Bill Hocker | May 11, 2018

Mina Kim hosts a discussion on Measure C the Fri. May 11, 2018 issue of KQED Forum. Sierra Club's Chris Benz and winemaker Randy Dunn are in support Measure C, Planning Commissioner Jeri Hansen Gill and winemaker Stuart Smith in opposition.

Listen to the discussion

The main talking point from the no-on-C presenters, harped on here, is that decisions must be "fact-based" and "science-based". "Fact-based decisions" is a refrain often heard in the jousting at planning commission and BOS hearings. Both the industries and the government want decisions to be based on facts, not intuition. Who wouldn't?

The "facts" that industry and government officials tout are conclusions in reports made by technical experts that are interpretations of quantities of data analyzed through various processes.

There are two difficulties with this insistence on facts.

The first is that the way that data is collected and massaged can lead to different conclusions depending on which expert is making the interpretation. Often opponents to projects will hire their own experts that come to very different conclusions from those hired by the project developers. The issue is not that some experts are lying, but that data can be sliced and diced in different, but justifiable ways, to produce different conclusions.

The second is that the collection of data and its massaging into meaningful conclusions costs money. The cost of an Environmental Impact Report to analyze the data to asses the significance of a project's impact on the environment can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Herein lies the real problem with the call for "fact based" decision making. Developers and the wealthy, who stand to profit substantially (in revenue or self-worth) from the money invested in the approval of their projects can afford the cost of producing their facts, even deducting the cost from their taxes. The members of a community that will be impacted by a project lack that financial incentive and must deplete their bank accounts to produce their counterfacts.

The fact is that "fact-based" decision making is overwhelming biased toward those most able to pay for the uncovering, analysis and presentation of "facts". Which is why, in battles between development interests and community interests, businesspeople are never shy about promoting "fact-based" solutions.

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