The big moment is nearly here! This afternoon’s session of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is about to host to a pretty exciting battle over the Humboldt County General Plan Update. Some folk – an odd alliance of real estate professionals, cultural conservatives and SoHum hillfolk – are calling for an immediate halt to the decade-old process that has been drafting a “Constitution for development” in the county’s unincorporated areas. They are represented principally by the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights (HumCPR).

Tune in live here.

Recently, their complaint has been that the county has not formed citizens’ advisory committees to shape the new general plan. Several local jurisdictions recently sent letters to the county echoing this message.

On the other side, their opposition – left-leaning urbanites, technocrats, environmentalists – are urging that supervisors to complete the general plan update, which is in its final stages, with all due haste. At the back of both groups’ minds is next years supervisorial elections, which could see the board’s center of gravity switch from center-left to center-right.

Below: live-bloggery and your comments.

7:05 p.m. Approved unanimously.

7:05 p.m. Clendenen: County Counsel, are we cool? Answer: Pretty much, so long as there’s no pause.

7:04 p.m. Smith: And we’re also talking about tribal cooperation and voluntary rezoning. 

7:04 p.m. Girard: I think we’re doing both, as per alternative four to the staff recommendations. Lovelace: OK.

7:04 p.m. Girard: OK — outreach and review of the maps and the CAC-like things. Lovelace: Hold up. I thought of the CAC-like things as a replacement to the local select committees in Cutten.

7:02 p.m. Lovelace: And to be clear: You’re asking staff to come back with proposals on the CAC-like things? Smith: Yes.

7:01 p.m. Clendenen: You’re not including a pause to the process? Smith: No. Clendenen: OK, seconded.

6:59 p.m. Smith makes motion. Staff recommendations — additional outreach — plus the CAC-like things. 

6:58 p.m. Girard. No problem. We could bring back variations on what a CAC-like thing would look like at a later date. And there’s lots of smart citizens out there, and it could be useful.

6:57 p.m. Lovelace. OK. But the devil is in the details. Someone will likely view the CAC-like things as a “special interest,” a “closed-room” meeting. It’s not going to do away with controversy. But I’m willing to do that, if that allays concern. [Specifically, Smith’s — Ed.]

6:55 p.m. Girard: So if there are changes to the local plans in place for McK or Cutten, those would be reviewed by a new CAC-like thing. The other idea you’re talking about is an overarching CAC-like group to critique the process. Right?

6:53 p.m.: Smith — so you’re saying that you would form CACs in Cutten and McK, without stopping the rest of the Planning Commission work? Lovelace — yes. Thoughts, Mr. Girard?

6:50 p.m. Lovelace: Most of the concern over additional housing is coming from McKinleyville and Cutten. Would it be possible to go to those CSDs and the City of Eureka to help conduct outreach hearings? We wouldn’t be stopping the rest of the Planning Commission work.

6:48 p.m. Day-old Big Louie’s strawberry cheesecake pizza for dinner. I wouldn’t recommend it. 

6:47 p.m. Smith asks County Counsel what the risks of a pause might be. She tells him that a slowdown of the housing element update would impact existing litigation over the housing element.

6:46 p.m. Bass. The planning commission has done a marvelous job, but they have a lot of other stuff on their plate. Can’t we just pause for a month? It would give people time to educate themselves. Can we find something to satisfy all of us, and know that we’re not throwing away the planning commission work?

6:42 p.m. Lovelace addresses Smith’s idea of a county-appointed group to troubleshoot problems. “That’s taking us back to 2000.” It’s moving the county farther away from passing the plan. We’ll be farther down the road, back to the beginning, and by then that committee’s recommendation will be out of date. There are plenty of opportunities for the board itself to refine the plan down the road, and the outrach proposed by staff is a fantastic and necessary idea. But: “If we’re going to come up with a new group that’s going to represent the broad interests of Humboldt County, why would we expect them to get through this any faster than the planning commission?” “No matter how much we want to sugar-coat it, I don’t see how we’re doing anything other than throwing away 10 years of painful process — of painstaking process — that has got us to where we are today.” 

6:36 p.m. Sundberg. There’s the housing element and the general plan. The housing element has a strict timeline; the general plan does not. If the general plan takes longer, then it takes longer. But we need to keep the two seperate. [Ed. note — seems to go against the earlier quasi-threat from the Housing For All activist who spoke near the end. The problem with the housing element, she said, is that the land use element of the complete general plan has not been completed.]

