Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone.

I'd like to welcome you all to the August 13th meeting of the Alderweireld County Planning Commission. Madam Clerk, can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Williams?

Yep.

Commissioner Hansen is absent. Chair Fragar?

Here.

Commissioner Costello? Here. And Commissioner Spahr?

Here.

Let the record show that Commissioner Hansen is absent today. Okay.

Commissioner Hanson. I mean, Hanson's not here. Commissioner Costello, would you like to lead us in a pledge, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yes. Staff, do we have any announcements regarding today's agenda? We have any announcements regarding today's agenda?

I don't believe so.

No? Okay. Seeing none, I have a question before we go to public comment on the consent calendar. Jefferson, if I have some questions regarding the public comments on an item regarding the river rafting, which is the second item on consent, do we have to pull it, or can we discuss it after public comment?

I think if you have maybe a singular brief comment, but if others of you have questions, it probably makes sense.

I might want to have parks and rec address some of the comments that are some of the remarks that were made in public comment.

Again, if it's sort of minimal, I think you can leave it on consent. If there's more questions or discussion, I would just recommend pulling it off and having it as a regular item.

Okay. All right. So if it's okay with everyone will pull Item number two? Yes. From consent?

Absolutely, thank you.

Do we need a motion for that or can we just pull it?

Two and three, I believe. Yeah, it's three as well then?

Yeah, two and three. Because the public comments apply to both. Do we need a motion to pull items two and three?

No, I think, no.

No? Okay.

And you never can just pull it, and you just did.

All right, we'll pull them. So, right now I will entertain public comment on today's consent calendar, which will be minutes of our July 23rd meeting.

Now taking public comments specifically regarding the consent calendar. Individuals will have three minutes to address the planning commission. The timer will notify you when you have 30 seconds remaining and again when your time is up. Public comment will be taken first from those in the planning commission hearing room and then from those on Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, use the raise hand button. If you are joining the meeting by phone, press star nine to indicate a desire to comment. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Now taking public comment from the room. And now taking public comment from Zoom. All right. There's no comment.

Since we have no public comment, do we have a motion to approve item number one on the consent calendar, which is the approval of the meeting minutes from July 23? So moved.

Second.

OK. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Roll call.

Commissioner Williams, how do you vote?

Aye.

Chair Fragar?

Aye.

Commissioner Costello?

Aye.

And Commissioner Spahr?

Aye.

Motion passes four to zero.

Item, I'd like to take items number two and number three. We have someone here from Parks and Rec.

So, Chair, just to be clear, it's two separate items, so.

So we have them separate? Yes. Okay. Let's do item number two.

Morning, members of the Planning Commission, Chair Fraga, and appreciate the help there, Jefferson, in helping parse the two items. So essentially before you today, we have two items. One is for a reallocation of user days, so moving user days from one permit to another. And that's the item that we're going to start with, item two. I did receive the public comment, and the comments weren't parsed between each one of the items. So let's see if we can... I would also say it seems like most of these comments are pertaining to general comments about the river management plan, but probably more so the transfer of the permit, not necessarily the user days. Was there anything particularly you guys wanted on item two, which was the transfer of the user days? So there is a commercial outfitter, AWA, that has multiple permits. And essentially, item two is transferring some of the user days from one of their permits that they hold to another. And so if you have any questions on that item, I can address those now. And then maybe we could address the rest of the comments from The public comment received under item three, which is the permit transfer from one outfitter to another. So maybe there's any comments or question you guys had on the user day transfer. We can address those now, and then we can move on to item three.

I guess my one question is, I just need to understand the difference between the permit types. Are these identical permits? Are they just different names for the same thing?

They have different permit numbers, but other than that, they function similarly. So they both have individual user day allocation. So each one has an allotment of essentially, we call it a user day, but it's pretty much a unit that we use to say this is, you know, for one person going downriver in a commercial capacity, right? So Essentially, what's happening is he's taking some capacity from one of his permits and transferring it to another permit in this action. And then, obviously, in item 3, there'll be subsequent action taking that permit and transferring it to another outfitter. So essentially, those are the movements that are happening with these two items.

But this is still within the same? This particular one is still transferred to the same outfitter?

Correct, yeah.

So the net effect is just basically realigning

Yeah, taking money out of my left pocket, putting it in my right pocket. So all of those user days, at least for item two, are staying with that same outfitter. Item three would be transferring it from one outfitter to another.

OK. Is that all right?

Pertaining to CEQA and the environmental review, why would the transfer of a permit trigger CEQA review?

Typically we cite it just to show that we're consistent and that we don't need to do additional CEQA. A situation where it would trigger CEQA is maybe if you were trying to increase user days, right? So saying, hey, we're gonna have a net increase in use that could trigger CEQA. Maybe if a user is proposing a new put in or take out location that isn't already being used. That could be another reason. Neither of those things are being requested in this case. It's pretty straightforward transfer, but I could see those circumstances kind of being a condition where SECRA would be required. Thank you.

City Council Chambers, So thank you, I just want to disclose I did speak with zachary in the week about these two items and number two and three, so it makes sense to me, this is just shuffling around user days by the same outfit. City Council Chambers, that's that's correct number two Thank you.

City Council Chambers, I really don't have any questions, I just wanted to please because normally we don't see public comment on transferring from. I just said one to another. And one of these comments that were raised by Mr. Emmett, just to be clarified for the public. So we have to open this up for public comment.

