2021. The time is 9.30 a.m. and today's hearing is completely remote. We are using a Zoom video conference meeting platform. For you at home who are viewing this hearing or who may wish to participate in this hearing, I wanted to take a moment to explain the technological pieces of the hearing. So to participate in the hearing you may connect with us via the Zoom video conference link which is posted on the planning department's home page at stcoplanning.com. The meeting link is also provided here on the slide. Alternatively, you may participate in today's meeting by phone. Please dial 1-669-900-6833. When prompted, enter collaboration code 880-2671-0346. If you wish to simply view today's meeting, it is being broadcast live on television. For more information, please visit the community television website. A couple of instructions now about participating in today's meeting. You will be muted by our support staff until you are called on to speak. Following each public hearing item, time will be provided for speakers to contribute their testimony. When the public hearing is opened, any member of the public may provide comment. To provide comment, I will ask participants who wish to provide testimony via Zoom on their computer to remotely raise their hand. This will indicate to us that you wish to comment. When we call on you to speak, you'll see a pop-up on your screen that says unmute. Please accept the pop-up, state your name for the record and provide your testimony. Members of the public will be provided three minutes to speak. For participants who wish to provide testimony via telephone, when the public hearing is open for the item you wish to provide testimony on, please remotely raise your hand by pressing star 9 on your telephone. I will call on callers by either your name or the last four digits of your phone number. When you are called on to speak, you must unmute yourself by pressing star 6 on your telephone. If at any time you have difficulty connecting to today's meeting via the Zoom link or by calling in via telephone, please email me at josselin which is j-o-c-e-l-y-n dot drake at santaacruzcounty.us. I will be checking my email periodically throughout the meeting and I'll be ready to assist you. Okay, and after those brief instructions, we'll go ahead and turn it over to the Planning Commission Chair. Good morning, Chair Leeson B. Good morning and welcome all to the April 14, 2021 virtual meeting of the Santa Cruz County Planning Commission. I will now call the meeting to order. It is 9.33. May we please have a roll call, Ms. Drake? Yes, Commissioner Dan? Here. Commissioner Gordon? Here. Commissioner Shepard? You may be muted. Commissioner Shepard? How's that? Here. Good morning. Commissioner Shaper Fretis? President. And Chair Leeson B. Here. Are there any additions or correction to today's agenda? No, no additions or corrections, Chair. Can I, Chair, can I make an addition to the agenda? Certainly. I'd like to have a time to discuss the proposed April 24 public hearing on ADUs. The April 28th? Or 28th, excuse me, yes. Okay, and when would you like that time? We have a place on the agenda for talking about the next meeting, so we could do it when we talk about the next meeting. That would be fine. Okay, just to remind me. Does any commissioner have any ex parte communications to declare? I do. Earlier in March, I received a call from Donald Rowland regarding the Fountain Horry application, and he discussed the letter that's now on the agenda to remove their application for amendment to their permit. Thank you. Anyone else? Commissioner Gordon? I've had calls from a couple people. Mr. Rowland on the quarry and a couple people on the North Polo lots. I've also spoken to the quarry when they let us know that they were drawing the application. I was playing with my microphone. I'm sorry. Is my microphone too loud or too soft? It sounds okay. Commissioner Schaefer-Fredes? Yes, and I also had a communication from the grant representative about the letter requesting it be removed. Thank you. This is the time on our agenda for oral communications. The commission will now hear brief statements, two minutes maximum, on any issues of concern that are not on today's agenda. Okay, so let me go to our list of attendees. And I do see one hand raised, so I will go ahead and unmute you please. It just says caller and user, so I don't know who the caller is. I'm going to go ahead and unmute you caller, please unmute yourself by pressing star six on your telephone and state your name for the record. Good morning. Hi, this is Marilyn Guerra. You've been looking at rolling out 5G and countless 5G deadly consequences are documented. Dr. Thomas Cowan describes some of what is poisoning us from 5G. We're hearing a lot of sick people who are hypoxic and have what's called hyper inflammatory states. Now, how do they get hypoxic? It has nothing to do with any virus. Viruses don't make you hypoxic, but we do know from clear scientific research, going back to the 70s, the Naval Intelligence Research Institute did this. The Soviets did this. There were recent papers on it that if you expose a place to millimeter waves, otherwise known as 5G, three things will happen. One, you'll degrade the oxygen in the atmosphere. So you're essentially like this one the ER doctor said, it's like these people are walking up the Himalayas, I think his name was Kyle Seidel. He said they're in a low oxygen environment. But yes, they're in New York City or Wuhan or on a cruise ship that has just had 5G installed. I'm reading an excerpt of Dr. Thomas Cowan from the transcript of vaccine revealed the COVID edition, truth lies and misconceptions. So the question for you when you vote for 5G, are you mandating this type of radiation toxicity harm and from the other information you have been provided over the years? Thank you, Marilyn. You're at two minutes. Okay, bye. Bye. Thank you. Okay, and I'll go back to the list of callers. Are there any additional callers who wish to speak during this general comment period on an item that is not on the agenda topic that is not on the agenda? If so, please raise your hand by pressing star nine on your telephone or pressing the hand symbol on your zoom. Okay. I'm not seeing any chair. So it looks like we are moving on. Okay, thank you. And now we will go to item five on the agenda, which is the approval of minutes from March 24, 2021 meeting of the Planning Commission. Bear all move approval. That was Commissioner Dan. Yes. Is there a second? Yeah, I'll second it. Thank you, Commissioner Gordon. Any discussion? I do have a question on... Oh, yes. That's okay. Thank you. This is probably just me being a little new to this, but we had a fair amount of discussion around the ADUs and alterations. And does that get captured at this point or does that come back to us later at the next time that we see it? Well, for the minutes, it would be if anyone had advanced a motion, then that would be the thing that would probably be captured or hopefully be captured in minutes. Yeah, Tim, maybe you're used to seeing the city's minutes, which are done a little bit differently than how we do them at the county. And the city captured a lot more in the minutes. The county, we just capture the motion. So, but it's important because if there is particular things that you would like reflected in the minutes, then that's something to put into the motion. Understood. Okay. Thank you so much. Any other discussion? Then all those in favor, please say I. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Chair, can I make a reference that looks like there are some people who are not muted. And if the administrator could just mute all or ask the callers to mute themselves so that there's no interruptions. Okay. Ms. Drake, can you? It looks like the call in, it looks like the person muted themselves. So, just to remind you, thank you. Okay. Oh, okay. And now we'll move on to item number six, which is the application from the Felton Corey is Mr. Carlson. Yes. This is David Carlson's item, item number six. And David, you have been promoted to a panelist. Okay. Thank you. So the item before the commission today is a permit review of the Felton Corey operated by Granite Construction Company. Because they've withdrawn the application to amend their permit, the action before your commission today is just the permit review and the staff recommendation is to accept a file that permit review based on the staff report that concluded that they are in compliance with their existing conditions of approval and staff is not recommending any new or modified conditions. Since the application for the amendment was withdrawn, I have received no additional correspondence on this item, except for the two letters that were received this morning via email. And I trust those were forwarded to commissioners. I did provide the commission with a PowerPoint presentation on the existing Corey operation in January. And I'm prepared to review that again with commissioners if you're interested. So at this point, I guess I would like to pull the commission as to whether they would like me to proceed with a PowerPoint presentation, just reviewing the existing Corey operations. There, I just like to weigh in that I don't think that that's necessary. We were all present at the January meeting, unless other commissioners feel strongly. I would like to proceed. Thank you, Commissioner Dan. Anyone else want to comment? I would just like to say that I'm ready to proceed as well. And the other commissioners? Reed. Yes, I agree too. Okay. And I'm I'm also in that in that camp. So we can well, we can go ahead with the public hearing. Isn't when this the one that asked for a public hearing? It does require that the permit a permit review normally does require a public hearing before the planning commission. Yes. Okay. Okay, I will go ahead and open the public hearing unless there are any questions from the other commissioners. Okay, this is the opportunity for any member of the public who wants to comment on this item to speak. And you will have three minutes. Thanks, Chair. All right, I am seeing a caller by the name of Catherine Woods. Good morning, Catherine. Will you please state your name for the record in case I mistook your name? Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Good morning. Great. Yeah, you spoke my name. That's right. