Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Mr. Black, are you ready? All right. Kaylee? You guys got it? Good. Everybody on this side? Excellent. All right. Let's do it. We will welcome you to this meeting. Tuesday, August 11, 2026. The Board of Supervisors for Humboldt County. It is just a few minutes after 9 a.m. We'll start with a roll call, please.

Supervisor Arroyo?

Here, good morning.

Supervisor Bone. Hey, how you doing? Supervisor Bushnell. Good morning. Supervisor Madrone. Present. Supervisor Wilson. Here. Thank you. All right.

Great. This is the time we'll do the saluted flag. You want to lead us, Chuck? There you go.

This is the time when we read the virtual attendance memo or instructions.

Thank you, Chair Wilson. This meeting is being conducted in accordance with the Brown Act and applicable state and local requirements. Members of the public may participate in person and or remotely as noticed on the agenda. For those participating remotely, public comment is welcomed and encouraged. To help ensure your voice is heard, it is recommended that you raise your hand at the start of the item you wish to comment on. If you are joining by computer or mobile device, please use the raise hand feature to indicate your desire to speak. When it is your turn, you will be unmuted by staff. If you are joining by telephone, please press star nine to raise your hand. When recognized, you may press star six to unmute yourself and begin speaking. Please state your name for the record before making your comment. The board asks that all participants conduct themselves with respect and courtesy. Comments should be directed to the board as a whole and limited to the time allowed. Thank you.

Okay, good job. Do we have any modifications to the agenda, CAO Hayes?

There's one modification, item D31 will be pulled for discussion. It is a packed agenda today, so for the audience situational awareness that will likely be heard at the end of the day after closed session.

Okay, fine, fine, good. All right. Let's see, with that, we are going to move, we have some time sets. We have a 9.45 where we'll talk about the Queue Zone and Lower Redway. That will bring us to 12 p.m. when we'll have the report from Fish and Game Advisory, and at 12.30, closed session items. As you can see, that's gonna be on the move, so I'm requesting that both us up here and folks in the audience do their best to get to the point. We wanna hear everything you wanna say, but also let's try and be strategic if we can. And with that, we're gonna move into the consent calendar minus number 31. And so I'm just going to bring it to the board. Is there anything on the consent calendar that anyone wants to talk about? And I know that we have something from Supervisor Bone. I'll just start with you, Supervisor, and we'll go from there.

Yeah, I'd like to, since you're in the front row here and you can't ignore them. The Veterans Transition Training Lines and the Clark Museum, the developers of Veterans Memorial for the California River Coast Humboldt County Airport would like to get up and speak. I know they've given you all a package, and I believe a challenge coin is in there for everybody. You'll each have three minutes. And I... I'll add a little bit, I think Chuck started this project 11 years ago? 15. 15, okay, right when I got on the board, and I remember it's been, and I went up and looked at it on Saturday, as a matter of fact.

Well, we're real close to having the kiosk finally fixed and put in, but I want to thank you all for the honor of this proclamation, because... We started this 15 years ago, as you know, with Eric Hollenbeck over at the Blue Ox when we built the Abraham Lincoln Hearst for the sesquicentennial event in Springfield, Illinois. And it has really blossomed into veterans memorials, working with veterans for dealing with PTSD issues. And the Lincoln Hearst, of course, as you know, we had 23 combat veterans working on that. it really helped immensely in their recovery. So, um, you're honoring us with this proclamation is just tremendous and I can't thank you enough. And from, as you know, mission, if you're in a part as part of a mission, when you're complete, you're given a challenge coin to commemorate the mission. And that's in front of you right now. And it's on a card that looks like this. And thank you very much.

Before we have class, I just want to make sure that we have other... Do we have more of you that want to talk about this? All right, I'm going to bring it back to Supervisor Bone.

There's a whole proclamation here, and just for the benefit of my... I like the idea of being strategically placed. I'm not going to read this, but it says quite a bit of stuff on here, and it's wonderful, and I suggest everybody go online and look at it. Again, Chuck... Chuck isn't just passionate, he's like a dog on a bone when he gets his mind set into anything. And it's a beautiful, we've had two or three different presentations up at the airport, and we have them upstairs where the whole president, and it's pretty awe-inspiring. And I want to thank you for what you've done for the airport up there, because it is definitely a drawing item up there.

So, thank you. All right, now. All right, this is the time when you guys get your photo taken. Uh-oh. There he is coming down. This is the moment.

Photo moment. Get in here. All right. Come on, guys. Kevin, you stay set. He came all the way here. You've got to get in the photo.

You want to come? Yeah. Let me get on your side. Get better. Yay.

Here, stand by just a second. There we go.

Thanks. All right.

Well, thank you all. We'll get out of your hair. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. Nice to see you. Thank you. Grab my bag. OK.

We also have a resolution recognizing the 100th anniversary of Bembo Inn. Michelle, you want to?

Thank you. I already, I'm not going to read it today, but I already delivered the resolution and attended their party down there. It was great. And really value the Bembo Inn and what it brings to Humboldt County and Southern Humboldt and the traditions that they have kept there with their designs and remodels. They do a great job.

I associate myself with all of those comments. Very true.

You used to work there, didn't you?

Well, I didn't work at the Bembo Inn. I worked at the golf course. I mowed grass and cleaned toilets for some time there. All right. Let's see here. The last thing I wanted to just mention is we have a retirement resolution for child welfare services, social services aid, Jane Baker, and also not present to receive it today, but congratulations and we're happy. Was there someone in the audience that wanted to speak to this at all? This is your moment.

Hi, I'm Allison , one of the program managers there. And we just wanted to thank Jane for her dedication and service. She just served very many children and families, supported staff, and had a great smile. And we wish her well in her retirement with her chickens and quails that she's raising. So thank you.

All right, the side hustle is now the hustle. Awesome. Nothing like a great smile, thank you so much. All right, with that I'm gonna bring, is there any other discussion for items on consent calendar by the board members? Okay, I'm gonna bring it to, is there anyone online that wants to speak to items on the consent calendar?

Yes, caller 5588, I will unmute you and you'll have three minutes.

And if there are other callers, this is a good time to raise your hand. callers but this is a good time if you have if you have comments on consent items now's a good time to and you're in the room now's a good time to line up for that so that we can make that happen so there you go please bring in the first caller caller 5588 martinez here can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you

Okay, thank you. I am calling regarding item 35 on your consent calendar. It is about the Humboldt Highway Safety Improvement Program, wherein I'm concerned about one of the design elements, and that is the idea for designing curb ramps to be oriented diagonally at the apex of an intersection for, well, it is common practice nowadays to install a curb wrap at each crossing of an intersection, meaning that the pedestrian, person using the stroller, whoever it happens to be, if you're blind or a wheelchair user, whatever, you can have a straight crossing you can have a straight navigation across the intersection instead of orienting yourself diagonally at the apex of a corner into an intersection. So this practice is in this bid that is now you guys are looking to approve. And I would ask that you please remove this from the consent calendar and discuss this. it's going to affect a lot of people. It's a I think I already said it's a very old practice to install wheelchair ramps at an apex of an intersection. It's something that's not done in pro ag. The pedestrian right of way accessibility guidelines and other many other guidance documents, it's recommended that that type of intersection be phased out. So, you know, as the county moves forward in all of the great things that we're doing to improve pedestrian safety, I would ask that you please do not approve the installation of this really old and dangerous system. Thank you very much.

All right, thank you. I'll bring it back to the room. Is there anyone else online that wants to talk on consent items?

There is nobody else online.

All right, let's bring it to the room and then go from there.

Ken Swatsky, also go by Red. I wish to speak on item 12, Submittal of Supervisors Monthly Expense Reports. And I probably wanted a few people to actually keep track of what's going on there. I guess I'll speak even though Supervisor Mike Wilson is not in the chair. And it has to do with Supervisor Wilson, so I guess he'll have a chance to hear it later recorded. He's in the room, okay. When someone, this is a very troublesome thing to me, Supervisor Wilson, spent less than $50 traveling with his district as far as dealing with his constituents. On the other hand, 816.52 to Sacramento legislative meeting, Sacramento legislative meeting 443.94, San Jose CSAC 1384.42, Sacramento policy meeting 249.13. It's a little bit disconcerting that all this time is being spent away from the area, it's also disconcerting that Supervisor Wilson is representing us. I'm gonna make an example of what happens when you have someone represent you. Supervisor Wilson represented us on the Coastal Commission, made derogatory comments regarding Elon Musk, and most people in the public feel that's the reason why we don't have offshore wind here. You made us a target. And it was for no avail. I mean, you went ahead and voted for Mr. Musk's things anyway. That's why the lawsuit didn't move forward against you. But when you're representing the county, you have to look at the overall picture. So how many billions of dollars has Supervisor Wilson cost us by having to go out there in these political forums and represent his own ideas? I don't know. Maybe someday we'll have an assessment of that. It's very concerning when we can't look at the overall picture. We have enough targets on Humboldt County. We have enough jobs. We're not getting here and I really wish people would, if they're gonna represent us, do it in a manner that doesn't cost us millions if not billions of dollars in jobs and projects that a lot of people support such as Offshore Wind. Thank you Supervisor Wilson for apparently killing that project at Humboldt Bay.

All right, is there anyone else who wants to talk on things that are on the consent agenda? Consent agenda.

Good morning, I'm just not sure. We have a few folks that are here for the time certain matter. Are we gonna get to do comments on that?

Yeah, at the time certain. Yeah, that's why we do that. Yep, no problem. Anybody else seeing, anybody? Consent? All right, I'm gonna bring it back to the board. I'm looking for a motion and a second to move consent. Minus D31. Okay. Is there a motion? Sure. Oh, yeah. This is your time to comment.

Thank you, Mike.

Yeah, this is it. Let's do it.

I'll make a motion to accept the consent calendar. And I also want to just reference to the multiple projects from Public Works that are Measure O funded. And across the county, you can see a lot of road work going on right now with those funds. And so I want to thank the public for voting for that and that it's making a difference on our county roads.

Second the motion.

Okay, there's a motion and a second, but I do want to ask, we have someone from Public Works, and I want to, do you mind coming up and addressing, there was a question in relation to the ramps, D35, and I didn't get into the details of that to that level, necessarily, but I do know that, well, I just want to ask the question, like, is this a thing that's amendable, or is this not amendable, or can you just give me a, is this, I'm trying to get to the part where if we pull this and ask for an amendment or a change, what does that actually mean? That's what I'm getting at.

Good morning. Bob Runkle, your county surveyor. With respect to ADA, which includes both state and federal, there are a lot of particular requirements regarding cross slopes, running slopes, landings. that oftentimes make it extremely difficult to go ahead and have directional curb ramps, two directional curb ramps at an intersection combined with all the existing grades that exist out there. Public Works is aware of the best practice of providing two ramps at the corners when it is feasible, and that is something we do strive for. However, BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THE EXISTING TERRAIN AND THE REQUIREMENTS THAT LIMIT GRADE, CROSS-SLOPE, AND LANDINGS, OFTENTIMES IT'S... AS WELL AS RIGHT-OF-WAY LIMITATIONS, IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO GO AHEAD AND CONSTRUCT THEM.

OKAY, I'M JUST GOING TO ASK THIS QUESTION. SO YOU SAY OFTENTIMES. DOES THAT ALSO INCLUDE THIS TIME?

do you see I'm saying like was that considered in this design and should we should we Tom Tom's coming in yes it was considered we got this comment some time ago and we re-looked at it and it is it's very design specific to this location okay

thank you so much thanks for covering that appreciate it i'm going to bring it back to the board i think my questions have been answered on that and thank you for doing that just for folks i think just for clarification what the commenters saying is that oftentimes when we have ramps at the corners uh the old way of designing was that that ramp would go diagonally into the into the crosswalk and that can be confusing for people who are sight impaired or other things and so uh or just less accessible so Actually having two ramps going in one in each direction is the preferable design. So what I'm hearing from our staff is that is our preferable design, but sometimes it can't be accommodated due to site-specific issues. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate you guys clarifying. I'll bring it back to the board. Is there any more comments? We have a motion and a second. Yes, Supervisor Bone.

Are we changing our stream and pulling things like this now and talking about them without pulling them?

We're answering people at the dais. Anyway, I just. Sometimes we get clarification from staff so that we can keep things on consent or make a decision to choose to remove it. So with that, is there any objection to NAM's consent for consent items except for 31? Seeing none, the consent calendar has been approved, unanimous consent. So the next thing on here is, I walked through a cobweb this morning, it's the time of year. All right. Yeah, no, it's just like those pumpkin spiders. All right, so. Not agenda items, we got it. All right, you guys ready? We're doing non-agenda items now, bringing it to, what? Yeah, public comment on non-agenda items. Public comment on non-agenda items. We're gonna take it to, is there anyone online that wants to talk about things on the non-agenda items?

There is nobody with their hand raised, Chair.