Right now take now taking public comment, specifically on item number two, individuals will have three minutes to address the Planning Commission, the timer will notify you when you have 30 seconds remaining. And again, when your time is up, public comment will be taken first from those in the Planning Commission hearing room and then from those on zoom. For those participating by zoom, use the raise hand button. If you're joining the meeting by phone, press star nine to indicate a desire to comment. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Now taking public comment from the room. And now taking public comment from zoom. Now taking comment from Emmett.

I'm unmuted. Does that work?

We can hear you.

Okay, thank you. Yes, I don't really know either the outfitter who is proposing the transfer. or the recipient, but I also didn't see any real information in the notices on the agenda. And that's sort of problematic. We don't really know where they're starting from, how far they're going, is it upper or lower? And we're basically creating a new outfitter, as I understand it. Could be wrong, but it seems like we're taking user days from one existing Outfitter out of 20 existing outfitters and giving it to what I think is probably a non-commercial Outfitter who is probably very virtuous Again, we don't have enough information. So I don't know and I had actually applied for a permit and I was told you don't have new outfitters. They're limited and even though we went from say 80 outfitters in the 80s to Dwindling numbers as the permits were consolidated over the decades to 20 commercial outfitters and five non-commercial outfitters. Now we're adding a new one. So the environmental impacts under CEQA are starting places is at mid-Coloma to Greenwood. I think AWA is probably in the Motherlode region near 49 Rapid. And there's just a lot of questions that come up that CEQA is supposed to be used to disclose that. We're sort of blowing off CEQA every time we certify the CEQA dating from the 90s that was certified in 2001 after a lot of difficulty in an inadequate EIR, which I have and I read. And a key thing in it is that we're certifying under CEQA laws that say it's a programmatic EIR. It's not, it doesn't identify it as such. It doesn't say that anywhere because I read it. So these are just some concerns and we probably shouldn't keep doing CEQA even though it costs to replace it. It's just word processing and it's not really that hard. So there are documents you can do in addition to the 2001 EIR. to update your SQL for such things. And those aren't being done. So we're just sort of blowing stuff off here. And that's my comment. Thank you.

Thank you.

No other comments.

Okay, since there's no more public comment, I bring this back to the commission for item number two. Well, well, so I don't know.

Number two, again, it's not the idea of the new outfitter. That's item number three.

This is transferring some user days from one permit to another.

So on balance, same outfitter, right? I don't see a problem. Okay.

So do we have a motion?

Yeah, I'll move that we approve the transfer of the user day allocations as stated.

Second.

OK, we have a motion and a second. So Chair, if you want to do the staff recommendation, that might be easier because there's also CEQA findings and the staff recommendation that would be adopted.

Thank you, I like to amend my motion to approve staff recommendations for transfer the user day and the sequel.

In second.

Okay, so we're recommending that we approve the request from action whitewater adventure to transfer 17 weekend user day allocations and 15 weekday user day allocations. from River use permit 13 to permit number 28.

Correct?

Correct. OK. Any further discussion? OK, let's take roll.

Commissioner Williams, how do you vote? Chair Fragar?

Aye.

Commissioner Costello?

Aye.

And Commissioner Spahr?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0.

OK. Now let's take item number three. Yeah, can you give us a brief report?

Yeah, so this item, Zach Paris, El Dorado County Parks Manager again. This item is kind of the subsequent action, right? So item number two was a transfer of user days from one permit to another permit, both permits being held by AWA. Item number three is the transfer of a permit from AWA to NorCal Whitewater Adventures. So as we were receiving public comment on the last item, it seemed like a lot of those comments were probably more pertaining to item three than item two. And just for the sake of putting the information out there, obviously we'll go through public comment again on this item. But just to address some of the questions there as far as like what reaches of the river, put-ins, takeouts, and that sort of thing would NorCal Whitewater Adventures be using. So this is something that is articulated in a river use plan. It's required annually before we issue items um maybe i'll back up a little we do an annual review process of every outfitter's permit and it's to make sure that they're being consistent with the river management plan part of the river management plan is you have to have a river use plan that tells the county where you're going to be operating where you're going to stop for lunches any non-emergency stops essentially along the river you have to let us know where that is so that we can make sure it's accounted for um so that's one of the questions that i heard in the previous public comment like Where are they operating? How do we know? That's something that's required before they can operate. They have to submit a river use plan. We approve it. They can go and operate. As far as some of the comments regarding non-commercial use, I understand that maybe there is a sentiment out there around people potentially operating a nonprofit. for honest reasons. It could be that they're providing river trips at a lower rate or for some other sort of reason. As the river management plan is written right now, that's still considered commercial use and would be required to have a commercial use permit. As far as the, you know, not for profit or nonprofit use of a river permit that's still in compliance with the river management plan, it specifically states, even if you are a nonprofit, that could still be considered commercial use. So those would be like the main kind of clarifying items that I wanted to get out there based on the public comment that was written that we received and also the comments from the previous item. So maybe I'll stop there.

Does anybody have any questions for that?

Yeah, I do. Can you help me understand why there's so many transfers? And are these all the same company? Have they changed their names? Do they do a new filing? This is the second time you've been up here this year along the same lines. And it seems harmless, simple, and all of that. And then I start thinking, Are they bankrupt? Are they avoiding a lawsuit? What's the reason for all these transfers?

