California lawmakers punted on a proposal to rein in agricultural groundwater pumping as drought continues to grip California and more than a thousand domestic wells have run dry.

A bill by Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, would have added hurdles to obtain a permit to drill an agricultural well. Though the bill cleared the Senate on Monday, Bennett elected to not bring it up for a final vote in the Assembly before the Legislative session timed out Wednesday night. He said California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told him the bill was no longer viable because of changes made.

During one of the driest years in recent history, California legislators did not pass any new laws that would boost the water supply or protect groundwater from overpumping, although funds were included in the budget for groundwater management and programs like water recycling.

The bill would have been the biggest change to California’s groundwater management since the state’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was enacted in 2014, during the height of the last drought, said Roger Dickinson, a former Democratic assemblymember from Sacramento and one of the authors.

Over the past five years — well after passage of the act — more than 6,750 new irrigation wells have been drilled.

“We cannot succeed in reaching sustainability unless we are judicious about continuing to allow well drilling,” said Dickinson, now policy director for CivicWell, a nonprofit group promoting sustainable local policies.

If Bennett’s proposal had been approved, local groundwater management agencies, largely in the Central Valley, would have been required to weigh in on whether a new, enlarged or reactivated well would harm the local aquifer before a local government can grant a permit. The applicant also would have had to submit a study by an engineer or geologist confirming that the well is unlikely to interfere with nearby wells.

The bill is aimed at agricultural wells. Household wells pumping less than two acre-feet a year and public water system wells are excluded.

The bill received little public discussion on the Senate floor before passing on Monday. But it underwent a heated discussion in the Assembly months before, with members from the Central Valley speaking in opposition.

“Continuing to go forward with this kind of heavy-handed approach is simply bringing the day closer when those million acres of agriculture are fallowed, and literally thousands upon thousands of farm workers will be unemployed,” Assemblymember Jim Patterson, a Republican from Fresno, said in May. “The death knell of agriculture is but a few more votes like this away.”

Assemblymember Adam Gray, a Democrat from Merced, said the bill would have “turned the process upside down and imposed a sweeping proclamation from Sacramento with zero consideration for local conditions.”

“Once again we saw a bill written and advocated for by people who aren’t from the Valley who think know what’s best for us,” he said in a statement Thursday.

Business and agricultural groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau Federation, opposed the bill, saying it would interfere with landowners’ rights to use groundwater and spur lawsuits over permitting decisions.

Daniel Merkley, water resources director with the California Farm Bureau Federation, called the bill “premature” and “an overreach.”

He said it could interfere with “what we’re trying to accomplish with our groundwater over the next number of years” and that it failed to address the diversity of California’s groundwater basins.

“Some (basins) are in critical overdraft, some are being managed sustainably already. This bill created a uniform envelope over all of them,” he said.

Bennett said agriculture and business groups had rallied hard against the bill. But he attributed its ultimate death to amendments inserted by the Senate appropriations committee that weakened its provisions compared to an executive order that Newsom issued earlier this year.

The amendments cut a requirement for permit applicants to show their wells would not increase land subsidence. Appropriations chair Anthony Portantino, a Democratic state senator from Glendale, did not respond to a request for comment.

Newsom’s order — issued after a record-dry start to the year — temporarily bars local governments from issuing permits for wells deemed potentially harmful to nearby wells or that could cause subsidence that damages structures.

“If that wouldn’t have happened, if we would have kept it as strong as the executive order, I’m confident the bill would be sitting on the governor’s desk and he would be signing it,” Bennett said. “But instead, we have to start all over again next year.”

Alex Stack, a spokesperson for Newsom, did not answer a question about what the governor’s office told Bennett about the bill.

“The (executive order) is important for conservation and sustainability purposes during this period of extreme and extended drought, and we will work with the Legislature and state agencies on any changes in law that might be helpful to putting the state on a path to navigating our hotter, drier future,” Stack said.

More than 97% of the state is experiencing severe drought, and nearly 1,040 wells have run dry so far this year.

The last time drought parched the state, lawmakers passed the groundwater law as agricultural overpumping spurred a rash of well outages in local communities.

Local groundwater agencies in critically overdrafted basins, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast and desert regions, are required to dial back the depletion and stop the consequences from worsening by 2040. Those in less depleted basins have until 2042.