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to speak. I am speaking on behalf of the residents it along the truck route. And there is a letter. Oh, shoot. Now this has gone on the screen and I can't read my letter.  Let's see if I can get rid of the clock. Okay, here we go. Shucks, I pulled up the wrong letter here. Bear with me. If there's another speaker, perhaps we should go to them and then come back to me. Chair, I think we should reset the clock here. Yeah. Okay. I really appreciate that. I am just having a... Noel, can you reset the timer? Thank you. I'm so sorry. I thought I had that letter pulled up. Ms. Drake, do you see any other hands that are raised? I'm sorry. I am not seeing any additional hands that are raised. I will remind callers who are on the line if you wish to speak on this item, which is the granite rock quarry, please, or the Felton quarry. Sorry, please. Raise your hand by pressing star nine and I am seeing another caller. And I am prepared now. Okay. Okay. Then we'll go ahead and go back to Catherine and... Okay. Great. So this letter was actually written by... Excuse me. Yes. Okay. So the letter I'm reading was written by Addison. Okay. Yosak. Yosak on behalf of the residents that live around the Felton quarry and along the truck route. Okay. I have a zoom meeting at nine. So how about 1030? Renee, you need to mute yourself. Renee. Okay, Ms. Woods, would you continue, please? Okay. Thank you. So the concern is just a little bit about whether the quarry is in compliance with its current permit conditions, mostly regarding the new permit with the CZU fire cleanup. So dear planning commissioners, I am relieved that the Felton quarry is withdrawn its application to amend the current permit to include a total of 100 nights of off-hour operations per year. While our community is grateful for the outcome, we are still concerned regarding the operations at the Felton quarry as they stand today, as the current grounds of approval were based on a negative declaration. I am concerned with the data quality and rationale that was used in the negative declaration to grant the Felton quarry off-hours operations under Mining Approval 74-0633 as amended. Mining Approval 74-0633 for the Felton quarry was amended in 1999 to include 20 additional off-hours operations with an additional 20 off-hour operations with county approval. This permit amendment was approved under a negative declaration with mitigation measures. There are several environmental impacts that warrant an environmental impact report to ensure the health and safety of the surrounding community when expanding a mining operation. Among the many environmental impacts, the primary concerns are air quality impact to sensitive receptors, greenhouse gas emissions and noise. Other factors to consider are traffic, road damage from heavy trucking loads, and risks of accidents and injuries to pedestrians and bicyclists who share the roadway. Considering there was no environmental impact report conducted in the Mining Permit Amendment in 1999, it is only reasonable that the planning commission take a closer look at the environmental impacts of the Felton quarry as it stands today. Additionally, the Felton quarry has received a three-year permit with a three-year option to extend to process and recycle concrete and asphalt of burnt properties due to the CCU Lightning Complex fire. Under the existing mining permit, all shipping activities shall normally occur Monday through Friday between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. The temporary fire recovery permit includes trucking on Saturday, which is considered an off-hour operation under Mining Approval 74-0633 as amended. In addition, a rock crusher was brought into the Felton quarry for the fire recovery temporary permit. Due to the fire recovery permit, including Saturday as a trucking day, as well as operating an additional rock crusher at the quarry site, there is no debate that the Felton quarry has an increase in capacity. I'm almost done. Super fast, like two more sentences. Is that okay? Okay, go ahead quickly. This increase in capacity of the Felton quarry has not been factored into the overall impacts and risks of quarry operations. As the Planning Commission was not involved, no public input was gathered and no environmental review was conducted. So that, I think, is the bulk of the letter. We do have an attorney letter, which I want to make sure you've received. Have you all received that yet? From Whittower Park in LLP? I have not. William P. Parkin. Yes, it was sent to us this morning. I'm chair.  So just, I just want to make sure that that's known. I accept that. Thank you. Okay, thank you for your time. Thank you. All right, I will go back to the list of callers and I see a caller by the name of Tanya Harmony Rodino. Good morning. I will unmute you and please state your name for the record. Please unmute yourself, Tanya, by pressing star six on your telephone. Good morning. Good morning. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, great. Yes, the strange zoom, there's no option to mute until you give me the option. In any event, thank you for taking time to review this issue and to hear me this morning. I just really wanted to say thank you for everybody taking this important issue really into consideration and continuing the matter in order to receive further information. Particularly our Commissioner Dan was really, really wonderful with respect to just hearing our concerns. I particularly am a resident right on Empire grade and I have a six-year-old son who used to attend the Waldorf School and I used to walk him to school and I don't feel safe doing that anymore and I just wanted everybody to just be really aware of that. I still feel that way even though the quarry has withdrawn their current permit amendment. I am concerned for what the future still might look like personally in reviewing the letter that they wrote when they withdrew the application. I personally felt like they were setting themselves up for a future return and they were trying to say that they had done this because they listened so carefully to all the residents and I personally still don't feel that is true. We had not still received adequate notice of that public meeting. You know, they gave us one week and one date in order to attend that single public meeting. I wasn't able to attend because it was during my work hours and I just don't think they've done a very unfortunately a very good job of keeping everybody noticed about what is honestly going on up there. I'm also concerned about the the additional permits that have been given without public consideration. I know some of it of course was fire related and it's very important and I know I'm trying to take all those different things into perspective but there's just been a lot of increased activity and it is very very intense.  There's a lot of people that are really impacted by the noise. So again, I just wanted to say thank you and I will hopefully keep my ear on this issue and I hope that everybody else does as well and thanks for all the hard work you guys are doing. Odie, do you want to say anything to the commissioners? Okay, thank you guys. I appreciate your time. Thank you Ms. Harding. Any other callers? Yes, I am seeing another caller and it looks like I'm going to guess this is Marilyn Garrett but please correct me if I'm incorrect there. Good morning again. Please unmute yourself. Good morning. Thank you. This is Marilyn Garrett. I support the statements of the two previous people and I hope the commissioners dealt into the problems that were expressed and I often see negative declarations to California Environmental Quality Act that it doesn't apply according to the planners. I have seen this repeatedly when obviously there are major environmental damages that are taking place and or will take place in the future. So my feeling is if something's toxic, harming the people and the environment and there isn't proof of safety, the activity should not take place. However, we live in a capitalist society where there's profit that is prioritized over the well-being of the environment and the people and the creatures who live in it. I'd also like to thank Chair Ladsenby for her discretion and listening to the public and I always appreciate the way you have a critical analysis and I just want to put that out there and I'm glad you're back. I remember one meeting you didn't feel so well so those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you Marilyn. Okay I'll go back to the list of callers chair. I just wanted to remind everyone if you'd like to speak on this item please press star nine on your telephone or raise your hand. I'm not seeing any additional callers chair so I'll bring it back to you. Okay thank you. So at this time I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the commissioners for any further comments. I guess I'll go first. This is the quarry is in Commissioner Shepard's district and the truck proposed truck route mostly went through my district so if it's okay with Commissioner Shepard I'll go first. I just will be very brief. I want to thank Granite for withdrawing their amendment to their permit application. I think that you listen to the public and listen to us and I'm very appreciative of that. I also just want to acknowledge Granite has been a part of this community for many many many years providing good jobs and local materials for necessary projects and those materials are going to be needed for those rebuilding after the CZU fire and so I'm very appreciative of the fact that we have a local company that can provide that can source local materials rather than those materials coming from far away. I am after I hear from other commissioners I'm prepared to make a motion if that's acceptable. That's all I have to say thank you. Thank you. Madam chair. Yes yeah I agree with everything Rachel said and I would support a motion to move this along. Thank you Commissioner Shepard. Anyone else I too would support the motion and I will turn this back over to Commissioner Dan. I'm okay. I will just move the staff recommendation. Second. Any discussion. Any discussion. Sorry Judy. That's okay. