Byline: Leroy Standish
Feb. 3--APPLE VALLEY -- Planned Unit Developments and confidential legal opinions were not supposed to be the topic, but they both came bubbling up through the cracks in Measure N on Thursday night. During a special meeting of the Town Council to discuss a clarifying ballot measure to Measure N, a legal opinion that had been kept from the public by the Town Council suddenly surfaced. The opinion, written by the Rutan & Tucker law firm, concluded that Measure N had nothing to do with PUDs -- master planned developments that have homes clustered close together on lots of less than half an acre. Cliff Earp, one of the original authors of Measure N, produced a copy of the Nov. 2 legal opinion and began reading. It stated that Rutan & Tucker agreed with a previously released town attorney opinion that Measure N placed no restrictions on PUDs. Earp was quickly interrupted by Mayor Mark Shoup. "How did you get a copy of that?" Mayor Mark Shoup asked.
"Off the Internet," Earp relied. "You didn't get that off the Internet," Shoup said. "Why, is that something I'm not supposed to have? I thought we weren't being secret anymore," Earp said. Earlier this month, Shoup threatened to contact the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office and prosecute anyone who made the Nov. 2 Rutan & Tucker opinion public. After the meeting, Shoup would not say what his course of action would be. "I don't know when he got it is the problem," Shoup said. Earp insisted he obtained the document off the town's Web site, but would not provide the Daily Press with a copy. The Town Council has kept the opinion sealed citing the possibility of lawsuits, but has never said specifically who is threatening to sue. This is a potential violation of the Brown Act, according to Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Despite the leak of the legal opinion, the council did make progress on a potential June 6 ballot measure. The council arrived at a consensus to review a possible Measure N clarifying ballot measure at its regularly scheduled Feb. 14 meeting. The ballot measure was deemed necessary after attorneys for Rutan & Tucker determined that Measure N, which was originally intended only to preserve half-acre minimum lot sizes, also stripped the council of authority to make general plan amendments and most zone changes. Instead, according to Rutan & Tucker, the voters now have that authority. To fix Measure N, the council agreed that any ballot measure should reaffirm two homes to the acre in residential areas as the minimum allowable density. It would also ban the council from creating any new zoning classifications that would have density greater than two homes to the acre. It would allow the council to make general plan amendments and zone changes and allow land owners to request land use changes. The proposed ballot measure will also draw from the existing Measure N by keeping in place Measure N's current language regarding specific plans. "That the density is limited to two (homes) per acre overall," Shoup said. Councilman Tim Jasper asked that a cost estimate for the election and where the money to pay for the election would come from. From Here: -- Back to today's news
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