It appears Alameda County supervisors are attempting to undermine the will of the voters by changing Measure D, the 2000 initiative that requires any modification of the county’s urban growth boundary to go before the voters.

The county’s Community Development Agency is exploring a plan that would place the power to change the boundary in the hands of the Board of Supervisors. Any such initiative would first have to go on the ballot for the voters to approve.

This is, to put it bluntly, rich. Measure D was passed to take the power to manage urban growth boundaries out of the hands of the county because the county couldn’t be trusted to preserve the land from development. It’s the same reason why many of the residents of cities in the county, including Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton, enacted their own growth boundaries.

Measure D, the county’s urban growth boundary, is congruent with those of all three Tri-Valley cities, with only very minor exceptions.

If not for these boundaries, we would have development crawling up the hillsides and sprawling across the scenic vistas that make the Tri-Valley special. Ever since those boundaries have been enacted, there have been attempts to whittle away at them, to open up more land for development. Even if the parcel involved is relatively small, setting a precedent of breaking a growth boundary will only open the door for more development.

In July 2024, Dublin’s City Council placed Measure II on the ballot, which would take the power to modify the city’s urban limit line around the Crosby property out of the hands of the public. Measure II passed after a campaign that included misleading ballot language. In November, a superior court judge ruled in favor of community groups that filed suit to stop it, requiring the city to repeal the measure.

The city decided not to appeal the judge’s decision, but last month, the property’s owner did.

In Dublin, the council’s misleading measure was an attempt to get the public out of the way, so the city could develop the last open space between the city and Livermore. Voters were hoodwinked, but the court was not.

The County Council’s moves to change Measure D should be seen for what it is: an attempt to strip power away from the people and concentrate it in their own hands.

We don’t know which developers are quietly waiting in the wings for an opportunity to get their projects started without the public getting in the way. But if you think Dublin developing one parcel was bad, imagine what I-580 might look like if the county decided to allow commercial development all the way out to the county line. Imagine Sunol Valley filled with subdivisions, or the vineyards off North Livermore, the ridgelines of Doolan Canyon and Tassajara Valley, and every acre of open space from Altamont Pass to Palomares Canyon.

There is still space within city boundaries for people. The populations of Pleasanton and Livermore populations have been shrinking, not growing. And when an urban area is growing, up-zoning for more density has become a preferable option, because it can help foster walkable communities, more efficient mass transit, and consequently a smaller environmental impact than greenfield development with new housing tracts.Undermining Measure D would be a gift to developers in another way. The current fights we have right now over open space involve city governments wanting to annex property outside their boundaries for development. Without Measure D in place, developers wouldn’t need to go through the cities at all. With the local city roadblock removed, more projects can get approved more quickly.

Voters obviously shouldn’t support such a measure if it is placed on the ballot.

And the County supervisors should come clean about their intentions: who is backing this end-run around the will of the people, what projects are being considered, and where would they be located?

For 25 years, previous boards of supervisors have decided not to change Measure D. Why is there suddenly a need to do so?

Government should not exist to operate in secret, out of public review. The people have a right to know what the county intends.

Regardless, the supervisors should leave Measure D alone.