UPDATE: At today’s meeting of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, the supes voted 4-1 (with Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace dissenting) to approve more than $19,000 in county funds to pay for the ongoing, unscheduled GPU re-review by the Planning Commission. The motion included approval of two additional meetings next week — on March 4 and March 7. But what the motion failed to include, according to Lovelace, was the authority to hold those meetings. More on that in a sec.

As you may recall, the Board of Supervisors gave the commission just 45 days to re-review the Conservation and Open Space element of the general plan. That timeframe expires at the end of this week, which is why the Planning Commission was going to consider asking for an extension tonight, according to the agenda. But since tonight’s meeting was canceled, here’s what will have to happen for things to go more or less as planned, according to Lovelace:

  • During its Thursday night meeting, the Planning Commission will have to approve a letter to the Board asking for more time.
  • On Friday, that letter will have to be drafted and sent to the Board so it can be placed on its agenda.
  • On Tuesday, the Board can approve the request, and
  • On Tuesday night, the Commission can resume its re-review of the GPU.

Confused? You’re evidently not the only one.

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Original post:

Another wrench thrown into the general plan update: Tonight’s meeting of the Humboldt County Planning Commission has been canceled due to “lack of a quorum,” which means not enough commissioners were going to show up to make the votes count.

This cancelation will likely wreak havoc on the timeline established during Thursday’s dramatic meeting. As it was winding down the commissioners passed a motion committing to at least try to get through its re-review of the Conservation and Open Space element of the general plan update this week, meaning tonight’s meeting plus the one scheduled for Thursday evening.

We have a call in to Planning Director Kevin Hamblin to find out which commissioners couldn’t make it tonight, and what the effects of the delay might be. The Times-Standard quotes him as saying, “One commissioner is ill and the other is out of town, so we’d only have three members attending” — which is confusing since there are, in fact, seven planning commission members.

We’ll update this post if we hear back before county office closing time.

Note: This post has been corrected from a previous version to reflect the accurate scheduling for Board agenda items.