It was an overflowing full house this evening (May 6, 2010) at Brett Baumann’s office in Cathey’s Valley as many interested residents were in attendance. They listened to Mr. Baumann, Don Starchman, Tolley Gorham, Steve Saunders and a few others give their opinion on what the Cathey’s Valley Community Plan means to the property owners.
Don Starchman said that this Plan “Is not protective, it is punitive.” Mr. Starchman also said that the size of the plan went back and forth several times over the years and then grew as they thought “Who can we control.”
Mr. Baumann mentioned how the size went from a T.P.A. to this now is “Mind blowing.” and “Why are they doing this?” Don Starchman said that the petition is the next best thing and that the residents have to complain to the Board of Supervisors and show them that this is not what the community wants. Mr. Saunders said that a personal letter, sent by certified mail, is much more meaningful than an Email or a phone call.
An alternative would be to bring back the original document and reduce the size to the original amount of land.
There was also discussion on how hard it would be to sell a parcel or purchase a parcel that was labeled non-conforming.
Several passages from the proposed Community Plan were cited and then discussed among the interested residents.
It will be interesting to see how MERG & Supervisor Bibby spin this. The document that was last circulated by MERG & the Mariposa County Planning Department contained comments but did not address many of the concerns that had been submitted. The Planning Department document responed to the question about how will this new plan affect property values by stating that the Assessor would not re-assess the property. That's like answering "Why is the sky blue?" with "The ocean is green." Brett Bauman had a discussion with a lender about how a "non-conforming property" might be affected. The lender stated that almost no secondary market lenders will touch a loan with that label. If your lender cannot sell your loan on the secondary lending market, it is practically a guarantee that you will not get the loan.
Tolley Gorham
209-777-8438
CVCP Continued – The taking of property owner rights that will happen with this new CVCP usually only occurs in places like San Francisco and Santa Cruz (which is believe is where our current planning director is from.) My uncle died on Anzio Beach, my father fought the Germans in France and Italy, I fought in Viet Nam and my son fought in Desert Storm to preserve our American rights, including our right to own property and decide what we want to do with it. I don't like the idea of loosing all that we fought for.
Tolley Gorham 209-777-8438
I hope all these people involved in the Cathys Valley Plan realize that they will be governed by the same Board of Directors that the rest of us are. By abandoning the rest of the county and starting this new community they evidently think it is new and they can get new money to misdirect. They will promise much to you and when it comes time to implement that which you have put your hard earned money into they will simply tell you, sorry we seem to have lost it or we are paying an auditor to come in and see where we went wrong so we can avoid this in the future. Mariposa County needs money to pay its employees whose main objective is to find ways to find dollars to do that and secure their retirement.