6:34 p.m. Smith. Understands the necessity of keeping the planning commssion on track, and litigation is really expensive. A delay in the existing process could be expensive. Can we design an advisory committee that wouldn’t slow things down, and would also meet the concerns of his citizens and concerned colleagues on the board? He’s met with people in McK and Cutten, and people are really angry. He has personally apologized to people. Asks Sundberg for assistance in figuring this out.

6:30 p.m. Kirk Girard. Outreach would result in additional information to both the planning commission and the board, given that a lot of the outreach will pertain to multifamily rezoning. Other elements that are at most of interest to local jurisdictions have already been decided by the planning commission; if you put the commission on pause, then you’re sending a message that the planning commission will redeliberate those things. But when you get the thing past the planning commission and to the Board of Supes, then you can conduct whatever additional outreach you like.

6:25 p.m. Lovelace: He shares the concern that we make this round of outreach meaningful, but comes to a different conclusion. How can we take a pause if we don’t know what we’re going to do when we resume? Three weeks, anyway, is not doable. Staff recommended a three-month outreach process. If we stop the planning commission — which has come to 90 percent agreement on the draft plan — what do we tell them when we’re done? That we start over? Anyway, all this information, from the planning commission and the new outreach, will come to the Board of Supervisors, which will make the ultimate decision. The board can always send certain parts of the plan back to the planning commission. Three more years of planning commission deliberation isn’t going to get us any closer to a decision. “I don’t think we should kid ourselves that this is anything more than a delay.”

6:22 p.m. Sundberg: Virginia Bass is right: How can we keep going down the planning commission path and at the same time seek the thoughts of other governmental entities? As per Lovelace, it’s true that people had plenty of opportunity, but we were charged with aggressively seeking input.

6:20 p.m. Clendenen: Following up on Smith’s idea … can we take another layer of input from CSDs and the like without creating a new governmental layer?

6:19 p.m. Smith: “I don’t know what all the problems are, but I sure know what a lot of them are.” What if people came forward from each community to tell the board what their problems were? Mentions housing, transportation, other topics. People wanted more opportunity to weigh in. How can we make it happen without interfering with the planning commission’s work? Can we put together a select committee to get that out there? “I’m not quite sure how to do that process-wise,” but he is convinced that it’s doable. 

6:15 p.m. Supervisor Virginia Bass: “It really bothers me when people vilify staff.” Misses the button she used to have at the city of Eureka that would cut the public’s mic, at least in regards to one public staff-vilifier. “We treat people with respect.” Reads from public comment. When she was campaigning, she told people that the plan needs to get done. If we do the outreach process while we’re still marching forward, we’re telling cities and such that it really doesn’t matter what they think. She certainly doesn’t want to stop the process, but agrees with Sundberg that a three-week timeout — or perhaps one of a different time-frame — would be helpful.

6:11 p.m. Supervisor Lovelace: “I don’t think I’ve ever done as much writing as I’ve done in this meeting.” There were a lot of good comments just now. There is some frustration and concern at the process. But it would be a “folly” to think that there’s a conflict-free process out there. “It’s just not doable.” Land use is a touchy subject, and there are always going to be strong opinions. We can’t hope for perfection, but we should try to make the process as smooth as possible. There have been huge opportunites for input. People have been able to form any kind of advisory group they liked. That offer has been out there for years and years and years. A lot of time has elapsed since the last county outreach efforts, so it’s great to get out and check-in with cities and CSDs and tribes and schools. But we can’t stop the process. What happens after that? Do we throw out all our work to date?

6:05 p.m. Supervisor Clif Clendenen: We have enough government in place, and there’s no reason to add another. “We’ve substantially captured the spirit” of section 1500. Not in favor of Sundberg’s “pause,” but is in favor of going out into the districts with planning staff and supervisors to talk to other local jurisdictions. He moves approval for staff’s recommendations. No second.

6:02 p.m. Supervisor Ryan Sundberg: There is a lot of frustration out there. Going out to the cities and CSDs again? It’s just something that has to be done. It was our fault that wasn’t done. Maybe there’s a compromise to be had — maybe we could just take a three-week break on the general plan, go out there and see what cities and CSDs are saying. There’s no one who wants to hold this up. “I know I don’t.” Putting a small break on things now will help us get this thing done more quickly.

5:59 p.m. Supervisor Smith: I didn’t say that I supported the staff’s proposal; I said that I supported getting out in the communities and doing additional outreach w/cities and special districts and tribes.

5:57 p.m. Public comment closed.