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition. Thank you and thank you Mr. Carlson. Thank you David. Thank you commissioners. Okay so we will move on to item number seven on the agenda which is the determination related to general plan consistency of potential disposition of the eastern right away of north Polo Drive. Okay and commissioners we have Lazan Jess with the planning department presenting on this item. Good morning Lazan you have been promoted to panelists so you should be able to speak. Lazan I think you need to unmute. Okay I believe I'm on mute now. Yes good morning. Good morning everybody. So the item that's coming to you today is a determination related to the general plan consistency of a proposed summary vacation and disposition of the eastern end of the right away for north Polo Drive. That's the end of the road where it is currently unimproved. It is not a discussion of any other projects such as that might have referred to that land it's just the general plan determination and before I start I wanted to correct an omission that's in the staff report in the last two lines of the third paragraph on page two it reads this application for a summary vacation does address any private rights that may exist and the sentence needs to be revised to add the word not between does and address so that the sentence will read this application for a summary vacation does not address any private rights that may exist only the public rights and interests. So do we have a PowerPoint presentation? Yes. So the Polo Grounds neighborhood community and regional park is located just north of Highway 1 in Aptos. Primary access to the park is via Polo Drive which runs north northeast through the intersection of Rio del Mar Boulevard and Soquel Drive. It starts just north of the intersection with Rio del Mar Boulevard and Highway 1. At the point where Polo Drive meets the Polo Grounds park it splits to become North Polo Drive which runs along the northwestern edge of the park and South Polo Drive which runs along the northeastern edge and then there's also a secondary entrance from Huntington Drive at the northeast end of the park. If we could have the next slide please. You'll see the two sections North and South Polo Drive there illustrated and the section of oops you've gone back. Can we go back to the next slide? The section that is being discussed is that section where the big red arrow is pointing to it which runs beyond the end of the currently maintained portion of North Polo Drive to the end of the right of way. So on March 6th 2020 an application was received for a summary vacation requesting the disposition of the county's rights over the eastern end of the right of way of North Polo Drive. This was referred to the Real Property Division of the Public Works Department for Processing and the application has been made to resolve unanswered questions regarding the county's public rights to this portion of the right of way that came to light during a separate application for a development permit application 181078. Just briefly application 181078 was for a lot line adjustment residential development permit and riparian exception and variances to develop the parcels that front onto that unapproved section of the right of way and the proposed structures with that development application were located almost entirely within the northern half of the right of way for North Polo Drive. So this portion of the right way that is now subject to a summary vacation which is a separate application is approximately 450 feet in length is currently unimproved and it's not maintained as a county road although it is being maintained by the parks department as part of the park. So on March 1st of 2021 in support of the application for a summary vacation of that right of way the Department of Public Works sent a memo to the planning director requesting a determination as to whether the disposition of the property would conform with the county general plan pursuant to government code 65402. The planning director has then referred this matter to your commission to act as the planning agency for the purposes of making a general plan consistency determination. After reviewing this request staff believes that the summary vacation and disposition of the right of way would not be consistent with Santa Cruz County general plan specifically this is because the proposed disposition of the property is inconsistent with objective 3.14 which is recreational access and policy 3.14.2 priority to recreational improvements as well as the general plan objective 7.1a parks and recreation opportunities and policy 7.1.5 access to recreation facilities and those are all set out in exhibit E of my staff report but to summarize the key factors include that the master development there was a master development permit in 910749 which implemented a 1989 site development master plan for the Polo Grounds neighborhood and community regional park in Aftos and an associated EIR that was certified in 1994 and this permit required as a condition of approval that the right away for North Polo Drive including the portion where it extends beyond the existing county maintain road be improved as an access road with two 12 foot wide paved travel lanes and one six to eight foot wide parking lane which would be located on the park side of the street. The request to disposition of this portion of the right away for North Polo Drive would render it infeasible to develop the roadway as proposed and parking which these are required to facilitate the development of new facilities in the park that was set out in the master plan therefore it would remove the public's right of access within the right away and reduce the potential range of recreational access and facilities that would be available for public enjoyment of the public of the Polo Grounds county park. For this reason staff recommends that the planning commission adopt a resolution finding that the requested summary vacation and disposition at the eastern end of the right away for North Polo Drive where it runs adjacent to and through APNs 041, 191, 50, 46, 51, 49 and the final parcel at the end is inconsistent with the Santa Cruz County general plan and recommend remanding that the board confirm this determination and then move on to deny the proposed summary vacation and that you forward this resolution for consideration to the board of supervisors in considering its action on the requested summary vacation of a portion of North Polo Drive. That concludes my presentation and if you have any questions I'm here to answer them. Thank you. Thank you for that Ms. Jeffs. Are there questions from the commissioners? Yes I need a little bit more background so to get to vacate the county's rights would enable construction of new homes there I guess that's the issue. What I don't quite understand is why having a county road and the perimeter of their lot is a problem I'm just you just like fill me in I couldn't quite get from the staff report okay the underlying issue here. So the the previous application which is not what we're discussing here today was to construct homes and they would have been located in actually in the 40-foot right away. The applicant had a quiet title action which gave them the rights to the underlying land to that of the right away but the quiet title action did not extinguish either the public rights or the private rights to that right away. Therefore staff had moved to deny the application for development because because the homes were in the right away the hearing at the hearing it was continued to allow the applicant time to address the public and private rights to that right away. This action is an action just to address the public rights it does not address the private rights that we may have or the the public financing agency who owns the Polo Grounds Park might have or that any other residents along North Polo Drive may have to that section of right away. So we're just looking at the county's public rights to take up the offer of dedication that exists for that right away so that we can develop that road in the future as part of the Polo Grounds County Park. Well I've never seen this kind of thing before but it sounds like it's quite complicated from a legal point of view and we are you're asking us to just continue that progress of that determination by this action then. Yeah so this is a determination of whether or not disposition of that right away is consistent with the county's general plan. Okay maybe that's all I need to know at this point. We're not we're not looking at the appropriateness of houses or anything else that's not part of this application. I see. Any other questions? I have some questions. Yes Mr. Boyd. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation as well this is a complicated one but looking at it's just the general plan and how it meets the general plan. I just want to understand like I clearly see ways that it might not based on the presentation given and the application. Is there any like you know general plan talks a lot about housing? Is there conflicting information in the general plan that we need to be aware of before we can make a determination? There are policies in the general plan that encourage housing. We're not saying that they could not develop a house on the portion of the right of the parcel that is located outside of the right away. There would be a lot there would be restricted land but the parcels are actually fairly sizable and so we're only looking at the section of the right away of the parcels that is in the right away and whether it's appropriate to let them build homes in that right away or actually we're not looking at the homes for this application we're just looking at the general plan so it does not preclude the development of homes on the parcels. That's okay thank you very much that clears a lot up I appreciate it. That was my only question for now I might have more later. Okay okay the planning director also would like to make a comment? Yes go ahead. Kathy go ahead and unmute yourself. I had my hand up but then I took it down but I'll go ahead and say something. I just wanted to note that you know we are required under state law to have a general plan that's internally consistent and so we that you know that's specifically for so so the substance of you know the the parks element and the north the polo site the master plan that's been adopted you know