One of fourteen Renewable Energy Development Areas - proposed from Independence to Lone Pine.

One of fourteen Renewable Energy Development Areas – proposed from Independence to Lone Pine.

I witnessed today the most embarrassing policy meeting I’ve ever experienced, under any circumstances, while watching the Inyo County Planning Commission decide to move forward on the Renewable Energy Plan Amendment. My past is filled with days being honored to call the Owens Valley home; today; I am ashamed, thanks to the disastrous decision-making of the commission and the planning department.! ! During the meeting, I listened intently as community member after community member voiced their significant concerns with the REGPA documentation. Under this scrutiny, the document was shown to be rife with logical fallacies, structural holes, vast inconsistencies in language, and outright lies pertaining to supposed support of the document from the community at large.

The citizens of Inyo (and from Los Angeles, Torrence, Pasadena, and other locations) stood up together and voiced their strong opposition, supported by sound science, clear understanding, and with the added benefit of numerous ideas as to how the REGPA could be significantly improved. After hours of such public commentary, many in attendance were hopeful that their voices were heard and the document would undergo significant revision before moving forward.! ! It was a complete and utter shock, then, when the planning commission decided to whole- heartedly ignore all of this input and decide to move the REGPA forward to the Board of Supervisors, unchanged.

The planning commission members were fed half-truths, insufficient data, and at times complete lies by the planning director (as can be seen by comparing the document itself and any record of the comments made by the director during the meeting).! ! The next step for the REGPA, then, is to move to the Board of Directors. It should be noted by those that hold these public positions that on the 18th of March you will be asked by the planning director to approve a document that is politically unsound, filled with logic fallacies, employs vague and circuitous language, and included outright lies in its claims of “community support.” The supervisors should also know that if they choose to support the REGPA and its associated documentation, they are making a clear choice in direct opposition to the overall public consensus and political will of their constituency. ! ! It is my charge then, as a concerned citizen of Inyo County, to help protect our governmental and political processes from degradation and misuse. I hope that my fellow community members will join me, if the need arises, to publicly call into question the governing ability of our elected officials if they choose to accept unsound and invalid policy and disregard the voiced and publicly documented will of their own constituents.! !

I hope that we can come together as a community to do what is right for Inyo County. Today we witnessed what can happen when members of our local governmental agencies fail on all counts to do their jobs correctly and ignore the very people they represent. Thankfully, we still have time to make it right. I ask you all to join me in making that happen. Please view my letter to the planning commission and the Board of Supervisors by visiting www.deepestvalley.com and if you’d like your letter included on the site, please email a copy to [email protected]. Thank you.  Bryan Kostors

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