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Mr. Jack W. Golden September 16, 2004 Page 4 of20 days after the City first submitted the proposed 2004 AEE for ALUC approval,6 legal counsel review had commenced. 19. On August 6, 2004, I received your letter, the subject of this correspondence. You sent an e-mail on August 12,2004 asking for our response to your August 6,2004 correspondence, even though you did not request one in your letter. I received your e-mail ! on Tuesday morning August 17, 2004 and am writing this letter in response to your request for the City's position. As you can clearly see the City has been diligently working and cooperating with ALUC staff to achieve consistency with the AELUP. Nature of a General Plan Before I address each of the issues you raise, your letter and conversations with ALUC staff suggest that there may be confusion over two issues. The first is the purpose of a general plan and second is what "project" is before ALUC. General plans are long-range policies, objectives, and principles for a City. General plans provide the policy while zoning provides the rules and standards. Therefore, general plans operate on the macro level, they do not cover each detail rather they focus on policies. So for example, listing a project timeline within a general plan would be inappropriate. Also, for clarification, the AEE is an integral component of the City's General Plan. The AEE is not a separate policy document. All of the elements, e.g. the Land Use Element, the Noise Element, and the AEE, together make up the City's General Plan. No one document is superior to the others; they are merely broken down into elements for ease of use and in general conformance to the limited obligation of Santa Ana, as a charter city, to comply with a portion of State Planning Law.7 See Government Code Section 65302. The second issue regarding what "project" is before ALUC is extremely concerning. This confusion was expressed during ALUC's special meeting in July, during our phone conversations with ALUC staff and now in your letter as well. ALUC's duty is to 6 At the ALUC meeting on August 19,2004, Ms. Golding indicated that the City was mistaken as to the time ALUC staff has had the City's submittal, and that it has only been one month. However, the AEE submitted on July 12,2004 was substantially identical to the May 13,2004 AEE, there were only five minor (5) changes. Moreover, each of these changes was made at the request of ALUC staff. Your letter <:{oes not address issues that were a result of these modifications, but rather contains issues that could have been raised on the May 13,2004 submittal. 71t is to be noted that Government Code section 65302.3, requiring a city's general plan to be consistent with the AELUP, is not one of the sections either specified internally or in Government Code section 65700 as applying to charter cities. Section 65700 states that absent such express application, the State Planning Law does not apply to charter cities. Other consistency requ.irements of State Planning Law have been held not to apply to charter cities. E.g., Verdugo Woodlands Homeowners Etc. Assn. v. City of Glendale (1986) 179 Cal. App. 3d 696. 75C-199