provides a greater level of specificity and direction in terms of our general plan than you know broad statements about needing housing and and you know in general you know we're really not allowed to have conflicts in our policies in the general plan and that was all I was going to add to the conversation. Thank you and I have a question I received a great deal of information yesterday afternoon from the rain and rain attorneys planning that this is actually a private right and not a public right. I mean they were challenging the fact I think that the county has the right to restrict this this going ahead with this with this application if there were going to be houses built as you know they had suggested. Chair this is assistant county counsel Dana says what your comment was cut off my internet connection was not great there but I just want to reiterate what we're addressing here I mean I think there are some the applicant may have some legal questions that this is not the appropriate venue to discuss those questions um if we do see an appeal from any decision that this commission might make today and if this appeal goes to the board then you know I think the legal issue surrounding these questions of whether or not there's a private right versus a public right the board of supervisors is the appropriate body to hear those questions so all we're asking here today and I want to make it abundantly clear this is a application for a proposal to abandon an easement a public easement that's what we're that's what's in front of us and the planning commission is being asked to determine whether or not that application to abandon this easement is consistent with the general plan that is that is it we're not looking at whether or not there we're not looking to address any legal arguments and I'll be I'll let you know that we are happy the county council's office is happy to address those when the time comes but this is not the proper venue to do so chair can I ask a clarifying question here I thought our recommended action was recommending to the board of supervisors to confirm that our determination so this is going to the board no matter what I thought I heard council suggest that it would only go to the board if there was an appeal you're you're right sorry I misspoke that that is correct however if yeah if you did not agree with that recommendation or if there were some other action taken today other than that then then I think but yeah I'm sorry that I I misspoke there you're right okay are there is there anyone online that wanted to weigh in on this it's this is not asking for a public public hearing but can you tell me if there's anyone online that wants to speak to this yes we do have we do have representatives of the project on the line and it looks like we may have a public comment or two okay would you go ahead and entertain those sure so I'll go ahead and start with um we've got uh we've got cove britain and we have Anna and Dima Benedetto here on the line maybe I will start with um with cove britain um good morning cove go ahead and there you go go ahead and unmute yourself cove please press star six there you go I was starting with Anna my apology okay sorry I wasn't sure okay yeah I understood I'll start with Anna then Anna D Benedetto good morning hi good morning can you hear me yes yes thank you very much uh for the time I wanted to ask the commission first of all uh if uh if you received the letter that we had sent uh to yesterday as well it was emailed to mr lamb I have not received that I received that I did we had provided I had submitted a cover letter uh purposely short but then attached to it are roughly 200 page um summary vacation application I was the author of that application and submitted that on behalf of these project donors um I do want to clarify that that was not submitted on March 6 2020 it was submitted back in on June 11th 2019 um we put a lot of thought and effort into it it's very comprehensive I've included um attorney terry rein's report in my June 11 2019 application as well as information provided by a local land use consent consultant so that we could exhaustively evaluate whether or not this section of north polo drive is actually a private right of way or a public right of way and well um the planning department uh and certain staff are telling us that for purposes of today we're just talking about consistency with the general plan uh in the recommendation to the uh to the board uh it is you know the the planning commission is being asked to recommend denial of the vacation request to the board of supervisors and I think in in that regard and also in order to determine consistency with the general plan I think a determination really does need to be made as to whether or not the road area that we're discussing is public or private um I think that that determination is important for legal reasons and practical reasons because legally to date we stand by the research that we've done which has led me attorney terry rein and numerous others involved with this to conclude that this is a private road um and I think the county needs to know that going forth with with respect to the plan for the park practically speaking um I think it's important uh to know as well because like I said at the end of this two page letter that I sent yesterday you know this is a 40 foot right of way the paved area um on the improved section of north polo drive is only about 20 feet I mean there there is room to you know for this situation to result in a win win for these applicant homeowners to build as well as the park you know to meet its needs with respect to future use for the road so I guess some in substance I don't know how the planning commission can make recommendations to the board without these legal issues that have been pending for almost two years being addressed so that's all I have to say for right now and thank you very much thank you any other colors how about mr britton yep we'll go back to co britain good morning again go ahead and unmute yourself am I here now yep okay thank you um I wanted to double check and make sure it sounds like the planning commission did receive my email and terry range documentation which had been submitted prior to the county um years ago as a matter of fact and as my understanding today the planning commission is trying to determine whether this is consistent or inconsistent with the general plan but county staff planning staff has made the determination that this is a public easement and therefore is not consistent with the general plan which is fundamentally incorrect it's private it's a private right away it's well documented that it's a private right away it went to court determining that it's a private right away we have certificate it's a compliance that determines a private right away so that is a big assumption to bring to this planning commission that it's public it is not it absolutely is not so I don't know how the planning commission can recommend or deny or I not deny but recommend something with out having a basic factual issue in play so I really suggest that county council respectfully disagree do analyze the legality of whether this is private or public because otherwise I don't see how this planning commission could make any kind of determination sounds like it best you could just pass it along to the board thank you thank you okay and I am seeing um a couple of additional hands raised um looks like we have a I'm just seeing a calling user this could be Marilyn I'm not sure I'm going to go ahead and unmute you caller um I don't see your name so please unmute yourself um and state your name for the record hello this is Marilyn Garrett and I want to thank ladies and gents for her um the staff report and um the attorney of course there for the applicant say it's private and um and the report states this is the public right of way and that the public's right of wave would be removed if this goes through I looking at um kind of the context um what we see in this county and historically is that the public right of way often has private interest that dominated like one of the things is all these cell towers in the public right of way for private interests that are radiating and decreasing property values of the the public now the polo ground is one of the public parks and we are seeing especially in this last year what belongs to the public the parks the library is county buildings being closed and I'm very much um an advocate for what should be in the commons what belongs to us the people and we're seeing encroachments all the time now I don't know if there's uh as the attorney says a legal issue here that is private or public I would think liaison gifs has sounded like this is very well researched um and I'm very much in favor of keeping access for the public the public should take priority there's encroachment over and over again so that what belongs to us the people is getting um you know restricted closed down um anyway those those are my comments thank you thank you all right and I am seeing another caller by the name of Danny Burns um please state your name for the record in case I stated that incorrectly good morning good morning I'm speaking for the family that's trying to build some homes there and what I would like to say is that it seems to me that the the planning staff is being heavy handed and they're trying to keep us from building there because of uh and using the excuse of the park the park will not be restricted from their public access but as far as the private access that that would be between us and the parks and if we're not going to be compensated for our property then it's what they're trying to do is perform imminent domain without compensation to the owner of the property if it's so important to the county that they keep this then they can buy the lots uh we want to work with the county as much as we can but anytime we talk to them that's more money or no uh they're being heavy handed in my opinion and so I just want to get my two cents in on this as to what we're experiencing here rather than build houses for the public they want to restrict that to such an extent that they're being arbitrary and unreasonable in their direction towards us thank you for allowing me to speak thank you mr Burns I'm going back to the callers um I just wanted to remind people