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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 05091995 - 10.4 ATO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 1 .0.-4 ``E-..5;;L•--.°F Contra FROM: INTERNAL OPERATIONS COMMITTEE Costa ;< County DATE: May 1, 1995 SUBJECT: REPORT ON MEETINGS WITH PARTICIPANTS IN PLANNING HEARINGS PRIOR TO PUBLIC HEARINGS BEFORE THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS: 1 . DIRECT the Community Development Director and Director, CCTV to develop and return to our Committee a video which could be shown to individuals who plan to participate in public hearings before the Board of Supervisors on planning matters, which would cover the following general topics : ❑ The general process which is followed by the Board of Supervisors in hearing a planning item. ❑ The need to complete and submit a speaker' s card in order to address an item on the Board' s agenda. ❑ The possibility of simply making written comments on the speaker's card without necessarily having to address the Board orally. ❑ The importance of clearly addressing one or more of the points which are in dispute and before the Board of Supervisors, rather than speaking to issues which are not in dispute or which are not before the Board. ❑ The importance of :keeping comments brief and how the timed light board in the Board Chambers works so the speaker knows when his or her time is almost up. ❑ The importance of not orally repeating testimony which has already been placed in the record other than perhaps to note that the speaker agrees with the comments of other speakers . CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: X YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S): MARK n-OATTTATTLIn ACTION OF BOARD ON APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE X UNANIMOUS(ABSENT None ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. ATTESTED May 9, 1995 Contact: County Administrator PHIL BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF cc: Director, GMEDA S RS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR Community Development Director County Counsel Pat Burke, Director, CCTV EP I .O.-4 -2- ❑ The importance of addressing all comments to the Chair of the Board and not arguing directly with or demanding answers and explanations from staff or other participants at the hearing. 2 . DIRECT the Community Development Director, once the video noted above has been developed and approved by our Committee and the Board of Supervisors, to notify all interested parties who expect to testify before the Board of Supervisors on planning items that the video will be available prior to the public hearing and that all potential participants are strongly encouraged to arrive enough ahead of the scheduled time of the hearing to view the video and ask any questions of staff regarding the process which is followed by the Board of Supervisors . 3 . DIRECT the Community Development Director, once the Board of Supervisors implements a schedule which fixes times for planning hearings more nearly at the hour an item is actually expected to be heard, to notice all interested parties involved in planning hearings, other than routine items where staff believes that no substantial items are in dispute, that staff will be available some set period of time before the hearing to meet with the participants in an effort to clarify, define and narrow the issues which are still in dispute and, where possible and appropriate, to attempt to reach a mutually acceptable compromise which can be presented to the Board of Supervisors at the time of the hearing. BACKGROUND: On March 7, 1995, the Board of Supervisors referred to our Committee a proposal from Supervisor Rogers that staff meet with interested parties prior to planning hearings before the Board of Supervisors in an effort to describe and clarify the process the Board follows, to clarify the issue(s) which are and are not before the Board and to encourage individuals to focus their testimony on issue(s) which are before the Board. On May 1, 1995, our Committee met with the Community Development Director, Harvey Bragdon, and discussed the advantages of a video which would provide standard information to those who do not regularly address the Board on planning matters as a briefing to the process and procedures which are followed by the Board of Supervisors in hearing planning items . This video should be developed and made available to anyone who is planning to testify before the Board on a planning item, particularly where the individual has not appeared before the Board before or has not testified before the Board for some period of time. We suggest that this video could be shown in Room 108 prior to most planning hearings . In addition, we discussed the need for a more formal process to institutionalize the more informal process which now often occurs prior to a public hearing where staff will meet with the various participants in an effort to determine whether any type of compromise is possible on at least some of the issues so that the actual areas of dispute can be narrowed and more clearly defined. Mr. Bragdon suggested that routine hearings where there appear to be no items in dispute could be exempted from this process and we agree. We agree that these types of hearings can be exempted from this additional meeting process and should actually be grouped into a set of "consent" hearing items which might precede the other planning hearings so that they can be disposed of before those hearings which involve substantial testimony are undertaken. For other hearings where it appears that some or all of the outstanding items may be amenable to compromise, all interested parties should receive formal notice of a meeting with staff which would precede the public hearing before the Board of Supervisors . In addition to viewing the video, this meeting would provide an opportunity to attempt to reach agreement on any of the outstanding I.O.-4 'v -3- issues, focus the discussion on those issues where agreement cannot be reached and agree on the terms of any agreement which can then be reported to the Board of Supervisors at the beginning of the hearing. It is difficult to implement this type of meeting under current scheduling since all planning hearings are generally scheduled for the same hour, meaning that all of the pre-hearings meetings would have to be held simultaneously. However, as the Board moves to schedule these hearings at discrete times, it will be possible to schedule the pre-hearing meetings at discrete times, thereby allowing staff to both attend the pre-meeting and still be present in the Board Chambers for other scheduled hearings . Our Committee is planning to consider these scheduling changes at our meeting on May 15, 1995 and will hopefully have a plan to report back to the Board on May 23, 1995, allowing this type of pre-hearing meeting to be undertaken this summer.