Planning Board - workshop

I think we'll go ahead and call the meeting. Order. Lady, would you call the roll?

Concord. Here. Oval. Here. Gretzky. Here. Rudolph. Here. Spear. Here. Michael. Black. Dusklight.

So we are in order. We have a special kind of workshop approach to the first part of the meeting tonight. where we're going to be hearing from Ken Dow in connection to proposed amendment to the planning board. So it's city code 325-40 parentheses N. Before we enter into this conversation, I'd like to make some general comments to kind of frame our discussion. And I've actually committed this to writing because I want to just like my words very carefully on this particular topic. So forgive me if I read from my notes. The Common Council referred to the proposed zoning code amendment to the Planning Board pursuant to City Code 325-40A and requested an advisory opinion. Over the past several weeks, we've received substantial material from a variety of perspectives, including Common Council, interested citizens, and the applicant uh also we've also reviewed recommendations from the columbia county planning board i appreciate the time and effort that each party has devoted to helping us understand the issues i would also note that public comments are not a part of the regular meetings for the planning board and uh and usually reserved for the public hearing period during the application review process so there won't be public comments tonight in association with this agenda item i think everyone recognizes that this matter is significant and so much so that that's why i've committed my thoughts to writing the issues are complex the stakes are high and it is likely that the city will continue addressing the questions surrounding the waterfront and this section of zoning code for years to come one thing i've learned over many years of public service is that communities are best served when they invest in strong decision-making infrastructure. Clear rules, clear procedures, clear standards tend to produce better decisions over time than focusing solely on the controversy that happens to be in our face today. And I believe that's where our opportunity is in this discussion tonight. Our task is not to resolve the broader controversy. Hi, Sarah. Others have those responsibilities, including the Common Council in its legislative role and, where appropriate, the courts in their judicial role. Our opportunity is narrower, but I believe equally important. We can help strengthen the city's decision-making process by remaining disciplined in our role and providing constructive advice from the perspective of the municipal body, that is the planning board, the municipal body that will ultimately administer of this section of the zoning code. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest that we focus our discussion after Kim's presentation, that we focus our discussion on the question that I believe is uniquely within our board's remit. And here's the question. Does the proposed amendment provide clear, objective and administratable standards that future planning boards can apply fairly, consistently and predictably? I don't believe that our discussion today should become a reconsideration of the conditional use permit, the pending article 78 proceeding, or the broader policy debates surrounding the waterfront. Nor do I believe that we've been asked to determine what occurred at the dock in 2011, or to resolve the competing legal interpretations that may ultimately be addressed elsewhere. Instead, I hope we focus on questions such as, does the proposed language provide sufficient clarity for future administration. Are the standards objective and capable of consistent application? Would future applications and planning boards understand what evidence and findings would be required? And are there provisions that would benefit from additional clarification or definition? If we can answer those questions thoughtfully, I believe that we'll provide the Common Council with something that only this board can provide. practical advice from the body that will be responsible for administering whatever legislation the council ultimately chooses to adopt. Before I ask Ken to begin his presentation, I just want to kind of poll the board. Is everyone comfortable containing our discussion within the parameters that I have defined? Is that something that we're comfortable with? Yes.

I understand what you're saying, and I think. In other situations that may be applicable, but here. I don't know if we can put our blinders on and only look at the new code because you're saying don't look at it thinking about the past or the future past litigation or future litigation. When to me this seems a direct consequence past and present litigation and pending work. So I just don't, I don't see how you could do, how you could do what you asked when I think this is a direct consequence of that. It's not like the city was just reviewing and said, oh, wow, this part is vague. I mean, they're specifically doing this in response to that.

So may I respond?

Yeah.

I've asked that question too, how do you separate the process from the content? And the difficulty I'm having is not each of us as citizens has a point of view, and maybe in some cases, strong points of view. But when we put our planning board hat on, what is the scope of our lane? And much of the issues that are addressed in the content are really not a part of the planning board's lane. It's not a part of our remit, not a part of our, assigned responsibility. We are not convened to have an opinion about job opportunities in Columbia County. We may care deeply about that as persons and as citizens, but it's really not a point of a voice of the planning board. So that's where I'm headed all the way on.