You're talking about my hair again? Spiders in my hair? All right, so, there's nowhere to hide, that's for sure. Okay.

all right so with that we're bringing it to the room comments on I on things not on our agenda this is your time good morning mr. chair and dignified members of the board my name is Vernon price you have before you some letters written from participants from the Hope Center regarding a an employee. I do know that it is county policy not to speak on personnel issues. I'm not asking questions about personnel. I'm giving the information to personnel. This gentleman has been a blessing to the Hope Center. These participants are giving their voices to the board, requesting that this man remain at the Hope Center. He has changed lives. He has added hope to hopeless situations, and he is a man with dignity and lived experience. He is looking to be brought on full time, but there's some roadblocks. We're looking to work together, improving the quality of life, build a stronger community, and a more vibrant county that we all live in. He was prepared to speak this morning. when he was told a non-truth by an administrator. I pulled the policy this morning and handed it to the administrator. The one will not be fired for speaking at the Board of Supervisors. They just have to do it on their own time. So administrators, be careful of what we say to our employees. Make sure it's the whole truth. Thank you so much for your time, your concern, and your consideration on this matter. And please have the best day possible.

All right, thank you. Next.

I'd like to have a comment about the same item he just brought. I'm a participant. I started as a volunteer there, first got there. I first met Jonathan. We clicked really good. We were good friends. He takes my one-on-ones, and he knows how to talk to me. I feel comfortable with that music around him. I always need music where I go. So that's a plus. I want to say that he means a lot to Hope Center. And we don't want him anywhere else. We want him as a peer coach. If anything, me, CCT, so he gets to be a peer coach. And that's what I want to say. Oh, my name's not Brian.

Glad to have you here. Next. Next.

Good morning, friends. My name is Angela Nunes. You may know me from the community. I've had a very troubled life. I went to the Hope Center to become hopeful instead of hopeless, and that's what I found there. I had an appointment with Rhonda. I had to cancel one day. Jonathan showed up. Jonathan always shows up. There was a day, you'll see in my letter, that no one was able to show up, and Jonathan showed up. As people who have went through the things that we've went through and why we go to the Hope Center, the stability of having someone who is always there with a calm voice, teaching skills about reentering into the community after you've been through some horrifying things in your life. So it's not that I don't enjoy everybody at the Hope Center, but we all have our challenges, whether it's mental, physical, being sick, and to be able to keep the Hope Center open where people come for snacks, where people come for companionship, where people come for skill building. I just think that I want to come and speak, even though this is very difficult for me, because the more people that speak, the more you hear us. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Daniel Pierce, and I have a story about a fire that almost happened and a flood that's going to happen. I was working on my house one day, 41 years ago, and my worker said, that's smoke. That's a plane. We were up at Bear Buttes, between Bear Buttes and Silverdale, and a fire started. It was me who stopped that fire. It all came down to one chainsaw. I've had so much fire retiring and dropped on me I learned you walk 20 feet over there and you don't get wet. But I'm here to talk about the Barkley Springs fault. Has a problem. That's a YouTube video. Underneath Lake Pearsbury, PG&E has built a lake. There's an earthquake fault. Below it, In Clovello, the fault is moving. Underneath that rock is serpentine. The serpentine is allowing the fault to move, and they can register the fault to move. Under Lake Pillsbury, it is not moving. The flood's going to happen in a matter of time. When it breaks Lake Pillsbury, everything in Humboldt County is going to be flattened. And then this wall of trees and water is going to take out every bridge in Humboldt County. When it gets to the redwood trees, it's going to push all the oil growth over. When it gets to Fortuna, if it's not at flood season, the city will be saved. If it's a flood and there's water in the river, Fortuna is gone. Rio Del and all the dairy industry is gone. And the creamery is gone. Everything along the river is wiped. Have you ever seen a flood go down a river? with trees, every bridge it hits it will destroy. How long has Caltrans known this? Caltrans has caused a fire problem in this area. I cannot get homeowners insurance. How many people in this area cannot get homeowners insurance? You need to call the governor right now and have Lake Pearsbury emptied. And from this second on, I want you to notify PG&E that you are 100% responsible if that lake breaks because you've known for years There's an earthquake fault underneath it and any minute you're going to destroy all of Humboldt County. Thank you.

All right, next.

Hello, my name is Joanne McGarry. I guess there's no timer available. I'm going to talk about three things anyway. So I always come here. Oh, thank you. I always come here with the umbrella concept of climate change. So everything I talk about. Today, it's not going to be fireworks, animal welfare, or bicycle parking, but it is going to be about bicycles and the e-bikes that are hitting the streets. McKinleyville on alert posted someone about young people are coming out in hordes with very dangerous vehicles on the roads. This is going to increase and we need to get a handle on it really soon because huge accidents are waiting to happen and impact people who are on those bicycles, those e-bikes that are driving very fast and people who aren't on them who are nearby. And so that was one issue I was going to bring up to people is that We need to do something about the young people on their bikes and being safer. And the second thing I wanted to bring up is I'm taking the bus a lot more and not my bicycle to ride across here for these meetings because I sprained my ankle. And I'm intending to go to the county fair, which is free for seniors and young people on Friday. But as you all know, there's no opportunity for people to get there on public transit. And I posted it on Humboldt County on Alert and was advised that I could take an Uber or, you know, find friends or family. And I might be able to do that, but other people aren't able to do that. And if we have a county fair that's there for everyone in the county, we really do need to offer a means for people to get there. I seriously would have walked over the bridge and gone there if I didn't twist my ankle. But other people don't have even that opportunity. So we spend a lot of money on grandstand seats and other items for the fair. It doesn't seem fair that other people can't get there. So the final thing I wanted to talk about, and it was sort of said earlier, I watched the Columbia earthquake damage on a video this morning before I came here. And I just reiterate how emergency preparedness in our community is vitally important. And we need to maybe start doing regular drills, regular educational forums and things like that for the public because things are gonna happen and we need to be much better prepared than we are as a community.

All right, thank you, next.

Hi, Diana Preston from Eureka.

Hi.

I have a couple of extraneous things to talk about this morning. I often find myself reporting back on the Board of Supervisors meeting to my organization. And I find that when you pass a resolution, you don't clearly state what it is before you pass it. I would actually prefer it be written up there. I've oftentimes been unclear because when you propose the resolution, you go through it and there's discussions on various details of it. And then at the end, it would be really helpful if you would clearly state exactly what it is you're voting on so that I don't have to wonder whether this one passed or not. Anyway, so that's my first request. And my second request is I have heard some really frightening news things about people in public government signing nondisclosure agreements. and then all this awful stuff happening in the county when nobody knows about it. So I wonder if someone could answer me, does this county have a policy on non-disclosure agreements by county people? to have a policy on it or is it just...

This is not where we... We don't have discussions here. You just talk to us.

Oh, crap. Okay, thank you. Well, I will be in touch with some of you individually then. Okay, great. And the other thing is, Mr. Wilson, I just think, do you know we have... We're supposed to have free speech and... Musk is a public figure. He has made himself a public figure. And in order to be defaming someone, you have to have damaged their reputation and their finances. So I don't really know what's going on with this. I'm going to do due diligence and find out what happened in that case. So anyway, so thank you.

Okay. Next, please.

Okay. Hi, Paul Nicholson, Bayside resident. I'm here. I've already talked to Rex, and I've sent you, everybody here, a comment about why I was here. Three weeks before the close of the Bayside Cut-Off, we had a fire on Jacobi Creek Road. And then one lady made a comment. She goes, wow, I wonder how long it's going to add when they close the Bayside Cut-Off. I started doing some checking, found out it's 3 and 1 half minutes, started thinking about what we could do, figured out that the break cut could have had a U-turn there because they're putting a U-turn at the Jacobs light. So I've talked to the Caltrans. They said my idea has some merit. They said I had 10 to 20 years to bring it up. Why didn't I do it then? I wasn't involved, and it wasn't apparent until this happened, so I said I have an easy solution. So by putting a U-turn in emergency lane at Brakehut, it would cut about two and a half minutes off of there. There were 85 collisions. I got them from Caltrans, or from CHP. over the past 10 years, but Arcata Fire has 4% of its calls going through the Bayside Cut-Off, or did. That's 12 to 14 calls per month. That's 10 times more exposure of calls. There's 700 residents, 313 households. I talked to CHP. They said that they were in favor of a U-turn at Brake Hut because it gets emergency vehicles off of the freeway quicker because traffic backs up on them. Taking them from Brake Hut even to Indianola and then back up, People back up, they're not supposed to pass them, so he's in favor of it when I talk to him. If you try to go by Jacobi Creek School at the peak times, you can't even get a car through there. the speed bumps and everything else, they have to go now through Indianola. It slows to a crawl. Structures can go to flash in about three minutes. I challenge you to just look at that YouTube video where it says why seconds count. In three minutes it can go devastating and this makes a big difference. When you have CPR, your chance of survival decreases seven to 10% for every minute. Coming back from Indianola, there's an incline too. So that slows the fire truck down. I've already talked to them about it because it doesn't look like one, but there is that. There was an acceleration lane from Bayside to get back on the freeway. They took that out. There's plenty of room to put a deceleration line, get the traffic moved over. So making a change to save lives and property should not drastically increase another. I hope you can help me, support me as I work through this. Thank you for your time.

All right, thanks for your comments. Next.

My name is Charles Wilson. On August 2nd, 1964, the United States started a war with Vietnam. I don't think any of you were alive at that time. In the Vietnam War, 52 military from Humboldt died. 58,220 Americans died and 300,000 wounded. It cost $170 billion, or over $1 trillion in today's inflated dollars. The cost for veterans continues. In North Vietnam, 1.1 million people died. South, 300,000. One to two million civilians died. You know how they died. Essentially, in August 2nd, the USS Maddox destroyer was in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, deliberately assisting the South Vietnamese in their war with North Vietnam. The Maddox was located in North Vietnamese coastal radar stations and intercepting the North Vietnamese communications to support planned South Vietnamese naval and commando raids. The South had already taken attack to North Islands. North Vietnam claimed 12 miles as their territorial limit. The US, in their magnanimous control, said only three miles. But the Maddox sailed into that 12-mile limit. Three Vietnamese torpedo boats came out within three miles of the Maddox, launched torpedoes, and fired machine guns. u.s airplanes left one vietnamese boat dead and the other two heavily damaged the maddox sustained only one bullet hole no serious damage and no casualties the ss turner joy was sent to reinforce the medics during a severe nighttime thunderstorm both ships reported being under attack by the North Vietnamese vessels, resulting in hours of evasive maneuvers and gunfire at Gose. There weren't any ships. Historical records in the subsequent investigations have confirmed that no second attack on the Maddox or Kerner ever occurred. The patrol commander cabled Washington that the so-called attack was likely the result of overeager sonar operators during the thunderstorm. President Johnson presented the two attack reports to Congress, which provided the political justification for the Vietnam War, all because of one bullet hole.

Thanks, and this may seem like a conspiracy, but our closed captioning has stopped working, so we need to stop for a minute while that gets fixed, and then as soon as that's fixed, we're gonna come back and start this all over again.

Not all over again.

Sorry, we're gonna start this back from where we left off, from where we left off. I won't make you do this all over again. I'm being told this could take up to an hour if we don't get it resolved. But this is a requirement. This is an ADA requirement that we provide this closed captioning. So it's either going to be really quick or it's going to be a long time. It's going to be one of those two things. Well.

Thank you.

Hold on one second. I said I'm going to start in what I say. Hold on one second. All right, so the first thing I'm going to do is open a public hearing. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay. Finishing non-agenda items.

The conspiracy went on.

Yeah, yeah. See, it was.

Yeah, yeah. See how that worked for you. I have a few topics I'm going to deal with later. I'm going to do a little more research on them because I didn't complete one. One is the fact that we paid out $250,000 to an employee. Something is dysfunctional in that process when they have a complaint regarding some kind of sexual harassment in the workplace, and then they get fired. That's a concern. Somebody needs to get fired for whatever happened in that process. Also have, oh I thought I'd mention the lawsuit that I mentioned filed against Blue Lake was 1.35 million. If the city had any kind of brain one, they would go ahead and settle that. I'm happy to help negotiate that from pennies on the dollar of what it'll cost the city. But sometimes you get people who are pig-headed and won't do the right thing. Property rights, especially with Aaron McClure, are very important. I have been getting more and more calls of people who have had their children taken away from them, and illegally, and there's a process. And this one person I talked to the other day, he said my children are growing now, but I couldn't enjoy my children during their life because of the process. And the process involves basically, one of the main things they do is you have an attorney who's supposed to represent somebody's best interest, and or the interest of the children, and that attorney goes ahead and tells the person, well, go ahead and take a psych review. As soon as they get the psych review back after, I don't know, $15,000 or whatever they cost, they're deemed to be non-competent, and their children are taken away from them. That's being fought. There's a couple of these people out there who are willing to sign anything for a buck chuck psychologist that are being investigated, and hopefully they will lose their licenses, and then the county will see multimillion dollar lawsuits coming their way because of this process. So here's how things work illegally in this. Someone's supposed to be representing a client. The client, the person, as soon as the case is done is required to provide the documents, the files to that person. So I'm gonna read this to him without saying who actually filed this. But hi Doug, I hope you're doing well. It has now been nearly a year since your representation for me ended. I am again requesting a complete copy of my client file. Please provide all records related to my case including but not limited to in a list of somebody who's very smart legally. So when you block somebody, the documents they need to move on further, this is another thing. So this is Team Connie Beck working with these people. And she steals horses and gives children to pedophiles. Still out there, still doing this thing. And that eventually will come home to roost with the county, the same as we're having the Shannon Miranda thing's gonna come and roost in some ways. I think that this is something important that everybody ought to really be paying attention to because it is very sad to see children put in that position. Thank you for my opportunity to speak.

