Executive Summary: Response to Moore’s Information Update – August, September and October 2024 5 Pinocchio’s
Council Member Rob Moore’s “informational update” on the Los Gatos housing situation contains several inaccuracies (aka, Lies). He downplays his critical role in the Town’s failure to meet the Housing Element deadline (January 31, 2023), which led to Builder’s Remedy applications. He blames the state for changing the rules but neglects to tell you they didn’t change the rules – they’re just enforcing them when Moore, Ristow and Rennie stalled out the entire process. Thank them for the Builders Remedy and the 8 buildings coming to your future that are 4 to 13 stories tall with 34,000 more car trips on the roads.
Key Points:
- Misleading Claims on Builder’s Remedy: Moore blames misconceptions and misperceptions by the minorly rather than acknowledging that the Town, with himself in the majority position, missed the statutory deadline, triggering the applications.
- Failure to Mention Other Cities’ Success: While Moore notes other cities also missed the deadline, he omits that four obtained certification by May 2023, avoiding further applications—unlike Los Gatos, which delayed until May 2024; almost 1.5 years after the deadline.
- Poor Oversight and Leadership: The Town submitted five rejected drafts in 2023, reflecting inefficient processes as he contributed to prolonged delays.
In conclusion, Moore’s update deflects blame and obscures his responsibility for the housing element delays, leading to significant negative impacts on the town. We have much greater expectations of a Los Gatos Councilmember.
Council Member Moore posted a link on Nextdoor to his campaign website – www.robforlosgatos.com – which contained an “informational update” which purported to provide “information on the housing situation that should answer a lot of questions.” The article was accompanied by a disclaimer stating the information provided was “my personal perspective and is neither legal guidance nor any official stance of the Los Gatos Town Council.” Lucky for him he included this disclaimer because much of what is said is simply not true.
Of note was the section headlined “Myths and Misconceptions.” The purpose of this section, according to Moore, was to “dispel some myths and misinformation that I have heard about how we got here.” Now let us remember the disclaimer above. Warning to the reader – the information is not necessarily factual, but rather his “personal perspective” with the goal of putting his actions in the most favorable light possible.
Given Moore’s leading role in the Town missing the statutory deadline for adopting a compliant Housing Element by January 31, 2023 the LGCA was interested in “fact-checking” Moore’s comments. So, let’s dig in and critically exam the “informational update.”
First Pinocchio
“ I have seen posts online and an op-ed in the paper claiming that the town is receiving these proposals because certain Councilmembers support unconstrained growth or do not care about the character of the town.” This is not accurate.
Let us be very clear – the Town received SB 330 development applications citing the Builder’s Remedy (Govt Code Section 65589.5 Subdivision (d)(5)) only because the Town failed to adopt a revised housing element that was in substantial compliance with State Law by the statutory deadline of January 31, 2023. This deadline was known for years and was no surprise. Moore was part of the failure and knows this perfectly well. To not acknowledge this catastrophic failure of leadership is a real headscratcher, especially when he is claiming to dispel “myths and misinformation.” For the real story as to “how we got here” please go to https://lg-ca.com/what-
Second Pinocchio
“Regarding the Builder’s Remedy, it is important to know that not one of the 15 cities in Santa Clara County had their Housing Element approved in time to avoid the Builder’s Remedy”.
This one is a real beauty for two reasons. First, it totally misses the point that people elect council members with the reasonable expectation that they will effectively discharge the duties they were elected to perform and 2) when they fail in doing so, they accept responsibility and apologize to their constituents for their failures. In Moore’s version, you will only find him shifting the blame to the state, even though the Town had more than 2 years to do the job by the deadline. The Council’s failure has brought us 15 projects and half of them range from 6 to 13 stories.
Moore is totally tone deaf here. He seemingly justifies his massive failure by stating since everyone else failed, failure is OK. That mindset is not OK and should never be held by any elected official.
Furthermore, Moore failed to disclose the entire story. While it is correct that none of the 15 cities in Santa Clara County met the January 31, 2023 deadline, 4 cities received certification from the State by May 31, 2023. Those cities were Mountain View, Campbell, Los Altos Hills, and Milpitas. Having received certification, these cities closed the door on future Builder’s Remedy development applications by May 31, 2023.
The Town received State certification in May 2024 – a year after these 4 cities were certified and 16 months past the statutory deadline. Nowhere does Moore disclose this or explain why that happened.
Worse, all the Builder’s Remedy development applications, except for one, were received by the Town after May 31, 2023. In reviewing the record, only the North 40 Phase II development filed a preliminary development application prior to May 31, 2023. All the other Builder’s Remedy applications, including the most egregious ones such as Newtown and the Ace Hardware, were filed months later. If the Town had performed as Mountain View, Campbell, Los Altos Hills, and Milpitas did, we would not be facing these horrific development applications.
Third Pinocchio
Throughout this process, I made it my top priority to pass a compliant Housing Element as expeditiously as possible. I voted to send our draft Housing Element to the state for review every time I believed it was ready.
Let us not forget for all of 2022, 2023 and 2024 the Town Council has been controlled by a voting block of three Council Members. They were a majority, and as such controlled the legislative agenda and decision making. Council Members Hudes and Badame’s votes were in the minority and had no impact.
Moore was elected to the Town Council commencing January 1, 2023 and replaced Sayoc as the third leg in the three-legged voting stool which now consists of Ristow, Rennie and Moore. Don’t forget that all four of them had advocated upzoning the town by 800 acres, 10X more than we needed (approximately 80 acres) to meet our RHNA requirement plus a 15% buffer.