5:57 p.m. Richard Marks, Samoa, Harbor District Commissioner. Thirty-five people just called for a citizens advisory committe; 17 people were opposed. Just to let the Supes know.

5:55 p.m. Bill Bertain, attorney of Eureka. Humboldt County hasn’t complied with its own rules (section 1500). “It really bothers me to hear people here tell you today to ignore your own ordinance.” Planning staff has started out with a predetermined result in mind; it was obvious from the beginning. We’ve spent tons of money, spent lots of grants. The mere fact that the citizens handbook wasn’t available from the beginning — that staff didn’t know about it — is indicitive of the problems you find today.

5:53 p.m. Scott Menzies, Cutten. He got right into the first general plan update meetings after several years overseas; didn’t seem to be any barrier at the time, or since. No process is perfect, but there has been a ton of public input — including from elected officials, who after all are representatives of the people.

5:50 p.m. Jan Turner, Housing for All. Echoing former speaker, dislikes the idea of putting another layer between people and elected officials (CACs). Doesn’t want to see the whole process start over. The problem with the Housing Element — that was rejected by the state — is that it didn’t supply enough multifamily housing. The state recertified it, but only on the condition that land use changes be made in time. It wasn’t; that’s why the housing element was recently decertified again. Starting all over again means more lawsuits challenging the housing element; probably her own group would bring those suits. 

5:46 p.m. (Tom — teacher in the hills around Redway.) He’s late coming into this situation, but he understood it at first as an “update” — not a complete rewrite. Southern Humboldt has gotten the short end of the stick in all this. Survey: SoHummers don’t always have Internet connections. Almost no one has read the general plan. Most hadn’t heard about CACs; few feel themselves adequately represented. People in Philipsville were screwed by the Avenue of the Giants plan because there wasn’t adequate input.  

5:43 p.m. Chuck Ciancio, Cutten. The board has a mess on its hands. No one can understand this plan. The people in charge don’t understand rural Humboldt County. You can’t plan by computer. Natural resource protection is a goal of the plan update; use of that resource is not a goal. 

5:39 p.m. (Didn’t catch the name.) There’s two separate issues here: One, the people weren’t consulted on the multifamily housing issue. He’s in support of low-income housing, but 900 units of that dropped on the public’s head frightened them. There was “a black cloud of distrust” around staff issues. They didn’t talk to the district or the schools or the neighbors. 

5:38 p.m. Bob Higgons, Humboldt Association of Realtors. They disagree with staff that the number of meetings so far has been adequate: “It’s about quality, not quantity.” Supports CACs. They served the public well in the McKinleyville Community Plan.

5:35 p.m. (Glen Ashebeck)?, Fortuna realtor. Why is this process taking so long? Something must be flawed. the public is losing its trust in elected officials. That’s why some of the supervisors were elected in the last go-round. Outside interests might be preventing Humboldt County prospering the way it should. Supports CACs: “It would serve to give confidence to the leery.”

5:31 p.m. Louis DeMartin, McKinleyville. DeMartin says he loves Girard as a person, then turns to address him, inaudibly. Lovelace asks him to please address the board. DeMartin: Girard is a lovely person with a lovely family, and he hopes that the county gives him a job doing something else. DeMartin is an upstanding community member, but: “I’m tired of being treated like a goddamn mushroom!”

5:28 p.m. Denver Nelson, planning commissioner with five years tenure. He has listened to many, many hours of public input on the general plan update. “Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t always agree.” Humboldt County diversity is a beautiful thing. He has left-wing and right-wing friends. People at the extremes of either end think that the other extreme is controlled by “evil, greedy people” — truth is, that doesn’t exist. Everyone’s trying to do a good job. We have fencese on our borders because this is the greatest country on Earth, and that’s because of our democracy. Everyone has a viewpoint, but that doesn’t mean everyone gets what he wants. “Public input means that everyone gets their say, but that doesn’t mean you get your way.”

5:25 p.m. Dan Taranto. His concern is exclusively for the 1500 section of the 1984 general plan. The update has no reference to thoe public participation sections. Early meetings at the Red Lion Inn had a red rope — members of the general public were not allowed beyond it, and that was deplorable. In Aug. 2009, he submitted a letter to the BoS outlining his concerns over the absence of 1500 regulations in the draft general plan and also about the lack of a citizens handbook, as required in the current plan, but didn’t get much response. The League of Women Voters had the same concerns — he believes the League had a few meetings with staff, but nothing came of it. Where is the citizen input language in the current plan?