But groundwater levels are still declining, land subsidence continues and more wells were drilled in the 2021 water year than in any of the previous five years, a state report said.

Bennett’s bill aimed to address a major groundwater disconnect between the local governments that grant drilling permits, and the local groundwater agencies tasked with managing aquifers. According to a bill analysis by an Assembly consultant, granting a well permit is often considered a “ministerial action” with “little or no personal judgment by the public official as to the wisdom or manner of carrying out the project.”

Dickinson said he had hoped when drafting the 2014 law that groundwater agencies and local governments would coordinate. “What we still see is both a failure because of, to a certain extent, the natural inertia of government on the one hand, and the grudging implementation of (the Act), on the other hand,” Dickinson said.

“We cannot succeed in reaching sustainability unless we are judicious about continuing to allow well drilling.”
— Roger Dickinson, former Assemblymember

Environmental and environmental justice groups supported the bill, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club California and Community Water Center because groundwater depletion threatens drinking water supplies.

Bennett said he expects a run on permit applications if Newsom’s executive order expires before a bill is in place.

“I’m really disappointed. And I’m very concerned that if something happens to the executive order, we will have a land rush on well permits,” he said. “But I’m not discouraged. We learned and we’re going to redouble our efforts.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

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The California Legislature rarely passes up an opportunity to place new restrictions on firearms, or stick a finger in the eye of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

But in one of the final acts of the 2022 legislative session, lawmakers declined to do either early Thursday when they opted not to pass a bill that would have rewritten state regulations on concealed carry licenses.

The bill, written by Attorney General Rob Bonta and introduced by Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino of Glendale, was a direct response to a June high court ruling that struck down a New York state law requiring anyone applying for the right to legally carry around a concealed firearm in public, to demonstrate a “special need” first. California’s similar law, which required the showing of “good cause,” fell along with it.

But despite the very public support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, California’s rejoinder to the court stalled in the Assembly, unable to overcome the wariness of a handful of Democrats and the unified opposition of Republicans. That’s despite some persistent lobbying on the chamber floor by Bonta himself, an Assemblymember for nine years until his 2021 appointment by Newsom to lead the state’s Department of Justice.

According to the final tally, the bill failed by one vote.

“I am deeply disappointed that Californians’ right to live, work, and congregate safely remains at risk as a result of this initial outcome in our Legislature,” Bonta said in a statement. “But make no mistake: We intend to take any and all action necessary to ensure we get a bill that will correct the dangers presented to our communities as a result of” the court’s ruling.

Gun control advocates were also incensed. “A dangerous Supreme Court decision recently put California families and communities at risk, yet last night too many of our representatives disregarded that danger and neglected to take action,” Shannon Watts of the advocacy group Moms Demand Action said in a statement.

For an institution that has for years been reliably receptive to new restrictions on guns and the people who own, buy and sell them, it was a rare retreat. Earlier this year, in response to back-to-back mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, lawmakers passed and Newsom signed a bushel of new gun bills, adding to a thick body of law that already makes California gun restrictions the most numerous in the country.

Adding insult to injury for California gun regulation advocates: New York state passed a similar bill earlier this summer that went into effect on Thursday.

But as if to illustrate some of the concerns held by the California bill’s opponents, a federal judge has already said that there is “a strong likelihood” that the New York law is unconstitutional.

Why this bill was not like the others

For disappointed supporters of the bill, there’s plenty of possible blame to go around.

Even by California standards, the proposal was ambitious in its scope, placing a raft of new requirements on concealed carry applicants and new restrictions on license holders. That earned the opposition of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, representing the officials who would have been tasked with implementing much of the bill, as well as the icy silence of other law enforcement groups.

Though the Supreme Court banned law enforcement agencies from awarding permits based on their own subjective discretion, the ruling left open the possibility that states can add on their own “objective” standards. Under Portantino’s bill, applicants would need to receive a psychological assessment, take at least 16 hours of safety training and provide three reference letters attesting to their moral fitness.

The ruling also permitted counties and states to specify certain “sensitive” gun-free zones. Under the bill, bars and restaurants, medical facilities, parks, public gatherings, airport parking lots and most private businesses would have fallen under that category.

For the bill’s opponents, exploiting a loophole left in the court’s opinion was too cute by half.

