The Union-Trib story today that foes of Fanita Ranch are suing over the development comes as no surprise to many in East County who have watched a myriad of related city council votes, ballot measures and challenges over the years, with each result in favor of the project supposedly the end of the fight.  Yet, there's always another fight around the corner.  Deja vu all over again.

That said, you may have missed Councilman Brian Jones' excellent commentary in Saturday's U-T on the matter, "Environmental lawsuits thwart the public will"...

I got sued last week. Here's why: I voted to approve a project that 65 percent of Santee residents had already voted to support at the ballot box, a project that was also thoroughly studied, reviewed and approved by environmental regulatory agencies at the local, state and federal levels.

Arizona's Center for Biological Diversity has filed a frivolous lawsuit against the city of Santee and the Santee City Council over our Dec. 5 approval of the Fanita master planned community.

Read the rest of Jones' op-ed.

Brian, also a candidate for Congress in the 52nd CD, additionally told me the reason he wrote the piece is his obvious frustration with a government and court system that requires the developer and the city to jump through tremendous enviromental hurdles to get anything done and then allows one person or a small group with no accountability to undermine the whole thing. 

"The Fanita project we approved," he said, "has gone through every regulatory examination imaginable including climate change.  There have been literally thousands of man hours spent on this project.  Not just from the developer, city, consultants, and regulatory agencies, but also all the hours spent by the citizens of Santee.  The citizens sacraficed and volunteered their precious free time to defeat the initiative that attempted to stop Fanita.  I was and still am amazed at the community support for this project. 

"An overwhelming majority of Santee residents not only want this project, but worked hard to get it and voted in a special election to protect it.  And now it is all being attacked by a few greedy environmentalists that only have one thing in mind -- not protecting the environment, but padding their pockets with the money they extort from the city and the home builder.  It's a very frustrating situation, but we have prevailed before and we will prevail again.  Santee residents worked too hard accept defeat."