5:20 p.m. Estelle Fennell, Humboldt CPR. The board must address public concerns meaningfully or face continued public outcries. Why were there no citizens advisory committees set up in the beginning? That’s the law under the current general plan, so why wasn’t it followed? Appreciates staff’s candor in admitting that they haven’t spent as much time with neighbors as they should have. “We have to have these community advisory committees, and they can’t be just committees formed by the supervisors.”

5:17 p.m. Claire Pericelli (phonetic). She’s been participating in the general plan since she moved here. She’s never seen any barriers. She’s never had any difficulty. Staff has made a heroic effort to solicit input, provide wise legal opinion and keep the process moving forward. The citizen advisory committee seems like a new layer between the public and the planning commission or the Board of Supervisors. Why? It’s not needed.

5:13 p.m. Chuck Harvey. The stop-the-general-plan people are all about cash. Increasing the bottom line. 

5:12 p.m. Bill Spencer of Arcata. “Consensus is impossible, but we can get a plan that’s legally defensible.” Some groups come to these meetings with problems, but they don’t come with solutions. Housing For All and others come with solutions. They don’t always get their way, but they are engaged. If we stop now, we’re going backwards, and we don’t want to go backwards.. “These community groups don’t work.”

5:08 p.m. Ralph Faust, planning commissioner and attorney. If the board can come up with a CAC that will please everyone — from Cutten to Mck, from Healthy Humboldt to HumCPR — more power to it. But the whole document that the planning commission is working through now is the result of a massive amount of public input. HumCPR and others have drafted whole sections of the plan, and the planning commission has done its best to incorporate everyone’s input. If we start over, we’re going to end up with the same disagreements and rancor we’re hearing now.

5:05 p.m. Connie Stewart of the California Center for Rural Policy. She hears from people on her own staff who say — damn, they can’t do anything with their property until this general plan is done! We need a new plan so people who want to build can do so. Also: holding up the general plan means holding up the broadband element, which means that her own efforts to spread Internet access in the county could be delayed. She had no problem providing input, but she understands that her access was helped by the fact that she is fluent in land-use planning. She feels badly for those with poor Internet access, who have a tougher time.

5:00 p.m. (Doddie)? Russell, SoHum property manager. We have enough land to provide affordable housing in a diverse, respectful way. We can have second units, low-income apartments … lots of ways to serve housing needs. And then Access Humboldt cuts away to another program!

4:57 p.m. Bob Morris of Blocksburg. Sure, there’s been lots of comment … but has there been meaningful comment? The staff took 37 minutes at the beginning of this meeting to outline their report. Before anyone spoke, one of the board members already said that he supported the staff’s recommendations. (Smith, I believe he means.) Morris holds up a sheaf of paper, and then another; staff reports concerning the general plan that he says were delivered to the public less than 24 hours before public comments became due. Let’s reasses the process.

4:53 p.m. Tina Christensen of Hydesville. Girard’s version of the process, as rendered at the beginning of the hearing, is far different from hers. The county submitted a housing element to the state three times, and three times it was rejected. (Ed. note: The county came back into compliance each time, and was eventually considered compliant.) Supes were warned by the public, but the public was ignored. Allow public input. Do the citizens advisory committees. Don’t let staff run the show.

4:51 p.m. SoHum’s Charley Custer. Ten years ago, he and Lovelace both attended a critical choices meeting at the Samoa Cookhouse. The way Custer remembers it, Girard told people who came that a particular option was “of the table.” (Lovelace remembers this differently, Custer says.) The decision has already been made. And that was 10 years ago, and that’s why Custer never came to anothe meeting. That’s why we need a bottom-up rather than a top-down process, and that’s what we have an opportunity to change now.

4:48 p.m. Peter Childs of United Stand. Back when we helped write the 1984 plan, is that citizens needed to have every opportunity to contribute to planning efforts. It’s called democracy! We’ve almost lost it! If you have something so precious as democracy, everyone has a duty to understand what it means. He’s casting no aspersions on anyone, but the planning department has fought citizens advisory committees from the start. Then his time is up.

4:45 p.m. Fred Bauer of United Stand. “The individual citizen has had almost no input into this.” We need to honor the 1500 section, and also the good work of the planning commission to date, but we need to pause to figure out what got broken.

4:43 p.m. Julie Williams of the Northern California Association of Home Builders. Pause the process. Let the planning commission concentrate on current building applications. Compose a citizens advisory committee composed of the private sector. Let this CAC start over with the current, 1984 plan and let them “update” it — not “rewrite” it. Let’s only address matters that are absolutely required by state law. 