on the line if you wish to speak please press star nine now on your telephone or raise your hand on the app and I'm not seeing additional hands raised chair okay so we can bring this back to the commission any commissioner want to address this issue well I'll I'll start off um I'm I agree that with the previous commissioners comments that this is a very complicated issue um that is I believe the details of it um are beyond the purview of the commission in some way in that it's it's a determination of things that have happened in the past and going back through the records of that and really a legal determination um and um I'm asking county council if he feels comfortable as our representative legally uh with the information in the staff report I note that he did sign it and approved it and I just would like to have that confirmation during this meeting counselor would you like to respond sure thank you um and thank you for the question so yes I think that I'm glad that my message was heard clearly that these legal issues are better served before the board supervisors not before the planning commission um and I think it's also worth stating again this is not a county application to vacate a public easement this was an application by the applicants for summary vacation so the planning commission needs to assume the facts presented that this is a proposed summary vacation um so an application to abandon a public right of way um and I understand that it's confusing now that we have the applicant arguing that there is no public right of way so what is this application for um basically what the planning commission is being asked is whether or not the proposed summary vacation of this public right of way is consistent with the general plan and that's a period and I've stated that before very clearly um I think it's worth noting that if the planning commission doesn't feel comfortable recommending to the board of supervisors to deny the proposed summary vacation that's certainly within um the realm of what the planning commission can decide to do today but really the key issue here is determining the consistency with the general plan so that can go to the board of supervisors happy to answer any other questions but I hope hopefully that was clear yes thank you I do appreciate your clarification of that and in regards to the issue before us then which is the consistency of the summary vacation with the general plan um I am uh persuaded by the staff report arguments that uh this would not be consistent and especially what is important to me is there is also indication in the staff report that the public works department and parks department both appear to support this position also so um I as representative of this area this district I would be in favor of staff's recommendation on this proposal and that would be to deny the application for vacation or denying the um vacation of this right right any other commissioner well first I wanted to ask uh commissioner shaper freitas if that was a motion or she was just making statements uh I'm just I was just making a statement I was waiting to see if other commissioners wanted to chime in um well I will agree with others when they say this is a complicated issue and commissioner shepherd noted that this was something she hadn't seen before and she's been on the commission 10 years longer than I have and I've been on the commission 15 years I think when we are told to only look at the question of whether the summary vacation is consistent with the general plan I think it's clear as it's laid out that it is not consistent however I think that it is there is this other larger question out there and I want to acknowledge miss benedetto in her comments that it is difficult to compartmentalize the two issues to make a choice on this knowing you know we're thinking human beings I understand for being asked to stay in our narrow lane here um but knowing there are these other larger issues out there it's a difficult determination to make but I will stay in the lane and then staying in that lane solely interpreting whether this summary vacation is consistent with the general plan I would agree with commissioner shaper freight us that it is that it is not and I'll just leave it at that any other commissioner uh I'd support I'd support the motion as presented I mean if there's not a motion yet but if we're going to have a motion to accept the staff recommendation I'd support it it sounds like we're in a very small legal box here and we need to uh check it okay thank you commissioner shepherd uh commissioner gordon you had your hand yes thank you yeah I agree I mean it's very complicated probably um you know we need to be careful on these things and so I would I would agree with of the other commissioners that we you know staying in our lane here is important and I just would want to know if we if commissioner shaper freight us would would consider we should add something along the lines of the fact that we are unclear you know as to the legal determination and that we can't make a judgment um and as I'm saying that I'm kind of thinking through what you know the council said that you know we're we're following what the staff report says assuming that the staff report is correct and we're in center lane I would agree that this is you know the correct way to go um just talking through whether or not we should add a little bit more to the motion that it's you know maybe outside of our current knowledge some you know I think you understand what I'm getting at so well when you yeah you can go ahead I was just going to say I think what commissioner Gordon maybe you're you're getting out is just um making a statement that we're not making any comment on any other issue except for the general plan issue is that what you were saying exactly if you put it much better than I did thank you okay is there someone that would like to put a motion on the on the record yes I would like to put a motion on the record um and uh before I make the motion I want to comment on commissioner Gordon's comment um I would prefer not to have that kind of language in the motion uh it should be reflected if somebody wanted to come back and listen to the tapes of our meeting and our discussion then it's acknowledged during our discussion but I think we have to be very black and white um in terms of our our motion on this issue so I'm going to make a motion that we at the planning commission finds that the proposed summary vacation and disposition of the county's rights and interests to the eastern end of the right avoid for the north polo drive would not be consistent with the general plan in that it would remove the public's right of access within the right of way and would therefore reduce the potential range of recreational access and facilities that would be available for public enjoyment at the polo grounds county park and also that the planning commission recommends that the board of supervisors consider and confirm this determination when it takes action on the proposed summary vacation request and the planning commission recommends the board of supervisors deny the request thank you any uh is there a second to the motion I'll second okay commissioner shepherd any discussion then um let's take a roll call vote on this one if we could please miss drake sure commissioner dan yeah commissioner gordon yes commissioner shepherd yes commissioner shaper frittis yes and chair louis imbe yes okay motion passes thank you so thanks thanks to everyone who participated especially those that are calling the public that called in because we really rely on input from as many people as we can as we can get so thank you to the staff and everyone we have a couple more items on the agenda okay are there is there was there a planning directors report um no i have no specific report for this meeting i i know we probably want to get into a bit of a discussion about the next meeting and um what's on that agenda in particular the adu item so like maybe we want to move on to that we're prepared to talk about that okay well we could do that now okay um jocelyn did you did you want to say is there anything else on the april 28th agenda or was it just going to potentially be the adu public hearing uh we do have one additional item on the agenda um which is the um application by the parks department to adjust their fees so that is currently on the um april 28th agenda all right um well let let me give you a status report on what's going on with the adu item you'll recall that yeah and you just approved the minutes of the march 24th meeting and at that point the the changes to our adu code provisions was all wrapped up as well in the discussion of adding provisions regarding tiny homes and it was a long and complicated conversation and ultimately at the end your commission decided to split the item and bring the adu code amendments back in a month and and continue to a date uncertain the tiny homes matter recognizing that the tiny homes matter was really new and um really deserving of a lot of public input it was complicated and it was going to take longer the adu item was adjustments primarily to reflect state law but as you're as you discussed there's a couple of um potentially you know tricky matters there do we adjust the parking requirement in the coastal zone or not and other things and so you had requested that we do some additional public outreach more than we would necessarily typically do for an ordinance that adjusts to align with state law so we are preparing to do that additional noticing you know we didn't we needed to do some additional work on the actual code amendment and then do the noticing and be able to talk about it um it is a very tight timeline and so we could go on April 28th still but we are not opposed to go coming back on May 12th instead um we have contacted hcd with a list of questions they wanted a phone call instead we haven't been able to set that phone conversation yet so you know we're kind of in agreement that you know the desirable public outreach and conversation with hcd would be a bit rushed um if we're going to try to come back on April 28th which is only a month after we had your study the study session so we can do it but I think you know it would be great to have a bit of conversation and um about your your preferences in that regard madam