Buellton council to meet on boundary
measure
Buellton Mayor Russ Hicks called a special meeting of the
Buellton City Council scheduled for July 1 to decide whether to send an urban
growth boundary initiative to the November ballot or to adopt it now by a vote
of the city council.
The matter originally was to come back to the council at
its regular July 10 meeting; however the mayor and city manager found that they
may not be able to comply with regulatory time constraints to qualify the
measure for the November ballot if they wait until July 10.
City Manager Steve Thompson on June 27 contacted leaders
of Buellton Is Our Town, the civic group that sponsored and gathered signatures
for the initiative, to inform them that the special meeting would be necessary.
Judy Stauffer and Joan Hartman of BIOT met with City
Manager Thompson and were told of the differing timetables specified by the
state mandates on elections and the more restrictive county ordinances.
According to Stauffer, the city manager explained that the
matter had to be decided by the council no later than July 3 in order to get on
the November ballot.
Council member Ed Andrisek tried calling for a special meeting of the council
at the end of the city’s redevelopment agency meeting on June 26 to offer a
competing measure to the one BIOT has promoted. At that time, Hicks said he
would not call a special meeting on the subject. The July 1 meeting is for the
limited purpose of deciding the question whether to adopt the measure
immediately or send it to the ballot; the alternative measure sought by Andrisek is not mentioned on the special meeting agenda.