4:39 p.m. Bonnie Blackberry of the Civil Liberties Monitoring Project. She’s hearing from a lot of people who have felt frozen out of the process. The Web site doesn’t work for everyone up in the hills. Eureka people have a lot more opportunity to comment, and why would SoHummers bother to drive 2 hours when they feel like the decisions have already been made? 

4:36 p.m. Ben Shepherd of the McKinleyville CSD board. Looking out over this crowd, you should see that this process is not working. We need an independent look to determine why not. A pause would give us an opportunity to reflect on what has gone wrong, and how we can get to the finish line most quickly.  

4:34 p.m. Debbie Provolt. There has been only one meeting in Garberville, and there were tons of people there. There have been no other such meetings. People in the outlying areas were not given an opportunity to form their own community advisory committees, and the plan update affects them more than anyone. Multifamily rezoning is an extreme modification to existing community plans, so you can’t say that the community plans are being incorporated wholesale into the new general plan.

4:32 p.m. Bill Thorington, president of the Humboldt Watershed Council, part of the Healthy Humboldt Coalition. No process is perfect, but this has been a very inclusive one. The podium has never been denied to anyone. It has been open and inclusive. Anyone who has wanted to participate has been able to; you can’t force them to. 

4:30 p.m. Bill Rodstrum of Redwood Community Action Agency. This has been the “most democratic” process he’s every seen in Humboldt County. The outreach campaign that staff proposes is a good idea that could help dispel misunderstandings about what the general plan proposes.

4:28 p.m. Kathryn Ziemer of the Humbodlt County Farm Bureau and a timber/farm consortium. Her organization has been active in the general plan update since the beginning, and their concerns have always been taken seriously. They are happy with how the process is gone (but they are not involved in the housing element). Please continue the general plan. Her groups are very happy with it.

4:25 p.m. Virginia Graziani of Redway. Has been to many, many meetings on this over the years. The Redway Community Services District has met with county staff many, many times over concerns about impacts on water and sewer over the years. Stopping the plan would serve no purpose at this time. Agrees that CACs are for community plans, not the general plan as a whole. Encourages others to form their own CACs if they wish to. 

4:22 p.m. John Shafer. Anyone who hasn’t been included in this process hasn’t been paying attention. There’s a vocal group who are dissatisfied and have developed a “scortched-Earth strategy.” He can’t imagine a more inclusive process than the one that we’ve had.

4:20 p.m. Lee Ulansey representing the “over 4,000” members of Humboldt CPR. Here we are at yet another meeting. Every time, the planning staff makes technical alterations in an attempt to appease. They’ve collected 700+ names on a petition in the last week’ expect to collect several thousand. “It’s unrealistic to expect to start over, but we cannot make the same mistakes again and again.” Councilmembers and board members say they have been excluded from the process. Are they lying? Ignorant? No. The problem is with “your arrogant staff.” Tactics promulgated by staff have utterly failed;’ they have divided the community. 

4:18 p.m. Attorney and landholder Bill Barnum. Starts off, winningly, with a lawyer joke. Was at planning meetings at Red Lion Inn in 2003, shortly after resigned from the process. “The fix was in.” Formed HELP shortly afterwards. The number of meetings held so far “validates nothing.” The problem is that the process has been staff-driven. It should have been contracted out to third parties. There has been great fear of sprawl, and that’s what’s driven the agenda. There is no sprawl in Humboldt County.

4:14 p.m. Dave Maples of the Humboldt County Association of Homebuilders (did I get that right)? Builders have not been heard in the general plan process. Who has time for all the meetings? A lot of meetings doesn’t automatically deliver the best result. So maybe it’s not the number of meetings, it’s who is at the meetings. Pause the general plan update. Make CACs. 

4:10 p.m. Jen Kalt, Healthy Humboldt Coalition. HH is an organization formed pursuant to section 1500 of the general plan update. Halting the plan would represent a “severe setback” for the county. Ad hoc advisory committees such as HH has been a very effective way to engage citizenry. They support CACs in principle, but not at this time. If such comittees are formed anyway, they should be formed from community members, not “interest groups” who have had plenty of time to comment. She references the MSCD letter linked below. 

4:09 p.m. Beth Werner, Humboldt Baykeeper. A stall now would be disingenuous to people who have worked so hard to date. The county has changed dramatically since 1984 — watersheds are impaired, stormwater runoff has increased. We need an up-to-date water resources plan.