The Duke Code wouldn't have anything to do about employment. I mean, what you've said doesn't make sense to me because if this is adopted and Calderuso's does come back to us, we will then be taking it and applying it to Calderuso's. So what you said is like the exact opposite of what will happen. I'm not following.

What's the confidence? I just had like a rather narrow one, which is that we're being asked to consider something that we've narrowed the funding boards authority to magnify some facts. I think along with what you said, I think that's part of our whether we should recommend that or not.

That's my understanding of what is the benefit.

Peter?

Yeah, but I feel like I keep returning to the moment, maybe one of the last meetings, Andrew, or a conversation we had about the authority that the planning board has, and I try to keep it all in the comprehensive plan, you know what I mean? So when I think about how I might be useful with my planning board hat on with regards to a local law, I think about the ways in which the comprehensive plan either creates permission for this kind of law or the law aligns with the comprehensive plan or does not. So that's the way that I'm addressing it. It is the local law, something that is oriented with the shared vision for the city of Hudson that's encoded in the plan. And so I feel like I put that in what you said, is a north star for the planning board and it's in the comprehensive plan and the details are you know mystifying um and maybe for the common council to unpack but directionally um i guess i'm just referring to the comprehensive plan and the shared vision in there one thought i'm having uh veronica is that the concerns that you might express because you've already expressed in our last meeting we're starting to express those views are being expressed elsewhere the county has

kind of going into a lot of detail about their concerns. So the come council of here, those very concerns that you might want to personally express yourself. But when I look at the language in the proposal, I find certain things to be kind of ambiguous. And how would a planning board verify certain requirements? They talk about truck trips. Well, what is a truck trip? Is that one way or is that two ways? Is that empty? Is that only loaded? So in my view, if a future planning board has this law, I would want it to be more articulate in terms of expressing quantitative measurements rather than qualitative judgments. So that's what led me to conclude. Since your concerns are being voiced elsewhere, let's concentrate on the administrative ability to manage whatever they bring to us as legislation. And we're not a legislative body, so that's the other reason I was thinking, well, I'm not even sure why they're asking this, but they've asked for our opinion, so. Shall we just jump in with Ken, and then we can pick up the discussion. I would just add a footnote. We have a hard finish at six, so it's going to be a pretty tight discussion. And because we do have a public hearing scheduled with another applicant. So, Ken, thanks for coming tonight and reporting comments.