Mr. Juarez in his application said for streamlining his business. I'm not aware of bankruptcy or any other factors. I can say that in general, you know, at least on our stretch of the South Fork of the American River, rafting has been on a downward trend for some time now. I mean, when I first started this job two and a half years ago, I went and met all these outfitters and kind of said, you know, what's going on, how's business, all that sort of thing. And generally the consensus was it's been on a, you know, gradual downward trend since the early 2000s. There was a slight blip in use for COVID because people were forced to go outside and do more outdoor recreation. And so I had my own questions because that was the data I was looking at. Right. I was looking at data from the past subsequent years right before I started. And then the year I started, we had a significant drop off in use. And so I was asking the others, what's this coming from? Like, is it is it me? Is something changed? What's the difference? Right. They said, no, it's not that what you're seeing is the drop off from this artificial blip from COVID. So I couldn't say for sure. I would say generally. Mr. Carty is correct. I mean, there was a time when there was significantly greater number of outfitters on the South Fork of the American River, and over time, they've just been consolidating and consolidating. And so I think now we're down to about 27, whereas previously when this river management plan first started, it was probably around 50. And so I would just say it's just kind of the nature of that business is starting to be consolidated, and you're starting to see some outfitters grow, some larger outfits, but maybe some of those smaller ones are starting to contract. It could be things like that. Thank you.

But all the permits available for the river here are taken, right? There's no excess number. So there's still a demand enough for each permit to be owned.

Yeah, so... It's interesting how this works, right? So the number of permits is the same number that there has always been. You can consolidate, or the number of user days is the same, right? So the amount of use that we allow on the river hasn't changed. But what's happened, so like we'll take AWA, for example. My understanding is when this program first started, it was, you know, each outfitter had a permit, right? But as time went on, businesses were, you know, people would go out of business, another outfitter would buy that business. And, you know, where we're at today is there's outfitters that have several permits. AWA, for example, probably has three, four, five permits just under that one business. And so... You know, I would say yes. Is there any commercial permits available? Do we have a surplus? No. They're all allocated to individual outfitters. If your question is, is there user day capacity? I would say it's with the outfitters, right? So I don't have a bank of user days. All user days are allocated to existing permits that are held by existing outfitters. Are they running at capacity? They're not running at capacity, but they do have those allocations in their possession.

Thank you.

I do have a question. Emmett did mention in his call-in that he had applied for a permit. Can you describe what the competitive or what the process is in terms of applying for a permit?

Sure. So, you know, I don't necessarily want to get into, like, dialogue with Emmett at this time. So I would say this. I would say, just to be clear and factual, we did receive an email from him saying he was interested, or a letter saying he was interested in applying for a river use permit. I sent him a river use permit application by certified mail. I have yet to receive that application back. So I'm aware that he's interested. I can also not say that I have received a completed application from him. That said, he's correct that I do not have a commercial river use permit available for that reason that we said before. They're all with existing outfitters. So in this case, You know, with this transfer, essentially, someone is buying a portion of another person's business, right? I am buying infrastructure from you. I'm buying the rafts, the oars, life jackets, all of that sort of thing. Obviously, the river management plan says that these permits don't have a monetary value, so they're not buying the permit. I'm buying a portion of a business and starting my own business is essentially what's happening. there are so through that vehicle it is possible um but if the question is do you have commercial river used permits available sitting in the bank down at the parks office i do not they're all currently allocated to commercial outfitters yes thank you so to clarify for myself um the river you the daily river use permit is a commodity okay if i have a business and i can't i know i'm not going to use all my

allowable permit days, and someone wants to buy them from me so they can use them, that's basically what the transfer is about. Correct?

I would just be clear that... You're not buying the permit, you're buying the business. It's very specific in the river management plan that the permit and the user days do not have a monetary value. If there is a transfer of funds, it says something to the effect of, you know, those two individuals are to settle outside of, in their own negotiations on what that purchase price of that portion of the business would be. But it also is very clearly stated in the river management plan that the river use permit is not, has no monetary value.

Right. All right, so any other questions. We open up for public comment, please.

Now taking public comments specifically on item number three, individuals will have three minutes to address the planning commission. The timer will notify you when you have 30 seconds remaining and again when your time is up. Public comment will be taken first from those in the planning commission hearing room and then from those on Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, use the raise hand button. If you are joining the meeting by phone, press star nine to indicate a desire to comment. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Now taking public comment from the room. And now taking public comment from Zoom. Now taking comment from Emmett.

Hello, thank you. Yes, I did send an inquiry about a permit, got a letter back saying there aren't any, but they would be happy to put it to the Planning Commission. And I just assume most of these applications are the same thing. The Planning Commission should deny it. if there aren't permits available. So the letter I got back from Placer County, I mean, El Dorado County, was that you can try that, but it's probably not going to work. And that's what I understand from the system that's based on a carrying capacity notion that doesn't exist anymore and was probably ill-conceived in the first place to tamp down river recreation so people didn't like write letters to Congress opposing water projects. which is not a realistic concern anymore. So I helped write the water contracts for El Dorado County in another job and people are getting their water. So I've been boating on the river since 1981, commercially worked for like eight different outfitters and yes, things have gone up and down, but going from 80 outfitters in an uncontrolled environment in the eighties to probably overly controlled and probably unmanageable system now needs to change. And we can't keep relying on an EIR that was based in the 1990s when they drafted it, when 1996 was a peak period. And the quota or threshold for the carrying capacity trigger was never reached. And so that's going to be an ongoing objection. is the nature of the permit system that is basically untenable and doesn't make sense and is outdated. And you can't just go 30 years on a CEQA document. It doesn't work that way. There are things to do to update it. They weren't in the notices. The information about the respective outfitters or their operations were not in the information on the Planning Commission agenda. So that's not enough information to judge on. and basically objecting to several levels. And I understand the Board of Supervisors is going to be looking at updating the 2018 current version of the river management plan or not to the 2025 version in September. So that's to be arranged. That's kind of a different set of comments. But at some point, we just have to recognize the problems here. And I did make seven or eight comments in writing so that's kind of intended to help the county work through this system and get back on track to something a little bit more reasonable so yes amendments need to be made to the river management plan and maybe the county ordinances and this just sort of highlights some of them but we can't just keep certifying basically 1996 draft of an EIR. That doesn't work. And the codes they use, public resource code, is not the code.

