No new Conaway answers

By Cory Golden/Enterprise staff writer

WOODLAND - Before a town hall meeting on the Conaway Ranch even began, the
Yolo County Board of Supervisors, smelling an ambush, announced it would not
take part.

The event's hosts, the Family Water Alliance and Yolo County Taxpayers
Association - opponents of the board's lawsuit to force the owners of the
17,300-acre ranch to sell - promptly fired back a news release accusing the
board of ducking its constituents.

Then, Wednesday night, two supervisors showed up at the Woodland Public
Library anyway - but not to represent the board.

Lacking anyone to defend the board's suit, the two-hour town hall meeting
limped along with an attorney for the ranch's ownership group, the Conaway
Preservation Group, reiterating it intends neither to develop the land nor
sell off its water, as supervisors have said they fear.

The case will be heard Aug. 23 in Yolo County Superior Court.

At the meeting's start, a visibly pained District 3 Supervisor Frank
Sieferman Jr., who has backed the county's takeover try, delivered a
15-minute monologue to the 75 people there.

His message seemed to be: Sometimes eminent domain should be used, other
times it shouldn't.

Sieferman said that while he encouraged discussion, he'd heard some things
from opponents that reminded him of "hard-headed and narrow-minded" things
he might have said when he was on the outside of government looking in.

He said he, too, was troubled by an eminent domain effort by the Esparto
school district and by a recent Supreme Court ruling that gives local
governments the ability to condemn private property for private development.

Then Sieferman read, word for word, a local newspaper story about the
Conaway Ranch from 1996, when officials, also fearing development, tried
unsuccessfully to purchase the property.

Former state Sen. Jim Nielsen, the event's moderator, asked if the newspaper
story represented the board's position.

No, said Sieferman, who didn't stay to answer questions, "it's a history
lesson."

District 5 Supervisor Duane Chamberlain - who ran for office opposing the
county's effort to acquire the land - then took the microphone, saying that
for him, the fate of Conaway Ranch is no simple matter.

"It's not pure black and white. Either the county ends up with it or a group
of developers end up with it.

"Unfortunately," Chamberlain added, "I don't trust either one."

Chamberlain explained that other board members decided not to attend
Wednesday when they learned the agenda would give 10 minutes each to them
and to the ownership group, then two or three minutes apiece for closing
remarks. In between, they'd be quizzed by Jeff Sutton of the Water Alliance
and Dudley Holman of the Taxpayers Association, both vocal opponents of the
county's effort.

Holman said he was "personally disappointed" the board chose not to field
questions: "They chose to read (the agenda) wrong, and it's a terrible
mistake. I wonder how many other things they read wrong."

With Sieferman gone, Chamberlain was left to try to explain his colleagues'
position, all the while disagreeing with them.

Asked what the county would do with the land - which he called well-managed
but "overpriced" - Chamberlain said, "I don't know."

He answered the same way when asked if the county had looked into possible
uses for the land, then again when asked why the Rumsey Band of Wintun
Indians had agreed to fund the purchase for the county and what the terms of
the agreement might be.

"It's just a basic verbal agreement, as far as I know," Chamberlain said.
"The answer I get is, 'Well, let's wait and see what happens.' ... It
doesn't make any sense that someone's just going to come in and give you 60
million bucks."

"I'm not against the tribe being involved (with the land's future management
as part of a Joint Powers Authority)," he said at another point. "I'm
against the cities being involved, because they'll want all the water."

Later, he backtracked:

"I'm really against the whole thing, so I shouldn't pick and choose (who
should be part of the JPA). ... I just think there's too many people
involved, and everyone's going to want a piece of the pie."

George Phillips, the land-use attorney for the owners, said they are
"disturbed" the board is both pursuing eminent domain not for a public
project, such a highway or sewer treatment plant, and doing so without
evidence of either mismanagement of the land or lack of cooperation from its
owners.

"Our opinion is that the majority of the board just wants this property, and
that's disturbing," he said.

Phillips charged that board majority is attempting to "circumvent the law,"
by avoiding having to do environmental studies by not making specific
land-use proposals, and that they have made "a conscious decision not to
engage with the public."

"It's almost an abusive situation by the majority of the board," he said.

Otherwise, Phillips stuck to what the owners have said before:

"The Conaway Preservation Group wants to maintain ownership of this ranch
and they want that ownership to be long-term."

And, "Some of the owners make their living as developers ... (but) they
chose consciously to move for the preservation and conservation of this
property. They have no intention of developing it."

And, "The ownership is not interested in exporting water. ... All the water
is either used on the property for either agriculture or wildlife purposes."

The owners plan to continue to lease the land to farmers, he said, while
pursuing conservation easements and a mitigation bank for developers.

Phillips emphasized that the county board would remain in control of
land-use decisions, and that the owners plan to keep the land under the
Williamson Act. Such contracts provide lower property taxes for farmers,
ranchers and other property owners who agree to keep their land in
agriculture or open space for at least 10 years.

"That does take about 10 years (to get out of), if you do a notice of
nonrenewal," Phillips said, before aiming a barb at the board's recent
approval of the tribe's business plans - "unless you're doing a golf
course."

- Reach Cory Golden at cgolden@davisenterprise.net or 747-8046.

Thursday, July 21, 2005