Okay, last chance for anyone who wants to talk about things not on the agenda. All right, we're gonna close that part of the meeting and get into the public hearing. John. I'm gonna just walk through a few things. We're starting a little bit late. It's a pretty substantive item, so I'm gonna ask that folks be aware of that. I'm gonna run it a little differently. I'm gonna ask staff to do their thing and give an explanation. I'm gonna bring it back to the board for questions, but also I wanna make sure, I'm gonna ask the board to give their lean on this a little bit before we go to public comment. Because we've received a lot of public comment on this already, both written and verbally, we're fairly familiar with the history of this situation. We're familiar with a lot of what's happened. So we're probably not gonna have a lot of historical context, but some from staff, but I'm just saying we're aware of that. I'm gonna ask for a lien from the board because what's being asked of us today is to come back, either to make a recommendation to staff as to whether to come back with some amendments to the Q zone in Redway and or a countywide ordinance that is representative of this. And that's what's in the staff report right now. And so what I'm getting at is if you feel that the lien from the board is that we're gonna do one or both of those things, my recommendation to folks, and again, you can say whatever you want, is to be, tell us what you want in those things. Because the reason this is being brought back is because the lean from the board was to bring it back for this discussion. So we're moving in that direction, more or less. But I'm saying if you want to talk us out of doing things or into doing things or whatever it is you want to say, feel free to do that. I'm just offering advice on strategic help to the board. That's it. And Scott?

Can we clarify as to whether or not we're doing item G1, which is the public hearing, or item K1, which is the time set matter regarding the Q zone and Redway?

We are doing the time set matter for the Q zone and Redway. Okay. Yep, because it's time set and we're past the time set, so I apologize. Yep, got it. Is that all helpful to everybody? You're right, there's no public hearing. I apologize for jumping into that. So, hope that helps everybody and hopefully we can get through this and just trying to be strategic and do the best we can to be as useful as possible.

Take it away, John.

Director Ford.

Thank you, John Ford with the Planning and Building Department. I do want to recognize though this was initially brought by a supervisor and if that supervisor wants to make some comments first. Okay.

Thank you. Um, I just want to say that, um, I think the community from the Southern humble area, it's been a long process and, um, you've been very patient and hopefully we can get some somewhere today with this and move forward and you guys feel hurt. So I appreciate you being here again today.

All right. Take it away. Thank you.

As the chair mentioned, I am not going to go into excruciating detail about the history of this, but there is a long history of a desire to protect heritage trees, particularly in Lower Redway. I think the original lower redway queue zone probably dates back to the 1980s. It's been updated a couple of times. And it was really intended to protect redwood trees in a grove that contains many old growth trees. So the thing that brought this up was the fact that there were some trees that were removed. They were removed under a CAL FIRE hazardous tree permit, and the county did not engage in that. And since 2022, staff was under an incorrect understanding that a permit issued by CAL FIRE superseded the county's ability to issue permits. Through this process, it was confirmed that the county does have the ability to implement local ordinances in situations where the property is less than three acres in the area and not zoned TPZ. So there were four trees removed from a particular property, and there was one old-growth redwood tree remaining on that property. Based upon the confirmation that the county does have the authority to regulate the removal of an old-growth tree under the Key Zone, a special permit was required of that property owner. The property owner applied for the special permit and went through the process and appeared before the Planning Commission and the Planning Commission with a vote of seven zero denied the application to remove the tree. This decision has not been appealed to the Board of Supervisors and so it is appropriate to be able to have this discussion at this time. During that special permit process, there were a number of concepts contained within the Q zone that could be clarified and improved. And I just wanted to mention those that are the most significant. Number one is the ordinance identifies that trees can be removed if it's an imminent danger of falling and thus creating an imminent hazard. That's a little bit hard to interpret. It'd be better to give some more clarity to what an imminent danger is and what an immediate hazard is because trees can pose hazards for other reasons than just falling and it should be clear from the county's perspective what that means and under what circumstances the tree could be successfully considered for removal. And to correlate with that, there should be a more robust requirement process for determining the health and the safety of the tree. This would involve developing standards for reports from both arborists and foresters to lay out the amount of information that should be included in a report so that the decision makers can have a clear understanding from a very technical standpoint of the health of the tree. and it should be documented either with photo evidence or other kinds of evidence to demonstrate that a tree is either healthy or not healthy and then one of the things that the ordinance doesn't do is protect the trees while they're living so there should be regulations to prohibit conducting activities which damage a tree and then The ordinance currently requires notification of people within the Q zone if you're either south of Bryce Thurton Road or north of it. And it should be modified that everybody within that Q zone be modified. I think the other thing that we would recommend is that there should be a requirement that these requirements to protect the trees should end up on title for the property so that prospective property owners would recognize, realize that there may be dangers associated with living in a forested environment and what the limitations are in terms of working on those trees. So it is staff's recommendation that the board direct staff to make modifications to the GU zone, but basically starting with those five things we identified above. There has been conversation about the desire to protect old growth trees throughout the county. And another recommendation that is made is that the board direct staff to pursue creating an ordinance that would address and protect old growth redwoods throughout the county. with using a countywide ordinance, using the same concepts within the Q Zone. That's the end of what I had to say this morning. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Great. Excellent. Thanks for that. All right. I'm going to bring it back to the board. We'll just start with questions, but then also we'll have a little bit of discussion as well, starting with Supervisor Bushnell.

Well, I hate to buck your system, but I would prefer to hear public comment to get my thoughts around things.

Sure. Supervisor Arroyo, thoughts on this?

I'm fine to hear public comment unless you, you know, I appreciate the, you know, staff presentation. I think it's helpful, and I think, you know, this has been spurred in part by public interest, and so I feel similarly.

Okay. Supervisor Bone, any comments before we go to public comment? All right. Great. Well, I'll just say it out loud. I think the recommendations sound really reasonable to me. And so just putting it out there. The reason it's here is because this board asked for these things to come back for discussion. I think there's a push. I haven't heard anything negative from board members yet on these items. So with that, I'm going to bring it to public comment. And again, there's kind of two layers to this. One is what's happening in Redway, and the other is countywide. And I will say I've had constituents in my district concerned about old growth and i'm i'm talking really big old growth that's vulnerable to and they've seen cut in their neighborhoods um and um and even some of them on their own parcels um and so there is real concern about that uh and um it would be great to bring back something that could help address some of those concerns and supervisor um

Yeah, so I appreciate this item coming back before the board. I think it's a timely discussion. And I will point out that there's another item on our agenda today that was pulled from consent in regards to a development whereby 79 parcels would be created where houses will be being built within an existing spruce forest. that has 100 to 200 foot tall trees in it. So it's not just old growth that creates hazards, I just wanted to say. I like the suggestion in the staff report about possibly developing a county ordinance and informing people when they're buying property and building homes within hazardous tree areas. It doesn't just include old growth. And in particular, spruce trees and grand fir have very shallow root systems. Unlike redwood, which has a shallow root system, but its roots meld together with adjacent redwoods to create a degree of strength to their structural integrity, whereas spruce trees and Granford do not. They have individual root systems and they're very shallow rooted. And when we get big windstorms, they come down quite often. So I thought it's interesting that we have that additional item on the agenda today. that has that issue in terms of building homes within hazardous tree zones. And I just wanted to make the point that it's not just in old growth areas. So with that, thank you.

All right, we're gonna take this to public comment online. Anyone wanna speak to this?

We have no one with their hand raised currently.

I find that hard to believe. I'm waiting 30 more seconds here just to make sure, absolutely sure.

We do have one caller in the queue, caller 7108. I do not see your hand raised, but it is the one person we have called in currently.

Okay. Raise your hand is your time if you want to talk. All right. I don't have anybody here. Okay, so we're bringing it into the room. Let's do it.

There's a pair of glasses on the floor. I don't know if there's someone in there. Maybe they're prescription. I put them right here. Um, So I'm very strong on property rights. You won't find anybody more outspoken regarding that topic. That being said, the main thing you're looking at is notification for people's property rights. In other words, they have an entitlement to do before you take areas that are not. I strongly support everything that John's moving forward with here. and notification is the biggest thing especially in an area like that everybody should be notified maybe it goes on their tax bill every year maybe you have signage at each end of the uh the zone there that notifies anybody who's buying buying a place here or something i think you may be opening up an extremely expensive and large can of worms if you're going to go county-wide with this i would caution you that So you're gonna go and you're going to designate areas. Should you fail to designate an area and should something happen, you should have designated you're gonna be found to be liable. If you do designate these areas, you're gonna go through a very lengthy and what I would recommend the expensive process would be the one to do. You identify your areas specifically, notify all the owners, they all come in and you have a series of hearings and workshops on that particular thing. because these are our people's entitlements. I did want to make notice on what we have right now, property that my family owns is being converted to old growth forest, has very large second growth on it. And for those of you who understand an old growth forest, A 12 inch tree in the middle of old growth forest is your future old growth tree. They grow slowly and that's what turns them into, that's why your second growth grows so fast because it doesn't have the canopy to shade and make that happen. So it's not just taking down an old growth tree, it's taking out a potential old growth tree if you're looking at the long game. And I always look at the long game. So strongly support this. I do wish to caution you on expanding this too much. I do understand it's good to warn people. If you're living in an area, a lot of people from down south come up here and buy. They don't understand what it's like to be in a snow down, a blow down, or a wind storm, and how to take care of your property. But for the people here that hopefully will be speaking after me, I strongly support what their neighborhood's doing down there. It's justified and just make sure it's clear to everybody what their rights and their entitlements are and how they're limited. Thank you for my opportunity to speak.

Thank you very much.

hi all uh tom wheeler executive director of epic uh thank you to the board for bringing this back i i think the q zone issue and the the logging lower redway really has exposed some of the the problems with the existing ordinance down there and the recommendations from staff on how to close those loopholes i think are going to be well received it's going to provide greater clarity for property owners about their ability to manage their land and will also help better protect old growth in that community. I also am strongly in support of this board turning this into a county-wide ordinance that can protect old growth across the county within the county's jurisdiction. I would say that the board should direct staff to begin work on that and also to come back with an emergency moratorium to protect old growth in this period while staff and the board are completing such an ordinance. And then I think that we should also think about other ways to reduce conflict between property rights, logging, and the community. So as you know, lots of other counties in the state of California have their own county-specific forest practice rules. Humboldt County is limited in what it can regulate, but we can provide recommendations to the Board of Forestry, and the Board of Forestry can pass county-specific rules. I would urge this board to look at the rules for Monterey, San Mateo, Marin, Lake, all of which have their own specific county rules. I think that you probably get a lot of emails from folks who are upset because their neighbor is starting to log and they're logging at 6 a.m. or something and disrupting their sleep, there are ways that we can try to reduce conflict by having appropriate rules about things like this things like public hauling on public roads hours of operation all of which can be regulated by the board of forestry so again Recommendations to you are update queue zone, use the updated queue zone to then build a county-wide ordinance in this interregnum period, have an emergency moratorium so that people don't take advantage of this time in which things are still in flux. And I would urge you to form an ad hoc committee to examine recommendations to the Board of Forestry about county-specific forest practice rules. Thank you so much. OK.

Next. Daniel Pierce again. Sometimes doing the right thing is hard. And that's why you have found yourself in a situation. I mean, we all know those trees should not have come falling. And they'd all be gone if it wasn't for Sue Malone and the people that stopped the last one from falling. So I ask you, what image do you want to put out to the world? And I ask you that because I have two movies I'm writing on here. One is Amunath. Amunath is the full moon this month. It is the marriage between Lord Shiva and Parvati. This one's Humboldt County. I arrived in Humboldt County in, what, 19? Well, when the first trees in Lower Redway were cut down. And because of Sue Malone, she's got a part in this movie because she can be the realtor. She was so pissed when I went through that grove and those trees were laying on the ground. I give her that part. She made it. This is the image that's going to go around the world. Are you going to be an image of cutting down one tree at a time? Are we going to save one tree at a time? Are we going to be the place where all the tourists are going to want to come and see? Are we going to be the place that has clear-cutting? It's hard to do the right thing sometimes. And sometimes the right thing is easy thing to do because it's right in front of us. And when it starts with one tree, it ends with a second tree and a third tree, and then you're down that slippery slope, and that's where no one wants to go. This is Humboldt County, the land of milk and honey and redwood trees. Thank you.

All right, who's next? And if you're here to speak in the room, it'd be great if you could line up so that we can... Keep it moving. All right.

