Santa Rosa Councilwoman Vas Dupre won't vote on Fountaingrove gay senior project

Santa Rosa City Councilwoman Marsha Vas Dupre has removed herself from future votes on the controversial Fountaingrove Lodge project in the wake of a complaint that she is biased against the proposed gay retirement complex.

Vas Dupre, who on Feb. 3 cast the only negative vote among the six council members deciding on the validity of the project?s environmental review, said late Monday that she decided that potential legal costs that could be borne by a city with budget problems were not worth the trouble.

?The city attorney tells me that they would have to go to outside legal sources to defend this, so I am not going to participate in votes on this project any longer,? Vas Dupre said. ?They (the developers) are trying to silence me with the threat of a lawsuit.?

The move to bar Vas Dupre from future decisions such as land use permits and project design came in a letter last week from attorney Clay Clement representing developer Bill Gallaher. Gallaher?s company, Oakmont Senior Living, proposes building a 150-unit development, along with a 36-unit assisted living center, that is designed to appeal to gays and lesbians over the age of 60.

The letter to City Attorney Caroline Fowler accused Vas Dupre of ?personal bias? against the development. The letter cites an e-mail she sent to at least two other council members, Gary Wysocky and Veronica Jacobi, that takes them to task for not raising environmental objections to the project EIR.

The letter quotes the e-mail from Dupre as saying: ?I?d hoped that you?d both stand w/me. I think that we?ve got to get our strategy better organized. We need help from the environmental community when the opposition has standing room only.?

Wysocky and Jacobi joined council members Jane Bender, John Sawyer and Ernest Olivares in voting that the 1,000-page environmental review had complied with conditions of the California Environmental Quality Act.

?We feel the merits of the project have been pre-judged by her,? Clement said, referring to Vas Dupre?s comments in her electronic messages.

Vas Dupre, however, denied she was attempting to rally opposition to the project as it moves through the planning commission and design review board.

?I make up my own mind, independently, and I assume everybody else is able to do the same,? Vas Dupre said. ?The travesty, in this case, is that a large corporation takes me out like this.?

Fowler confirmed Monday that her office was looking into the issues raised by the project developer and she said ?we are in the process of preparing a response to it, which will come in a day or two.?

Clement said he was not accusing Vas Dupre of skirting Brown Act regulations governing council decision making. However, he said he has asked the city attorney to order that all of Vas Dupre?s e-mails ?be preserved because we don?t know yet what course the council?s decisions on the project will take.?

During planning commission and council hearings on the environmental impact report, the project was opposed by the Fountaingrove Ranch neighborhood group. The group?s appeal to the council prompted the Feb.3 hearing.

Opponents said their opposition was not with the project?s appeal to gays, but with the planned density of the development. An affiliated company, Aegis Senior Living, constructed the Varenna luxury senior community, which has drawn criticism for its dominance of the steep hillside along Fountaingrove Parkway.

Vas Dupre said she now regrets having approved the size of Varenna and didn?t want to make the same mistake again. She said she is not opposed to Fountaingrove Lodge but would rather see a project ?that is smaller and more respectful of the beautiful, some might say sacred site.?

Other council members, however, said the environmental impact report contained enough detail for them to make a decision when the time comes.

In his letter, Clement said Vas Dupre?s explanation at the meeting for voting against the EIR did not conform to legal requirements, which he said by law must be limited to whether the document meets legal standards and has been properly reviewed.

He quoted her as saying: ?There are many cultures that believe their ancestors come back as a tree, or they come back as a grain of sand, they come back as a part of nature, and that you are walking with those all the time and respectful of that, and so I am going to cast my vote in support of the appeal.?

You can reach Staff Writer Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com.