4:07 p.m. Natalynne DeLapp, EPIC. Halting the process and beginninng again would have negative impacts on local ecology. The county carries a “burden of liability” because of its out-of-date general plan. We need a new plan that “gets it right.”

4:05 p.m. Scott Greacen of Friends of the Eel (late of EPIC). We want wild salmon and healhty fisheries. We can do this. It’s neither impossible nor impractical. One of the county’s principal functions is to provide planning guidelines so as not to impair natural resources. As long as the current general plan remains in place, the county is just as responsible as developers for impacts on stream habitat. A real general plan update needs to happen in order to bring us into compliance with state & federal regulation and current scientific principles.

3:52 p.m. HEY, CHECK THIS OUT! During a break in the action, someone sends me a link to a 2004 letter in which the McKinleyville Community Services District asks the county for more low-to-moderate housing and more infill development! So maybe that’s where the confusion comes from.

3:45 p.m. Break until 4 p.m.

3:45 p.m. Shane Brinton of Arcata (speaking as an individual, not an Arcata City Councilmember). “Political posturing by special-interest groups,” he calls the current plans to stop the GPU. Among those who wish to stop the process are real-estate interests and marijuana growers — an unholy alliance. “Greedy people have a way of coming together.” There have been plenty of opportunities to speak. We don’t need to stall the process, we need to expedite it. There is economic uncertainty in the community. This is costing us all a lot of money. 

3:42 p.m. Another person whose name I didn’t catch. (Attorney Kelly Walsh: Thanks, Eric Kirk.) Why were citizens’ handbooks on the general plan update not distributed throughout the county? Cites section 1500, but worries that it’s too late to create such committees now. Does not agree with county staff’s interpretation of section 1500, and asks the supes to refer to Dan Taranto, in the audience, who helped draft the plan then.

3:39 p.m. A HumCPR representative from Redway whose name I didn’t catch. “Since when is an individual’s property rights and rights to due process special interests”?

3:37 p.m. Dave Varshock of McKinleyville. A little bit of schtick — he feins a cell phone call: “Oh, hello, McKinleyville CSD, we’re going to drop thousands of low-income units on you.” Why didn’t the county’s planning department make such a call? He just doesn’t get it. The county’s update, with its McKinleyville-centered growth, will inevitably affect the McKinleyville community plan.

3:31 p.m. John LeBoyteaux, Redcrest farmer. Has provided testimony on general plan update at least 20 times on behalf of North Coast Growers’ Association. Land use maps outlining alternatives have always been available on county’s Web site. “It seems to me that any indivicual or groupoo could have done the same things we’ve done in participating in this process. And I know that some have done, and they are here.”

3:30 p.m. Patrick Higgins of McKinleyville, harbor commissioner and supervisorial candidate (last year). Doesn’t agree with the McKinleyville CSD sentiments expressed earlier. Speaks against “laissez-faire” planning efforts, apparently such as those represented by the HumCPR and others. There are grave environmental problems facing the county now.

3:28 p.m. Kermit Thobaben of Housing for All. Opposes citizens advisory committees. Plan needs to get done so as to make sure their affordable housing developments aren’t slowed. He characterizes HumCPR ads in McKinleyville as conscious falsehoods designed to scare people with the spectre of humongous developments.

3:24 p.m. Joyce King of McKinleyville admits that she is possibly one of the “self-aggrandizing activists” that David Elsebusch referenced previously. Brings a lettter signed by her neighbors. Would like the new plan to represent the beauty and potential of Humboldt County, and to keep development and exploitation of the land secondary. Let’s get the plan done now. 

3:22 p.m. Penny Elsebusch, one-half of the Elsebusch super-gadfly duo gets hella deep: Are we changing the plan for the better, or for the worse? Whichever, the language of the plan should be plain and clear. Lotta people don’t have high-speed Internet, so it’s hard to download documents.

3:18 p.m. GODDAMN TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Elsebusch on now. What did I miss?

3:15 p.m.: Longtime Planning Commissioner Mary Gearhart. She says she can bring perspective on citizens advisory committees, because she has served on a few. “We did an awful lot of wordsmithing.” The idea that you’re going to get quality public input with these things “doesn’t always work.” Few people came.

3:12 p.m. Alan Bongio of the Humboldt Community Services District (Cutten). There have been many meetings, Bongio says, but their ideas have not been taken seriously. The county needs to form CACs, he says. They should have been formed 12 years ago, but “it’s never too late.” Bring the fire departments and others into the process.

