Pro: Castro Valley Needs An Elected MAC and Its Own Zoning Board

(Castro Valley resident Michael Kusiak has a Facebook page advocating for the election of the Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) whose members are currently appointed by County Supervisor Nate Miley. In his latest post, he joins the notion of an elected MAC with the idea of a Board of Zoning Adjustments (BZA) by and for Castro Valley residents. Please also read an argument from San Lorenzo resident Keith Barros who has no opinion on electing the MAC but opposes the idea of a separate Castro Valley BZA.)

The next Governance Visioning Group for the Eden Area Livability Initiative (EALI) will be on Tuesday, April 30 from 6-9 PM at the Castro Valley Library (http://tinyurl.com/bwz6eka).

Castro Valley needs an elected Municipal Advisory Committee (MAC), and a Board of Zoning Adjustments (BZA) for Castro Valley.

The elected MAC would focus on general advocacy for our community (e.g. How much money is being spent in infrastructure in our community? How do we get better County response to service requests). 

In turn, the elected MAC would nominate candidates for a CV BZA; based on an understanding the could be codified in the enabling resolution creating our MAC, the Board of Supervisors would appoint nominees made by our MAC to the BZA.

A CV BZA would handle variances and conditional use permits, very specific decisions about how a piece of property can be used (e.g. What should the design of a cell phone tower be? How tall does a fence need to be?, etc.). Here is a example of an agenda from the West County BZA: http://tinyurl.com/bmr9jf8

More importantly, the membership of the CV BZA would be from Castro Valley, unlike the current West County BZA (http://www.acgov.org/cda/planning/board/boza.htm), which includes non-CV residents making decisions about variances and conditional use permits in our community. 

For a community of over 60,000 residents, this maximizes our ability to exert control over community affairs, while working within the current parameters of being an unincorporated community. 

This is an plan that gives us a elected MAC and expands decision-making by CV community members. It is a step towards greater democracy in Castro Valley.

What do you think about electing the MAC? (Have you read the Con argument?)

Should Castro Valley have its own BZA?

Leave a comment or attend the meeting at the Castro Valley Library from 6-9 pm tonight where these issues will be aired.