First thing I want to say, Veronica, I think you're completely on target with one very important point. This proposed law is entirely in response to the current situation where the planning board did issue a conditional use permit that is being litigated. And the only time this would come into effect would be if the court determines be made to charge in favor of the petitioners, the likely remedy would be to remand it back to the planning board for further consideration. So that's exactly what it is designed to do. So the situation, as I said, there was a planning board issue of a conditional diffuse permit in relation to the dock back in the fall. And there was litigation commenced afterwards. And it really hinges on a particular phrase zoning code which is in the definition and then 325 17 d1 the definition it goes on as that's the conditional use permit may be issued for quote continuation of continuation of existing commercial dock operations for the transport and shipping of goods and raw materials then it continues on and it concludes in the last part of that long sentence describing it such commercial doc operations as such uses existed on the effective date of this local bottom 5001. That's the whole thing that the litigation hinges on, is that the code has a very specific piece of language in it referring to as such uses existed in 2011. The planning board's conditional use permit made no reference whatsoever to the past. And the litigation argues that that was an invalid There was no conditional use permit. The litigation, there's no conditional use permit that's authorized by the New York City of Hudson code for dock operations. What it is, is an authorization for a conditional use permit for dock operations as such use of interest. And that's the litigation plan. If the court rules against the petitioners, this law will never have any effect whatsoever because the existing prior will have been issued and it will have been set back. won't have any bearing on anything and it would not come up again because it's permitted but given. But if the court agrees with the petitioners and sends it back, they're going to send it back to the Planning Board in all likelihood and say, you need to address this part of the code that says that such use existed in 2007. So it's entirely, the Common Council could just deny. That's certainly an option that may well happen. In that case, would just get sent back to the planning board and the question would come before you presumably the corporate directing to address that clause and it would be up to you to do that um so the the issue is already there and whether it comes back to the planning board is beyond anybody's ability of power here it's in the hands of the court so this is a contingency if the court sends it back the question is going to be addressed and the question is Is it going to be put in your laps to address on your own? Or is the Common Council going to take some initiative to try to make that a clearer, perhaps simpler task for the planning board? And it could go either way. I honestly don't know whether they're going to proceed with it or not. But I think it's really important to understand that it's not creating a new problem. It's not creating a new question. All those things are in the past. If the question is posed back to the planning board, it's basically you're going to have to deal with it on your own or with this additional guidance by amending the code. So. Yeah, and that's another question. So I do want to say it's not like this is coming up and putting new things in there. It's addressing a question that may come before it's going to be answered either by you on your own or by you with this additional code revision. And that's really what it's all about. And what happened is that members of the public collected a lot of information, submitted a lot of historical data from a number of sources, which if it were to come to you, you would want to review on their original, you know, you would want to reference these documents, do the verification of all this data on your own. But members of the public presented a lot of information about information they were able to gather in the time period before and after 2011. But also, this is not starting from scratch, just coming up with a new idea or a new plan or a new set of anything. The entire point of it is only to work with what is already set out in the code. It's not someone coming and saying, we need to expand things, we need to restrict things, we need to do things. How do we answer the question and the provisions that are already in the code in an objective, fact-based, irrational manner? And that's the point of this law. So a lot of it is actually one of the legislative findings and purposes, observations, information that's been accumulated, references to existing code. It's just laying the groundwork for why this might be something to be done. And, you know, again, it's based on a couple of provisions that are just blank and black and white in the code. One is, you know, referring to the best that usually existed. The second one that is an element of it is Section 325.929, which has to do with non-conformity usage, because all these laws predate the colors of acquisition and forgiveness of parcel. So they're longstanding laws. They were just there. Section 3, and when Section 325-17D was enacted in 2011, it was a few years before Colorista purchased the property, the DOC has designated that as a non-conforming use. That's clear, it's in the law. And as a non-conforming use, Section 325-29, as provisions says, The limits not to perform uses to no expansion, but also nor shall any external evidence of such use be increased by any means whatsoever. So these are things that are already there, and they're all just laid out in the findings and purpose. It's like this is the rationale for where we are. So with that background, what the rational fact-based means of answering that question. Um, and the council is proposing, you know, and it's laid out at some length, some of the rationale and thinking behind it, but it is not great. There's no intention there to put any new restrictions in place.

You've said that a few times, um, but it says, you know, here specifically that, um, Any type of non-conforming use shall not be enlarged, extended, or placed on a different portion of the lot or parcel of land occupied by such use on the effective date of this chapter, nor shall any external evidence of such be used to increase by any means whatsoever. And then it also talks about the number of trips allowed and the tonnage of material per year. So, I mean, I think at last meeting we quickly ran numbers and 10,000 truck trips would limit them to what they're doing now if you broke that down into a less than month. So how is that not restricting?

First of all, because the restriction that has been in place since 2000, prior to 2011, is no external evidence can be increased beyond what existed at that time. rationale is that at that time what was in this you know this is all laid out in the branch of the other reason the view that things coming and going and such as evidence of the activity that that was already restricted as a non-conforming use um to the tax and then that what were those numbers what was the evidence of food tax public venues that the public put in was that it was about 5,000 and something annually. And so the argument is that that is already what was in place. And that since it couldn't expand, you couldn't have any extra 11s beyond that, that that was the restriction at the time. And this is trying to articulate that in actual numbers. Not in concept. In concept, it's already there.

But then you keep saying at the time. What time? 2011.

Veronica, I hope you understand how this question is relevant within the scope of the planning board's purview. This is a legislative question, I think.