3:09 p.m. Dennis Mayo of the McKinleyville Community Services District. Presents a petition from Southern Humboldt residents who would like a CAC, because “they can’t get up here.” Re McK: ” Our district doesnt want to be told, to ask, to be in the loop — we want to be there at the formation,” Mayo says. Our planning staff, he says, are the most talented people in the world, but we need to “change the equation.”

3:05 p.m. Garberville/Redway Chamber of Commerce representative. The county’s local plans were developed with local citizen advisory committees, and there was little controversy … unlike the general plan update. The GPU fails to address traffic concerns. Put the GPU on hold. Citizens advisory committees are necessary. 

3:03 p.m. Mike Newman, Eureka City Councilmember. His planning department and other Eureka councilmembers believe that there needs to be an honest dialog between the city and county planning. Forster-Gill is “circumventing” the Eureka General Plan in regards to traffic mitigation and other matters. The city, he says, is urging a hold on the general plan update.

3:01 p.m. Sue Long, Fortuna City Council. The council voted 5-0 to support halting the update and forming citizen advisory committees. Fortuna is planning four seperate annexations. Admits that Fortuna has behind behind what has happening with the county general plan because the city has just finished its own general plan update. Hopes she can get a Fortuna City Councilmember onto a citizens advisory committee dealing with the Fortuna area. 

2:59 p.m. Ronnie Pelligrini, member of the Harbor District board of directors, says that she’s here speaking as an individual.  An error in the document’s transportation element, she says: the Harbor District is not currently planning to deepen a bay channel, in contra to what is stated in the draft. She wishes for other Harbor District documents to be included and referenced in the plan. Says that it’s true that the district is not pursuing container shipping, but notes: “We are actively pursuing, and our kind of on the cutting edge of, the marine highway program” (short-sea shipping.)

2:53 p.m. Helen Edwards, Chair of McK Community Services District board. Last community meeting on McK took place in Trinidad. Few McKinleyvillers came. In any case, McKinleyvillians feel like their suggestions have been ignored. “The people in McK have really worked hard on their area plan,” but fear that it will preempted by general plan update. “We feel like it will be very hard to provide services in our district” if they don’t know what growth is being planned there.

2:51 p.m. Eureka City Councilmember Marian Brady. The city has presented many letters to the county planning department. The city feels that the county has not been responsive to its concerns over the proposed Forster-Gill (Ridgewood Village) development. “The answer might or might not be new citizens committees,” but urges that the general plan process be stopped until matters can be worked out.

2:48 p.m. Supervisor Clif Clendenen: “I think we’ve got a lot to work with here.” Hands to Lovelace. Lovelace hands to public. Lovelace: “This is not a discussion about the content of the plan.” It’s about process, community outreach, citizen advisory committees. Public comment begins.

2:47 p.m. Supervisor Virginia Bass, formerly Eureka mayor, says that county-city relationships haven’t always been so good. “We felt that our views weren’t valued and our opinions weren’t acted upon.” Bass says that she is not interested in “stopping the process,” reassuring frantic emailers she has been in correspondence with in the last few days.

2:45 p.m. Supervisor Ryan Sundberg says that communication is where the county “has really missed the boat. It doesn’t have to be this divisive, I don’t think.”

2:44 p.m. All in all, the outreach suggestions are “excellent,” Smith says. Thanks the city of Eureka for being a good partner in the process. Presumably he’s talking about the massive Ridgewood Village development, proposed for Cutten.

2:42 p.m. Lovelace opens it up to brief board comments and questions before the public speaks. Supervisor Jimmy Smith says he’s happy that they’re going to go back out on the road. Been a long time since the first community meetings. A lot of folks have contacted him about high-density developments, he says. He wants to see the board revisit second-unit standards, so that those can be incorporated into multifamily development (partly in place of dense developments, apparently.) Lastly, Smith suggests especially that county talk to loal tribes over the housing being built on their lands — some new housing could be located there, he suggests.

2:37 p.m.: This would include the Planning Commission recommended alternatives, which would replace the current “Alternative B” recommendations. Draft Environmental Impact Report would be based on planning commission recommendations. Girard closes. 

2:35 p.m.: These meetings would outline the range alternatives for every policy. 

2:32 p.m. Second outreach program would allow public to speak to supervisors directly about planning commission’s work to date. This would happen in August and October. These would be meetings out in the community, focusing on land use change.

2:31 p.m. Staff is proposing two new outreach programs. Immediately, there would be a program with two purposes. The multifamily zoning program would involve painful land use choices for local agencies. They haven’t done enough on that, and that “was a mistake.” At the same time, those local agencies would be given an update on the current state of the general plan in toto. That would happen in April and June.

