If you’ve had trouble keeping track of the county’s seemingly interminable general plan update, don’t feel bad: Your county officials are confused, too.

In the afternoon session of today’s Board of Supervisors meeting the supes struggled to articulate what they want from the county’s Planning Commission. And why they want that. And how the commission should go about getting there.

Some brief background: The Planning Commission long ago finished its review of the general plan update and sent its recommendations on to the Board of Supervisors, which has the final word on the document. But at its Jan. 9 meeting the current incarnation of the commission (in a split vote) decided to ask the supes to give the plan update back for re-review. (Here‘s the letter signed by Commission Chair Robert Morris.) The commission majority reasoned that the update has been fundamentally changed by the board and is now riddled with mistakes and discrepancies. 

(Some have argued that this move violated the Brown Act, California’s public meetings law, because it wasn’t on the meeting agenda.)

Four days later (in another split vote), the board acquiesced, agreeing to send the entire Conservation and Open Space element back to the commission and giving it 45 days to tinker with it. Having gotten what it asked for, the commission spent two meetings last week going over the element, tweaking definitions and arguing about jurisdictions, regulations and other minutia.

But, perhaps inevitably, confusion reared its ugly head again. Commissioners weren’t sure exactly how they were supposed to do what they were doing. So they asked the supervisors for clarification.

“What are we supposed to be doing?” asked 5th District Supervisor Ryan Sundberg when the item arrived on the agenda.

Sundberg said he’d been “intentionally vague” in crafting instructions to the commission, figuring it could come up with a process on its own. “That obviously didn’t work,” he said. So he suggested the commission use the same process the board has been using — start with a “short list” of the disputed policies and proceed from there.

Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell agreed that the Planning Commission should be able to figure out a process on its own, even though she disagreed about sending the element back to the commission before the board finished its review. (She and 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace were the dissenting votes at the Jan. 13 meeting.) 

The supervisors then proceeded to argue about how much leeway the Planning Commission should have in making changes. Lovelace said it would be “disrespectful of the previous Planning Commission” to allow the whole element to be rewritten. First District Supervisor Rex Bohn suggested that any policy that received a split vote from the previous commission should be fair game. Then 4th District Supervisor Virginia Bass said it should be left up to the commission how deep it wants to delve.

Sundberg looked to the county’s planning and building director, Kevin Hamblin, whose job it is to convey the board’s instructions to the Planning Commission. “Kevin?” Sundberg asked. “Are you clear [about] what we’re saying?”

“I’m less clear than I was a little bit ago,” Hamblin responded. “I think the Planning Commission will get the message that they shouldn’t ask [this question] again.”

Lovelace then brought up the cost of holding all these additional meetings and the impact on public participation. The Planning Commission has agreed to hold general plan meetings twice a week until March 10, the end of its 45-day deadline. Lovelace argued that such a schedule “will completely, 100 percent disenfranchise” all but the most devoted GPU junkies. And with after-hours staffing, security and TV broadcasting, those meetings will cost more than $10,000, Lovelace said.

“Small price to get it right,” Bohn responded.

“That’s how we got to $2.5 million (the cost of the update process to date) — one meeting at a time,” Lovelace countered.

Ultimately the board voted 3-2, with Fennell and Lovelace again dissenting, to go with Sundberg’s suggestion: telling the Planning Commission to use the “short list” method employed by the board. Planning Commissioners can also add any policy they choose to the list of policies up for reconsideration.

And so the process continues. The Planning Commission meets again tonight. And Thursday. And so on. And the end point for this process keeps receding.