My Contra Costa Times op-ed on Plan Bay Area

September 09, 2013 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Saturday’s Contra Costa TImes carried this article about Plan Bay Area and the lawsuit that PLF has brought on behalf of Bay Area Citizens challenging the process by which it was adopted. Excerpt:

Public policy must be made in a way that allows informed public participation. But Plan Bay Area was drafted by agenda-driven insiders.

The region’s residents deserve better than this — and they’ll get it, if a lawsuit recently filed by Bay Area Citizens is successful. Throughout the planning process, this group tried to speak up — but it feels it was ignored because ABAG and MTC didn’t like what it had to say. With this lawsuit, it aims to hold these bureaucrats accountable to the law and the public.

Bay Area Citizens isn’t seeking money or special favors. Its suit only asks the court to order the planning agencies to start the environmental process over, and this time give the people who’ll have to live under their plan the information, deliberation — and respect — that they deserve.

(Read the rest…)