Good morning. I'm Linda Sutton.

You want to adjust your microphone?

Good morning. Thank you. I'm Linda Sutton. Hello again. I've been here with comments in the past, and I still have just a few. I appreciate the planning department putting this out. For me, a person who's not online, getting information is really difficult. but I would like to say and urge the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Department to support some consistent record of issues like this. This goes back so far, and yet when we look back to see what the ordinance was in 78, The paperwork isn't there, the information isn't there. So at least going forward, I urge you to please have a record, whether it's amended, whether it's an outline of dates, a chronology of dates, and that way I think it's easier for newcomers or neighbors, county, to understand the whole history. This is a long history. I'm really question the need to tie this in with an ordinance for the whole county. I would really like to see you fix the Q Zone issue in Lower Redway first before you expand it out. And as I've said before, it's really important to not weaken it, to only strengthen it. There certainly are lots of opinions, but I think if we have a meeting in person to be able to discuss things rather than coming up here to present and not getting feedback, we have the experts, um, lots of issues like that. And I think it's important to take the money, the commercial logging out, and I think there is some wording that commercial logging is prohibited in a R1Q zone. So I do look forward to keeping track of what's going on and being able to comment and I do thank you for your time and it's always worth the wait to be able to make comments.

Great. Next.

Hi again. Hello, good morning. Sue Maloney, Redway. A lot of the things that Linda said, I agree with. I think that it's really important, instead of having just planning or just a couple people make these decisions, I think we need to have a committee to clarify and strengthen a lot of the details that we're talking about. And we are in agreement with a lot of them. The one about getting this information on the title is awesome. I think that a committee should include lower Redway residents. It should include planning commissioners, like a couple of them definitely expressed an interest on June 18th. It should include arborists. including PG&E arborists, who I think do a really, in general, they do a really good job down there. And I think we can't underestimate PG&E's role in their concern about the trees and the power lines down there. It should include parks, and it should include fish and wildlife, and it should include the tribes. Apparently, somebody said the tribes were notified, but maybe they weren't notified. So I think rather than rushing into this, we need to make sure we get it right. It's important. When the chairman joked about it being a conspiracy, you know, we were up here on our way up up here in April, and it got canceled, and then this happened, and it's like, we're willing to come up and continue to do this to get it right. It's really important. I think we need signage. I think it's important that we think about giving the, if a tree does need to be cut, it goes to the parks, like it was suggested during the planning meeting. And if there are concerns that are shown from photos or drone footage, we need to have that to look at. Did you guys ever get that? Never got it. And we need to make sure that all these discussions get passed on to your successors, to the next board, because there seems to be this kind of selective institutional amnesia every 10 or 15 or 20 years where maybe in 10 or 15 years people won't know what we just went through. And so is there a board member orientation? Is there a way to keep this in the front of everyone's mind? memory so that it doesn't get lost again. We need to make sure that the correct version of the Q-Zone is being talked about. The one that was attached to this was still the wrong version. If you go on humboldtgov.org and search ordinance 2112, it's the four-page version. There's another version that includes ordinance 1803, which talks more about the zoning, but we need to make sure we have the original, the correct Q zone. And I'm in favor of protecting more trees countywide, but not if it means delaying or weakening the Q zone for lower redway. Thank you so much.

Yeah, Richard Ginger. I don't live in Lower Redway, but I've been involved with Lower Redway from the far shores of the Metol and Mendocino County. I really back up what Sue's recommendations were. I think it's really important. What we're dealing with here is a really big deal cultural thing in Humboldt County and North Coast future. Lower Redway is an incredible opportunity for not only people's relationship to that area, but also to people visiting this area and its context, the context of that people living in a forest, even if it's for a few months, and then that connection with Redwood Forest in general. It's a rare, it's a rare occurrence that needs to be carefully considered, and it's a cultural scenario. I'm hoping that the Board of Forestry, like the county apparently, has had mea culpa and come to reparations, to use a quote that sometimes there's religious connotations, but it's really time for CAL FIRE and the Board of Forestry to do what the county's doing. They knew this is going down, and they let it happen. The county was cowed into doing what the county didn't do, and then the county's had mea culpa. They understand, and it's trying to make up for it now. Like what Sue said, there needs to be a group of people that really dig into this and answer the big cultural issues that lower Redway and the history of that, all the irony of it being a subdivision of created by Pacific lumber and what it has become and how important it is to do. And there needs to be a change. And so just to wrap up, I can't help but do this because of a board of forestry and the California natural resource agency are really on a public relations, run right now. I get some fancy stuff. And this is, I'll leave this here with you all. It's from the cover of the board of forestry, which the board of forestry claims to have all authority of forest and forestry in California. And that is a situation that needs to be changed. But in the front page here, it's incredible photo of a misery of whips and people building on more than 140 years of durability, growth and progress. And that's a hard thing to see with what has happened since World War II with the ad valorem and the creation of, and CAL FIRE ignoring the ordinance basically. So there needs to be a real addressing of these issues in order to heal and go forward. Thank you.

All right. Anybody else want to speak to this item? Again, it's great if you can stand in line.

Hi, Amy Gustin from Edersburg. And basically, I just want to underline and underscore what Sue said. Those points are very important. I really would like to see more involvement in this than just the planning department. I think it needs to have community members. I have to say, living off the grid, as I do, I didn't see this information until this morning. It was very last minute, our being told that this was going to be happening. And I think that we should take more time and have more community involvement in what what the planning department is going to come up with. I agree that adding the information to the titles is very important. That's a good one I saw this morning. I would say just stick with imminent danger of falling. That is key. What was the other thing? And the notification, well, you know, I don't live in that neighborhood, but it affects me and it affects the whole county, the whole Southern Humboldt, and I think it could be a larger notification. and not just people in the neighborhood and so basically i would like to just remind people that yeah it would be great to make the uh the ordinance better but what happened wasn't a failure of the ordinance it was a failure of the planning department and the board of supervisors and like sue said we need some assurances that Into the future people in these positions will know about this ordinance and be willing to To go to bat for it So, thank you very much Anybody else

All right, we're gonna bring it back to the board. I'm first gonna ask John, excuse me, Director Ford, do you have any thoughts on any of the requests or you wanna maybe reiterate back some of the ideas that came from the public comment that you heard today?

Yeah, one of the things I do want to say first off is I do think that this is not something that can be done in a closet. This has got to be a very public process whether We work at setting together a specific group that works at it or just have a lot of public meetings through the process. Either way, it's just gotta have a lot of input. It's gotta have a lot of input from a lot of different foresters, a lot of different arborists, a lot of different concerned individuals of the community and the greater community of Humboldt County. Appreciate the idea that PG&E's often down there working for sure the state park is affected by this. I don't think the idea of creating specific regulations for the county relative to the Forest Practices Act is a bad idea. I think actually it probably is a good idea because the speaker mentioned i know that you all and we get a lot of complaints about trucks going down certain roads about the hours of operation and things like that those kinds of things can be addressed i do think though that's a separate issue from the lower redway and the preservation of old growth redwood trees but it could be a separate recommendation from the board I didn't really hear anything I disagreed with.

I'll bring it back to the board. So really what's being asked of us is a recommendation or a direction on moving forward with modifications and modernization of the Q zone for Redway as one item and the other is for the county. I did hear a request and I want to think about that a little bit, which was a moratorium while the county works on, if there's a decision by this board to do a countywide ordinance, that a moratorium be brought back, a temporary moratorium, so that what you don't want to see is folks trying to jump ahead of an ordinance. And so we did this for short-term rentals. We did it for other things, too. And it was a way to protect folks from trying to get ahead of what we're trying to work on. And so anyway, so those are some of the items. And Supervisor Bushnell is going to go first. And so there you go.

Thank you. So I have a question around the temporary moratorium. My understanding is that the Q zone currently, and I think you've talked with your staff, John, but a special permit will be required. And that my understanding is the moratorium wouldn't need to happen because the process is going to be followed. I know some of the commenters said, you know, there was a disconnect, which I think we all agree. And can you comment on that, please?

Yeah, absolutely. So the Q-Zone is currently in place. Absolutely effective. It is being implemented. I don't want to belabor this, but it's not going to be forgotten about. Staff is acutely aware of that. And so there would not be a need for a moratorium in the area of the Q Zone.

Thank you. I think it's really important that we recognize that hazardous trees do happen and that we allow that process. And with the Q Zone in place, the public and the Planning Commission can weigh in and the documentation that's required if there is another application for hazardous tree removal will be followed, correct? Correct. Okay. And then secondly, I wanted to address one of the commenters with the information not getting to you. So we worked really hard to get the information out. It was on KMUD, it was on Red Headed Black Belt, Director Ford emailed. the Lower Redway community last week and I know that it is hard sometimes to get that information but we really are trying because I know it's a lot for people to come up here and we'll continue to do that. I know that we'll have discussions around maybe notifying larger areas of the community, which you just heard Director Ford say that the process is not going to be in the closet, as he said. And so I think that can be one of the recommendations. And I'll work harder to inform folks as well and never do what we not want you guys to know or be present with any item. And so we'll keep doing that and try to get more time, maybe, get it out on KMUD sooner and all those things. And then I do have a question about the, so the direct staff to commence work on updating the Q zone and so the items A through E, Dr. Ford, are items that will be worked on in the future?

so the direction would be those are other items that the board wants to see addressed okay but what we wanted to do was give a basically a target of the things that we were gonna go and work on and again because i know this is a concern the objective is not to make the q zone weaker right it's to create increased clarity for everybody

Okay, so I wanted to ask additionally because I want to make sure that the public input process is going to happen. And so what does that look like for you guys getting the public process input happening?

So one of the, it could.

Let me interrupt because is there an additional item just to really get it out there that needs to be here to make sure that that process happens?

One of the things the board could do is direct staff to put together a working committee to develop or work on the modifications to the Q-Zone. You could even either have that open or closed. Closed would be that there's a certain number of people but then, would recommend that then the people on that committee be brought back to the board just for so it's an open discussion about who's on it and then it doesn't necessarily have to only be those individuals that attend those meetings but it's helpful to have people who are regularly there and talking about it i'll just say i i did have the experience of writing a tree preservation ordinance once before long long ago and that was done in committee with a lot of different people representing the community there and it turned out to be quite extraordinary and actually developed kind of new areas of of regulations that hadn't been applied to trees before

Okay. Um, well given that, and, um, you know, I, I like this list. I'm going to make a recommendations for, I'm going to make a motion for staff recommendations, a through E including three and add, um, also, uh, that we include a working committed, an open working committee to talk about the Q zone in the lower Redway and larger area of Humboldt County.

I'll second. I do want to clarify that last point about the working committee. I mean, I'm sure the folks in Lower Redway have a lot of experience with this and could benefit the whole county, but there may be issues that are separate from Lower Redway that affect the county-wide version, so I don't know. I just sort of would like to give staff the discretion about whether that's two community working groups or one, and then I also want to, of course, mention that we have a forestry committee and see what your thoughts are, John, about how, at what point in the process they would be engaged.

The forest review committee, um, starting there should absolutely have a recommendation, um, before it gets back to the planning commission. Um, I think that it may be beneficial to separate the work between the Q zone and the countywide work. And so the open committee would focus on the Q zone for the Q zone and open committee for the countywide would be for the countywide. And I, I think that would just be far more manageable.

Yeah, the motion maker is a minimal to that, and I don't want to micromanage the process, so I didn't mean to have you use just one committee. I want you to use what you need to get to where the county needs to be with these ordinances.

Got it. Thank you.

And then I did just want to understand, just with respect to the recommendation around a moratorium, I mean, I can appreciate that we want to – I can appreciate the spirit of that, and I know we already have, depending on where the tree is located and its proximity to structures and its size and all those things, there are already some rules in place. Is there a way that we can, and I also understand we're talking about old growth, but defining those characteristics needs to be part of the ordinance on a countywide level, which is why we're, giving this direction today. So do you have any thoughts on how we could do something in the interim that addresses those concerns but also allows people to address hazard trees and yada yada?

What I would... ask is that you give us direction to look at what the parameters first of all moratorium should be and we can work with the forest review committee to develop tree size hazards that sort of thing

Can I comment on that quickly as the motion maker?

Sure, and I'd like to get the rest of the board in this conversation.

So my understanding is that does the Q zone in the lower Redway area only protect old growth, or is it the entire forest down there?

It's the entire forest, anything over 12 inches in diameter. The moratorium would apply to the rest of the county.

To the rest of the county, but not to the Redway area?

Redway already has the Q zone. Right. That's already in place.

So is that what you're meaning, Supervisor Arroyo? I didn't think that's what she was meaning. Oh, okay.

I was speaking to Supervisor Wilson's request for moratorium. So I thought this was outside of the Q zone in Redway. Okay. Separate from... or perhaps inclusive of the Q zone and Redway, but also inclusive of other parts of the county. I thought that's what you intended.

