August 26, 2004

Cameron Reeves, Esq.

County Counsel

Court House 255 North Forbes Street

Lake Port, CA 95453

707.263.2225 fax

Re: Diamond Vineyard, Phase 2

Dear Mr. Reeves:

On July 18, 2004, my office received by certified mail a copy of a proposed subsequent mitigated negative declaration IS 04-67 for the Diamond Mine Vineyard, Phase 2. The preparation of a subsequent environmental document at this time is improper.

As of August 19, 2004, the County of Lake has not decided the appeal of the Concerned Citizens of Coon Flat and Jerusalem Grade Road’s (hereafter, "Citizens") appeal of the County’s approval of the Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Diamond Mine Vineyard, Phase 2 (IS 02-10). That appeal was filed subsequent to the filing of a Notice of Determination by the Community Development (CDD) Director and is an appeal of a discrete decision made by the CDD and which has significance to all future decisions in which the CDD is involved.

In addition, the CDD has prematurely filed a Notice of Intent to approve the subsequent mitigated negative declaration with the State Clearinghouse. A subsequent mitigated negative declaration cannot be prepared and circulated until such time as there is a certified mitigated negative declaration upon which to base the subsequent document (Pub. Res. Code sec. 21166). No such document has been previously certified at this time.

Because the County has begun a new process in the absence of a decision on Citizens’ original appeal, the County has denied Citizens the decision to which they are entitled, improperly truncated the appeal process, and has undermined all appearances of due process.

In addition, the County’s decision to prepare a subsequent mitigated negative declaration does not meet the requirements of the law in so far that 1) no substantial changes to the project are proposed; 2) substantial changes in circumstances have not occurred and thus do not require major revisions of the environmental document; 3) no new information, which was not known and could not have been known at the time the environmental document was certified as complete, has become available.

The highly irregular process that the County continues to craft and pursue effectively renders public participation unreasonably complicated, unfair, and unwieldy. The Courts do not favor such an approach to environmental review of projects, in any case, and especially in cases that pose potentially significant impacts to ground water, as does this project.

In conclusion, due to the numerous irregularities in the review process to date (as documented throughout the appeal process of IS 02-10 and hereby incorporated by reference), due to the remaining unmitigated impacts, and due to inadequate evaluation of impacts especially to ground water resources, my client urges the County to require the preparation of an environmental impact report as the only means available to cure the numerous inadequacies in the review of the Diamond Vineyard, Phase 2 project.

Sincerely,

KIMBERLY BURR

Attorney at Law

cc: Citizens of Coon Flat and Jerusalem Grade Road

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