Well, it is, but the thing is, in a way, it's not that legislative because the point is it's not trying to do new things. As I said, the restrictions are in black and white and have been there since 2011 or earlier. And so what this is trying to do is put meat on those bones. When it said it cannot you can't increase the external evidence beyond what existed at the time. Well, what was that? And this is trying to make it rational to their determination. It can't be perfect because there isn't perfect information, but to avoid being arbitrary, we want it to be fact-based, numbers-based. And the public put in a bunch of data that arguably allows an inference or a good faith rationally based estimate as of 2011. And that, in this part, isn't even really part of the law. This is background that would be in front of you whether or not this law is enacted. Those provisions are already there. The data on the truck traffic, I'm sure that the public will present to you. So none of this is actually new. This is not being imposed. It's not new. It's all data and it's all law. It's all written in the code already. The point of the law really begins with its Section 2, which is what would the actual changes be. All of this other stuff is really just an analysis of looking at the history, citing express parts of the code and referring to actual data that the public has put in. But it is not creating that stuff, and it is not actually imposing it. So, it's beyond that.

Ken, can we open this up to a more general discussion with the board? I'm just waiting.

I think it's about our time. So, the idea is you would have that same information whether or not this law is passed. What this law does do, though, is it gives you specific numbers that would have the imprimatur of the Common Council. You could reach these numbers on your own, or you could come with other elements, but they should be fact-based if you're lying and misdirecting.

We wouldn't be able to come up with other numbers, though.

Well, I don't know. I mean, if this were to pass, right?

Like some of the numbers that we would have to use, as I understand, the intent for all, or not.

The part that actually is, we go into the code, is actually does not say that. is what it says is the authority would include, this is part A, the authority to issue this permit means authority to approve commercial docking operations equivalent in nature and not exceeding the scope and external evidence of docking, including the annual truck trips, et cetera. But it doesn't have any numbers. It doesn't Part B, though. It doesn't Part B. And what Part B does, because Part A, although it does not dictate any numbers. There is data that says you can use this data and you may use this data to cover these numbers. Does not say you must because you may find different things, but what it also says is trying to accommodate changes and the fact that they have done mitigating acts, it says notwithstanding all those numbers from the past, you can go up to 10,000 round trips a year, which is about twice what the historical data was.

Where does how was that number? Determined that that would be like an appropriate the 10,000 and 200 and so that is kind of an estimate.

I mean, that's that is a estimate we saw. It was trying to accommodate an increase that would perhaps be justified by the fact that they have put in some mitigating things. Without it, there isn't any. That actually is the thing that we Again, if it comes before you, we don't know what you do, but it's possible based on the data that you would conclude a low number of trucks up to like 5,000. It's possible. It's not dictated. The law doesn't tell you that, but there's data that you might find compelling and useful. And if that were the case, if you found that, you would have no choice but to limit them to that. What this does, though, is it's actually an opportunity to look, but they've also done mitigating things So even though we found all the data, even though we believe this is what the law would compel us to do, this was saying, well, we're going to let them go to $10,000 anyway because they've saved that many people's lives.

But it would not allow us to, as a finding of facts, determine that in 2011 they did $15,000, for example. I'm just curious about that.

It would, because A just says, use these things. If you found it was 50,000, that would be justified. No, the first one does not give any, it does not dictate anything. It says, because, and the explanation is like, well, how do you judge as such use existed in 2011? Trying to find things that are actually measurable, that you can apply objectively. And these are the things that, and a length. There could be other, there could be other ways to to even evaluate as such use of existed, but we're trying to find an objective, measurable thing and in light of the, you know, external evidence, this and that, the truck traffic seemed to be something that was one, seemed clearly to be external evidence of the activity, which is referred to in Section 32529, and it's measurable. So it's something that both comports with the, you know, part of a lot of talks about external evidence, and it's something that can be counted and objectively measured. So it seemed, again, this is what the council, what the council adopted, say, look, this is a way that actually makes sense, that it can be measured, and it's consistent with the existing things about the law. And that's what it would do. And so that's just saying, well, these are things that are objective, they're measurable, and this is what we would, the council would say that you ought to look at. would be based on what you come up with, if that's what you go with. It could be what was found here. If you have evidence, it actually refers to it. If there's evidence for other numbers, those are fine too. But it does say this is what the, you know, if it were to pass, the council says, well, these are things that you can actually measure. We have some data on it. It allows for a somewhat reasonably objective standard as opposed to other things that might be more difficult. And that's what it's, the point of it is. Otherwise, question will come before you figure out how to apply it what to apply and then also the objective components of that so this says here's how to measure it and leaves it up to you to to come up with a measure but it also notwithstanding whatever you come up with you can still go up to 10 000. Otherwise, it will come back to you and you say, well, we have to find both boxes to figure out what the standards are and then find the facts to fit them. So this, you know, goes partly to filling those things.