I'll clarify, sure. From my perspective, Redway's covered. It already has a Q zone. It already has the recommendations to move forward. So this is for the rest of the county. My request would be that if we move forward with the moratorium, and again, usually the moratoriums are like You're moving in the right direction. It's not everything. It's temporary. So I want to really clarify that we should, if we ask for a moratorium that has a time limit to it, that's pretty important. Probably like a year or something to that effect. And in that way, protects a majority of what you're trying to deal with, with a broader brush, I say, and with some caveats in there of course and then it allows time for the committee to come back whatever process we get into to build an ordinance and bring it back for discussion again it's not unusual when you have resource dependent changes both in housing we've done this and in other places so I think it's it's any it's a standard practice when you're doing an ordinance like this to do a moratorium first so I don't currently see that moratorium in the motion and so I would be asking that there's a modification to the motion to include that moratorium. If there's not, I'm unwilling to move forward with that. Because again, I think there's some risks associated with that and I wouldn't want to see it taken advantage of. Yep, and I'll bring it back. Sorry, I was asked to address what my point was there, so I'm going to move it to Supervisor Bone.

I fully support, and we've got it set in place, and the rules have now been proven, and actually for the people of Redway, for government, It's only been eight months. This is moving pretty quick to get up here and get everything else. I mean, it was said this is taking a long time. It doesn't take a long time. It's eight months. We're rocking and rolling on this. And I think you're going to see. I need to see a definition of an old growth. And then I also need to see what a rule is for a hazard tree. We don't have that. So we're going to have to get four arborists and they all, because there's no definition to speak of. You talk about it. And as far as a moratorium, do all our ordinances always have a moratorium? Is that standard? Mr. Ford, I just don't remember that many moratoriums because I

But it sounds like a standard practice. I wouldn't say it's a standard practice for all this development. It has been used where we are running into situations where people are doing it illegally.

Do we have any in the queue at the planning and building, people building on three acres or less and they're going to cut down some old trees? Yes. Is it because of this or has this been in the works for a while?

I don't know. All I know is I saw a legal notice that came across my desk yesterday to remove redwood trees.

One that you know of.

Ranging in size from 24 inches to 63 inches in diameter.

Okay, because we fought Richardson's Grove and the old growth down there for I don't know how many years and it looks pretty good down there now. I haven't seen a big tree taken down yet, so... Yeah, I'm not in favor of the countywide, because I think it's too enveloping. I think some people are jumping on an opportunity to make it sound like, oh God, they're gonna cut out every tree in the yard type thing, and this is happening all over and everything else. We had a rare incident that may have been taken advantage of, I'm being very generous there, in Lower Redway, and we're addressing that. I hung around Lower Redway quite a bit for a few summers back in the 60s. The Retzlaffs, the Lazios, I can name off a bunch of, you know. And so I understand the beauty of what you guys are going down there and everything else. But there is going to be some work down there. I'm not seeing this run around. I've got a pretty good size area. We were talking about spruce trees earlier. I don't know what you're going to do with them when you cut them down. They're not even making pallets out of them anymore. So I won't be able to support a countywide ordinance taking advantage of a situation that I think needed to be addressed in Redway, because I think it clouds the situation. And I understand there are some people that have to bring it up for fundraising things and stuff, but I just don't think it's needed right now.

Chair, can I ask a process question? I'm sorry, I know.

Yeah, and I think it's a good time to ask that question. I think I know what you're going to ask.

Oh, can we have two separate motions?

Yes, we can have two separate motions, 100%. All right, and maybe we could do that. Maybe I could ask the motion maker to pull back part of the original motion, and just concentrate on the Redway section of this, and then we can get through that, and then maybe we can then talk about the next part. Sure.

Director Ford, I wanted to ask about, so including, so first of all, there wouldn't be, the moratorium wouldn't happen today. It would be to come back with definition of moratorium, right? Correct. So it wouldn't happen today whether we voted yes or no on this. Secondly, I want to know that when or if this board does put a moratorium on the rest of the county, what does it look like for if there is a hazardous tree and if there's intimate danger and we have this moratorium in place, what happens then?

I think we would try to use the same language that's in the Q zone right now, that there is the ability to issue an emergency permit.

So that's what I was gonna ask. So if we add language to bring back what the moratorium could look like, could it be the moratorium with a caveat that it just is the same, not a moratorium, but it would follow the same process that the Q Zone in Lower Redway does for hazardous tree mitigation for, it just seems to me that we have to allow a pathway because there are dangerous trees at times.

Absolutely true. We're not going to stand in the way of somebody being able to remove something that's hazardous.

Okay. So if I was to add to my motion to come back with language around what a moratorium could look like with an ability for a special permit to remove hazardous trees, would that be sufficient?

I understand exactly what you're saying, yes. It would be sufficient.

how does the board feel about that?

I think that's, I mean, that would be in my expectation anyway, because even in a moratorium, it's not an absolutist perspective. It's like it would, it would have all the cut caveats that we are, that we're under right now. So, um, and process, it just wouldn't have been fully flushed. And that's why you would, that's why you make it temporary and then go through some more, you know, um, effort and process.

Can I ask Supervisor Bone, does that help at all with the ability to have the special permit process?

Have that be part of it, but I'm not going to vote for a moratorium of any sort, because number three on here says direct staff to develop an ordinance based upon the Q zone, which protects old growth trees outside of the lower Redway Q zone. When you write on number three, right below E, when you write that, does that mean all the trees outside of Redway in Humboldt County? Or does that mean close to the Redway Q Zone? Because it's misleading to just say it so nicely there, but it's going to affect Orleans, it's going to affect Petrolia, it's going to affect Honeydew. It's going to affect people that really doesn't have an effect on anybody.

FORGIVE ME, I TRIED TO USE AN ECONOMY OF WORDS HERE, BUT I THINK IT'S IN THE STAFF REPORT, ONE OF THE THINGS I TRIED TO ARTICULATE IS ONE OF THE THINGS WE DO NEED TO DEFINE IS WHAT IS AN OLD GROWTH TREE FOR PURPOSE OF THE MORATORIUM. THE Q ZONE, IT'S ANYTHING OVER 12 INCHES. 12-INCH TREE HAS BEEN ARTICULATED HERE IS NOT AN OLD GROWTH TREE, IT'S A FUTURE OLD GROWTH PERHAPS, BUT THAT MAY NOT BE WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO PROTECT. EVERYTHING IS A FUTURE OLD GROWTH.

Fair enough. I'm just saying, John, it's just we have regulated this industry, and now we're finding out now we can regulate it down to country farms to three acres. I'm just...

I think, in fact, I don't want to have an argument, and it's not my place, forgive me, staff. I think one of the things that the board should consider is that this is not trying to regulate an industry. This is trying to regulate a situation where old growth trees exist outside of timberland. Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

We're in a conversation with Supervisor Bone and Director Ford, so I wanna just let you, if you have more to say on that.

Okay. I understand this isn't about timber. I understand it's not an industry. I understand that. But I'm also understanding with somebody that lives with redwood trees, they're a giant weed at the end of the day, because I'm getting too old to climb my ladder. Now I'm having to climb my ladder once a year and everything else. They're wonderful and everything else, but my neighbors are asking for trees to come down. So I mean, I guess that would be great. All my neighbors would like it, but I don't have a place to fall them because I'm in too small a lot. So in turn, I'm just saying, this hasn't been a giant issue, but it's becoming an issue to control, as it was said, property rights to a fruit tree. Because we've been up here in 15 years, I've had four of these, I think, or three of these, and now we're going to encompass the whole county. So, and I'm, you know, And you've got a majority vote, so we're good to go. Supervisor Bushnell.

I'm in my motion to remove three, and we'll split the motion. So my recommendation is staff recommendations one and two through E. and to include the committee as directed.

Okay. And is the seconder okay with that, knowing that there's probably a second motion coming?

Yep.

Okay. And Supervisor Bone, you're, yeah, I'm just saying, just so we're clear, the motion maker has removed the countywide ordinance, and this is only for Redway right now. I got you. All right. You ready? All right. Let's do a roll call vote, please, for that.

Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Supervisor Arroyo? Yes. Supervisor Wilson?

Yes.

Supervisor Bone? Yes. Supervisor Bushnell? Yes. Vote carries 5-0.

Great, all right, I think we're ready to discuss the second half of this, which is a countywide ordinance for the protection of old growth. Maybe we could start with a motion, if you want.

So is the countywide ordinance just specifically around old growth trees, or we had, what are we talking about here?

It does need to be old growth, and I do not have a good definition of that right now. And before the ordinance would be brought back, that definition would be included within the ordinance. If a moratorium was brought back, there would be a definition within the moratorium of what's being regulated. It wouldn't be a tree that's 12 inches in diameter, probably not even 24 inches in diameter.

Can I ask then, currently, with what Supervisor Bohn said, say, I'm just using this as an example, he has a tree that needs to be cut in his house or in his yard, what's the process currently that would happen?

There is probably, because I don't think he's got any other environmental considerations going on around his yard, that he does not need a permit to remove those trees.

Okay.

Unless you turn it into commercial.

If you sell the lawn.

he got you turn on your microphone and yeah through the chair kind of stuff yes my understanding is that a landowner can remove any tree at any time as long as they are not making a commercial use of that byproduct because then that triggers cal fire permitting processes even if it might be just a zero to 150 foot exemption great

And I appreciate that. I do feel like a lot of those details will come back. We're not being asked in this moment to approve a moratorium or a countywide ordinance. What we're being asked to is to give direction for staff to bring those things back with those details that we can have for discussion. My assumption is that for a countywide ordinance, it would include a similar committee process that would occur. And my assumption also is in a moratorium, it's simpler than that and it's temporary. It's just a holding place while all that stuff gets worked out. um and of course if there are emergencies or anything like that that exemptions that were typical similar to what we have already in redway that that would just be included in the moratorium moving forward and i don't think that that's uh would would be so much of an issue so um with that clarification um if no one else is willing to make a motion i'll do it but i just want to say All right, I'm going to make the motion to do that. I'm going to make a motion that we direct staff to work on a countywide old growth protection ordinance and with a similar process or a committee process and also more immediately come back with a moratorium that preserves those resources during the time when which we actually get the ordinance detailed out and I'm using a lot of words here so I'm hoping that staff can can modify that to be simple that's my motion that understanding and then prefer to get a second before we have a discussion if that's all right second the motion all right there's a second great super as well

Does this need to be voted on or can this go through popular consensus? I don't mind directing staff to bring it back if feasible, but we're telling them to bring back, and I know we'll have lots of input. I won't, but.

There should be a motion and a vote to memorialize the direction.

Thank you. Is there more discussion from the board?

Supervisor Bushnell. With all that that you said, which was a lot, read back what you think John were doing, please.

The motion was for staff to work on a countywide ordinance using the committee process, similar to what's done in the Q Zone, and to also, in the meantime, before that is completed, come back with a proposed moratorium to protect old growth redwood trees.

Can I ask that, do, so I'm sure that when you come back with that moratorium you're gonna have

you know zonings and it's not commercial timberlands and there's an exception hazard does that need to be part of the motion or do you do you think you know we we will address that as part of what we're doing because obviously we're not going to impose I don't hear that the emotion is going to be imposed on AE or AG or TPZ or anything like that where normal timber industry practices are engaged. This is really in smaller lots, residential lots, which are not normally covered by the Forest Practices Act because they're individual trees and of size.

And thank you. And then before the moratorium comes back, will you engage with our forestry committee and with Cal Fire to make sure that we are including before that moratorium language comes back? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. I appreciate that. But I will ask that. The point of a moratorium is to not be too delayed in its return because the longer that gap, the more problematic it can become. So I would ask for a fairly rapid engagement. With that, is there any more discussion from the board on the direction given to staff or could be given to staff depending on the vote? Seeing none, we'll have a roll call vote please.

Thank you. Supervisor Bone?

Nope.

Supervisor Wilson?

Yes.

Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Supervisor Bushnell.

So I'm gonna vote yes on this, but I am not sure in the future it's gonna be very what it looks like and who we've engaged and what the actual moratorium says, but I am amenable to having that discussion come back.

Thank you. Supervisor Arroyo. Yes. Motion carries 4-1.

Okay, so with that, we're ending the discussion on this. I'm just bringing back to CAO Hayes. We have two time sets. Is there anything we can put into the middle of that?

We do have a public hearing that we can do in about five minutes.

Oh, yeah, it's a public hearing. Let's do that. I was just so engaged in this conversation. So we're going to open up public hearing. What? And the item pulled. I thought it was going to be, it goes to the end of the day.

Oh, okay.

I don't care. We'll leave it. Is it your call?

Yes.

We're going to do public hearing right now for sure. That's happening. This is what we're doing, yeah. Let's do it.

So, thank you. I know you'll need to open the public hearing.

It is so open. This is one very open public hearing.

So... JOHN FORD, RODNEY YANDEL, AND AUGUSTUS GRACHAL TO PRESENT THE ORDINANCE FOR DENSITY BONUSES. AND MS. GACHAU WILL GO THROUGH THE ORDINANCE IN A MOMENT, BUT THIS IS REALLY JUST TO ACCEPT THE CHANGES IN RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COASTAL COMMISSION. THERE ARE NO CONCERNS WITH THIS.

