Alexander sympathizes with the town's dilemma. The expansion of ag land that Eadie cited was news to Rick Bergman, deputy agricultural commissioner for the California Agricultural Commissioner's Office. Those farmers have gone bankrupt and it's no wonder. If you can show that prime farmland is growing, it shows there is not the crying need for farmland that those who oppose development say there is. He is concerned that Watsonville has never addressed why it is overcrowded.
All farm towns are overcrowded.
If you build more housing, it won't solve the overcrowding. What's interesting to me is the rents are very high in Watsonville, which allow people to overcrowd. They just say if houses are built, then people will magically be uncrowded. Watsonville activist Frank Bardacke has long been a proponent of alternative use for the airport land. But they still haven't finished the study and they'll get the annexation done before the study.