, only to the size of the proposed expansion. Commissioner Brian Arkin urged Kierstead to come back with a reduced "first phase" that planners could consider. The council took that initiative itself, downsizing what will be built there significantly without any phasing. What was approved is all that Kierstead can build. If he ever wants more, he'll have to go through the permitting process again.

Rather than rejecting "the last gasp of a public hoping to see the process work," as Sullivan claimed, council members took the time to hear both sides, walked the site and nearby neighborhoods, met with park district rangers and noise, air quality and traffic engineers, and reviewed the needs for more youth activities which the waterslides will provide in accordance with the city's new Youth Master Plan. Even so, Sullivan told the council that "As a planning commissioner, I will have a very difficult time with a clear conscience and a straight face to ask the public to trust the process." To us, the process couldn't have worked better and council members deserve credit for making a final decision, which is what voters elected them to do.

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