HIDE 'n SEEK (and other games) ON DONNER SUMMIT

Hide 'n Seek isn't just a game for the young, and the young at heart.  It's also a game developers and county planning offices can play, and Royal Gorge LLC and Placer County Planning department have been playing it like nobody's business (that includes yours) since at least Thanksgiving Eve.

Innocent and trusting John Q Public, if he glanced at the updates on Royal Gorge LLC's futures web-page, would be told that Royal Gorge, "anticipates a submittal after the first of the year."  However, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Royal Gorge delivered a large holiday turkey to Placer County Planning- documents including one titled "Water Supply Alternatives", which runs well over one hundred pages, and a new specific plan, among others.

Placer County obligingly rubber stamped all these documents "Administrative draft-private" (including the Water document that noted it was to be simultaneously transmitted to the Sierra Lakes County Water Board and the public), and proceeded to do what counties normally do in their ordinary course of business, start studying the documents in order to move the project forward in the planning process. But very, very quietly.

So quietly in fact, that when Mr. and Mrs. Public called to enquire on Monday, Dec. 3 if there was anything new cooking at the County regarding Royal Gorge LLC plans, they were told, well, yes......but it's private.

California fortunately has a handy law, The California Public Records Act, which provides for public access to public records.  There are some statutory exceptions, but, broadly speaking, the public is entitled to view, and copy a wide range of government records.  And it goes without saying, documents submitted by a developer in the furtherance of their development plans do not fall under any of the exceptions of the public records law.

However, when Mrs. Public requested access to the Royal Gorge LLC documents, Mr. Michael Johnson, head planner for Placer County, refused her request, claiming that these documents were protected. When Mr. Public followed up with a call to explain why these were something it was very much in the public interest to see, Mr. Johnson suggested a new game- "Pass the Parcel"

You see, Mr. Public pointed out that allowing developers to have secret reviews of planning documents in Placer County would be like having a dress rehearsal for the CEQA process- without some very important members of the cast- the public.  He also pointed out that as Placer County has a web-page with Royal Gorge LLC's initial documents for ease of public access it is inconsistent to now claim, as Mr. Johnson did, that those were "formal" documents, subject to public access, but that these new documents are not subject to access because they are "informal".

Documents are documents, and faced with this dilemma, Mr. Johnson suggested that he'd just bundle it all up and send it back to the developer. There's a small problem- once the document was submitted to Placer County, it became a public record. A public record cannot be removed or destroyed to prevent access by a member of the public who has requested it. 

The public should not be required to play "I spy" to find out about development plans in Placer County, and it runs counter to state law for the head planner to make the public say, "Mother May I" , while denying state mandated access. Let's hope the County doesn't continue to play "Keep Away" in the furtherance of "Leapfrog" development at Donner Summit.