chair yes I just like to respond that I think you should take all the time necessary within reason to have these public hearings and get the word out you see no reason to rush this this is something we're going to all be living with for a very long time so I think the next four month is perfectly reasonable because the notification of letting people know needs to get out there in the community so we do not have a whole bunch of crowded impatient people at hearing saying they never heard about it no one told them so I think these public meetings and I supplied a whole list of how to get a hold of people in san lorenzo valley through social media print and whatever and I supplied that whole list that the county and I encourage everybody from the other districts is how do people in your community find out about community news make sure that county knows it's good good um to update um but I would be very much for having the hearing when we've had the community meeting so we're all well informed uh chair yes um I agree with commissioner shepherd I was um uh kind of astonished yesterday when I asked staff what their plans were um to advertise and get more public input with only two weeks to go and very incomplete information was provided back to me so I was very disappointed about that um and I agree with the planning director that we I definitely agree that we need more time and I think as a planning commission we need to be updated this is a really important item for us um and for our constituents that they really understand what is involved and I don't think people have any idea what we're talking about generally just because it has not been circulated enough within the community so I would like to ask if the other commissioners agree that staff update us on what their plans are like in a week in seven days or 10 days uh what kind of outreach they're going to do and how they're going to do it with more detail so that we feel comfortable that as this progresses that our constituents and other everybody in the county has an opportunity to learn more about these very important changes in terms of ad use and properties well if I could say I mean one of the it wasn't abundantly clear that you know we wanted to do an extra measure of public outreach on the ad u aspects a lot more on the tiny home if I could ask you know what what what would you like do you want us to do to prepare for and hold a community meeting on the ad u changes um you know that that requires additional time you know we certainly have the week we got Renee's email with regard to the the media contacts were certainly open to any others we were preparing to push something out at the end of this week but you know we admit that it's rushed and so we would rather have additional time and if you would rather have us have um a community meeting then I think we need to push it even further and I think commissioner shepherd recognize you know that maybe we need at least an additional month um beyond April 28th and and I would concur well I think we separated these issues and I think the tiny homes public outreach really needs to happen however whatever it takes having a community meeting on the ad use would probably be useful too because otherwise for the same reasons I said I said before it'll help the board of supervisors too if it happens now because sooner or later there's probably going to be one but for sure I think I think the appropriate I think what we were trying to say is we need community output on these important issues um so that they can be well crafted and well formulated um and I was hoping Kathy that you would say how long you think that's going to take I don't think we were if we scheduled it for this hearing on the 28th that was not thoughtful because I think the message was let's make sure that we have a public input and knowledge so that we can have successful productive hearings both at the planning commission and the board yeah we're struggling with a bit of um you know we got other direction from the board if you might recall you know that they had wanted us to come back on a faster time frame and then your commission felt it deserved longer time and and so we're trying to balance those factors out well I went I went I went and met with my I went and met with my supervisor and let him know what's going on I'm assuming the other commissioners have as well so I think the board is I at least my supervisors is well aware of what I've what I've asked the planning commission to support in terms of public information I don't know about the other commissioners so I don't think it will come as any huge surprise to them yeah great I mean I think I think by now that is true I think at the meeting itself when we when it was decided to come back in a month it was less apparent but let me just say that I think that um we would be comfortable if if you're if you would like us to hold a community meeting as well as do the the broad and public outreach and to all the media contacts etc we can do that um and then be back on May at the commission meeting of May 26th yeah I think that sounds sounds good um I'll just weigh in a little bit here and um for me what I was most concerned about and wanted to make sure due diligence was done was with regard to the tiny homes because those are relatively new for the community though I am learning more about you know the adu um adu is important as well but it's the tiny homes and then of tiny homes particularly the proposal to allow tiny homes on wheel I just want to highlight as being the new kid on the block so to speak and having potential you know depending on how how it's formulated what we allow what we don't allow could potentially have some pretty dramatic changes for people in their neighborhoods and I think that a previous commissioner on this um used to always talk about we need to think about the worst case scenario we need to present to the public what the worst case scenario could not that that may be likely to happen but that if what we allow we have to imagine that it would happen and so I think that that's how I'm looking at this and that's what we need to put out to the public to make sure that you know once it's in the books and people start um acting on what's allowed that we don't get a bunch of blowbacks so really what I see our role is and I understand with that the board puts you on a tight timeline however I think that um for big changes like this it's often best not to rush the the not to rush things and to really think things through and and all of the various pros and cons of allowing what we might potentially be allowing and and again I'm mostly thinking about the tiny homes on wheels um so so that's so I support taking time um I do also support again bifurcating between the 80s which you know we've spent a long time discussing and you know updating our code to conform with state law and you know that's one separate item and I think that most folks are pretty comfortable with with that right now but really like paying attention to the tiny home component and what that means for our neighborhoods and for developers and builders and community Karen oh go ahead yeah no I'm done if I could just say um in regards to uh Kathy's request for do we want a community meeting I I think that's the question that she's asking in definitely I think a community meeting is needed I think more than that though and what I was trying to get at is if we could have a preview of what the structure of that community meeting would be how how would be handled I think it's really important that we identify possibly significant issues that staff identify significant issues and um highlight portions of the staff report that we got previously the questions and the answers um I think it has to be really carefully structured so that it covers the important points I'm talking about the community meeting still um and so I'd like to see some outline in the next week well you know I'm I'm sorry but we had the study session and that you know you did talk through all the issues we sort of feel like we daylighted them we talked quite a bit about them and it would not be you know for us to to do our staff work and our administrative staff work in terms of coming to the commission with an outline of how we're working on a presentation would be unusual um I just want to add to be clear clear because I know Tim has to weigh in on this but I wasn't I'm I do not think we were suggesting a community meeting I was suggesting strongly that you meet in the districts that we have a meeting we have several meetings for south county maybe at least three in the different districts having one meeting down to five o'clock is not going to cut it well okay so we have a community meeting on the adu changes on march 16th that was a community meeting in advance of the planning commission study session we had a state you know staff report and a robust discussion with you know the tiny homes and particularly tiny homes on wheels very complicated you know bifurcate take a lot more time do a lot more outreach district meetings and the whole nine per tiny homes the adu item you know it's less complex and we're aligning with state law and we have had a community meeting we have had a study session I um I understand Kathy I was referring to the tiny home issue as well right I have when I was assembling that there wasn't anybody in the groups that I talked to who knew anything about tiny home ordinance moving along so I am addressing significant you know right meaningful number of meetings in the districts on the tiny home issue oh yeah we well understand that and we appreciate that because we were under a very tight timeline um from the board's direction that um didn't really accommodate that and so we're we're happy that we're pausing that so that we can address the adu changes to get them aligned with state law first and then take on that that big matter of tiny homes um more deliberately and with a lot more outreach in each of the districts um so I I guess I don't want to while while we clearly want to do a robust amount of outreach and make sure that people are aware that these additional changes to the adu code are proposed and that there are the planning commissions you know we have a draft ordinance the planning commission public hearing you know we want to do outreach we want