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::: COMMUNITY NEWS RMA
releases 1997 legal document that was foundation for development
talks
Published Monday, December 30, 2002 The Rancho Murieta Association has released a five-year-old legal document that it says led the RMA to negotiate the Mutual Benefit Agreement -- the controversial development agreement for the final build-out of the community.
The May 1997 document, called the Letter Agreement, was an effort to settle suits and counter-suits that arose from the financial collapse of developer Jack Anderson in the 1990s and a 1991 agreement to finance a parks-development fund. The parks agreement was among the RMA, Community Services District and the Pension Trust Fund of Operating Engineers Local 3, which began developing the community 30 years ago. Interviewed Saturday, Michael Schieberl, president of the RMA board of directors, said the Letter Agreement, which the RMA accepted in 1996 and signed in 1997, obligates the parties involved to contribute to a parks fund and swap pieces of land, and orders them to negotiate the details of a final settlement. "It hasn't been settled yet," explained RMA General Manager Greg Vorster on Friday. "We're supposed to get back to the courts with a resolution." The RMA's lawyer and the PTF's lawyer have met before a judge several times a year for years now to say a final settlement hasn't been worked out yet. Over the years, the agreement has been publicly referred to as the three-way land swap, which will result in the RMA gaining title to the community's parks. Vorster said when the Murieta Holdings developers came on the scene in 2000, the Letter Agreement became "the base document for the negotiation of the MBA (Mutual Benefit Agreement)." The MBA, negotiated between the RMA board and the Murieta Holdings developers, who represent the PTF, was released to the public in October. It awaits approval by the RMA board. If approved, the MBA would become the settlement agreement for the litigation, RMA officials said, and if there is no settlement agreement, the court can impose the terms of the Letter Agreement. The MBA includes the legally-required pieces of the Letter Agreement but expands on them and includes other negotiated values -- principally $1.4 million from the PTF for a new front gate, road-impact fees, $75,000 for an Escuela gate, and mandatory dues contributions to RMA from homeowners in the new areas, who, as things stand, will not be a part of RMA. If the MBA is not ratified, the additional pieces of value will be lost but the Letter Agreement's other obligations will still stand, Schieberl said. Further, he said, we'll be in a bad position about our roads and rules. Under the MBA, a resident of the new development using RMA property would be subject to the same rules and sanctions as a member of the RMA, he explained. Under the Letter Agreement, there is no provision for this type of enforcement. Without it, the new developments would be on the same footing as the Villas. Residents of the Villas live in Murieta North, but they aren't RMA members. "If somebody from the Villas wants to drive 50 mph up and down our roads, we don't really have any way to stop them ... short of calling the Sheriff's Department in. We have no agreement with them to fine them," Schieberl said. Schieberl and RMA Directors Elliot Sevier and Jack Copeland and General Manager Greg Vorster met Friday morning with opponents of the development -- Ted Hart, Terry Hanson, Janis Eckard, Candy Chand, Merv Kingston and Ray Tisdale. Hart served as spokesman, according to participants. Schieberl said the group wanted the RMA to break off its talks with Murieta Holdings about the MBA and to dismiss the lawyers it is using for the negotiation and hire a land-use attorney instead. He said the RMA has agreed to meet with the lawyer the group recommended. The RMA officials gave the development opponents copies of the Letter Agreement and explained its obligations. Three of the opponents reached over the weekend by RanchoMurieta.com would not comment substantively on the meeting, saying they didn't think comments were appropropriate yet. On Dec. 20, Eckard told a CSD committee meeting that the group had gathered 1,200 signatures in 12 days and considered the response a strong statement of the community's wishes. She said the petitions will be presented to the county Board of Supervisors, county planners, county environmental review board, Cosumnes Community Planning Advisory Council, the CSD and the RMA. The petition has been circulated door-to-door and at Murieta Plaza. Residents have also received postcards urging them to call Eckard and sign the petition "to fight this development scheme." It's expected the RMA will get the petition at its next meeting, Jan. 21. Schieberl and other RMA officials characterized the petition as broad and favoring the kinds of things no one opposes -- open space, trees and wildlife, less traffic, no tract homes. "It doesn't say, 'We, the undersigned, don't want you to sign the MBA or negotiate with the PTF.' It doesn't ask us to do anything," Schieberl said. He said the group presented it as "a mandate of the people that we should stop negotiating with the Pension Trust Fund and that we should stop development on the North. ... How they got there from this petition, I don't know." Certainly, the officials said, the petition does not support the threat of a recall of the RMA board. Participants said this threat was voiced at Friday's meeting, but they disagreed as to which side of the table first brought up the possibility. The petition says this: We the undersigned have earnest concerns regarding the quality of build-out in Rancho Murieta North as proposed by Murieta Holdings. Although we do not oppose development in general, we ask you to address our absolute objections to the following:
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