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and the citizen's initiative also gets a majority vote, and the City gets one more vote than the citizen's, the poison pill would take effect. She said if an ordinance is done, an EIR will need to be done, there will be controversy still in 2010, and the process will be very drawn out. She also wants to make sure that the public understands that the previous Council did not put an ordinance in place, never in her 8 years on the Council did a hillside project come forward, and all of the protections existed within the General Plan to stop a project such as Oak Grove. Councilmember Sullivan confirmed that if both initiatives pass and the citizen's initiative obtain more votes, those general plan policies would be changed, and at the same time, the plan to create a plan would move forward. Allen Roberts said the City Council sponsored initiative will compete with the initiative signed by over 5,000 voters which he felt was not the right position for the Council to be taking. The proposed initiative would not have any direct effect because it only creates a process to propose a plan to protect the hillside at some point in the future. He said the ballot measure is a plan to create a plan and he believes that the actual purpose of it is to confuse voters and to trump, with the poison pill, the voter-sponsored initiative. He said Pleasanton already has a plan to protect its hillside-the 1996 General Plan. What has happened is that Oak Grove is what initiated citizen's action to change hillside protection. He said the Council is trying to subvert the initiative process by proposing a one-year timeframe for a plan to protect the hillsides, which really cancels the citizen's initiative and not really protect the hillsides. Richard Pugh said he is concerned with the process, believes that the proposal for the ballot the City is sponsoring should not occur, he does not believe the Council should be placing any rushed proposal on the ballots in response to a citizen's initiative. Given there have been many years that have lapsed with no ordinance offered other than through the citizen's initiative, the preferable course of action would have been to do nothing. He would then ask citizens to vote at the election and decide on the matter. Creating a sudden measure sends a message that the next time citizens believe there is a matter of pressing support they face the risk of having constitutionally protected work nullified. He is concerned therefore that there is a danger this would discourage public participation in the city which is not in our long-term interests. Karla Brown said if the Council moves forward with the Council initiative, it should also look at the cost of engineering studies, EIRs and technical studies which is a significant expense the City is burdening its citizens with. Julie Testa said while she supports the concept of getting through the process and get along, she believes it is disingenuous to suggest that the proponents of the initiative have been negative. She thinks the fact that 3 members of the Council are putting a competing initiative on the ballot is undermining the citizen process, which is divisive. Mayor Hosterman closed public comment. Mayor Hosterman reiterated that the citizen's initiative language is set and the language would allow for the definition of a unit to include assisted living facilities and extended stay hotels. She does not think that was the intent of the backers of this initiative. What would happen is if the language is allowed to move forward without giving the Council an opportunity to write something that is sensible, the City would have to count those units against the voter approved cap on housing, which would seriously hamper this Council's ability to move forward with affordable housing projects and transit-oriented development. Therefore, she believes Council majority will support giving the community the opportunity to get on board through adoption of a strong ordinance protecting hillsides forever, but also written in such a way it can be City Council Minutes 11 July 15, 2008