Greetings SOFAR Supporters and Happy New Year!

It's Our Anniversary!

This is a special time for all of us here at SOFAR, as 2002 marks the 10-year anniversary of our organization! Thanks to all of our loyal supporters, we are very proud to report a decade of many important land-use victories for San Diego residents. We expect our development-crazed County to have much work for us in the year to come. Of course, with your continued help we will continue our monitoring of GPA 96-03, GP 2020 and a flood of individual backcountry projects, and continue to follow efforts to reform regional planning and governance.

A Special Thank-You

SOFAR would like to announce that we are beginning 2002 with a bang! We received a $10,000 donation from an anonymous supporter. As you know, SOFAR relies on its members’ contributions to help sustain our efforts; things like hiring consultants to prepare professional comments on significant projects, legal representation in efforts like General Plan Amendment 96-03, and keeping up our public outreach efforts through our website (www.sofar.org) and mailings. Thanks again to this significant benefactor and all our supporters!

96-03 Update

The County of San Diego is circulating for public review a Draft Supplement to the Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Agricultural Issues General Plan Amendment And Implementing Rezone (GPA 96-03). The deadline for public comments is 4:00 pm on February 4, 2002. Please contact our office is you would like a copy of this Supplement or any additional information. We will keep you informed of any other breakthroughs or opportunities to comment.

An Invitation

Duncan will be on a panel at LEAD's 2002 Economic/Smart Growth Seminar on Thursday, January 17. The conference will be held at Intuit, 6220 Greenwich Drive, San Diego, and begins at 10:15 AM. We would like to encourage anyone interested in urban growth to attend this conference and hear the views of SOFAR.

SOFAR Needs An Intern!

Help contribute to the most successful activist group in San Diego—SOFAR needs help maintaining its project database. This is an on-going assignment that helps us to continue our role as watchdog of San Diego’s backcountry. We need an intern who is available every week to coordinate with Duncan on significant projects so we can keep our supporters and other interested persons up-to-date with the deluge of development happening in our area. Outside of the government planning departments, SOFAR is the only group maintaining such a list of significant projects online. This is an especially good opportunity for planning students or others interested in learning more about local planning. Call Duncan at 619-230-1963 if you are interested in helping us in this task.

SOFAR is a membership-based watchdog group committed to defending the San Diego backcountry against Urban Sprawl & working toward the adoption and implementation of a plan to preserve rural resources and revitalize our urban areas.