Thank you, Emmett.

Now taking public comment from Sue.

Hi, I just got on. I didn't, I'm not calling on this item, but your number for the Connection to the meeting on Zoom is incorrect. I guess there's one on the heading that's correct, but the one in the body of your, and it just took me this long to figure all that out. So people may be wanting to get in. Your number on the agenda is not correct.

Thank you. The one on the heading is correct.

Thank you, sir. Let's take a look at that. As soon as we're done here, let's take a look at that so we can . Good. Is there any other public comment?

There is no further public comment.

OK, let's bring it back to the commission.

Chair, I do have a couple of quick questions for Zach again. If I'm understanding correctly, there's a finite number of permits available that they're not being used fully or to the full capacity. If a XYZ operator decides to try to control, he has 10 permits and only wants to really use one of them, at what point would you take a look at needing to full of those permits? Is there a procedure that you say, well, you're underusing it and you may be controlling the marketplace? Am I making, asking a question?

I see what you're getting at. Yeah, and I think that's probably a lot of the crux of what Emmett's bringing up. I guess I would say a couple of things. There are provisions for us to encourage outfitters to consolidate permits. I don't necessarily think that right now the way the river management plan is written, there's a vehicle for us to take back user days or unutilized user days or underutilized permits from outfitters. We can require them to not. under certain conditions, we can encourage them to consolidate. And so if that was an issue saying, hey, you have 50 user days across 10 different permits, there's certain conditions where we can compel them to consolidate that. And honestly, that's part of the discussion that should take place with the river management plan update. this is the reality we find ourselves in. I mean, if you guys look at the staff report, we've satisfied all of the conditions of a permit transfer the applicant has, right? But that's not to say I don't understand where Emmett's coming from with his comments. That's just not the framework that we're working within currently. My best advice, guidance would be, you know, the next place that that updated river management plan is going to come before the Board of Supervisors is this planning commission, right? So like Commissioner Spahr said, you guys have been receiving more comments than maybe you have historically around permit transfers and things like that. I think if this is something that you guys are interested in, want to get more involved in, or have a feeling about,

that is probably the discussion that's more appropriate for those more sort of fundamental framework sort of changes whereas this is really um an admiral transfer of a permit okay well that actually brings up a question additional question both to you and to rob uh the updates of the plan where would that come from would it come and be uh initiated by your your group or is it something out of planning or

Yeah, so that process has started already with the Parks Department. So we've worked through Colota Lomas Advisory Committee, received their comments. They actually formed an ad hoc committee, purely focused just on the update of the river management plan. We had two of our parks commissioners attend their ad hoc committee meetings just to make sure the parks commission was involved. the river management plan proposed updates went before the parks commission um and ultimately it's working its way through the different commissions and committees to ultimately get to the planning commission and the board of supervisors for adoption so essentially where we're at in that process we've incorporated all of the comments and feedback we got from coloma lotus advisory committee and the parks commission it's currently being reviewed as a draft by our legal counsel once that's completed we'll bring that version here to the planning commission same sort of process you guys will give us comments we'll go through that make any updates based off of your recommendations and then ultimately it'll go to the board of supervisors to see if that's something they want to approve thank you

And other planning staff, if we were to deny this, would it change the CEQA process at all? And would the applicant have to reapply or did staff thoroughly review CEQA to see that this is current, does apply, does fit?

In all of our discussions at this point, we have not been advised that we need an updated CEQA document. So that would be my best response to it. I'm just trying to think of a situation where if it was denied today and it was brought back in a different form, could there be a potential? Maybe. I just don't know exactly what those conditions would be. I would say if it was brought back in a similar state, no, we would have the same recommendation. It wouldn't be any change. Yeah, it would come back very similarly. Thank you.

Mr. Gasol, thank you.

yeah I mean at the end of the day we're not increasing user days it's just the name of a company operating X amount of user days so these these permits allow for some number of user days is there a financial disincentive for an outfitter to accumulate or hoard permits and not use them Don't they have to pay the county X amount of dollars and they get that money from their customers. So on the surface, it would seem like it would be too expensive for them to hoard and not use them. In other words, underutilize them. Is that true or am I out there?

I know, but I would not say that the financial impact is significant.

Okay. so one could accumulate a bunch of permits and hang onto them?

I mean, this is the way it has to be. I mean, so I will say this. There are outfitters that have accumulated a large number of permits, right? But there are also outfitters that are running the most amount of trips. It's not so that I can have all these permits, shelf them, and then create this artificial demand. That's not, or at least that's not what my observation is. It's not what I'm seeing out there. I would say if they're being underutilized, it's probably for lack of customers.

All right, thanks.

I just have one quick question. The prior item, we recommended that certain allocations be transferred from Permit 13 to Permit 28. OK. On this item, deals with Permit 13. So is the recommendation that whatever is when our allocations are remaining on Permit 13 are going to be transferred to a new outfitter.

Mr. That's correct. Yeah, so the transfer from allocations from one permit to another has already taken place. That was the approval of Item 2. This is the transfer of one permit from one outfitter to another.

Mr. It's the remaining allocations.

Mr. That's correct.

Mr.

Okay.

All right. I don't have any other questions. Okay. Do we get, what is the sense of the commission? Do we have someone who wants to attend? Is this in District 4?

Yeah, I move that we approve the request to transfer River Use Permit 13 from AWA to NorCal.