I believe I've shared my screen. We can have that up. Thank you. So density bonus update, just the coastal amendments. I'll go through starting with just a reminder of what we're talking about. Density bonuses are a percentage increase in number of units over the maximum density based on a condition that a percentage of units is reserved to underserved demographics. Incentives or concessions are regulatory concessions such as alteration of development standards or zoning code requirements, all for the intent of reducing development costs. The first recommendation from the Coastal Commission is adding an additional finding for denying development standard waiver requests, essentially that the waivers must also be consistent with LCP provisions for avoidance from significant coastal resource impacts. This is to match both the incentive and concession language and the density bonus language. The next recommendation is adding conditions of permit approval as a potential extension to the 55-year affordability restrictions. Language there is going to be target units shall be restricted and affordable to the designated group for a period of 55 years or longer period of time if required by the conditions of permit approval. construction or mortgage financing program, mortgage insurance program, or rental subsidy program. The last recommendation that they've provided to us is adding that the density bonus housing agreement must be executed before the Coastal Development Permit may be issued. This will be in addition to the existing requirements that they be executed prior to issuance of the building permit or if applicable, prior to final map approval. planning staff recommends that you all adopt the resolution which finds that the proposed amendments are exempt from environmental review finds that the proposed project compliance with all the coastal codes and repeals ordinance 2777 which is the prior coastal density bonus update and adopts the coastal density bonus ordinance amendment This concludes our presentation. We are available for any questions at this time.

Okay, bringing it back to the board, are there any questions about this item? Seeing none, do we have any comments online?

We do not have any comments online.

All right, bringing it back to the room. Any comments on this item?

A lot of times these things also have a caveat where they're reducing environmental protection on these kind of projects to enable these things to happen less expensively. I object to that. That ends up being things, if that is the case, where we end up with things such as gigantic motels proposed out in the Trinidad area in inappropriate areas. Hopefully this is not one of those kind of policies. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

All right. Bringing it back to the board, or is there any comment from the comments by staff?

That concern is fully matched by the Coastal Commission's recommendations, so the recommendations are specifically to avoid any environmental hazards.

Okay, great. All right, well, I'm bringing it back to the board. Is there any more discussion from the board? If there is not, it would be great to get a motion for staff recommendation. All right, I'll make the motion for staff recommendation.

Second.

All right. There's a motion for staff recommendation. Is there any objection to unanimous consent? Seeing no objection to unanimous consent, the item passes and we are on to the next item. It seems to me that D31 is what's left and what's gonna happen with that? Are we ready and prepared to do that? Yes, Supervisor Bowe.

That we would do 31 at the end of the meeting. I do not know if anybody was here for that. And if anybody does have that information, it would be nice to know because when we tell somebody it's going to be end of the meeting and then we want to slide her in, I'm fine with it. I am fine with it, but I'm just thinking. Okay. Okay.

I will refer to council on this. And Public Works. I'll ask Public Works to just come to the table and then we'll discuss how to move forward and what to do. Yeah, you're good.

Council so it's my understanding that it was said that this item could likely go after the meeting due to the time sets okay I don't think that that creates any obligation on our behalf to actually have that at the meeting okay if we can we can do it after closed session if the chair decides to do that no I think we'll just keep on keeping on here

We have our next time set is at 12, so I think there's a good amount of time to get into this. And so, that being said, it is not a public hearing. And I will just bring it first to the public hearing. I think what I'll do is I'll ask staff to just introduce the item as it stands, and then I'll ask Supervisor Madrone, who asked for this to be removed for discussion, to then start the conversation. I think that's how we'll do it. So, Tom, if you want to take it away.

let's talk about item 35. okay good morning chair wilson tom matson director of public works with me today i have your county surveyor mr bob bronco we also should have online a representative of the project owner danco and we also have john ford our director john ford for questions that are outside of the scope of this actual agenda item which is an administrative item bob i would ask you to just go over briefly what the item is

This is a routine agenda item for the approval of a final map subdivision for the Beaupre Heights project up in the McKinleyville area. It is subdividing approximately 200 acres into 80 lots. The project has been conditioned to construct various improvements. The subdivision or the subdivider has completed the conditions of approval, which will allow the map to go ahead and be recorded. However, some of the improvements weren't done, so the subdivider is requesting to go ahead and enter into a subdivision agreement to agree to construct those improvements within a two-year period following the filing of the BAP, and that is secured through bonds that the subdivider has provided the county. The county tax collector has reviewed the surety that is proposed to ensure that it meets the financial strength of the county. Both the Planning and Building Department and Public Works have provided information to the County Surveyor's Office that the conditions of approval relating to map filing have been addressed. And the project is recommended for approval at this time.

Okay. Do we have any maps or anything? I mean, they're in the, they're in our stuff right in front of us but do we have any that's like that you can put up on the screen or anything like that is that were you prepared to do anything like that today no we were not prepared to do that today all right uh supervisor um madrone is your time to jump in there thank you chair um

I appreciate this has been a long process, been 15 years since this was the tentative map was actually approved by the planning commissions, had a lot of extensions. It is a bit unusual that there's so many conditions still to be met at last point here, but the staff report details those in good form in terms of agreements being signed to get those completed before any parcels are sold and that kind of thing. Things change over 15 years. I mean, for instance, with Amazon, even though there was an EIR for the entire business part done 20-some years ago, conditions have changed, and they're having to do a supplemental EIR. I pulled this because it seems to me that the EIR that was done in 2011 was – was incomplete in terms of actually assessing the cumulative impact of this entire development. It did not look at that, and I'd be curious to know why the developer chose not to do a comprehensive EIR at that time. I think the EIR cost like $35,000, so it was very much not comprehensive. It did not look at the cumulative impacts, which are required by CEQA. In the staff report, it says that there would be additional CEQA review, but in conversations with staff, it does not appear as if there would be any additional CEQA review with this project, that each individual parcel out of the 79 parcels could independently go to CAL FIRE. and get a less than three acre conversion to build their house site and remove the spruce, grand fir forest on their parcel to build their house, which if you do the math, even if they do that, they're still gonna be in the fall distance of these trees. And I will say that when you start breaking up a forest like this into individual parcels with clearings all over the place for roads and house sites, that forest will see more blow down and spruce trees and grand fir, like I said earlier, are very shallow rooted and very much subject to windfall, especially when you start fragmenting that forest. There was no wetland inventory done or delineations for the entire property. That would normally be done as part of an EIR, a comprehensive EIR. CEQA specifically does not allow for piecemealing, which is what I think is happening here. When the original EIR was done, it did not consider the cumulative impacts of all the house site development and the fragmentation of the forest, the impact on wetlands, and many other considerations like wildfire. And we're putting all these homes right in the middle of a forest. And take a look at Spokane if you didn't look at Paradise or Santa Rosa or any other community. that is built in these wildfire urban interface zones. So there's a lot of issues here environmentally in regards to what this is proposing to do. I do realize that in 2011 it was approved. We can't go back on that. That was the time the discretionary action occurred. What's before us today is a ministerial action of simply finalizing this map and approving it along with the conditions that have been detailed in the staff report. And while I understand all of that, and it was suggested that wetland delineations would occur by each individual property owner, what that doesn't do is look at the interaction of those wetlands within a comprehensive view of the entire property, which is many hundreds of acres. So I find myself in a quandary. I've had a lot of constituents contact me about various concerns, the fragmentation of the forest, wetland impacts, fire danger, and other considerations, wildlife impacts, et cetera. as well as how the Norton Road and this new feeder road intersect and what happened when that got built. There was a lot of community concerns that we're well aware of there. So there's a lot of issues and I find myself in kind of a quandary where theoretically or I guess in reality, all we're looking at in front of us here is a ministerial approval, yes or no, on this final map with the conditions as recommended. I would really appreciate it if the developer would, for instance, in the spirit of compromise, agree to a condition whereby the entire property would have a wetland inventory and delineation so that we could see a comprehensive look at how those wetlands interact versus just a parcel by parcel evaluation, which would not give us that comprehensive analysis. That would be a small token that wouldn't cost that much to do and it would really go a long ways towards trying to finalize where the house sites really should be. I recognize we need housing. This is certainly not affordable housing. This is more of a. upper-end housing with the states and we need that too we need you know we know that we've heard that for a lot of professionals to be attracted to the community and the medical profession and other things we need we need housing like this there's no doubt about it and so I very much appreciate that appreciate the developers efforts to create that housing and the CSD to be willing to provide the water not sewer it's going to be on septic systems and But doing a wetland inventory would go a long way towards at least making sure that we have a comprehensive look at that. Otherwise it's not gonna happen and there will be impacts and we won't know comprehensively how that interacts. I'm still very concerned about the fire danger you're putting a lot of people right in the middle of a lot of forest. And it's not only just windfall hazards, but it's fire hazards and other things. So those are the reasons why I pulled this item from the agenda. It seemed like an awful lot to me to be on consent. I mean, just look at the list of agreements that are included there. And while I have often seen these final maps have a condition or two to still be completed, it's pretty rare to see this kind of a list of things that still have to be completed. So that alone suggests that this is a pretty big deal. I mean, my own preference personally would be that the funds get spent to do a comprehensive EIR and follow CEQA, regardless of what happened in 2011, and actually do a comprehensive look at the cumulative impacts of the 79 parcel development and the things that I've already suggested as potential impacts, wetlands, fire hazards, windfall hazards, fragmentation of the forest for wildlife, et cetera. I don't believe that that would stop this development, and that's not what I'm looking to do, but I do believe it would absolutely inform how it might finalize in its development pattern to try and consider those things. So that's it. Thank you.

All right, Supervisor. I'll just offer that as a beginning for discussion at the board for a minute. Supervisor Bushnell?

Thank you. I understand that Supervisor Madron pulled this this morning. I think it's very unfair to the developer and to staff and to this board that we don't have, we don't even have anything to present. And like were we supposed to make all these decisions without even having a staff report? And you pulled that this morning. Is the developer online?

I actually pulled it yesterday in my conversations with the CAO and that started a trigger of meetings and conversations. So I didn't wait till this morning to do that. And as you know, when we get these agendas on Friday at five o'clock and we were on vacation, it can take some time to review all of these things. So I believe I've done my due diligence, but I wasn't the one that chose to avoid doing a comprehensive EIR 15 years ago that put us in this position. So I really, uh, feel a bit insulted that you would suggest I'm trying to do something at the last moment. Well, I was told wrong. Excuse me. No, I was told wrong, so I'm going to apologize for that. I'm going to bring this back down. It was the developer who chose to not do the comprehensive EIR in the first place. That's what's put us in this place today.

I just said I was told wrong. But I think it is a lot to discuss without having information and presentation.

One of the other options is that we could continue this item until next week. We have the time to do that.

Yes, hold on one second. You are next. Okay, everybody. Supervisor Baum.

In all honesty, this is a ministerial... What was required 15 years ago is exactly whoever the developers are did. They did what was required of our department. Public Works has done an extensive report here, and trust me, Tom doesn't take a road unless he's fully aware he can take a road. He's not gonna put us out on the limb. So what was required 15 years ago, and there was wetlands, there was everything else addressed, and rightfully so, We all, like I mentioned, I've got trees in back of me, I've got trees, we all live in forests. They're gonna be able to fireproof this. And today's building materials change a big part of that. But if you wanna throw every scare tactic, there is possible out there. There's more, but. The thing is, this has been approved. This has gone through the process. They've asked for some extensions for financing, whatever the reasons may be. I think to satisfy the needs of, I think everybody, and you're exactly right. One of the things is we need housing, and I don't think these are gonna be prefab homes, so we need the jobs. There's a lot of factors here to be involved, and I think minimum lot size is over an acre. I believe on that 1.03 to 4.75. So you're right. These are going to be good size lots. These are going to be great lots for the families can be great lots for this, the, the, the school district up there. And it's going to be great for Humboldt state Provident open door and, um, mad river because that's what the doctors and their families are looking for it's not shopping or anything else they want to find adequate housing and what that happens and then for the other people that have been successful they move up and their houses are lower lower so it's it's a trickle-down effect but to throw all this stuff out when somebody has 15 years invested has met everything that we've asked them to meet and then we're going to change the rules I mean, 24 hours before it comes to the board. And again, this is a ministerial. That's why it was on the consent calendar, because I think staff of public works and planning are not as concerned as you are. You can tell them they're supposed to be concerned, but they don't seem as concerned if I read this whole report.

Okay. Is there any more comments from the board before we hear from some staff? All right.

I would be interested to hear what Director Ford is eager to say, if you don't mind, Chair.

Yep, that's what we're going to do right now.