“The bait and switch of this bill is disingenuous,” Republican Assemblymember Thurston Smith from Hesperia said on the Assembly floor earlier this week.

Celebrating the bill’s failure on Thursday, National Rifle Association lobbyist Dan Reid called the bill “nothing more than pure defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling.”

In its opposition letter sent to lawmakers in the final days of the session, the California State Sheriffs’ Association decried the extra administrative costs the bill would place upon them, noted the possibility that it would open their offices to legal liability and bemoaned the fact that the policy would turn much of the state into a gun-free zone.

Other bill watchers noted that judges, retired police officers and prosecutors — professionals likely to have the ear and sympathy of many lawmakers — are disproportionately represented among the state’s concealed carry license holders.

Backers of the bill may have also been victims of their own overconfidence and eagerness. They tacked an “urgency clause” onto the bill, so it would take effect as soon as it was signed by the governor, rather than waiting until Jan. 1. That decision raised the threshold needed to pass the bill from a simple majority to two-thirds.

Without that clause, the bill would have passed the Assembly and likely the Senate.

“Obviously, if we thought it was going to fail, we wouldn’t have put in the urgency cause,” Portantino said later Thursday.

No love lost

Election-year politics and some lingering bad blood between a few key lawmakers probably didn’t help matters, either.

The two Assembly Democrats who voted “no” were Ken Cooley from Rancho Cordova and Bakersfield’s Rudy Salas. Both often take a more skeptical eye toward gun regulations and both are facing competitive elections against Republicans in November.

Assemblymember Jim Cooper, sheriff-elect in Sacramento County, abstained from voting, as did fellow Democrats Joaquin Arambula of Fresno and James Ramos of Rancho Cucamonga. Because the bill needed 54 “yes” votes to pass, failing to cast a vote one way or the other amounts to a tactful way to vote “no.”

But Portantino reserved a special degree of outrage for Patrick O’Donnell, a Democrat from Long Beach, who also declined to vote on the measure.

“To come up one vote short is beyond frustrating and to know that one Assemblymember purposely reversed his vote specifically to kill this important public safety measure is reprehensible,” the senator said in a statement. “California is less safe today because of that action and I am committed to bringing this bill back on December 5th when the chief obstructionist won’t be here to block it.”

O’Donnell, who decided not to seek reelection in November, voted in favor of an earlier amendment to the bill, but did not support the proposal outright when it came up numerous times on the Assembly floor. In an interview, Portantino declined to speculate on the reason behind O’Donnell’s vote. “It’s his conscience and his decision, so you’ll have to ask him,” he said.

In a statement of his own, O’Donnell rejected the idea that he alone was responsible for killing the bill and said that he had concerns about its legal viability.

“I wish I was powerful enough to single-handedly kill any bill. There are 120 members of the Legislature and many of them did not support this bill. That is why it failed,” said O’Donnell, who got into a heated debate with Portantino in June over his decision to kill one of the senator’s bills without a hearing as chairperson of the Assembly Education Committee.

“I’m not going to pass something, even on my last day in the Legislature, that may not be constitutional,” O’Donnell said. “Senator Portantino needs to look in the mirror as to why this bill failed.”

Portantino said he wants to “get it through the system as quickly as possible” in the next session and that he would prefer to keep the urgency provision. Without it, any new law wouldn’t take effect until July 1 at the earliest if it’s incorporated into the state budget. Otherwise, the default start date would be Jan. 1, 2024.

The status quo

Without the bill’s new rules, the pressure is now on county sheriffs to start handing out concealed carry licenses under the Supreme Court’s new standard, if they aren’t in compliance yet.

Many already are — and were even before the ruling. Because California’s prior licensing system granted local discretion over who has “good cause” to have a concealed carry license, counties with gun-rights sheriffs, including Sacramento, Orange County and Fresno, assumed any applicant who met the bare minimum standard as having good cause enough.

But for liberal-leaning urban areas on the coast, changes may be coming.

Some “will be dragging their feet,” said Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association. “But the sheriffs are going to start issuing, and they’re going to be sued very quickly by us if they don’t.”

San Francisco, for example, issued just 11 concealed carry permits over the last decade, rejecting all other applications as unnecessary. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, the department has received 40 applications, said spokesperson Kelvin Wu.