Let's pause the discussion for just a minute. We're up against six o'clock. We did post public hearing at six. So I just want to poll the citizens that are here. Are there folks here that are to speak in the public hearing for the Edwards Elementary School project? One, two, So I just need to ask, would you give us permission to continue this discussion for 15 minutes, and then we'll move into the public hearing? Sure. Okay, great. Thanks. So let's put a 6.15 stop time on this.

Yeah, and so I guess that's really kind of where it stands is that This lays out reasons.

It's starting to go back to the beginning. If the court sends it back, you're going to have a question. Because the relief has been requested to come back and ask such use exists in 2000. So you're going to have to deal with that question. If you don't have it, you're going to say, well, what does that mean? And in the sort of findings and purpose, this lays out an approach to that question. What does that mean? And it tries to Look at the existing code, look at the references, look at the things that that already existed and work with those.

Uhm? If it.

Those you know are are rafting reasons perhaps to do it, but you might have to. You know you might come to the same conclusion on your own. This is just this is the way it's being looked at by the Council, whether they enact adopt the law or not. you may come to look at the same thing and say, yeah, that actually makes sense and this is what it should be. And maybe you don't find that. But then when it's determined how it's evaluated, then you need to find facts, data, measurable things that you can apply to that framework. Ben, let's see if we have any more questions or comments from the board.

No.

I mean, my quick take on this is that we have a journey ahead of us as a city, and that journey is going to be a challenge. It's going to challenge our individual and our institutional abilities to conduct complicated business. And anywhere we have an opportunity to clarify where there's ambiguity, that just helps clean the process going forward. But the process is going to happen. I sort of have a Rodney King hybrid philosophy here. Not can we all get along, but can we find a common ground that maybe we're not all happy with, but we survive a process that we can not be damaged by or injured by in the process. So wherever we can reduce ambiguity, we should try to do that. So specificity, measurable and not qualitative judgments, So that future planning board, whether it's us or some other group, one of the things I observed as a citizen last year was there did seem to be a lot of ambiguity about certain aspects of this. So I viewed this as an incremental step forward to create a more constructive environment for us to follow for this process that we have at MSN. Veronica, the issues that you may wish to raise and that have been raised by the county will be raised in abundance going forward in the process. So I guess my point of view is, can this planning board contribute to reducing ambiguity by creating more specificity? And if we're revisited by this application in the future, some of these questions have been resolved. So basically, I guess what I'm doing This is compartmentalizing a little bit, Veronica, and saying we can't solve the whole issue tonight, but maybe we can address some individual details that will help make future meetings and future hearings easier to deal with.

I don't know why you said that to me. I'm not... Well, it's just...

This isn't that... This is not supposed to be creating new restrictions. We actually don't think that would be appropriate. It's that What does the law already say? And how can you actually put that into measurable objective terms where there is information to verify? So that's what its purpose is.

So the Council is asking for advisory and advisory opinion. They are not asking us necessarily to vote it up or vote it down. And one thought that I've had is that we offer an advisory opinion. And then based on this discussion and perhaps other discussions that we might have, we construct a letter and send it to the Common Council with our point of view. It's not a voted up, voted down. It's simply, you ask for our advice on this, here are some of our thoughts that we have. I'd be happy with the board's authorization to draft based on this discussion, to draft a letter for us to look at at our next meeting, and for amendments, changes, and approval, and then we can move on to other business. That seems like a reasonable step. I'd be interested in your reactions. That seems reasonable.