Thank you so much, John Ford, Planning and Building. I think one of the things that, without getting too geeky in the Subdivision Map Act, does is that it creates a process. That process is intended to provide surety to the local jurisdiction and to the developer. The discretionary part of this process was done as Supervisor Madrone mentioned 15 years ago. The EIR was certified. This tentative map was approved. What the map act now does is says that when you're ready to record the map, you can either have everything done, Or you can bring the map forward with agreements to complete everything else. That is the path that's being chosen here. And that's presented to the board. Subdivision Map Act 66458 identifies that when the board receives it, they shall approve it. That's why it was put on consent today. It's not a discretionary action. All it is is an affirmation that the collective staff has done their work to make sure that all the conditions have been complied with. That's the question before you today. What happened 15 years ago, as troubling as it may be, is not what's at issue today. What's at issue today is whether or not The applicant has put together a package to complete all the required improvements of the tentative map, the local ordinance, and the subdivision map act. We believe they have.

I just have a follow-up question. And so when you say meet the local ordinance, is that meet the local ordinance at the time?

Yes.

Okay, at the time of approval. And so you feel like that this is, without question, meets the ordinance requirements at the time? Yes. Okay. Supervisor Bone? Yes. And then Supervisor Madrone.

So if we change horses in the middle of the race or impose things that we're not supposed to be imposing, does that open the door to us being liable in any way when we change rules. Because the avenue they're taking is basically saying, we will do this because we won't give them a permit to occupy. We will do this once we get the final approval and get this last step, which is bring it to the board, which they are to approve. But nobody wants to spend four, five million dollars on improvements and then have roadblocks thrown up. Would that be a proper assumption or? I'm probably looking at you on.

I'll also jump into that. That's how the subdivision map act was written. Yeah. It's to provide security for a developer once they receive the approval, if they do everything they're required to do, that there's not a second bite of the apple being taken.

Are these big bank developers, are they local? This isn't Toll Brothers or any of those, Brandon, or any of the big home builders, are they local? Okay, so they're house builders.

All right. One more question and then I'm going to go to public comment. And actually I'll let Tom.

Just a process statement. The idea of a continuance was brought up. This has to come back next week anyway as part of the normal process. So you will see this again next week.

No. No, no, no, no. If I could clarify that. you're obligated to either address it the first time you see it or at the next regular meeting. So if you decide not to act today, it's gotta come back next week.

Okay.

Okay?

Great. Supervisor Madrone, I apologize.

That's all right. Well, I would very much like to hear from the developer, you know, from the applicant, because it is unfair to change the rules halfway through. I absolutely agree with that. John, if you could come back up, please. So it'd be really nice to hear from the developer or his representatives in regards to why they chose not to do a comprehensive EIR 15 years ago. Is it not true that even 15 years ago, CEQA does have Regulations requirements that do not allow piecemealing which is exactly what's happening here There was not a comprehensive EIR that was completed now. I understand that it was approved It was certified the Planning Commission agreed to it But that doesn't mean that they met the requirements of the law at the time. We can't go back and legislate that now I understand that thank you, but When when we asked does it meet the ordinance? That's that's It doesn't meet CEQA. It did not meet CEQA. And we failed to recognize that at the time. And that that's our fault. That's not the developer's fault, but I wish the developer would have made the choice because he was asked by county staff, why aren't you doing a comprehensive EIR right now? So that question was asked and the developer made the choice, not me, not us sitting here at this board, but the developer made the choice to try and do a piecemeal approach to this thing and not do a comprehensive EIR. There was no wetlands inventory that was done or delineation has never been done yet on this property. That's highly unusual to get to this point and not have those kinds of things be done. So can I clarify something? Sure, please.

There was a wetland delineation done for the subdivision improvements. There is a wetland mitigation plan for the subdivision improvements. That absolutely was done. So did it comply with CEQA? Absolutely it did. The EIR was certified, it was not challenged. So it is effective and good. Did it address things as other people may want it to? Maybe not. But did it comply with the requirements at the time? Absolutely it did.

So part of that wetlands delineation and inventory included the setting aside of the 30-some acre parcel. It does have significant wetlands within it?

Yes.

And that was one of DFW's recommendations?

That was the trees and there's wetlands, and I believe there's a separate wetland parcel out there also that is for preservation of wetlands. But that's for the subdivision improvements. County ordinance, which was effective at the time also, requires that you can't encroach into streamside management areas or other wet areas. So that is an ordinance that is in effect that will protect wetlands.

Right, so as they build individual driveways or roads and if they have stream crossings, they'd have to do a special management area, SMA, special permit, and also DFW permits, things like that.

They'll have to do a delineation to determine if there's anything on the site, whether it's within a setback of any of the improvements are within a setback of that wetland. If not, there is no obligation to do additional special permitting. If there is, there may be if they're gonna encroach in those areas.

So when we talked, you mentioned that each individual parcel would have to do a wetland.

Delineation.

Delineation. And yet you're saying that that was done for the entire property.

The delineation was done for the subdivision improvements.

Like the main road that goes through.

The roadways, correct.

So it was only done for some portions of the development, but not the individual roads, driveways, and house sites.

That is correct.

Okay, so it was just a partial delineation for a piece of the property.

Right.

Yeah, again, that's piecemealing.

understand, but that's not the question today. Understood.

So, um, thank you, John. Thank you, director Ford. Um, so, uh, I understood that there was a representative for the developer online on zoom. Is that correct?

And just for process, what I want to do is before the developer comes on, I want to let Supervisor Arroyo go next, and then I'm going to go to public comment, and then we'll... Well, I thought it'd be pertinent for the public to hear from the developer's representative in regards to their willingness to do a comprehensive EIR, for instance. Hold on one second. I... I would like to get through, the public will hear it, those questions, and we'll get. So I'm gonna keep moving with Supervisor Arroyo, and then we'll go to public comment, and then we'll bring it back. Supervisor Bone, you'd like to make some comments as well? Okay, before we go to public comment, you can jump in there too, yeah.

My my questions were just about the subdivision agreement term the 12 months is the period for completion inspection acceptance but then it speaks to extension and writing. Is there any limit to how many extensions there can be. I'm not seeing that in the subdivision agreement but I don't know if there are limits.

It's specified in the map act. Oh OK. As a state law that allows for a 12 month term plus a one 12 month extension.

So only 24 months for all of this to happen? Correct. Okay, okay. And then I'm not quite understanding the difference between the performance bond and the other bond. Could you just help me understand those? One is significantly greater for the public improvements themselves, and then the performance bond is for what?

All right, there's a series of bonds, and... It's all based off of the engineer's cost estimate to go ahead and perform the work at prevailing wages. And then that number is essentially multiplied by 160% to get the total bonding amount. And of that, there are components, such as materials, which are the actual cost of goods. So if a concrete truck delivers concrete, then the concrete delivery company could lean the property and the materials bond is to go ahead and clear leans such as that.

I see.

And then you have the faithful performance part of actually spreading the concrete and turning it into a curb or a driveway or a road.

Okay.

Those are the primary components.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. That's my questions for now.

Those are good test questions for the surveyors exam there. Okay, Supervisor Buon.

Director Ford again, I'm sorry. You're getting your workout squats in. So the home builders we're talking about here met all the requirements. I can't find anything that says they refuse to do this or refuse to do that. Because you guys aren't really big into the refusing business. You make requirements and they have to meet those requirements. They met all requirements 14 and a half, 15 years ago, right?

They accepted the conditions of approval with the approval 15 years ago. Yes. And what they're saying now is that those that they haven't completed, they're going to enter into a subdivision agreement post the bond to complete those within a one or two year period. In exchange, they'll record the map.

Okay. Thank you.

I just, thank you. All right. We're going to take it to public comment. And I just want to, if the applicant, we're going to give them their own time so they don't need to comment in this moment. So if there's anyone else that's not the applicant online, please raise your hand. Is there anyone there?

We do. We have caller 3678. I will unmute you, and you have three minutes.

Great. Maybe it is the app.

Hello, supervisors. I'm here. Take a second to unmute with all the buttons you have to push. Jennifer . I live in McKinleyville and was involved in this issue 15 plus years ago. And so I vaguely remember some of this. Mostly I would like to request that you continue this to next week because it is a ton of information for people to review. And it's just another example of how difficult it is for the public to get information at 5 PM on Friday for a Tuesday morning meeting. So I would like to respectfully request that you at least back up your agendas by one day, if you possibly can, because it's really untenable. I mean, there's like, what eight attachments to the staff report. And it's all very complicated stuff as you guys have just been discussing. A lot of people don't just know all these things. So anyway, please, please just extend it till next week. You know, I think the people in the community deserve to have some time to digest and ask questions and understand before everything gets voted on, even if it is a ministerial vote. Thank you.

Thank you, caller 4376, I will unmute you and you will have three minutes. Caller 3678, you are unmuted. You'll press star six to unmute yourself. Is that me? Can you hear me? Hello? Yes, hi, 4376, we can hear you.

Great. Hi, my name is Kelly Garrett and I have actually reviewed the environmental document that was prepared by Beaupre back in 2011. I reviewed it several years back and what I noticed is that the McKinleyville community plan, one parameter wetlands were not mapped or defined or ever brought up. They did map three parameter wetlands, but they're within the area that should have been reviewed for one parameter wetlands. And I did bring this up with John Ford several years back. And he said that that was unfortunate that it had been overlooked and that he would do something about that and look into it with the upcoming extensions. But it doesn't sound like anything was ever done about that. So I heard Supervisor Bohn talking about how we shouldn't go back and make them do things that weren't a standard back then, but they were a standard. The one parameter wetland protections were put in place in 2002. As to why the county did not make the developer look at that, we don't know what that was about, why they didn't, but they didn't. And I just wanted to let that be known. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you. Any more?

That is all we have online.

All right. In the room.

I do have a point of order before you start my time. I guess we're not gonna find out who the developer is. Nobody's mentioned the name here until later. That's part of the reason I object to process where the person normally would be speaking, the proponent or something would speak and then we would be speaking afterwards. Apparently we're changed and we're precluded from that. So are we gonna be allowed to, point of order, are we gonna be allowed to know who the developer is?

I think so, sure.

Would you please do that for us?

I think it's in the application, isn't it Danco? It's Danco.

Thank you. I support Jennifer Colt and what she mentioned here. This was a project that I had concerns with and agreed with Jennifer at the time. First time I agreed with Mrs. Colt. or Ms. Kalt and water keepers, and it's unfortunate this project went through in the manner it did. It sounds like a Kirk Gerard rubber stamp of what this particular developer wants. I also do have a problem, and this is part of your oversight, whether you feel the mitigation by your staff is correct. I don't understand why we're accepting the dedication of roads. That has been strictly against our policy to do that, and it should be on the developer to maintain those. There's other roads here except a dedication but don't actually accept it, don't take the road over. I think this does deserve a little bit more public scrutiny and like it's been brought up before, we don't get these things until late Friday frequently and I highly recommend that you table this one to future considerations. I also would make mention, it's been brought to my attention, this particular development has bonding issues out in another division and I know bonds a bond but we need to really cover our things. There's a project my understanding is maybe they followed through on it but same thing again years later all of a sudden things weren't done. When you have a track record of that I think these deserve extra scrutiny and the public would request humbly that you go ahead and since it doesn't seem to cause any problems table this decision until the next meeting. Thank you for my opportunity to speak.

OK, any more public comment? Seeing none, bringing it back to the board. I have a couple of questions, so I'll take a shot at this if I can. And John, I have a few for you in this. It seemed like there was review in terms of in terms of basically the infrastructure. We're just talking about really the roads, right? That was the environmental review was for that and not necessarily for, and I think what Supervisor Madron's talking about is the cumulative impacts of developing How many? 79 lots. 79 lots and in a forested land and the associated natural resource areas in there. And so I guess what I'm hearing is that it sounds like that was put as a programmatic response saying, well, those will get done on an individual level. Was that how it was analyzed?

I really don't think it was even analyzed.

It wasn't analyzed at all. Yeah. Okay. It's a big hole. I think one of the questions that's here today is like, well, we wouldn't do it that way today. We just wouldn't happen. So there's concern about that and it's not just about that. I also have a concern about the idea that every one of these 79 lots is now also on septic as well and the cumulative impacts on water quality within those spaces and I'm kind of wondering like where does that happen and there's just no analysis for that as well as the as well as, as we talk about now in some of these larger lots, there's going to be the allowance for potential ADUs, and then in the future, there could be future lot splits. This could be included in a, I mean, I'm just, I don't know, we're not protecting it necessarily from SB9 or SB35.

It's not in the SB9 area.

Right. So I'm just saying, like, I'm just kind of wondering about, was there any discussion about the sort of the, it surprises me that they're delivering sewer, I mean water and not sewer to this location. And what do we, that seems unusual to me.

So that would have been evaluated, the ability of the site to function on septic. That was part of the analysis. Right. And I also want to say that I did look at the wetlands and all future review for the individual lots will be for one parameter. Right. That is the standard. I just want to get back to a fundamental point.

Yep.

We may not like how it was approved. We may hate how it was approved. That's not the question. The question is, are we fulfilling the conditions of approval in compliance with the Subdivision Map Act? That's the only thing the board's being asked to do. Now, if you put it off and decide, okay, we want to come back and look at it next week, then if you don't act on it next week, It's approved by operation of law.

Great.

Because the subdivision map act builds in protections for subdividers.

Yeah.

Whether the county did things right 15 years ago or not isn't the question.

