OPINION: COUNTY FAILS TO PLAN FOR FUTURE OF COPPEROPOLIS

County Fails to Plan for Future of Copperopolis

by Tom Infusino

November 4, 2020

Calaveras Enterprise:

http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/opinion/article_d4dc8264-1e16-11eb-95e9-d7781e352538.html

With the update of the general plan last year there was hope that Calaveras County would begin to build communities for people living in the 21st century, but Calaveras supervisors remain hopelessly mired in the plans of the previous century.

After just one public meeting in September, the County Planning Commission approved an 800 unit subdivision in the Saddle Creek area of Copperopolis. The County decided that any project with an application completed before May of 2019 did not need to conform to the updated General Plan adopted November 12, 2019. Instead, the recently approved Copperopolis project is consistent with the 27-year-old Specific Plan for the Saddle Creek area and the 1986 General Plan.

Despite the state’s very low projected growth figures for Calaveras County, in 2013 the Board of Supervisors made it an objective of the General Plan to increase the population of Copperopolis by 20,000. Meanwhile, despite regularly cancelling Planning Commission meetings for a lack of agenda items, the County has still not made time to adopt a community plan for Copperopolis. The people of Copperopolis have completed two draft community plans since 1992.

The private sector, the non-profit sector, volunteers and residents have been doing their part for Copperopolis for decades while the County’s money, effort and attention have been focused on other things in other places. If the County still intends to add 20,000 residents to Copperopolis then the Board of Supervisors has to make the effort needed to secure a brighter future for the people of Copperopolis. That effort will include additional staff, money, impact mitigation, and a public participation process that restores people’s faith in their local government.

Such a dramatic increase in the population of Copperopolis means the County will have to seek and secure additional grants from the state and the federal government for both infrastructure and resource conservation. So far, the County has refused to make these commitments to infrastructure and resources.

Such a dramatic increase in population means that the County will have to schedule, monitor, report on, and complete impact mitigation programs in a timely manner. To date, the County has refused to make this commitment to the mitigation of impacts.

Such a dramatic increase in population means that the County will have to hire additional staff to cope with the increased workload. So far, the County has refused to make a commitment to hiring the necessary staff.

Such a dramatic increase in population means that the County should give current residents a meaningful say in the future of Copperopolis. The County has failed to do so repeatedly by refusing to adopt community-generated policies from either of the two plans completed by the Copperopolis community since 1992.

It is this litany of County failures and refusals, which are reflected in the 2019 General Plan Update, that are, in part, what has forced the Calaveras Planning Coalition to challenge the General Plan Update in court. The Planning Coalition continues to work toward the day when the people of Copperopolis and the entire county will be governed by a body sensitive to their needs and respectful of their inherent right to shape the character of their community.

Tom Infusino is the Facilitator of the Calaveras Planning Coalition (CPC). The CPC is a group of community organizations and individuals who seek to balance the conservation of local agricultural, natural and historic resources, with the need to provide jobs, housing, safety, and services. For more information on the CPC go to www.calaverascap.com.