Based on the presentation, my concern is that they're trying to make amendments to the laws that we have to basically going to revisit the limit, but through certain amendments, but that doesn't seem to be the case based on what you presented. This would have no effect and will never have any effect unless the court sends it back and says, you need to answer this question. Because if it doesn't send it back, the existing permit's in effect and it's in perpetuity and it can't, I mean, you can't think of it and start changing around and saying it's that or the other. but it's all it is about that if the court sends it back how are you going to answer the question right um and it so it's a responsive thing because what is doing it based on existing or not unnecessarily any because i know that i know that there's thoughts about trying to make changes that's not going to be that isn't that is not within the program the question the words are already there you know that's when it says when it has the words in the existing code about as such it's existed because it thinks about You know, no external evidence. Those are already there. And this is like. Put meat on those bones. It is not. Well, we also we think we should. They should do this and we think they should do that. That's off the table. It says how do you answer the existing questions? It may happen. It may just and it doesn't. If the question comes back to you, it's it's all in here for the entire thing, but it's not going to be tomorrow. Maybe you achieve. So that's the key thing is that the question comes back. It's not. Common Council, I mean, I'm ready for whether or not the question comes back to you. If the court sends it back, it does. If they don't, it doesn't. What happens when it gets here?

That's sort of what this is.

Oh, there's a question.

I have one very narrow technical bit of feedback, which is that the fall road permit has a trips per day number. And I think that's actually a better requirement. in terms of the number, if you're actually looking into that impact, because there's a good part of the year when the doc is not in operation. And so if you actually are looking at trying to minimize impacts, it's less good per day during the summer. Well, that's it.

To answer that, I would say a couple things. One, that's a great comment to put in. But secondly, this law is not intending to limit impacts. It is attempting to define what the code already says. That's why it's not It isn't trying to do that. And it's trying to think, how can we measure what is already there? But that's a comment, that's the kind of thing you want to put in there. But it is important to understand that it is not trying to essentially achieve new things, or it is trying to just answer the question of what's already there.

And then I have just like one, I disagree. assertion that quantitative is better than qualitative in terms of the code. And that the job of the planning board, as I understand it, is to, in a semi-judicial way, interpret the code using evidence-based law. And that any time there's a restriction in that, or narrowly, I share your assertion that that's a good thing, versus allowing the board to do their own findings and facts and interpretations of reality rather than having narrowly concerned. It's very difficult.

So that's my point. Gene, any comments? So we have a couple of options.

We can move to reject, we can move to approve, or we can simply say, I'll conclude this discussion and do nothing.

can authorize me to craft a letter that accepts all these uh comments to bring back to the board to review and approve uh in the next meeting is there a point of view that someone would like to i would also just uh it's referring to you if there's no agreement on i mean you can say yeah we looked at it that don't and that happens that happens too so i mean it's you can write whatever you want you can reflect individual members, say some members thought this, some members thought that, if there's a consensus that you want to build, but you have a lot of flexibility to respond to this. It's just, there's a period of time in which to do it or not.

So it's up, it's totally in your core, it doesn't matter. So an alternative strategy would be that I draft something sooner and distribute it right away, so that if anybody wants to add feedback before the next meeting, I would give you an opportunity to do that. So with just a few minutes to go on this topic. There is a time period though.

From the time it was sent to you, I actually don't remember. Yes, I do. Are you saying you wouldn't receive a letter from the planning board if we sent a letter? No, I'm just saying, you know, it's supposed to be done. I don't remember exactly. 30 days. 30 days. Okay. So I mean, you can't sit for three months or whatever because there's no time.

Yeah. So the scenario that I'm suggesting is that the board doesn't vote to approve or disapprove. We write a letter that expresses some of our advisory opinions and we send it after the board approves and we send it to the common council.

We're not taking comments tonight, Margaret.

When you say advisory opinions, Are those our opinions or someone else's?

I think through the lens of your opinions, through the lens of your planning board perspective, yeah.

Not everyone has spoken. I mean, I don't really know. However, this is going to be a letter that without voting or without us discussing, it sounds like it's going to be kind of the perspective of a few people. What I'm hearing is that

Brian's going to draft it later. We will discuss it and approve it at the next meeting. And hopefully you can circulate it well in advance so that we could speak board style, both speak as a board and speak as a committee.