“We have issued no concealed carry permits as of yet. We are finalizing changes to our policies and practices based on the change in the law,” he added.

Now that no change in law is forthcoming from the Legislature — at least not in the short term — the effects of the Supreme Court ruling that Newsom, Bonta and Portantino wanted to shield California from are likely to arrive before long.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Calvin Olbert Hamblin was born in Durango, Colorado in 1930 to Elsie and Calvin Hamblin. They settled in Humboldt County, where Calvin grew up.

As a young boy he ran the streets of Fortuna, where his mother worked as a nurse in the old Fortuna Hospital. From there they moved to Eureka, where Calvin continued to grow up on Everding Street until after high school. He served in the Army and was sent to Korea during the Korean War.

After the war Calvin settled back in Eureka where he began his business as a distributor for Foremost Dairies. He grew his business during the ‘60s and ‘70s in the Willow Creek, Hoopa and Orleans area. During the ‘64 flood, Calvin loaded up his 4-Wheel Drive truck and waited for a road of mud be built. He was able to bring milk into the flooded area and was deemed a hero in that area.

In 1980 he and his wife Betty Lou purchased and ran Harris and F Liquors for 15 years. After they sold the store and settled into retirement, Calvin decided it was not for him and he went to work for Brinks, where he worked for the next eight years.

Calvin loved watching his beloved 49ers and the Warriors and all Sunday football games. He enjoyed his family and debated football with his friends.

Calvin is survived by his loving wife Betty Lou and his children, Dean (Debbie) Hamblin, Gerri Trujillo, Keith (Chantel) Hamblin, Myron (Patty) Anderson and Kim (David) Burns and Graciela (Gerry) Gnech. He has 8 Grandchildren, Travis, Courtney, Molly, Christopher, Alex, Tyler, Cody and Sara. Great Grandchildren, Paydin, Clark, Jacquelynn, Molly, Giovanni, and Gavin and Ella. Great Great Grandchild, Violet!

He was a loving husband and father and will be missed by all.

Eva Belle Smith was born November 2, 1949 as Eva Belle Shephard. She was born in Paradise, Calif. to Alice and Gene Shephard. The family moved back to Humboldt shortly after Eva’s birth.

Eva attended Eureka schools and met her husband, Randy Smith while attending a class in High School. Randy said as soon as he saw her beautiful eyes he was hooked.

Eva and Randy settled, worked and raised their boys Scott and Doug in Eureka.

Eva is survived by her husband, Randy Smith, her son Scott Smith [wife Laura] and son Doug Smith; her grandchildren Gillian, Tyler and Eva Smith; her sisters Juanita Gotcher, Darlene Meisner, and Viola Dale; her brother Robert [Bob] Shephard [wife Cherryl]; and many nieces, nephews and cousins. Eva loved her cats and had many over the years.

In their retirement years Eva and Randy enjoyed a common hobby of collecting things to be displayed in curio cabinets and throughout their home.

Eva will be greatly missed. We know she will be waiting for us in heaven.

Thank you so much to Sanders Funeral home for their professional care.

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The obituary above was submitted by Eva Smith’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Tatro.

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

The Eureka Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in locating 60-year old missing female Rebecca Ann Tatro (aka Rebecca Fuller, Rebecca Daignault, Rebecca Capoeman). Rebecca is believed to have been traveling to Redding from Eureka on or around August 22, 2022. She was possibly seen around that date on Highway 299 in the area of Buckhorn Summit.

Rebecca is a white female, 60 years old, 5’2”, thin build, green eyes, and brown hair.

Anyone with information regarding Rebecca’s possible whereabouts is asked to contact the Eureka Police Department at (707) 441-4044 or their nearest law enforcement agency.

Egrets! They’re pretty marvelous, right? I think so.

Here’s something you never thought about: For a creature that mucks about in the mud flats as much as your average egret does, how do they keep their feathers so blindingly white? And what’s up with that uncomfortable-looking thing they do with their necks?

Want to know the answers? Then you want to listen to this week’s episode of “Humboldt Baywatch,” in which Midge Martin, your friendly neighborhood KHUM-FM DJ, interrogates various wildlife experts about the lives and loves of the furry and feathered neighbors with whom we share Humboldt County.

