Dueling measures — V and W — were individually placed on the ballot by both the City Council and an ad hoc group that calls itself the Open Space Vote Coalition backed by Oakland-based nonprofit Save the Bay.

Neither deserve support since they would change the city charter for a particular development, but whichever gets the most votes — even if neither gets a majority — will become law. The City Council placed Measure V on the ballot to target the Cargill salt pond redevelopment and will require a majority vote of the people for any proposal there. The Open Space Vote Coalition placed Measure W on the ballot with an eye toward protecting the Cargill salt ponds from any development with the hopes of eventually seeing it restored to wetlands but will require a two-thirds vote of the people for development in any park or open space in the entire city. Some 450 property owners are alarmed because they are on officially designated parkland or open space. The details are complicated and often confusing for many and neither deserve support. But one will pass and Measure V is the easiest to swallow.

Minnesota-based Cargill Salt Works and Arizona-based developer DMB are proposing to develop at least a portion of the 1,433-acre Cargill salt ponds into mixed uses including housing, retail and parkland while restoring a portion of the site into wetlands. Save the Bay would rather see none of it developed because of the possibility of restoring the entire portion to its previous state years before it was converted into a site for industrial salt production.

Cargill and DMB have conducted a series of their own public meetings to gauge the public’s interest in what they would like to see at the site. The property owner and the developer determined that they wanted to move forward with a 50/50 plan that would develop half the site and restore the other site to wetlands. There is no official proposal and the City Council has yet to conduct its own public planning process. In the meantime, the city is engaging in a revamp of its general plan which might change some zoning in the city. Included in that zoning may be the 450 parcels currently owned by private citizens that are officially deemed open space or park land. These are the people who are concerned about Save the Bay’s Measure W because of the possibility it could directly affect their property rights.

Save the Bay’s proposal — Measure W — would require a two-thirds vote of the people on any change to the city’s open space or parks. While the main intent of the measure is to ensure that the Cargill property remain undeveloped, it also uses broad strokes to protect other areas. The main issue with property owners is the fear that they would have to get a two-thirds vote of the people to make even basic improvements to their home. Save the Bay has a convincing counterargument in that there is precedent in other areas such as Napa County, Alameda County and the city of Petaluma where such measures were passed and residents were not affected. Save the Bay also contends that the two-thirds threshold is imperative since it takes a two-thirds vote to raise taxes to purchase open space and believes citizens should not be held responsible to place a referendum on the ballot to stop a development the City Council approves. Though there is precedent in other areas, any measure that takes control away from the locally-elected City Council and has even a small chance of taking away property rights should not be entertained. The intent of the measure is noble, but it takes too many steps toward taking away the rights of the City Council to make its own land-use decisions and creates the possibility that individual property owners may have their basic land-use rights stripped away.

Measure V was placed on the ballot because the City Council didn’t want to gamble that Measure W would pass on its own. There has been little campaigning in its favor but its narrow scope in asking for a majority resident vote, if a redevelopment plan for Cargill is approved, makes a little more sense than Measure W. Creating a two-thirds voter threshold may have been a good compromise and could have drawn the support of Save the Bay, but the council wanted to keep it a simple majority to keep the minority from deciding the city’s future.

Either way, both measures change the city’s charter for a specific development. This in itself is a dangerous precedent since other future developments may also require ballot-box planning and would dilute the power and control of the locally-elected City Council. The members of the City Council were elected to make land-use decisions for the city and its residents. It’s called indirect democracy and it seemingly has worked fairly well for the last  232 years in the United States. If the residents of Redwood City do not like the decisions of the City Council, it can either create a referendum like it did for the high-rise residential Marina Shores project or simply vote out the councilmembers they feel are not acting in their best interest. Considering every incumbent won in the last election, it seems the majority of Redwood City residents believe the council is responsive and responsible.

It’s too bad these measures are on the ballot, but they are. So hold your nose and vote yes on Measure V and no on Measure W.