Uncertainty over status of planning commissioners impact land use hearing on Liberty Quarry plan

Uncertainty – this time over the status of two Riverside County planning commissioners – continued to shadow a spate of formal land use hearings May 3 on a hotly-debated proposal to operate a granite mine south of Temecula.

While the hearing, the second of at least three to be held by the planning review board, attracted a much smaller and far less contentious audience at Rancho Community Church in Temecula than the spillover crowd at the initial session a week earlier, it continued to feature razor-sharp public comments and dueling experts. It also held a continuance marked by uncertainty over how many more sessions will be needed before the controversial project is forwarded to the Board of Supervisors for a final decision.

At one point, that uncertainty prompted Commissioner John Petty to muse “this thing can go on forever” if audience members continue to submit speaker slips and the public hearing process grinds on. His comment came after commission Chairman John Roth noted that such slips “keep piling up,” and at least 60 people with two minutes or more to speak could remain in the queue when the hearing process resumes at 9 a.m. on June 22 at the church.

It is hoped that the seven-week gap between hearings will give the state Fair Political Practices Commission enough time to determine whether two of the five county planning commissioners have financial conflicts of interest and must bow out of the review process. Because questions swirl around those potential conflicts, Commissioners James Porras and John Snell refrained from participating in the May 3 hearing.

The potential conflict is an unusual one, as it centers on revenues that a state teachers retirement fund would receive if the Watsonville-based Granite Construction Co. is allowed to mine aggregate in the hills between Temecula and Rainbow. Porras is a teacher and Snell’s wife is a teacher, and a conflict could exist over helping to vest or enrich a pension fund that either or both commissioners might

someday tap.

In November 2008, the California State Lands Commission identified part of the proposed Liberty Quarry site as a source of mineral rights revenues for the retirement fund. The amount of the potential revenues, which would be based on the aggregate tonnages mined, has not been determined. But a state commission representative estimated at another county hearing that the payments could total several million dollars over the life of the mine.

The potential loss of two commissioners would create a dilemma because the attendance of each of the remaining members would be required for the panel to have a mandated quorum. Furthermore, all three remaining members would need to vote the same way, either to recommend approval or denial of the quarry, for the development plan to be considered by the Board of Supervisors.

The commissioners’ absence also prompted a heavyweight foe of the proposed mine, the Pechanga Indian tribe, to balk at presenting its expert testimony until the dilemma is sorted out.

An attorney for the tribe was among about 50 people who spoke against the quarry plan at the meeting. About 25 other speakers expressed their support for the plan that would allow Granite to extract 270 million tons of sand, gravel and other materials over a 75-year period from the site in the hills at Temecula’s southern boundary.

The mine proposal has emerged as one of the most heated land use plans to grip southwest Riverside County in recent years.

The 414-acre site is nestled behind a bluff overlooking a California Highway Patrol truck inspection and weigh station west of Interstate 15 near the San Diego County border. A development alternative favored by county planners would allow Granite to mine aggregate from a 135-acre portion of the site. Nine acres of the site would be used for a service road, and much of the remaining land would be set aside as open space.

If approved, the mine project could include a concrete plant, a pair of asphalt batch plants, offices, a truck scale, runoff settling ponds and truck and equipment storage areas.

The mine site flanks a sensitive San Diego State University nature reserve and research station that is split by the Santa Margarita River, which forms at the confluence of several creeks in the Temecula area and flows 27 miles to the ocean.

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