Help me out, Zach.

NorCal Whitewater Adventures.

Thank you.

which consists of 15 weekend user day allocations and seven weekday user day allocations.

Commissioner Costello, I'd make the same recommendation. If you want to just approve the staff recommendation, I would say that, because then it incorporates all the text, which includes the CEQA finance.

But I believe, before I continue to, it is 15, river use permit number 13 the remaining allocations consists of 15 weekend and seven weekday that's what the new outfitter will have no no permit 13. uh if i understand it right the 17 weekend and the 15 weekday went from permit third oh you're right to 28 28 right and so the balance whatever is something else yeah minus those yeah whatever allocations start

That's correct. I mean, it would be the delta of those two numbers. I can shuffle through these papers and see if I have exactly what that number is, but that's essentially the methodology that is being implemented here. That's what we're doing.

I think we shouldn't. I would like to know what we're approving. I don't have any idea.

Is that the main thing? Approving.

We have it. I have it here in the staff report.

Let me see here.

So the staff report, it would show permit 13 current allocations weekend and weekday. So it's currently 32 weekend. and 22 weekday and the proposed or what was approved in item two would be changing it to 15 weekend user days and seven weekday user days. So that was in the staff report from the previous item.

So should be 15 and seven.

Correct, for permit 13.

Like I said.

All right, well, I move that we approve staff recommendation.

I'll second, but I have a question to ask you again. American River is such an asset for our county and river rafting is such an adventurous sport. How can we county participate in increasing more visitation and good management and more use of the river?

I asked myself similar questions. I mean, we have a vested interest in these outfitters doing good business. You know, a portion of those proceeds that they generate goes into the River Trust Fund, and that's what allows us to administer this program. I've asked the outfitters the same question. You know, like, what role can we play in helping support your business? One of the responses I got was, you know, you guys are aware we've had budget issues recently and losing economic development was felt by the outfitter community. They would like assistance with advertising. I've heard from outfitters that, hey, you know, what happened to the pamphlets that used to be there at the Sacramento airport when people land or maybe at the visitor's center or something like that? But the general feeling that I get is, you know, Try not to fiddle with our businesses too much, and do what you can to help us advertise and support people coming down to the river to recreate. Interestingly, something that I've noticed, we've done some digging into the patterns of people that use that area for recreation. And it seems like not a lot of people patronize our local businesses down there. So maybe highlighting some of those amenities that we have that we all enjoy, but maybe people coming to El Dorado County aren't familiar with. We had some social analytics done that show, you know, the most common place people go to before and after Henningsen Lotus Park, which is not is not necessarily representative of the river itself, but it's our park on the river. The two places most frequented are Placerville In-N-Out Burger and the Walmart in Folsom. And so it's just showing that people are going to the destination, and then they're leaving, and they're not spending time figuring out what else is going on in that area so uh my feeling is that we would need to just kind of let them know everything else that's going on and maybe they rather than going to in and out burger they go somewhere else so we could benefit from a comprehensive tourism program uh i would say if you're asking the outfitters they would say yes thank you back i do have one quick question before we get it uh we take a vote um

The NorCal Whitewater Adventures, are they currently an outfitter on the river?

No, so they're new. Correct, yeah. So he is an employee of a current outfitter that is trying to start his own business. So he has experience. He's been an employee of another outfitter, but this is his first time starting his own business.

Okay, and do you happen to know off the top of your head, this employee that's starting this new business, have there been any negative? Has there ever been any negative feedback given to you guys regarding the people he worked for?

No, I haven't received any negative feedback about the people he works for.

Okay. Any other questions for staff? Any other comments? All right, let's take a vote.

Commissioner Williams, how do you vote?

Aye.

Chair Fragar?

Aye.

Commissioner Costello? Aye. And Commissioner Squire? Aye. Motion passes 4-0.

Chair, before we move on.

Thanks, Zach.

Well, we have Zach here. One thing that you helped initiate last year together was to invite other commissions to participate come in and basically address and let the other commissions come and really give us a sense on what those commissions are up to. We did that with the Commission on Aging, for example. And I think it behooves us whenever we have some time mutually on our calendar to invite the Parks and Rec Commission to basically join us at some stage. So as chair, I will leave to you to negotiate that activity.

All right. So Zach, this is just not really direction, but in your interactions with the Rec Commission, Parks and Rec, can you just see if they might be interested in You know just someone coming and giving us a brief. presentation on what their long range plans are and exactly what they do that way in case things do dovetail between parks and REC and planning we're not flying one. If they have any, if there's any sentiment among the parks and rec commissioners to do something like that. And I know I will talk to the district five parks and rec commissioner to see if he has any input on that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next open forum. This is the opportunity for the public to comment on anything that is not on today's agenda.

Now taking public comment and public forum before we do that, I did want to address the tailors.

On it to make sure we got this right in case the zoom thing is incorrect.

The the zoom link in the heading that number is correct, the number on page two is incorrect.

Okay, so if there's anyone. that's not here please refer to uh the first page of the meeting agenda for the zoom items for the zoom number okay thank you now let's do a before okay

Now taking public comment and public forum. Individuals will have three minutes to address the Planning Commission about items that are not on today's agenda. The timer will notify you when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up. Public comment will be taken first from those in the Planning Commission hearing room and then from those on Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, use the raise hand button. If you are joining the meeting by phone, press star nine to indicate a desire to comment. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Now taking public comment from the room.