Yeah, I think you can include, you don't have to include different census. I mean, they can include all kinds of other, you know, say a couple members raised this. So it doesn't have to be, you know, they vote. It's trying to be constructive feedback at some point.

It's supposed to go to the board for discussion. I don't know whether your 30-day limit anticipates the action that we're discussing. But if we write a letter that it exceeds the 30-day time limit, what are the implications of that?

It's just that under the code, the Common Council can't vote on the local law until that time period has run. So when there's a proposed zoning law that has to go to the planning board, council has to sit for that period until either the time period runs out or the board responds so it would just mean that if the plan if the common council doesn't want to be prepared to vote on it um they need to either refer it back from the planning board or the 30-day time period for referral and that's going to go back if this goes on for a few more couple you know for more months or whatever and even outside the time period that you sent the letter, it would still be reviewed and valuable. It just, in the same way when something is sent to the county planning board, there's a statutory thing that is a 30-day period that has to, you have to wait 30 days from sending it before you can act. So that's what it needs to, and I've not heard the date when it was deferred. It would still be considered if the law hasn't been acted on, but the Common Council cannot act until that,

So, Chair, I'd entertain a motion that I be authorized to draft a responsive letter to the Common Council. I'm framing it as an advisory opinion, picking up on the discussion I've had tonight, distribute it to you individually for your review and additional comments before the next meeting. I'll incorporate those into the letter so that when you see the letter, it will reflect your comments. suggesting we attribute comments to individuals, but that we're speaking as a board. And I think that it can be a balanced statement that represents a variety of points of view, and that we have satisfied the request. So a motion along those lines would be helpful.

Salute. Thank you, Sarah. I'm sorry. We're going to review it. can't pull the board as to whether or not they're ready to move on to take the vote to approve this or not approve it. So you don't waste your time. Don't waste your time drafting a letter. Is the question whether this board would be ready to say, yes, we approve this. Or you take it right before it takes it.

Well, first of all, if you're not voting to approve it, It's a feedback of advice and guidance. So it's not, you don't vote, you're not voting on whether to approve or disprove the law. It's, I mean, you could do that. I suppose that's not primarily, but it is your comments and thoughts and guidance. It's an advisory opinion on what you think of it. So, yeah, that's something you can have a lot of different opinions. You can do whatever you want, but it's not a, there's no requirement for any kind of up or down.

So we have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Seth.

Call the roll, please. Okay. Are we taking into consideration voting, recommending, not recommending? Then yes.

Yeah, I don't think you're recommending for or against it. You want to express your concerns. So maybe you want to add to that and remember give your concerns to Ron for him to draft. And then it goes out to you. So then the letter going to the council can be, here's the concerns. Here's our thoughts and concerns. This is what we might find confusing or what we might find good about it for you.

i think that's what what they're looking i think at one point there has to be either we recommend we don't recommend or no opinion or whatever it is yeah i'm not actually i'll just say two other municipalities we do these all the time and their response is very tremendously sometimes they'll just say we don't really have an opinion and do what you want other times it would be just a very limited technical thing it's like you know this sentence here maybe should be clarified. Other times it will be really substantive. It's like, well, this is going to affect, you know, the farmland and blah, blah, blah, or, you know, how is this going to, you know, it may be a really substantive response. So in every case is different, but it's what are things that come to mind that you think the legislative body ought to think about, whether that's don't do it, do do it, or we are concerned about this. We think this isn't clear. We think it may have this impact that you should think about. You know, it's a very open state.

Just a point of order. We're in the middle of a vote. The discussion is six, so we need to get back to the room. Black.

Yes. Bolton.

Yes.

Chesky.

Yes.

Woodhull.

Yes.

Spear.

Yes. Michael. Yes. Opposing to pass. Thank you, Ken. Really appreciate you being here. There are a number of other folks in the audience tonight that have a deep interest in this. And I'm sorry we don't have public comments at our regular meetings, but thank you for being with us tonight. With that, we move directly into the next order of business.