On January 30, 2023, the Town Council on a 4 to 1 vote adopted a draft of the Housing Element making a finding that the draft Housing Element substantially complied with State law. This legal finding totally ignored HCD’s 12-page letter received two weeks earlier on January 12, 2023 that clearly stated the draft did not comply with State Law and numerous revisions were required.
Which leads us to our first concern – namely Moore was more intent on adopting “any” Housing Element without taking the time nor possessing the knowledge to determine if the draft was truly compliant with State Law. We find it unexplainable as to how Moore could have reached the finding he did on January 30, 2023 when HCD, the state agency in charge of certification, had just issued a 12-page memo outlining in detail the areas of non-compliance. Moore has never explained his one and only vote on the Housing Element.
Not surprisingly the action taken by the Town Council greatly angered HCD given the blatant disregard for HCD’s legal findings. In a letter dated April 14, 2023 HCD blasted the Town stating the “findings do not provide content, reasoning, or response to HCD’s findings that the prior draft element does not substantially comply with State Housing Element Law”. HCD’s letter went on to state “the Town’s findings only appear to make an attempt at meeting statutory requirements” and “these findings do not address the full extent of statutory requirements and HCD’s prior findings.”
This leads us to our second concern – namely how does Moore know whether a draft Housing Element is “compliant”? During 2023 the Town submitted 5 draft Housing Elements to HCD for review. All 5 drafts were rejected. Given the numerous drafts filed by the Town which were all rejected by HCD, it is clear to us the Town did not possess the knowledge and judgment to determine whether the drafts did comply. This is confirmed by the fact that the Town fired the initial Housing Element consultants in July 2023 , after two years on the job and spending over $300,000 in consulting fees.
This cycle of resubmitting draft after draft to HCD only to have them consistently rejected was the root cause for the Town’s inability to obtain certification in the same time frame as Mountain View, Campbell, Los Altos Hills, and Milpitas. And because of this delay, Builder’s Remedy applications were filed.
Fourth Pinocchio
Some Councilmembers have not voted to send drafts of the Housing Element forward to the state when we have had the opportunity to, which has created significant delays and issues with obtaining certification.
This comment is simply false and worse is insulting to the residents of the Town. Once again, he is shifting the blame away from the people who had control. Let us unpack this for the reader.
First, as mentioned above, the Town Council was controlled by a voting block of three individuals – Moore, Ristow and Rennie. They were the majority. They had the ability to send a draft of a Housing Element to HCD for review anytime they wanted, regardless of what the minority members might want. In fact, during 2023 there were 5 drafts submitted to HCD – all of which were rejected. We know of no other local jurisdiction in Santa Clara County that submitted 5 draft Housing Elements to HCD during 2023. Not one.
Secondly, and this one is a real head scratcher, in August 2023, Council Member Hudes became so concerned about the lack of meaningful progress in developing a compliant Housing Element, he and Council Member Badame requested the Town Council discuss the status of the Housing Element process. Because of their request, Ristow, who was Mayor at the time, was required to agendize this topic.
At the August 16, 2023 Council meeting there was a very lively discussion regarding the Town Council’s lack of oversite and control over the drafting process of the Housing Element. Up to this point, the Town Council simply was not involved. The drafting and review process was controlled by Prevetti/Staff, Mayor Ristow and the HEAB – Housing Element Advisory Board.
This led to several motions made by Council Member Hudes in an attempt to force the Town Council to assume greater oversite and control. One of those motions was “to bring the final draft of the Housing Element for approval to the Council prior to submittal to HCD.” Vice Mayor Badame seconded this very reasonable motion.
Stunningly, the voting block of three (AKA The Developers Dream Team – DDT) – Moore, Ristow and Rennie opposed the motion and therefore shut out the Town Council in reviewing and approving drafts prior to being sent to HCD. The question we have for Moore is, if the Town Council is not involved in reviewing and approving a draft prior to submittal to HCD, how were some Council members not voting to send drafts “forward to the State when we have had the opportunity”?
Obviously, Moore’s description of what was happening during 2023 is simply false. 5 drafts were sent to HCD for review during 2023 and only the initial adopted Housing Element was reviewed by the Town Council prior to submission. None of the 4 subsequent drafts were presented to the Town Council for review prior to submitting them to HCD.
Fifth Pinocchio
The following was from the Oct post on his site. (https://www.robforlosgatos.com/housing) I have copied the pertinent wording from his site in case he takes it down to make corrections. You can read an excerpt below. It’s total BS
“Throughout this process, I made it my top priority to pass a compliant Housing Element as expeditiously as possible. I voted to send our draft Housing Element to the state for review every time I believed it was ready. Unfortunately, the Council was not united on this front. Some Councilmembers have not voted to send drafts of the Housing Element forward to the state when we have had the opportunity to, which has created significant delays and issues with obtaining certification. Ultimately, only 3 out of 5 Councilmembers (myself included) voted to approve the document and end the possibility of new Builder’s Remedy applications in Los Gatos.”
They sent the drafts to the HCD 5 more times and it was rejected each time. How do you do that if is was not intentional? Ristow told me many times that our Time Manager was very smart and highly respected by her peers………………………
In closing, our conclusion is Moore’s “informational update” is really a puff piece trying to confuse residents as to what happened during 2023 and to hide Moore’s abject failure as a Council Member in providing proper oversight and control over the timely drafting of the Town’s Housing Element. The damage that this has caused is real and unfortunately could have and should have been avoided.
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