to gather some public input we can do another community meeting on the adu changes I I actually I just think that we we have limited staff resources where we've we've got a lot going on and doing community meetings in every district for the adu changes I think would be asked um you know it would stretch our capacity for sure and so we're we can do one more community meeting um you know these days they're they're online electronically we'll push out the word and make sure everybody has access to the meeting and and we'll manage it um and hopefully get a lot of good public input and awareness and prep people and yourselves for for having the the public hearing um on the changes I think that would sounds appropriate to me and the virtual of the public meeting is more if people know about it more people can come right right and uh Commissioner Gordon did you want to say something go ahead thank you very much yeah um I think we're all getting to the same page you're splitting up the adus and tiny homes of course I think that the the adu regulations are as Ms. Mollie said very straightforward and potentially the community meeting is more of an informational session as opposed to a fact gathering at least that was my anticipation um and really because we are just kind of Matt you know meetings state regulations it's not and we've already had a community meeting to ask the questions it's more of here's what you should expect and I think that's really important because adus are such a hot topic and any amount of information that we can get out to the public because you know there are so many people trying to do an adu really important to help make sure the rules are really clear um you know so I would I would suggest that that if there is a meeting community meeting of some sort that it's more informational um to push that a little bit faster because it is important to meet those state guidelines sooner rather than later yeah that's that's my stance on adus and then the tiny homes you know I think that where I'm still a little bit confused or a little bit lost is and I don't disagree with you know making sure we have some meetings and getting people involved and all that what I'm concerned about is that and I brought this up in the hearing is that if we don't go with some sort of plan what kind of feedback are we going to get and is and you know I haven't run these community meetings you the planning department is you know ones that are doing this but you know are you would it be beneficial to have a little bit of information as to what is possible before we have those meetings so you can't like for example you could have some information that says you can't just put a trailer in your driveway like you just can't that won't be allowed you know just some little snippets even that says well I wasn't I was assuming that what the tiny home the materials you had developed would be the subject of that we would be looking at plus you would have refined those by hearing our comments and questions and necessary clarifications at our hearing like tim just said one of the major questions we asked could we have a street with everybody having a tiny home in their driveway I mean I understand that planning staff heard us and I hopefully we were useful in identifying the areas that needed clarification I do think we should have the two meetings I asked a lot of people if they knew about the state ordinance getting in you know in accordance with the state ordinance and most people don't know anything about this so and and the public notification really needs to somehow and I leave that the county because they're good at this um get beyond for example just the community interested in housing the the fat hits the fire when you do something and then other people hear that it's going to affect them whether after the fact so I would I would just say that I agree with Tim two meetings make sense the tiny house hearing is much more open-ended because we're still conceptualizing what we want to talk about whereas the ADU is much more clear and structured and and is more an issue of compliance but I have seen over and over again we comply with state law and then a lot of people turn out and blame the county for doing things that the county had to do so I think just getting the word out is important I think that there we still have um a substantive you know policy decision to make when it comes to what ADU regulations changes get put in place in the coastal zone particularly the parking matter in the coastal zone so I think in our public noticing we will highlight that in particular we want public input on that it so it's informational but also input on some of the more substantive choices that we do have the ability to make in the coastal zone so um we'll we'll we'll do a lot of outreach and make sure that everybody you know is is aware that and we'll have another community meeting we had about 100 people at the first community meeting but you're right it was a little bit more oriented toward the design and housing community and so this we will broaden out and make sure people are sure that people are aware of what's going on and some of the policy choices that we do have you know before us um that you guys I'm sure will want to know what the public thinks about some of that and so we can we can pull that together for sure um that's when we by the time we get to the tiny homes there's there's a lot of substantive policy choices and lots of different directions we could go and so we will frame out something um maybe even put together a survey you know that people can participate in along with community meetings to you know we haven't put together a whole outreach public participation program for that yet but that will be a lot more robust um because there's a lot of a lot of choices a lot of significant policies and it's like like um um commissioner dan said it tiny homes be the new kid on the block and it's different um it's it's a big kind of a big deal so so that we want to be much more deliberate about and not that we're not being deliberate about the adu code moments but i but um it is a little less complex even though there are still some policy choices kathy i appreciate your comments um i agree with everything that's been said about tiny homes but your comments earlier about identifying specific issues in the adu adu policies such as parking in coastal zones that is exactly what i was talking about that there be uh an identification um to the public of what some of the more significant issues that should be addressed and i would hope too that in conjunction with that there would be uh some website or subway for the community to access the staff report that was prepared or something similar to it uh for our march meeting which had a thorough discussion i think staff spent a lot of time preparing that staff report on adus and so i'm hoping there'd be some way that the public could reference that and read it before community meeting um and i do want to say that i know that we had a community that you had a community meeting but i believe when the commissioners heard about it um at that last meeting that we had we hadn't even we didn't even realize that a community meeting had been held and so there is a real concern on our part how well the community did know um about what was going on so that i think generated my concern about a little bit more um participation and involvement with the community on these issues sure and and that particular meeting we were actually responding to a request from the design and housing community to have a meeting for them and so it was we we agree it was oriented toward that constituency and we can certainly broaden it out um at this point and highlight some of the issues and the public notice that does go out can contain a link to that prior staff report it gets a little tricky because it's all enmeshed in tiny homes um conversation as well but uh be that as it may we'll try to clarify um what is yeah we'll just we'll distinguish thank you so one further comment um listening to my other commissioners i just had a suggestion for planning staff and it's only a suggestion but in trying to think about how because we struggle with this all the time um how to message out to your community to make sure that they know about an important issue is really difficult and one of the tools that we use is doing op-eds and so i wonder if maybe you um would you know consider before the tiny home meetings to lay out to draft an op-ed laying out some of the questions the issues and then push that out to not only like the Sentinel and look out but also to the smaller publications particularly because i mean in the third district this isn't going to be a big thing because the city of Santa Cruz will be regulating tiny homes if they ever get to something like that but for commissioner shaker pratice's district commissioner gordon's district and commissioner shepherd's district in particular this is a big deal and so i would suggest um you know reaching out to aptos times i don't know what the publications are up in the valley but you know community newsletters to kind of lay out the issue so people can read them at their leisure and then they're interested they can participate in the community meetings and i think your idea about a survey is also a good one pushing it out on the county's facebook page maybe even join a press release things like that we do have jason hoppin helping us with a press release um i would say i think the idea of doing an op-ed even if it's two paragraphs is an excellent idea it's really getting the words out the word out in public notice on the county's website even just in the legal requirements like to the sentinel it's just not sufficient anymore you really want to get people talking about it knowing about it so yes i think the community newspaper since websites and in so i gave you a complete list i urge the other i urge other planning commissioners to give planning staff a like rachel said a good idea of how what you think gets the word out in your district and and then do it i i know it's a lot of effort but it will save time and smooth path of these uh issues as they go through the planning process so we don't get riled cited by hundred people showing up and saying i knew nothing about this okay so are we uh just to summarize then may 