NO on L: The campaign against Pacifica’s Measure L

The owner of the Rockaway Beach Quarry, R. Donahue Peebles, was profiled by The San Francisco Bay Area Guardian issue of 8/29/06. Their profile of his meteoric ascent in the real estate business in D.C. and Florida stated, "He earned a reputation for resorting to multimillion-dollar litigation when those relationships went bad." But did Mr. Peebles mellow after arriving in California? Apparently not. Mr. Peebles' partnership filed suit against the California State Mining and Geology Board in March 2006, a month after being fined a tenth of the maximum fine for failure to file an acceptable assurance instrument for the reclamation of the Quarry. (Rockaway Beach Ltd. v. SMBG et al.) At the "charrette" meetings I attended in May, Mr. Peebles described himself as completely cooperative with the State regarding reclamation of the formerly quarried property. Curiously, he and his agents made no mention of the fact that aspects of the reclamation matter were in litigation.

Patterns of the past are instructive regarding what is likely in the future. I request the Pacifica Tribune to keep us fully informed about litigation Mr. Peebles or his partnership brings, particularly regarding the Quarry. It seems relevant to our evaluation of his campaign to portray himself as a genial, reliable neighbor.

Mr. Peebles is trying to convince Pacifica to rezone the Quarry to allow up to 355 houses. Mr. Peebles has spoken in public meetings of mixed-use development, but the City Attorney's Report on the Initiative states, "This initiative does not approve or propose any specific development project." Swirls of hope for luxury hotels and tax revenue from retail sales have been cascading forth from the PR firm and agents hired for this campaign. While PR people are busy casting Mr. Peebles as Prince Charming, he has taken care not to incur the least legal obligation to fulfill the hopes he has stirred.

Virtually everyone agrees that Mr. Peebles is a polished and articulate man. That is what one expects of a multi-millionaire real estate developer. But the question on the ballot in November in Pacifica is not whether Mr. Peebles is a artful speaker. It is whether to allow the property along Calera Creek to be zoned for up to 355 houses, which currently are not permissible.

Some of Pacifica's residents liked his drawings of a mixed-use retail complex with what his agent termed a "town center" in the quarry revealed at the "charrette." But those drawings are not on the ballot. Nothing on the ballot requires Mr. Peebles, or any subsequent owner, to develop the quarry consistently with those drawings.

Normally when someone asks for our vote on re-zoning, there is a concrete plan to approve or disapprove. In this case, Mr. Peebles chose to keep the process vague by not submitting a plan to the Council. We who care about Pacifica are asked to change the zoning of the Quarry based only on talk, not on binding commitments. We can ask more from the developer. We can Vote No on L. Mr. Peebles says he'll be around for the long haul. If Pacifica defeats L, maybe then he'll abide by the normal process by submitting a plan to the City Council for approval before returning to ask the public to amend zoning on the Quarry.

Janet Hathaway
Vallemar

The above was printed as a letter to the editor in the September 13th, 2006 Pacifica Tribune, and is republished here with the author's permission.