This week, we got Carol Vandermeer of Friends of the Dunes to come into the studio and justify all three varieties of egret that are known to infest our territory. 

Let’s listen in!

AUDIO:

“Humboldt Bay Watch,” Sept. 1, 2022.

Wasn’t that interesting? Well, keep listening to KHUM-FM — that’s 104.3 and 104.7 on your FM dial (or right here, online!) — and who knows what interesting thing you’ll hear next!

Right now DJ Greta is playing some spooky minor-key murder ballad kind of thing with lots of string instruments and random hip-hop style sound effects that frankly isn’t much to my personal taste. But it may be much to yours! I don’t know you! In any case, we’re bound to get something completely different in a few seconds here, because KHUM spins all kinds of songs.

Let’s wait and see what she plays next.

Ha ha! It’s something called “Goji Berry Sunset” by a band called — get this! — “Jealous of the Birds”! Like an egret, perhaps??? Pretty funny.

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Two weeks after a heated Humboldt County Planning Commission hearing that soured relations between the commission and local tribes, applicant Travis Schneider said he’s optimistic ahead of tonight’s follow-up meeting, where the hearing is scheduled to continue.

“I think we’ve found some common ground with staff’s revised conditions,” he said in a phone interview this morning. “It gives me optimism. It makes me feel good, and I think it kind of demonstrates that we’ve come together on this issue.”

His optimism comes despite the fact that neither he nor the county has managed to connect with anyone from the Wiyot Tribe or the Blue Lake Rancheria since the Aug. 18 meeting, at which Planning Commission Chair Alan Bongio lambasted the tribes, repeatedly referring to them as “the Indians” and accusing them of dishonestly manipulating negotiations. [DISCLOSURE: The Blue Lake Rancheria is a minority owner of the Outpost’s parent company, Lost Coast Communications, Inc.]

As previously reported, Schneider is pursuing a coastal development permit and special permit modification in order to resume construction of his 8,000-square-foot home on Walker Point Road, near Fay Slough and the Indianola cutoff.

A stop work order was placed on the project late last year after Schneider violated the terms of his previous permits by laying down an access road through environmentally sensitive habitat and disturbing a known Wiyot archaeological site when he used an excavator to clear native blackberries and other foliage. Schneider also built the home’s foundation about 10 feet away from the footprint specified in the approved site plans, and he initially failed to comply with the county’s stop work order.

Over the past eight months, county staff has worked with the California Coastal Commission and three Wiyot-area tribes — the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, the Blue Lake Rancheria and the Wiyot Tribe — to document the damage and pursue a resolution.

Several stakeholders, including county staff and Schneider himself, believed that a list of 11 conditions of approval had been agreed to by all parties during an Aug. 2 meeting. But just one day before the Aug. 18 meeting,  the Planning Commission received comment letters from the Wiyot Tribe, the Blue Lake Rancheria, and the California Coastal Commission, all of which asked the commission to reject staff’s recommended approval.

The Wiyot Tribe and Blue Lake Rancheria both asked for additional environmental review and more time to review the proposed restoration and mitigation measures, with the latter asking the county to revoke Schneider’s building permit. They also said it was unclear how the recommended conditions would be implemented, monitored or enforced. The Coastal Commission backed their stance, saying the proposed project didn’t adequately address violations of the Local Coastal Plan nor adequately protect onsite coastal resources.

The Bear River Band, meanwhile, submitted last-minute comments saying they agreed with staff recommendations except for one: a proposal to conduct an archeological excavation, which the tribe considers disrespectful. Instead the tribe recommended placing $38,000 into a fund to be used for future mitigation of cultural resource damage.

At the contentious Aug. 18 meeting, the commission voted three-to-three, with Bongio leading the charge to allow Schneider to resume building his large family home. (Commissioner Melanie McCavour had recused herself, participating only in her capacity as the Bear River Band’s tribal historic preservation officer.) The three dissenting commissioners noted that the Coastal Commission could easily overturn an approval, and the matter was ultimately tabled for further review.

Following the meeting, county planning staff reached out to both the Wiyot Tribe and the Blue Lake Rancheria to request a meeting but did not hear back. The Outpost also reached out to the tribes but had not hear back by publication time.

