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General plan meeting canceled on short notice

Written by John Saiz / Patterson Irrigator /

Saturday, 15 December 2007

Less than 24 hours before a general plan workshop was supposed to take place, the mayor decided to cancel the meeting.

Patterson City Hall officials announced Friday afternoon that the joint City Council-planning commission workshop, scheduled for this morning, would be nixed. Mayor Becky Campo canceled the meeting because she felt that a citizen’s advisory group formed to shape the general plan had been ignored.

“We totally blew away the (General Plan Advisory Committee,)” she said.

Though the meeting had been scheduled for several weeks, Campo said she was too busy to tell staff she wanted it canceled before Friday.

Technically, if a majority of the City Council and planning commission shows up today, the meeting could still legally take place, but it is unlikely that will happen.

Campo said the chairman of the planning commission supported the decision to cancel the meeting.

Councilman Sam Cuellar also said he was relieved when he found out the meeting had been postponed.

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “This process has sometimes gotten away from us.”

The meeting would have been part of the revision process of Patterson’s general plan, the state-mandated document that guides long-term city growth. Some of the policies it establishes are the desired rate of population growth and where and what type of development should occur.

Campo said that by ignoring the GPAC’s recommendations, the council would be ignoring the public.

“I consider the GPAC the public,” Campo said.

The GPAC has 11 voting members appointed by the City Council and the city’s various commissions.

The group has recommended that the city’s population should grow from 20,875 to about 154,000 by 2048. When Patterson’s Planning Commission and City Council had joint meetings to review those recommendations, they decided to scale that figure back to about 100,000.

Other aspects of the GPAC’s plan that were changed include removing hundreds of acres of estate-residential housing and retail land from the west side of Interstate 5. Estate residential is the least dense type of housing the city allows.

Campo did not specifically say what parts of the GPAC’s recommendations she felt were ignored.

To reach John Saiz at the Irrigator, call 892-6187 or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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