Please donate generously (here); we need your support!

Summary:
Orinda Watch needs to cover expenses for public outreach & education, and Bay Area Citizens, to cover the need to file supplemental reports that respond to the answers that ABAG and MTC will file to the issues raised in our expert reports. This requires many thousands of dollars for both organizations. Orinda Watch needs funds right now to make up for the costs of previous and ongoing marketing and education efforts. Bay Area Citizens needs significant funding prior to July 12th (more info below).

We know that everyone’s financial situation is different. If your budget is tight, please consider a donation of $50 or $100. If you have the funds available, please join with your neighbors who have donated $250, $500, or $1,000 in our prior efforts.

Bay Area Citizens also needs larger donations in the range of $2,500 or $5,000, and if you are in a position to do so, we hope you will consider making a donation of this size.

Again, please donate generously (here)

Specifics:

Orinda Watch has now hosted 4 small-scale and 2 large-scale town halls, met individually with each member of Orinda City Council and staff to express our concerns, raised funding for expert & citizen reports against Plan Bay Area, written letters to city council on our grave concerns on Plan Bay Area and the Orinda Housing Element, organized citizenry to come to city council meetings through flyers, phone calls, news and blog posts; supported sister small-sized cities (including but not limited to Lafayette, Moraga, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Danville, San Rafael, etc) in their own fights against Plan Bay Area, attended MTC/ABAG regional governance meetings to express our emphatic disagreement with Plan Bay Area, written numerous email and website communications, and members wrote very large reports against Plan Bay Area of their own free time etc. The majority of these activities are 'free' in the sense that people have volunteered their very valuable free time away from their families and personal lives to fight this good fight. None of us expect any compensation for this as we consider this our civic duty. However, the events we've hosted and materials we've created do cost (lots of) money. We would love to continue doing what we are doing and fight the good fight. We really need your help with funding our efforts.

Orinda Watch is also actively supporting Bay Area Citizens' fundraising efforts. Bay Area Citizens raised significant funds to pay for the expert and citizen reports used to respond back to Plan Bay Area, a draconian top-down regional plan that removes local control with a one-size fits all Plan dictating how and where every citizen should live, benefiting a relatively small number of individuals vs the rest of the region, and stuffing the pockets of developers at the expense of the hard-working middle class. Bay Area Citizens now needs to raise more money to fund supplemental reports against Plan Bay Area prior to its expected adoption.

The importance of the supplemental reports is as follows: Our expert reports, as well as our citizen comments, have raised devastating critiques of the Plan and its draft EIR. They've been analytically-sound, empirically-based, and fair, but they have also painted a picture of a Plan that cannot and will not work to achieve any of its stated premises, and that has been prepared with deeply troubling and flawed assumptions, models, forecasts, and omissions.

We believe that ABAG and MTC will not address, in any substantive way, any of the issues that the citizens and experts have raised, though they are obligated to do so. Rather, they will dismiss the points raised as irrelevant, or "answer" without answering, or will introduce "new" information that is as inaccurate and flawed as the existing information. We need to respond to their non-rebuttal rebuttals in order for there to be a full and adequate picture of what's in this Plan (look at it as their draft Plan and draft EIR, their comments, their responses to our comments, and our responses to their responses completes the dialogue). We cannot have a full and open public debate without our supplemental reports to what we know will be dismissive and incomplete responses to our initial comments--and as with the original comments and reports, while they are essential to any informed public debate, our supplemental reports will be essential predicates to any potential litigation regarding the Plan.

According to ABAG and MTC, they Plan to discuss their final EIR and final Plan July 12, and we expect them to release them shortly before then. We have already had extensive conversation with our experts about their supplemental reports, and they will be ready to respond, but we will need to have our funds raised before July 12.

Please note that your donations to Orinda Watch and Bay Area Citizens are not considered tax deductible at this time.

Oh, have we forgotten to mention...we need your help...Please donate generously (here)