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[lawmom]

Hi, all:

We went to the meeting today and we probably had about
40 people or so, including some very upset journalists
who were only informed by our emails that this was
going on.

Apparently City Council knew about it and I wonder why
they were not more proactive in looking out for the
interests of its citizens by informing them of this
meeting.

Turns out, we are on day 25 of the 30 day reviewing
period. Our outrage was such that they extended the
period 25 more days. We also got them to acknowledge
that as per the California Environmental Quality Act
they have to have a "no Project alternative" . However,
they kept saying they would have it but they would not
analyze it!!! One wonders how exactly they plan to be
in compliance with the law without analyzing that
alternative.

Mitch also found out that there was a Grand Jury
indictment (I believe, Mitch correct me if I am wrong)
of the county last year for being too lax in enforcing
environmental laws. That doesn't do wonders for our
trust in the county government as a regulatory agent.

Maria and I would like to contact Supervisor Liz Kniss
to request that another public meeting be held soon,
well before the extended deadline, in a place that can
actually accommodate more people and with extensive
notice in the media to all the residents of Cupertino
and surrounding communities. The good news is that we
now have access to a Courier reporter who gave us his
phone number and told us to call him whenever we
needed him to report something. So, if we get this
meeting set up, whether or not they notify the public,
we will.

Please sign up in the website and you can post
anything you find that might be relevant to this.

We also need people who can volunteer to do small
research tasks like find out what Roger wanted to know
in one of his emails since that was not addressed
today (the meeting was ran by the county not Hanson).
We know the quarry is not in Cupertino, so we don't
get tax revenues from them, but we do get their
contaminants: -)It would be interesting to do an
economic analysis of just what the economic impact
would be in Cupertino if they were to close down. I
think it is imperative we do this if we will argue any
kind of alternative. We know that environmentally
speaking we would be better off and real estate values
around the quarry area would also improve.

Let us know if you would like to be in the committee
that we send to see Liz Kniss.

[jbartas]

Thanks for the synopsis, Lawmom.

What bothered me the most about the meeting was the attitude of the County Planning Office employees Mark Connolly and Rob Eastwood. Throughout the meeting they acted like a couple of Hanson PR men, telling us only what helped Hanson and trying to hide what did not.

They said there would not be a "no project" option in the EIR (Environmental Impact Report). This would mean that Hanson would simply not be allowed to expand operations. When folks at the meeting asked if this was legal, they admitted it might not be; but tried to assure us that we didn't want such an option. When pressed as to why not, they had no good answers.

When Mitch asked if Hanson would be allow to continue to operate after 2010 if the county did not approve a new reclamation plan, they did everything they could to deflect the question. Ultimately they refused to give a clear answer. Maybe they just didn't know, or maybe they were trying hard not to reveal that this could be a chance for our community to shut down Hanson in 2010.