From: susan bryant < >
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2024 9:50 AM
To: Dana Eady <[email protected]>
Subject: Richards Ranch November 19, City Council meeting
*** EXTERNAL EMAIL: Please use caution when opening links or attachments. *** Dana,
Please also forward this to the City Council members for the November 19 meeting for Richards Ranch. Thank you.
Susan
For the record, I'd like to clarify two particular issues that have been raised during this annexation process.
First, it is misleading to minimize monarch butterfly sightings to a yearly average, as Richards Ranch investors did at the October City Planning Commission hearing. Xerces Society's yearly sightings have been documented over a long period of time. And, numbers have fluctuated precipitously in some years at that site as well as at Pismo for reasons not known. Regardless of quantity, Xerces Society and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) have designated this as a Western Monarch Overwintering Site. Congressmen Carbajal and Panetta in particular have taken a very supportive view of the need to preserve and build monarch butterfly habitat. If Richards Ranch investors are advocating cutting down the habitat, there is no need to justify it by misrepresenting facts.
Second, the assurances Richards Ranch investors made at their two Orcutt community meetings of a gated community with amenities of pool, pickleball court, dog grooming, a spa, etc., continue to change. They are now waffling on whether or not to create a gated community. It is their right to make changes to their conceptual plans. And, for the sake of the future residents, I hope whatever is behind these changes will also influence an ending to unsafe and noisy military jet pilot training exercises flying 600 feet over this site.
Respectfully,
Susan Bryant
Orcutt Resident