Oh, I guess. OK. I actually have a loud voice anyway. So I'm actually here to comment on the next agenda item. But I did want to bring forth to you, I'm a Diamond Springs resident. And I was involved in the design standards workshops and that. But my concern in this address to you is more about what is being put into Diamond Springs and El Dorado, the towns, as far as projects. Our traffic is extremely bad, and yes, I know the parkway is almost to completion, and I'm looking forward to that. I hope it works as it's planned, but I am concerned that you need to kind of think of our area as the main street, as I always call, of Diamond Springs, which is Pleasant Valley Road, Highway 49, is congested. I think it's still gonna be somewhat congested after the parkway, but I would like to think that between the planning department, the commission, the supervisors, that any new projects going into that area puts traffic mitigation, fire, We're on a hot tinder of... I live above the Martinez Creek and the canyon out there on North Circle Drive. And I've been working with the Diamond Springs Fire Safe Council. And that canyon that I live above is beautiful, but it is so heavy with brush and timber that if that gets started... none of this will matter. Diamond Springs will be gone and probably anything in the path heading towards highway 50. So I just want in your future, um, you know, projects and things coming through to consider a lot of that for our little Diamond Springs. We like it rural. We don't want it to be like what's happening at Folsom Ranch or other areas. And we just want you to know that the residents in that area, we know there has to be development, but we want you to think of it and think how it affects our community. Thank you. Thank you, Karen.

Now taking public comment from zoom. Now taking public comment from Sue.

So if you can't get on to the meeting. there's a phone number that you can call. Even when you call the phone number, it says that number doesn't work and you can't get to anybody. So I'm concerned about the lack of involvement that might be coming forward with this meeting because of the only reason I, I text the clerk, the planning department, the couple of the planning commissioners, and I couldn't get a response. And I finally called a friend and, um, Linda Campbell, who knows everything, and told me about the other number. I am concerned moving forward with this meeting. I also noticed that the representative for the Diamond Springs El Dorado Planning Commissioner is not even in attendance of this meeting. To me, it just shows the disregard to the public in which this upcoming agenda item is going to be imposing on. And I'll have more comments during that hearing, but I don't even think, you know, I just disagree with the whole process of the way this is being run. And it's unfortunately, as we posted those numbers that, you know, nobody can get in. So anyway, just wanted to make that known. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

What is the correct number? Can we maybe repeat that for people?

The Zoom number on the front is wrong.

Okay, but people... I'm giving you a Zoom number.

If anyone wants to use the Zoom number, it's https colon slash slash edcgov dash, wait a minute, my eyes, edcgov dash us dot zoom dot US slash J slash 81917381240. I guess I'm asking for the physical telephone number. All right, we'll get to that now.

The phone numbers never change.

OK.

But at the end of the number, you do need to enter the meeting number, which is the 819-173-81240 number. Thank you. Okay. We have one more public comment from Linda Campbell.

Hi, all. So I do just want to speak to what you were just discussing. If someone is actually calling in by the phone, they didn't hear anything that you just said because they didn't have the access number in order to be able to get it. So saying it now or reading it off doesn't help because the people aren't in attendance. So I just want to highlight that. That was all. Thank you.

Thank you, Linda. Okay. Before we get into the next item, is there any other public comment?

There is no more public comment.

Okay. So open forum will be closed. Jefferson, I have a question for you. Before we go on to the next item, since there is an issue with this, can we still proceed or do we have to

to continue the next item to our next meeting so chair i was looking and i don't know why it's not there but typically the agenda says that the only way we can guarantee participation is if you attend in person um when there's a meeting where everyone is here there are different rules if some of the commissioners are remote but um it is essentially a courtesy that being said it's up to your commission if you don't feel like people are having access you could continue the item but it's not legally required to do so

Okay. Because I do have concern about public comment and people's availability to deal with this issue. And I know design standards can be contentious and they can be controversial. I also know this has been an ongoing process for a long time. And I do know that our next agenda is very light also. So depending on how we'd like to proceed, we could deal with both issues in two weeks.

Chair, I would like to also add to your comments. And I concur with you that this is, again, uh commissioner hansen is not here uh and this is his district it would be nice to have the commissioner representing that area to also participate in this discussion and so i i would recommend we uh yeah despite the fact i want to thank people from from uh the community that are here today uh and i regret that you may have to come back again or with staff again but uh I think it behooves us to do this right and let the people have full opportunity to comment.

Thank you, Chair. Chair? Questions for?

I think it's appropriate for this item to have as much public input as possible. And some of the public comments lean towards there was not enough public participation from both El Dorado and Diamond Springs area for these design guidelines. I don't know if that's true or not. I would have to ask staff. And I don't know how you adequately measure that or not. But it's certainly not going to harm anybody if we were to postpone this and hear it at our next meeting and allow for more comments or public input. So I would support that idea.

Okay. Yeah, I'm in agreement.

I don't have a problem, because like I said, I know the next agenda is light, so we could deal with it then. My thoughts might be that maybe we could get the staff presentation. Would this be appropriate? Get the staff presentation, open the public hearing, get the staff presentation. And then hold public comment. And then continue it.

If I can give a recommendation. If staff gives the presentation today, they're going to give again in two weeks. If you're leaning towards continuing it, maybe staff could give a Maybe like one sentence presentation. Obviously, you have to take public comment and folks that comment today can comment again in two weeks. But you're going to hear the staff presentation twice if you want to hear it twice. Or just continue the whole item until... Well, you can continue it. You still have to open the item and take public comment because it's on the agenda.

I just want to make note just in staff's defense. we weren't aware that Commissioner Hanson wasn't going to be in attendance or at least we weren't and so I just want to make clear that we were not trying to you know cut him out of the process in any way by scheduling it today so I just want to make that clear I mean people were allowed to miss meetings we have

We can get ill. I mean, things can happen. And the commissioner might not be here. So let's open the item and make public comment and then continue. And then we'll see where we go from there.

