Orange County Grand Jury
• 2008-2009
• Agency Response
Response to:
City of Rancho Santa Margarita
Mayor Gary Thompson*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 2 findings
F1
There is inadequate coordination between local land-use planning agencies and local water supply agencies, resulting in a process that fails to fully engage the issues. Response: The City disagrees wholly with this finding. While we cannot respond regarding other local agencies coordination efforts, to date there has been good coordination between the City with both the Santa Margarita Water District and the Trabuco Canyon Water District. The City coordinates with these water supply agencies at all levels of the development process. The City of Rancho Santa Margarita is served by both the Santa Margarita Water District, and the Trabuco Canyon Water District. Both water supply agencies are involved in environmental reviews, entitlement reviews, design review and construction oversight. In addition, both water districts are involved in the City's General Plan development and review process. 22112 El Paseo • Rancho Santa Margarita • California 92688-2824 Phone 949.635.1800 • Fax 949.635.1840 • www.cityofrsm.org SANTA MA "Paper Water" - Does Orange County Have a Reliable Future? September 9, 2009 muaru It is also worth noting that December 10, Mayor Gary Thompson announced that he would be promoting water conservation initiatives during his tenure as Mayor, and that the key components of the Mayor's water initiatives would include community outreach and advocacy efforts. Furthering his water conservation goals, the Mayor conducted a workshop at the January 18, 2009 South Orange County Association of Mayors, citing the importance of a regional collaboration between public agencies to address water conservation and awareness. On April 8, 2009, the City Council directed staff to partner with the Trabuco Canyon Water District (TCWD) and the Santa Margarita Water District (SMWD) staffs to augment their existing water conservation awareness efforts in conjunction with the Mayor's Water Awareness Initiative.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
Each Orange County municipal planning agency, in cooperation with its respective water supply agency, should prepare for adoption by its city council, a dedicated Water Element to its General Plan in conjunction with a future update, not to exceed June 30, 2010. This document should include detailed implementation measures based on objective-based policies that match realistic projections of the County's future water supplies. These objectives, policies and implementation measures should address imported supply constraints, including catastrophic outages and incorporate the realistic availability and timing of "new" water sources such as desalination, contaminated groundwater reclamation and surface water recycling. Response: The recommendation will not be implemented because it is not warranted. General Plan mandates are the purview of the State of California. A requirement from the Grand Jury to add an additional element to the General Plan would not be in compliance with State law. Furthermore, an analysis of water supply is already addressed within other elements of the General Plan, including the Conservation Element and the Land Use Element. Finally, water planning is more appropriate and effectively done by water agencies, which are special districts under State law and are not governed by a municipal government. City boundaries and water agency boundaries typically do not coincide with one another, so cities would have to coordinate with multiple water agencies and water agencies would have to coordinate with multiple cities. This could result in conflicting policies. The City of Rancho Santa Margarita would like to thank the Orange County Grand Jury for taking the time to research these issues and for involving the City in this important discussion. Please contact Steve Hayman, City Manager, at (949) 635-1800 ext. 6304, if there is any additional information we can provide. M ATAR "Paper Water" - Does Orange County Have a Reliable Future? September 9, 2009 Sincerely, Gary Thompson Mayor Rancho Santa Margarita City Council CC:
F2
California's looming water supply crisis receives very little, if any, expressed concerns from the public in comparison to the numerous other environmental issues presented during development project reviews. Response: The City disagrees partially with this finding. CEQA charges planning agencies with presenting information on all potential impacts, and our recent experience is that the public is aware of the water supply crisis. Most recently, when a public scoping session was held at the City to receive public comment on a proposed development in the City's Sphere of Influence, local residents expressed concern about the current water supply crisis as it related to the project. Nevertheless, it "Paper Water" – Does Orange County Have a Reliable Future? September 9, 2009 is acknowledged that public awareness regarding the State's water supply crisis could improve. This is one of the reasons for the Mayor's Water Awareness Initiative that was announced last year.
No recommendations for this finding
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.