26 would be the day to hear the adu amendments is that correct we haven't done any actual public noticing yet um so it was in your minutes that you had directed you know let's come back on April 28th and we'll reflect in today's minutes that we're not going to come back on April 28th um you know maybe we maybe we let us think about whether we actually publicize and set a date right now um you know we will be pushing out all of this public noticing with an emphasis on um community meeting um and you know we will do all of that that required noticing for a public hearing and let's just maybe we should just say right now it's going to be tentatively it's going to be may 26 um we want to make sure we get it right and that we're not rushed and you know we don't totally know what kind of community input we're going to get and so um but but you know we will certainly meet all of the legal requirements um to it actually you know to meet the public hearing requirements seems reasonable in other words you're saying tentatively but that gives you some wiggle room if it turns out to be necessary yeah i think that would make sense okay okay and then uh could if there is uh going to be public hearings could you get the commissioners all informed as to where when and what kind of access you mean the for the for the adu community meeting for all of them oh sure for any yeah i mean we're right now we're just going to focus on the the adu's and the tiny homes you know we'll take a deep breath and after that's done and put together a whole program for that and um make sure that you're aware okay well i think i think all of us commissioners will do our best to help the public get the word out to if you know hi us in plenty of time let's i think we're all pretty committed to this that'd be great and we're very appreciative um you know commissioner shepard sent us a list of you know media contacts that she had you know commissioner dan just um you know unrolled some and the idea for the op-ed is great and so any input you want to have in terms of um methods of getting the word out feel free to to email us daisy alan is the project lead on this particular effort so you can you know most efficiently just go ahead and get it to her okay thank you thank you i want to appreciate the staff work on this and it goes without saying that we understand that this is a big lift and you've got a lot being thrown at you right now so um i just want to do appreciate that thank you yeah and i i also want to say thank you for listening to us and hearing what we have said absolutely okay um moving on to county council's report yes good morning chair thank you i want to say thank you to all of you for being um great commissioners doing your job knowing uh when to ask the right questions and stay in your lane and handle these complex issues it's it's uh it's not easy and so thank you all for doing the research asking the questions being interested um i also want to thank you for that great conversation with the director just now that i think uh it's very important to engage the community and i appreciate all of your efforts to engage the community i know it's very hard to do so to get people interested excited engaged aware of what's happening before it happens um and so we're all worked diligently to make sure that that is is happening so thank you all that's all i have for you you know thank you and uh what about the upcoming meetings now that we're going to do away with one yes so we do have one item left on the agenda for april 28th um which is um a um the parks parks item which is a fee adjustment by parks which means a local coastal program consistency determination so that is the only item i think we have left on that agenda and so far i have no reservations for may dates um sounds like we're tentatively um scheduling the ad u ordinance amendments for may 26th but we we do have quite a few things in the hopper so i'm guessing we will see some reservations come through thank you any other business if not we can adjourn and i want to thank everybody i want to thank the staff in particular for their support and all the other commissioners so we are adjourned thank you everyone thank you thank you thank you everyone bye bye


What I tell patients about screening because I'm a primary care doctor of family medicine, right? So like the first line of defense when it comes to screening. The point of a screening test means that anybody who qualifies, right, whether that's somebody over the age of 50 or women over the age of 40 or whatever the guidelines are right now every three to five years if you have cervix, the point of screening is not to tell everybody they have stage 4 cancer and have three months to live. The point is that we've identified that if we start looking at a certain age we can catch the thing just like anything else, an infection, right, an injury. You catch these things early so that you can do something about it. And if there was nothing we could do about it, we wouldn't have the screening test. That's the whole point. We spray for things we can do something about.


mushroom challenge. It's time. We've got 10 mushrooms. My daughters enthusiastically volunteered to cook for me. I was allowed to choose and I had them cooked so I decided to go for tempura in the hope that that'll get rid of as much of the taste as possible. Deep fried. When you have to do something you don't really want to do it's very easy to focus on the negative side of things but what you can do is focus on what you are in control of. So I'm not in control of the fact that I need to eat them but I am in control of how so focusing on on that and focusing on the benefits of it so I'm focusing on how good they are for me on the front of the packet it says they're vitamin D, yay. They're healthy and I'm gonna cover them in all the sorts of sauces that I like so soy sauce, tempura sauce, sweet chili sauce that kind of thing. Another thing in my control is where I eat them. I'm starting to come to my happy place by the sea. So off we go. Pick the small ones. I'll do a mix. So far it's not smelling like mushrooms it's smelling like chip bat. I like the smell of chip bat. This is good. One of the things I'm looking forward to about this is the mushroom no longer having a hold anymore. I'm going to beat. Yeah so you look a little bit octopus-y, squid-y and I like both of those. Yeah let's go for it. What sauces have you got Geoff? Sweet chili, four years out of date and soy. I figure I'm gonna go for the more spicy one first. Good luck. It feels horrible putting a fork into it. In the however many years I've known you I've never seen you eat a mushroom. Enjoy. Is it like the slug you always say it looks like? Yeah. Where are we gonna be eating that? One down. A bit more batter on this one. Going teriyaki. Nice. Mind over matter.  I think the tempura does help. It's not as crunchy as I remember it being but I can see that's a mushroom. Is this a different type of octopus? That's what it is. Yeah. Right soy. Yeah. Soy. Tempura slugs. Yeah. Don't wanna go? Not for you. Not for you. Dad's favourite. I think I've got to get this big one out of the way. How many down? Three. Is that all? I know. Keep going, come on. All right sweet chili. Not one squirted. Is it juicy Dad? Not the worst. Nearly half wager. Come on. It's about two at a time. No. Flavie you're gonna go for it. I think teriyaki was the best at the most. Easier. That's it? Just shooting around your mouth. Slimy. Try and bite it and it's just like that. Four to go. Come on Jeff. You can do it. I'm gonna just get them in there just so ready. It's more about the texture for you though isn't it? There's more distractions. The tempura and the sauce are distractions.  Yeah you're not helping. Last two. And a bit of tempura. And we raised some money for charity. Yeah. So mushroom's gonna be your new favourite food? No. Gonna start eating them now? I probably wouldn't choose to.  But they're less of a nemesis I would say. Win-win then. Yeah it was a win. Thanks for the challenge. It's a slug in my mouth.


At least 45 people have now died in the violence that has been engulfed in parts of South Africa since the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma last week. This includes 10 people killed in a stampede during a looting on Monday night at a shopping centre in Soweto, the country's biggest township.  Looters continue to ransack shopping malls and protesters clashed with police in several areas of South Africa on Tuesday. Violence triggered by the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma has evolved into an outpouring of anger over persistent poverty and inequality 27 years after the end of apartheid. Outnumbered police have appeared helpless to prevent attacks and the looting of businesses in Zuma's home province KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng, where South Africa's biggest city, Johannesburg, is located. That's why the military was heading for flashpoints on Tuesday and columns of armoured personnel carriers could be seen rolling down the highways. Police Minister Becky Kelly said the situation would not be allowed to deteriorate further. We have instructed the law enforcement agencies to double their efforts to stop the violence and to increase deployment on the ground. He said 757 people had been arrested so far and put the official death toll at 10. Though according to state and provincial authorities it's at least 30. The deteriorating situation points to wider problems and unfilled expectations that followed the end of white minority rule in 1994. A gulf between the haves and the have-nots has been widened amid the global health crisis. Restrictions have been repeatedly imposed on businesses and in the first three months of the year unemployment hit a new record high of 32.6 percent. On Monday night President Cyril Ramaphosa warned that the unrest was only making matters worse. We will soon be facing a huge risk of food insecurity and medication insecurity in a few weeks. Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defying a constitutional court order to give evidence at an inquiry. It's investigating high-level corruption during his nine years in office. Any confrontation with soldiers risks fueling charges by Zuma and his supporters that they are victims of a politically motivated crackdown.