Is that OK?

OK. Let's open the item, please.

Item number four, hearing to consider adoption of the El Dorado and Diamond Springs design standards and guidelines and zoning ordinance amendments to forward a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. Chair, can you please open the hearing?

Okay, public hearing is now open. Okay. So public hearing is open. Briefly. Good morning.

Tom Purcell, senior planner with Long Range Planning. With me to present that was also Thea Graybill, our Long Range Planning manager. Staff would be happy to answer any questions at this time. Just as an overview of the project in one sentence or less, this project would create permanent, commercial, multifamily, and mixed-use design standards for the El Dorado and Diamond Springs community region Basically, those standards would govern uses such as apartments, offices, restaurant, and retail, similar uses like that. These regulations would not apply to single-family houses, agricultural lands, or other uses. Thank you.

So now we would open it up to public comment.

Now taking public comment.

Before we go, yeah. Open it up for public comment with, to proviso that we have to, we're opening public comment, okay?

I would have to close the public comment, continue the item. No. So, Chair, you would open the public comment. You would leave it open. And then the motion would be to continue it to August 27. So we would take people's input. Of course, folks are, I mean, if people want to comment today, they're free to do that. It might be more effective if they comment at the next meeting when everyone is commenting. But if folks want to comment today, it's on the agenda. They can comment today.

Right.

But there's no staff presentation for them to comment on because we haven't gotten staff presentation. Well, all the attachments were there.

So is it more appropriate for us just to move to the avenue? Well, you have to take public comment.

Knowing that we're going to probably, well, we're not knowing that because we haven't taken the action. It very well may be continued for two weeks. Yeah. Okay. So take public comment.

Now taking public comment specifically on item number four. Individuals will have three minutes to address the Planning Commission. The timer will notify you when you have 30 seconds remaining and again when your time is up. Public comment will be taken first from those in the Planning Commission hearing room and then from those on Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, press the Raise Hand button and make sure to unmute yourself when called upon. If you are joining the meeting by phone, press star 9 to indicate a desire to comment. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Now taking public comment from the room,

Well, I'm back. Oh, gosh, back again. This is Karen Gutierrez from Diamond Springs. And so I was invited to join the Diamond Springs Eldorado stakeholders workshops, and we toured Diamond Springs and Eldorado. It was October. And so we got a good feel of our community and kind of what has happened in the years past. I wanted to be involved because I'm a longtime Diamond Springs resident. I want to see it continue to have the historic look and feel. We've got Missouri Flat Corridor, which is very... you know, big box kind of feel, but still with the construction, some of the new construction still has some sort of that craftsman or historic kind of feel. As far as the participation, I don't think it's the fault of the planning department so much. Our six members that started out in October, there's only two of us here. So I think it's more of... One, maybe getting the information out to people that this process is going on, but I think that's been done. I found it in other avenues. But I think, too, you also have people that... don't really care. And I'm finding that there's a small minority of the people like myself and other members of our community that do care and want to see our communities stay the same. But I think the input that we gave at our very last workshop at the El Dorado Community Building, as I've looked through the guidelines that have established here, I see a lot of that input or suggestions that we gave are in here. Now, I'm not a real document person. um experienced person so as some others are so yeah i will be back in two weeks and um i'll go over it a little more but um so far so good so we'll go from there thank you there anyone else in the room

Pat Husserl Brown from Diamond Springs. Pat Husserl Brown. And my main concern with our community has been to preserve the historic quality, not go big city with multiple stories, high density buildings, and to keep the design that is consistent with the historic overlays that should be happening. and we did have a we do have a lot of people that are interested i think it was you mr costello that said there's a lack of participation you know we have lives to lead and we also try and keep tabs of what's going on the decisions are being made so please consider traffic fire evacuation historic qualities of our community that we want to preserve, and also beauty. There's one building in Diamond Springs that I wish they put a mural on it because it was slapped up, the big white state farm. I don't know if it's just state farm. But, you know, the things like that, we don't want more of that. We certainly don't want more Cokie Lane projects. What a disgrace to that already established community small individual home, family, community when you allowed that project to go through. So we'll see in two weeks.

Thank you. Anyone else in the room?

Now taking public comment from Zoom. There is no further public comment.

Let's bring this back to the commission. So what is the sense of the commission? Before we go any further, Rob, we did talk.

We do have one last comment. OK, go ahead. Now taking public comment from Sue.

Thank you for catching that. I was, I thought I had my hand up. Um, you know, I've been, it's really sad with this community. They are such wonderful, sweet people and they want to be, and they're very polite. They, um, they don't want to offend and, but they want to retain the historic nature of diamond Springs and El Dorado. And when I saw what the County intended for that area, um, mass high density, uh, apartments throughout. They were actually the group of people that got together to decide how our county was going to be divided, decided that all of the low-income housing would go into Diamond Springs, El Dorado. So in 2008, we held a community. It was actually during, we had a pan, there was a pancake breakfast at the community center in the town of El Dorado. And we had 400 people come through and we got surveys, we got input. And there was actually a video made. We went out and interviewed a lot of people. Um, and with that information, we were desiring to bring that forward to the County to develop some standards, 400 people that wanted to be, that got engaged, um, So that was 2008. Over the years, the county has done everything they could to sidestep that and not implement that. They've put in projects that don't meet the general plan, don't meet our zoning ordinances. Cockey Lane is a great example is why I sent that to you. That was approved in 2018. It's in a historic district. Originally, they required the developer to design historic looking structures, which he did. And then behind doors, the planning director changed, allowed them to change the designs that are quite hideous. And that whole project does not fit into that small subdivision yet. They're being, it's being, it was put on them whether they liked it or not. So in this process, you know, these design guidelines or standards were put together by staff. I mean, by consultants, consultants, And then they brought in some stakeholders. I applied to be because they were lacking in the numbers. Veerkamp said I could not participate. I have all of the data, all the information of what people wanted. but yet I was not allowed to be involved in this process. And I could have brought probably hundreds of people to some kind of consulting venue. If you look in the general plan, this is basically all based on complying with policy, I think it's 2412 to develop these standards, which are supposed to include more than color, paint, and shape. It's supposed to, you should be including, and actually, if you go down to measure LUF, it says to create and adopt community design review standards and guidelines and identify new community design review districts. This would include working with the community groups to develop standards. That was required in the general plan.

