Some of you may recall I was a Candidate for City Council back in 2004 when Measure W was on the ballot. I knew then that this was going to have huge negative effects on Folsom and advocated for voting NO on this measure. Sadly many of the very issues I warned about are coming true!
Let me share some of the History of how Measure W came to be.
The City was going all out to secure their SOI for S50. A small group of informed citizens saw the handwriting on the wall ( based upon the past experiences with development deals), so they authored a ballot measure that included conditions to protect the quality of life for the residents who lived N50. They submitted the measure and started collecting signatures. This small group of Citizens exceeded the number of signatures needed by a significant amount in an amazingly short time. This signaled to the Council and the Landowners that this measure would surely pass overwhelmingly and NOT be Developer friendly.
The petitioners submitted the Measure, it was validated and recommended by the City attorney that the Council approve putting this onto the ballot, which they did. The Council then directed staff to come up with an alternative measure to compete with the Residents Measure. staff came up with Measure W in record time and the Council approved putting it on the Ballot as well, pretending to allow the Citizens the right to choose between the 2 measures. ( if you buy into that, then stop reading and start getting ready for the Easter Bunny).
Then another group citizens ( made up of the "IN" crowd) filed suit against the Original Citizens petition claiming they violated the law by not including something like 24 pages of the description of the land the Original petitioners were getting signatures for their ballot measure. This seemed to be the ultimate desperation play. No one had ever heard of requiring pages of the Description of the land to be included in the petition before. Basically the Lawsuit was claiming the people who signed the petition didn't know where the land South of 50 was! In addition how in the world were citizens ( who filed the lawsuit) being harmed by allowing a vote on competing Ballot measure. The lawsuit should have been dismissed, because those filing had No Standing.
Amazingly it was assigned to a Judge who was a former Assemblyman/Senator who had received considerable support from a Landowner S50 during his campaigns.
Even though the City Attorney Validated the measure and The city Council approved putting it on the Ballot, the City didn't defend its actions in courts. The Measure's Petitioners had some attorneys who were knowledgeable and capable but were kinda doing it Quasi Pro Bono. Once it got to court, they recognized immediately, that there wasn't stopping this political Freight Train and if they ever wanted to get a fair shake going forward now was the time to cut their losses. They did their Job, but the bowed out and wanted no part of any appeal.
Not only did the Judge rule in favor of the Plaintiffs, but made the original petitioners sweat out a couple of days if he was going to award legal fees, something like $30K to the plaintiffs. This was the warning shot to NOT try and appeal him.
Had they appealed they would have won, but they had enough.
When you hear the Old saying Folsom has always been a railroad town, its true!
So my advice is to stay away from trying to do any petition regarding land use! There is another way to do this and I'll start that topic soon enough
If you ever hear about my demise, like getting run over by a bus while on the Bike trail or out fishing, please know I've told you the truth!
