Gary Patton

Gary Patton

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Gary Patton aka: Gary A. Patton is listed as Counsel to the law firm Wittwer & Parkin, LLP. Located at 147 South River Street, Suite 221, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 – Phone: (831) 429-4055 – Fax: (831) 429-4057.

Mr. Patton has served as both the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Planning and Conservation League (PCL), a statewide environmental group founded in 1965. In his role as General Counsel of the Planning and Conservation League, Mr. Patton has also helped coordinate a statewide consortium of environmental litigators.

Gary Patton assumed the title of General Counsel for PCL in February 2008. Patton previously served as the PCL Foundation and the League’s Executive Director for two years and prior to that was PCL’s General Counsel, from 1995 to 1998.

Garry Patton's contact information at the PCL is: 1107 9th Street, Suite 360, Sacramento, CA 95814 • Phone (916) 444-8726 • Fax (916) 448-1789 • (916) 313-4520 • gapatton@pcl.org

From 1995 to 2005, Mr. Patton served as the Executive Director of LandWatch Monterey County, a community based nonprofit organization that helps promote and inspire sound land use policies through grassroots community action. He has also taught an introductory course in environmental law at De Anza College, in Cupertino, California Gary is a speaker on environmental issues, and has made presentations at hundreds of environmental gatherings throughout California. He provides a “Land Use Report” each weekday during NPR’s “Morning Edition” on Central Coast radio station KUSP. He has published numerous articles on government and environmental protection.

Santa Cruz politics

Gary Patton, aka Gary A. Patton image for photo recognition

In 1974, Gary Patton aka: Gary A. Patton, a young lawyer hired by the Save Lighthouse Point Association to spearhead the legal side of the fight against development of the area-- and who impressed everyone involved with his legal skills and leadership ability -- won a seat on the county Board of Supervisors in the district that includes most of Santa Cruz and a few adjacent areas north of the city.

Patton was a former anti-war activist who had not spent much time on environmental issues until he was hired by the opponents of the hotel and convention center. A recent graduate of Stanford Law School (after doing his undergraduate work at the same university and a year of study at Union Theological Seminary in New York), he won handily in most precincts and by a margin of 1,815 to 17 on the campus: he got 99.2% of the student vote.

Patton's was never seriously challenged again, and activists were able to win permanent control of the county government in 1981. At that point Patton became the de facto leader of all "progressive forces" in the county for the next 13 years, when he made an unsuccessful run for the state assembly. He then retired from the county board and accepted a position in Monterey as the director of a land-watch organization that tried to protect open lands in a county dominated by its growth coalition.

Patton's impact was greatly enhanced when he hired one of the Lighthouse Field neighborhood activists, Andy Schiffrin, to be his key aide in county government. A participant in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, Schiffrin studied sociology at UCLA and planning at MIT, where he became part of the trend toward advocacy planning, and then worked for the Boston Model Cities program as a planner and director of housing development. From the late 1970s until his formal retirement from county government in 2006, he worked with Patton on issues of growth control, affordable housing, and the preservation of open space. In addition, he met regularly with progressive members of the city council to help coordinate the city and county's agenda on a wide range of issues. But it was only in 1981, when the progressives gained control of city government, that those meetings took on major significance. Schiffrin also served in appointed positions in city government concerning planning, housing, and water supply.

Patton served as an elected member of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors from 1975 to 1995, and is the author of Santa Cruz County’s successful growth management program, adopted as Measure “J” by the voters of Santa Cruz County in 1978. Many of the principles and methodologies of Measure “J” have since been adopted by other jurisdictions.

Opposition to High Speed Rail in California

November 7, 2010 Environmental lawyer and lobbyist Gary Patton addresses San Francisco Peninsula residents at a rally to urge for more community-sensitive plans to be drawn up for the path of high speed rail.

November 7 2010, Gray Patton spoke at a rally in opposition to the California High Speed Rail Project.

List of Positions Held

• Central Coast Regional Coastal Commission, 1975‑1978

• California State Air Resources Board, 1982

• Santa Cruz County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO)

• Santa Cruz County Transportation Commission

• Santa Cruz County Environmental Health Appeals Commission

• Santa Cruz County Hazardous Materials Appeals Commission

• Central California Counties Outer Continental Shelf Board of Control

• Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, Board of Directors

• Statewide Growth Management Consensus Project, Environmental Stakeholder

• California Association of LAFCOs, Board of Directors aka: California Association of

Local Agency Formation Commissions

• Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District

• Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG), Board of Directors

• California State Association of Counties, Board of Directors

• Local Government Commission; President, Board of Directors

• Californians Against Waste Foundation, Inc., President, Board of Directors

• Californians Against Waste, Inc.; Member, Board of Directors

• Communities For a Better Environment, Inc., Vice-President, Board of Directors

• Planning and Conservation League; President, Board of Directors

• California Futures Network; President, Board of Directors

• Monterey College of Law, Member, Board of Trustees

Remembering Hugh DeLacy

On September 6 1986 a memorial for Hugh DeLacy was held at the Louden Nelson Center, Santa Cruz, California.

Mardi Wormhoudt was the presenter, speakers included Margaret DeLacy, Jack Berman, Hon. Leon Panetta, John McTernan, Gary Patton, songs by Mike Rotkin, readings by Leon Papernow and Linda Bergholdt, a letter from Dorothy...by Greta Davis and songs by Steve Turner and Terry Turner.

Education

Mr. Patton graduated from Stanford University in 1966, with a Bachelor’s degree in United States History, and with Honors in Social Thought and Institutions. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Stanford Law School in 1969, and attended Union Theological Seminary, as a Rockefeller Brothers Fellow. He was admitted to the practice of law in California in 1971.

Publications

• "Land Use and Growth Management: The Transformation of Paradise," California's Threatened Environment, Island Press, 1993

• California Superfund: Key Issues For Reform, Planning and Conservation League Foundation, August 1998

• New Opportunities for Innovative Transportation Planning: How to Use Senate Bill 45 To Fund More Livable Communities, Local Government Commission, December 1998

• Land Use and the General Plan, LandWatch Monterey County, February 2003

• “AB 32,” California at the Crossroads: A Critical Reader in Public Policy, scheduled for publication by Heyday Press, 2009.

References

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