🚀 go-pugleaf

Why does Santa Rosa continue to spend money on the project?

 Opposition to this plan is widespread and diverse, running across the 
political spectrum because it is flawed from beginning to end and is an 
affront to agriculture, land use,  the environment,  and the civil 
liberties of the West County residents who have no voice in Santa Rosa 
politics, yet are being forced to bear responsibility for the policies 
of that city.  

Why,  then, Does Santa Rosa continue to waste the rate payer�s money in 
pursuit of this project?  Ed Brauner, Assistant City Manager, has said 
several times that �If there are no irrigators,  there is no project.�  
We have shown him the Red Zone Map and the petitions that created it to 
prove that there are no irrigators but he has chosen to ignore us and 
continue to misrepresent the project to his constituents.  Santa Rosa 
may feel that if they go ahead and take land for a reservoir that 
opposition will dissolve and irrigators will suddenly appear.  If they 
believe that,  then they are vastly underestimating the opposition.  
Many of the ranchers in the West  County are opposing the plan simply 
because they do not want their neighbors to have their land taken from 
them.  

Santa Rosa also claims that they are required by law to study the West 
County Plan.  The truth is that they can drop it at any time.  The Army 
Corps of Engineers has asked them to study ocean outfall as a possible 
alternative but  the city voted against it.  In February, the City 
dropped the Aquifer Injection Plan. Santa Rosa can drop from 
consideration any alternative that it feels is not feasible.

We have tried to show them that the West County Plan is not feasible, 
has no support in the West County, and is opposed by a broad spectrum of 
the Sonoma County community.  So far,  they have ignored us.  They did 
not notify many of the landowners of the preliminary workshops or 
scoping meetings,  they did not even tell some of the landowners that 
their property was a potential reservoir site until the surveys began,  
and they have made it difficult to obtain any information regarding 
specific surveys or the project as a whole.  For a year and a half,  
residents of the West County have lived under a cloud of condemnation, 
unable to sell their property, unsure whether they should invest in 
improvements.  How much longer should they forced to wait while Santa 
Rosa officials ignore the facts and waste the money of the rate payers?
 
If the City of Santa Rosa continues to pursue this plan, we will fight 
them every inch of the way, in every phase of the project.  As the facts 
of the West County Plan have become known, more and more people have 
joined in our opposition.  It is the rate payers who are funding this 
project and it is they,  as well as other concerned citizens, who can 
make a difference by telling the City of Santa Rosa that they do not 
want any more of their money wasted on a project that is unworkable,  
costly,  and destructive.