But the county is again recommending approval of Schneider’s coastal development permit and special permit modifications, with a couple of revised conditions of approval. The staff report for tonight’s meeting lays out staff’s reasoning:

Given that the recommended conditions were developed in consultation with the Tribes and the Coastal Commission, agreed to in principle during the August 2nd meeting, and that the parties have not offered suggested alternative conditions, the Planning Department believes that the recommended conditions are appropriate to address impacts to coastal and archaeological resources.

One of the conditions — dedication of an easement to the Wiyot-area tribes for access to the archeological site — has been revised to specify that it is permanent and will be dedicated specifically to the Wiyot Tribal Land Trust for conservation and open space, at Schneider’s expense.

Another revised condition adopts the Bear River Band’s request for a tribe-managed fund for mitigation of cultural resource damage.

Schneider said he believes these revised conditions address some of the concerns tribes raised before the last meeting.

“I don’t know if they’re going to agree, but they haven’t spoke out against it,” he said.

Asked his opinion of Bongio’s comments at the August 18 meeting, Schneider said, “It was a moment I wasn’t in agreement with or proud of. I even spoke to Alan [afterwards].” Schneider said Bongio’s tone and language choices “took attention away from the issue at hand.”

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, who appointed Bongio to the Planning Commission in 2013, said he still hasn’t watched the August 18 meeting but did hear about the controversy surrounding Bongio’s comments.

“Am I disappointed? Yeah, because I feel we’re making some headway” with county-tribe relations, he said, adding that he understood the objections to Bongio’s comments. “My concern is with the tone and the delivery. I have talked with Alan about that. We didn’t go deeply into it. … I’m hopeful that we can get back to an even keel so that we’re back working together on projects.”

In developing his family home, Schneider is taking advantage of the county’s Alternative Owner Builder program, a simplified, less restrictive permitting system adopted by the county in 1984. The program’s stated goal, according to the housing element of the county’s general plan, is “to promote low cost housing and improved permit compliance in rural areas not served by public water or sewer.” 

“That goes way, way back,” Planning and Building Director John Ford said in a recent interview. “I think the idea was that, for people who were building a house — particularly for those folks that were part of the back-to-the-land movement and maybe using materials and styles that aren’t customary for a home permitted under the uniform building code — this gave them some flexibility.”

The Alternative Owner Builder program permits much more flexibility in acceptable design and materials along with more lax inspection schedules. The general plan says that through this program, builders “approach the need for low-cost housing in a carefully considered and innovative manner. Investing their capital in rural land and building low-cost, low-amenity dwellings of innovative designs, often utilizing recycled or home manufactured materials, they are able to provide themselves with an affordable, comfortable, and satisfying living environment.”

Over the years, however, the AOB program has been embraced by builders with much grander ambitions. Schneider’s 8,000-square-foot home is one example, and Ford said the program was also used by Mackey McCullough, owner of Arcata-based McCullough Construction, Inc., when he built a 10,000-square-foot home near Lord Ellis Summit.

Ford said the AOB program has loopholes that should probably be addressed in the near future.

“Normally, with a conventional permit, you’d have to call for a foundation inspection to make sure the house conforms with the approved plan. That was not done in this case,” Ford said, referring to Schneider’s project. “Had there been an inspection we probably would have not been in this situation with the house.”

Schneider’s property qualifies for the program because it’s not within the boundaries of any incorporated city or municipal sphere of influence and it’s not served by public water or sewer services, but Ford said the original idea was to promote code compliance among rural landowners who probably couldn’t afford to hire their own contractors, let alone build such large homes.

Schneider said he used the program because of its eased restrictions. 

“The primary reason is because it provides the option for us to not use fire sprinklers in the home,” he said, adding that most of the design and building conditions remain the same as with standard permitting. Still, he acknowledged his project’s divergence from the original intent, to promote rural development at a reduced cost.

“The program could conceivably use some revision and maybe second look after this particular case,” he said. 

Bohn agreed, saying the Schneider and McCullough projects exceeded the expectations people had when the program was established.

”Anybody building anything is gonna push it to where they can go,” Bohn said, referring to regulatory compliance. “I think that [the AOB program] was maybe not fine-tuned enough, or the perception is that it is being taken advantage of.”

Tonight’s Planning Commission meeting is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. inside board chambers at the county courthouse. The meeting can also be streamed via the county website.