2:30 p.m. Spenser touts planupdate.org — chock full of documents and maps available for public review, including most all the information she just touted. Back to Girard.

2:28 p.m. The planning staff is hoping to have a final draft and maps done by the end of the year. Planning Commission putting in 3 meetings a month, four-plus hours each. The BoS will be given a fairly detailed precis of Planning Commission detail on every policy matter, summarizing discussion and showing the vote.

2:26 p.m.: Spencer presents bar chart graphing public meetings on the subject. Lots early on, and whole lot lately, due to the number of Planning Commission meetings.

2:24 p.m.: Last two years: Planning Commission draft, with options for the commission to choose from. Forty-eight planning commission hearings on the draft so far. 619 verbal comments, 322 written comments on the planning commission’s draft so far. Staff is not responding to every document, because this is a planning commission draft.

2:22 p.m. Administrative draft. Another joing meeting held with Planning Commission, BoS. 14 Planning Commission meetings held. Staff responded to every single written comment — about 600 — on the staff’s plan draft.

2:19 p.m. Draft land use maps presented in neighborhoods all over the county. Meetings with tribes, interest groups, city governments. 

2:18 p.m. Next phase: the sketch plans. Department undertakes “visioning” sessions. Community meetings held, people invited to vote on preferred alternatives.

2:16 p.m. Next phase: technical background studies. Three public meetings held at College of the Redwoods, at which the consultant who devised the studies presented to the BoS and the Planning Commission. All studies on the Web site.

2:15 p.m. Spencer gives a timeline. First phase: “Critical Choices,” from 2000-2001. Numerous community meetings around the county and with stakeholder groups. Met with cities. Put up a Web site. “This was the report that we gave to the board reporting what the community wanted to see in their plan,” Spencer says. Over 1,200 people participated.

2:13 p.m. “We’ve done a very thoughtful and careful job of providing you with the input provided at each stage,” Girard says, referring to community outreach efforts undertaken by the planning department. Martha Spencer will present on those efforts.

2:11 p.m. “The language is not shall, but should,” Girard says. The community advisory committes are usually appointed when community plans are developed. Community is not county, Girard says. The community advisory groups are intented to be enacted not for the general plan update as a whole, but for local planning efforts as represented by the community plans. The obverse, which is the rallying cry in the current protest, is a misreading of section 1500, Girard says.

2:09 p.m.  There are two parts to the General Plan Update, Girard emphasizes. The first are the area-specific Community Plans, undertaken over the last couple of years, which he says will not be affected by the overarching general plan update.

2:06 p.m. If you’d like to follow along with Girard in his rundown of section 1500, HumCPR has posted the text here.

2:04 p.m. Girard gives his interpretation of the plan. In the preamble, the section emphasizes that planning must actively seek input from citizens.

2:02 p.m. Girard and advance planner Martha Spencer will describe the current general plan and especially section 1500, which describes community advisory committees. Girard says that it’s important that planning efforts follow the current plan, so he wants to make sure everyone understands his department’s position on this. Section 1500 and the CACs have recently become the rallying cry. “Like a Rorscarch, many people can read what they like to out of it,” he says.

2:00 p.m. Girard starts presenting the staff report. “We know that there is controversy associated with the general plan. It’s difficu.t to do a general plan process when there are so many disparate voices in the county.”

1:59 p.m. “The fact that there are perceived failings in it, we take very seriously,” says Girard, referring to accusations of faulty citizen input into the general plan update.

1:57 p.m. Board Chair Mark Lovelace opens up the item. Update on general plan update, multifamily zoning ordinance, and letter received from local jurisdictions. Hands to Community Development Director Kirk Girard, who is to present the staff report.

1:55 p.m. (Sorry, technical difficulties.)

1:50 p.m. Louis DeMartin, currently at the podium, is a regular BoS gadfly. “I’ve had enough with the fools of Humboldt County” gets a big laugh.

1:48 p.m. SoHum’s Peter Childs, who we will see again soon, excoriates the board for actions re: the county’s code enforcement unit. The code enforcement unit, and its past excesses, is one of the things that has spurred anti-government sentiment on planning matters amongs SoHum hillfolk. 

1:45 p.m. This is local nuke activist Bonnie Blackberry talking about her dissatisfaction with PG&E dry-casking process for the old radioactive material at the decomissioned Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant.

1:40 p.m. This is technically the moment for public comment on items not on the agenda, but speakers are getting in their pre-showdown jabs.