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Morro Bay Measure A-24 protects local control

October 2, 2024

A baby sea otter

OPINION by NORM WILLIAMS

Morro Bay residents are currently being inundated with mailers “paid for” by Morro Bay Citizens Opposed to Measure A-24. The mailers contain several misstatements, such as the measure would “undermine the City Council’s control and give it to Sacramento, ..would strip local decision-making, wreck zoning laws, and do nothing to stop the battery plant.”

First of all, under the Morro Bay general plan adopted in 2021 by the City Council and approved by the California Coastal Commission, the current land designation for the former power plant property area at issue is visitor-serving commercial. This comprehensive plan took several years to develop with input through workshops attended by local citizens.

The current power plant property owner is in the process of seeking a land use change to industrial in order for its proposed battery energy storage system (BESS) project, the world’s largest, to move forward.

Measure A-24 simply states that any such change in land use approved by the City Council for this particular project land area would require a subsequent vote and approval by a majority of Morro Bay voters.

If the City Council rejects the BESS project then the current land use remains visitor-serving commercial; no further action by the city voters would be required. This provides an extra layer of local control for the citizens of Morro Bay on such a major change to its general plan. How does this wreck zoning laws?

As far as undermining the City Council’s control and giving it to Sacramento, the current power plant property owner can go directly to the state to try to get approval of the project. Under newly enacted AB 205, power companies at any time can circumvent the local political process and go directly to the newly formed California Energy Commission (CEC) to get approval.

However, under this legislation, any approval by the (CEC) would have to get final approval by the California Coastal Commission for any proposed energy projects located within areas protected under the Coastal Act.

The Coastal Commission’s staff letter dated August 2 in response to the BESS project draft environmental report has already outlined serious issues about the location of the project. In summary, they stated that the future hazards of flooding and sea level rise and the impact on the environmentally sensitive habitat area are acute.

In conclusion Coastal Commission staff stated, “.. that such a project doesn’t require such a sensitive shoreline siting, and can readily be sited at inland locations not near the coast.”

If either the Morro Bay City Council or the citizens of Morro Bay pursuant to Measure A-24 reject the land use designation change to industrial, the BESS project will be stopped at the local level.

If this ultimately ends up before the California Coastal Commission, this body will have heard the overwhelming voice of the people of Morro Bay. They will have a strong local political mandate to uphold their staff’s report and maintain their support of the current land use designation of visitor-serving commercial as stated in the Morro Bay General Plan. Measure A-24 ensures local control, it does not in anyway undermine it.

Norm Williams and his wife Nancy Williams have called Morro Bay home for 22 years. They love the environment and town and are working to protect it from industrialization.

 


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The Coastal Commission required the city to move the sewer plant out of town because of theoretical sea level rise projections. May they remain consistent in their judgement! Up , up and away!

P . S. Proponents of BESS claim it will store enough power for 16,000 homes. Sounds impressive until you learn there are over 120,000 homes in SLO county alone. Not worth it in any regard. They want to drop it in Morro Bay to save on infrastructure costs. That’s the big reason… to save a buck..


6

The Coastal Commission had not passed a final ruling on the sewer plant location, before Jamie Irons and the GANG went to the CC and Begged them to move it out of town. Watch the video of the meeting and you will see some “allied” members of the CC were angry and commented that they did not like Jamie and the gang coming to them to ask them to be the “bad guys” because the city could not make a decision on our own.


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Remember the good ol’ days, when you could drive out to the Rock and wonder how such a big thing came from such a bigger thing, before the rising seas covered the jetty?


Oh yeah. Didn’t happen.


What did happen, was a battery facility in San Diego burned for fifteen days, spewing immeasurable amounts of toxins. smoke, particulates, and Lord knows what else into the air. Their ONLY fortune, was the winds took all that away from populations.


Morro Bay doesn’t have those favorable winds, so all that poison and pollution, would blow through and around the city, Los Osos, and eventually San Luis Obispo, should the proposed battery facility burst into flames.


Did the Coastal Commission take into account, that the many millions of gallons of water to be used in case of a fire burning for two weeks, would absorb it’s heavy share of poisons, toxins, and various heavy metal pollutants, and flow quickly and directly into the harbor?


This is just a bad plan for a bad idea. Bad for Morro Bay. Bad for the harbor. Bad for adjacent cities. And bad for the county.


14

What about the fact that the prior owner in a covenant restricted all future use of that certain area to industrial use. Obviously it was to protect pge from future law suits. Either way, it was legal. The city evidently chose to ignore that info and zoned it as visitor serving. In essence ignoring a private sale restriction which I believe even the state had a hand in. This is not the first time pge did this to protect themselves from future legal issues.


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