Can you wrap up in two seconds?

Sorry, I took the mic.

Thank you. All right. Is there any other public comment?

There is no other public comment.

OK, let's bring it back to the commissioners. I do know, after talking with Rob yesterday about the agenda for two weeks, there is currently only one item on the agenda, correct? That's correct. And if we wanted to continue this item, we would have amplified. to be able to deal with this issue and still deal with the other item that's proposed. But there would be time for everybody to at least propose right now. Is that correct, Mr. Peters?

Yes. I mean, there is one project. It's a subdivision project. And so certainly, it's not a packed agenda.

OK. And it's time to notice it.

If you continue to a date certain, it does not require to, it's not re-noticed.

Oh, all right.

OK, so I would like to, even though as chairs I don't like to make motions, I would entertain a motion that we continue this item to our next Planning Commission meeting, which should be on the 27th. And let's deal with it first. So moved.

OK. Second.

8-1-7. So chair. I just spoke with staff. Although this won't be re-noticed in the newspaper, staff is going to make efforts to publicize this through our normal channel, so folks are aware.

If there were issues with some of the information that's here, you know, misprint or something, we'll make sure everything gets corrected for so that the public has an opportunity to give us feedback.

Yes. And Chair, just for the record, to be clear, I don't know why it fell off, but the language will return. The only way to ensure that you get the comment is to come in person, although we'll strive to make sure everything works. That is your only, that and a written comment is your only guarantee. Thank you.

But with something that can be so contentious as design, you know, signs are contentious, design standards are contentious. I'd like to get as much public feedback as we can get. So we have a motion to continue to the 8-27-2026 meeting. And we'll deal with this item. It'll be first before we deal with the subdivision.

Correct?

if that's yeah i mean you can do that certainly we usually coordinate the agenda with the chair so yeah if that's your strong sense the commission can well we coordinate that we'll record that we'll deal with this first okay we have a motion in a second let's take a roll call commissioner williams how do you vote chair hansen chair hansen's not here yes commissioner costello

Aye. Yes.

And Commissioner Spahr?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0.

Do we have any staff updates?

Yeah, I could give a few. I mean, generally, I acknowledge that we have the next planning commission meeting. I think we just discussed that. But we do intend to have the meeting on the 27th of August. I was going to highlight that. City Council Chambers, at the Board of Supervisors meeting on 728 there was a sort of a discussion about a contract amendment for a Texas hill project that are you all are aware of. City Council Chambers, And so there's a boarded asked for an update so there'll be a forthcoming update so just that you're aware of that. City Council Chambers, And then I usually only talk in the past, but i'm just going to give you a heads up on 818 so that our next Tuesday, we are administrative zoning ordinance that planning Commission had considered is being heard by the. Board of Supervisors, and also that there will be a discussion about potentially providing a comment on the El Dorado Hills CSD initial study negative declaration. So those are on the agenda, and I thought there might be some interest of your group.

Thank you. Any other staff updates?

Oh, yeah, I apologize. That's for the El Dorado Hills Incorporation, I should have said. Okay. All right.

Any other staff updates? Commissioner updates? I just have one. Next week is the annual Lake Tahoe Summit. It's going to be in Incline Village. And a number of planning staff, along with Supervisor Lane and myself, are going to go there. And we'll give you a report when we get back. Commissioner Williams, do you have anything?

Yeah. Commissioner Spahr and I met at the APAC last night. It was a very lengthy meeting, but very productive in terms fairly out issues with regard to basically an examination of EMPI appeals. Also was discussed last night was the incorporation, some of the incorporation issues. If anybody's interested, the meeting will be available online. And it might be a productive item for people to take a look at because you'll understand the depth of concern that was expressed. That's my primary item. Dave, did you want to add anything?

Sure. Yes, I did attend APAC. And what was surprising to me is there was a great concern about specific plans and how the conditions of approval in a specific plan aren't necessarily checked off and reported back to the public that they're being completed before another project is added into the specific plan and comes before us for a vote of approval or denial. So we really don't know where we're at on all the specific plans with conditions being met. And we don't have a tracking process to show us what's been met or not. And that has raised a lot of eyebrows last night with the folks who are in attendance saying, How could that be and how can you move forward? And I do have that same concern that we should have a tracking process to make sure that all conditions are compliant and that before we add another project on for approval or denial, that those conditions are absolutely met. That's it.

Thank you, Mr. Castello.

Yeah, I do. There's going to be a second kickoff meeting for the Georgetown Divide Area Community Design Standards. It's going to be held in COOL on Tuesday, the 18th. So I think the meeting in Georgetown was successful. It was a lot of interest. The folks from COOL wanted to hear it as well.

So that's on Tuesday, the 18th, 6 to 7 p.m.

Thank you.

Anything else? And we're adjourned. Me. Good job.