Okay. It's interesting to me because we could potentially have a issue, we could potentially have a shelter cove issue here in terms of there could be lots that are unbuildable because there's been no environmental review or PERC or other things.

I think there was PERC done.

Okay, so PERC was done.

That would have been part of the subdivision. They had to do that for the subdivision in order to get that processed.

Well, if they did PERC, then they would have had to have done it in areas that qualify for that and would assume that there was somewhere, there was a buildable, component to that. I mean, would they, did they, each one of these lots was like outlined where the footprint of a structure would go and where that would happen. That happened at all.

I don't recall that they did one for every lot.

Okay.

They primarily looked at the soil type, looked at the ability of the site, with the soil type to support a septic system, recognizing that when a future building permit is submitted for a home site, they're gonna have to also get the onsite wastewater treatment system permitted. At that point, there would be the normal trench dug to see what the soil profile is, to see how deep it needs to be, to see how long the leach lines need to be.

And there would, and, From my perspective if I would buyer beware if you don't have a wetland delineation on any of these Lots, I mean it seems like you'd want to do that all up front and then subdivide your do your map based on based on the constraints of the of the situation this is what I'm kind of getting at it's like this reminds me a little bit of Shelter Cove in that way it's like made a subdivision map but didn't consider all the all the constraints and some Lots are having some real troubles so But going back to this, so there's just no cumulative review of 79 septic systems in this area?

I think there was enough review done in order to approve the map.

Okay. All right. I appreciate those are, I mean, those are kind of my basic questions. I really, I mean, I... I appreciate your perspective and what you're saying. It's kind of a little bit, we just wouldn't do it this way today. Agreed. Okay. Supervisor Bone, and then let's get down to some action.

When SQL was brought forward in 2008 when it started, California Department of Conservation, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Eureka Region 1, CDFW, California Department of Parks and Recreation, California Department of Transportation, California Regional Water Quality Control Board, North Coast Region 1 Quality Water Board, Department of Water Resources, State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Rights, State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Financial Assistance, the California Native American Heritage Association, And then what was checked also in the EIR was aesthetics, air quality, biological resource, geology soils, hydrology, water quality, noise, public services, recreation, transportation, mandatory findings of significance. Whereas a lot of that transportation, a lot of the public services, a lot of the recreation has changed dramatically in McKinleyville to the better. So it would pass this. Would we do this now though? No. We'd use CEQA as a weapon to stop anything we can. But this, what's before us today is trying to be manipulated completely outside of the box and I think it's a disservice to anybody trying to do something in Humboldt County that has always been, has, it has been approved over and over and over again. I remember when this went through and there wasn't this much opposition to it. There's less forest there cause they've built around it already. So I just, I know there's something we want out of it. But what we want, we say this board, this board. None of us were here. So it's not this board. It's a previous board. And I don't know how to tell you about it. We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. It's out, and we need the housing. So I'm frustrated. I'm sorry.

OK. I was remiss in not having the applicant speak to this, so this is gonna be the time, and the applicants have sat through a lot here, for sure, and so if we could bring in the applicant now, and if they have something to say, or answer some questions, or those sorts of things, and then I know Supervisor Madrone has a question or two, and so if we could bring the applicant in, that'd be great. And again, I apologize for this late in the game.

This is Chris Dart representing the developer applicant. You all hear me OK? Good. Can you hear me?

We can hear you. Can you speak up a little bit?

Yes, good afternoon. This is Chris Dart, representation for the applicant. I've been part of this project all along. I was the lead project manager of this project throughout the process. So I have all the history, as it was one of my projects early on. As has been said, we did go through the public process for this project. We spent millions of dollars going through that process, many years going through that process. the we were uh you know we filed the application as any applicant would county county staff is the lead agency for the project county staff prepared the initial study determined an eir was necessary We cooperated and funded that EIR. It was prepared by a local consultant, Plan West Partners, who I know has done a lot of environmental work throughout the community. I do not understand the comment of did not do a comprehensive EIR. From our perspective, it took several years and several hundred thousand dollars to produce. I don't know how much more comprehensive that could be. We went through several public hearing processes, lots and lots of testimony, as was pointed out by Supervisor Bone. All of the agencies had the opportunity to opine on the project and did. There were mitigations prepared as the result of those comments from the agencies that we were incorporated in the project. Wetland studies were done for the project. We had retained GHD to do those studies. They had studied all of the areas in which the improvements were for the process. Those were all vetted through the Army Corps of Engineers, the Water Quality Control Board, Fish and Game. The sewer systems were evaluated. Every single lot was evaluated. There were test pits, or there were pits dug on each lot to determine whether they could meet the code system, which was 15 foot of groundwater, or if they needed a special system, and those were determined with our consultant groups. That was a very long process. Those areas were all mapped by our surveyor, Kelly O'Hearn and Associates. and the housing sites were thought through as it related to those septic systems. There was sewer evaluated for the project, but it was determined in coordination with McKinleyville Community Service District that it was not feasible to extend sewer to this property. All of the agencies were part of those conversations, including the county, then the McKinleyville Community Service District, the community of McKinleyville, The developer gave up a large chunk of this property as a compromise for a Sitka spruce forest that was argued was endangered, but proven that it wasn't through deliberation with different agencies and consultants, but it was given up nevertheless. i think that you know as was spoken by director ford this process is set forth for a reason to go back and open this back up again to us is ridiculous and we would not support that we've invested we've done everything we've been told to do we followed the process to the t and we're not trying to do anything that's manipulative or anything to that effect. We're trying to follow the process. That's what we're doing. That's what we believe we've done. I understand that rules change. That happens. That happens all the time. We're well versed to that in the work that we do. But we are following that process and we believe that we've done that to the letter of the law. And that's my comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dart. Very comprehensive. Really appreciate it. I feel like we need to make a decision on what to do here. We have another item that's time set that we're a little bit late for, and I want to get to that as soon as possible. What's the pleasure of the board in how we do this? Supervisor Bush, no. I'll make a motion we accept staff's recommendation.

Second.

All right, is there any more discussion from the board? Supervisor Arroyo.

I'm also amenable to it coming back so that we can, I understand that our options are very limited, but I also recognize from the public comment and from Supervisor Madron's concerns that there may, having a more robust discussion presentation may help to assuage some of those concerns, but I'm open to either option at this point, but I do think we need to resolve it ASAP so that we can move on with today's agenda.

Okay, as a motion maker, I thought about that, but what we have before us doesn't matter how robust it is, because 15 and 18 years ago, it was robust as hell to get it passed, and what's before us today is not going to change anything unless we're trying to satisfy, you know, I don't know what. As Mr. Dart said, he's been there since day one. He's the only one of us that has been there since day one. And I think he summed it up in one word. They have done everything that's been asked of them at the time and up to this point. So now we're going to say, hey, we're going to ask for some more stuff. It's not fair to people. And as you said, it's not affordable housing. But let's not make it any more unaffordable than we can. Okay.

I want to, if I can, Director Ford, for one moment, because you're the one that basically put forward that if this is brought back next week, it doesn't really change the situation. Is that what I'm hearing from you?

It doesn't change the situation. I just would caution about expectations.

Right. Let's talk about the expectations.

Because the thing that at least I think I've been trying to be very clear with is you don't get to go back and recreate what's been done. Yep. The test really is, does this comply with what was approved and with a subdivision ordinance?

Yeah.

You've got representatives of two departments here saying, yes, it does. People may come in and look at it and not like it. That's not the question. The question is, does it comply with, does it fulfill the conditions of approval?

And have we received any comment specifically that this hasn't fulfilled those, is there any evidence that we're seeing that hasn't fulfilled those requirements?

I'm not aware of any, but I'd refer to Ms. Mattson.

no okay according to the county survey everything has been filled okay appreciate that supervisor arroyo and then supervisor madrone

I'd just like to clarify that I wasn't suggesting that we bring it back because we would necessarily be asking for anything additional. It was more the opportunity, since none of us were on this board when this action was taken, for us to understand. Mr. Dart spoke to the EIR that has been developed and for us to have a little bit more understanding for the purpose of transparency. But I understand that that wouldn't necessarily change the outcome or wouldn't change the outcome. in this situation, so I'm sort of looking to Supervisor Madrone, given the sideboards, to see if this action today, if you, you know, This is a big development. It's been a long time since it was discussed publicly, and I understand that it is sparking interest. So I'm curious what Supervisor Madron thinks about the option of bringing it back or just moving forward and gritting your teeth and moving ahead.

Supervisor Madron.

Chris, thank you for being here to speak to the development. Yes, I recognize that there's been a tremendous amount of work done. As you mentioned, individual septic analysis as well as parcel development and all the things you mentioned. I recognize that. But there was no comprehensive EIR done looking at the cumulative impact of all that together. And some things change over time, and I agree that it's not fair to keep the developer constrained by those changes in time, like fire danger and things like that. 15 years ago, I don't think any of us really quite recognized how intense the fire danger is of people living in the forest. And you shouldn't be held responsible for that, because that's new information. but I would like very much to offer an amendment to the motion that's been made, but it's contingent upon the developer, and I see Dan Johnson is here on this call. I would like to just simply ask that you guys do a comprehensive wetland delineation and inventory of the entire property using the one parameter wetland approach that was required but was not done. The wetland analysis that was done was just done on the main road system. It was not done on the entire property. And so that's a big hole. You can't argue that that got done because it simply did not. And when you look at wetlands in a piecemeal fashion, you do not get an understanding of how those little tributary streams that might be intermittent and or little pocket wetlands, how they interact and how they all work together for habitat value. It wouldn't cost millions of dollars to do that. I think it would cost some tens of thousands, maybe 30 to 40,000. It's not the end of the world. It certainly would be something that would go a long way towards, I think, many of my constituents and myself feeling more comfortable with finalizing this map either today or in a week from today. If you need more time to consider that, then I think we ought to continue this. till next week. But I would like to hear from the developer, Dan Johnson, if you would be willing to accept the condition that you would complete a comprehensive wetland delineation and analysis inventory using the one parameter wetland approach, which should have been done, if you'd be willing to voluntarily add that condition to this approval.

Okay, so there's a request from the supervisor of the applicant. I'm just going to lay it out, the applicant. can respond. We're having a discussion, so we're not going to interrupt that at the moment. So as the chair, you can choose to say nothing, I suppose, respond affirmatively or not, or ask that this be delayed for a week. If you have thoughts on this, this is the time to push those forward. and i know that some i i would i would probably defer to chris dart as the representative because that's who work that's who were here speaking so chris do you have any thoughts on uh... the request from suresim adjourn yeah i was just gonna say uh...

We have done extensive wetland work for this project outside of the record. And so we're comfortable with the current situation with the wetlands. And we're not in a position to agree to that. Dan's not in a position to agree to that. This is a partnership. There's 10 members of this partnership we're representing right now. So we can't speak on behalf of them. We would not be willing to enter into some sort of agreement to do that at this point, given the makeup of our partnership and our authority. Through the Chair.

Chair and Supervisor Madron.

Yeah. So, Chris, I appreciate that. So would I would assume that maybe a one week continuance would allow you to meet with your partners and see if they'd be willing to make that minimal investment in doing what should have been done in the first place. But if you would voluntarily agree to get that done. And so I'm leaning very strongly towards a continuance at this point in terms of allowing that to occur.

I'm not hearing what you're saying from the applicant.

I'm saying that the applicant just, the applicant's representative just mentioned that this is a partnership and that Dan Johnson cannot make this decision on his own. There are, I think he said, eight different partners. And so it seems to me that a week would be more than enough time for those partners to confer and agree whether or not they would be willing to do the comprehensive wetland analysis for the entire property as a condition of approval of this map or not. It wasn't done.

It simply wasn't done. They're not going to agree to that.

Hold on, hold on. Chris? Sorry, Mr. Dart will be less informal. Mr. Dart, do you want to respond to that?

Yeah, they're not going to agree to that. We are where we are. We're following the process. There's no way they're going to agree to open this back up for additional scrutiny, nor would we recommend that they do that.

Okay, great. We have a response from the applicant. Is there any more discussion from the board in terms of the motion? Supervisor Arroyo.

I appreciate the frankness of that. I'm not hearing that there's interest in incorporating Supervisor Medran's request, and so I'm ready to vote.

I want to say I appreciate, although we went over time, the supervisor Madrone's pulling this off because I had multiple concerns in relation to this subdivision in the way it came down and where it's at. But in the analysis of what's in front of us, I'm just going to have to say I'm inclined to vote with staff recommendation only because I don't feel like bringing it back next week is going to be productive. That doesn't mean that supervisor Madrone isn't right about a lot of things that we're talking about here today. And there will be individual analysis of every parcel as they move forward through their permitting process. There are some good things in this subdivision, including some pretty significant open space and other things like that. It's not designed the way I would do it, but this is where we're at. I'm going to bring it back to Supervisor Madrone.

So this item requires a four fifths vote. Is that correct? That's a majority. Okay. All right.

Okay. So with that, can we have a roll call vote please?

Yes. Thank you. Supervisor Arroyo. Yes. Supervisor Bone.

Yep.

Supervisor Madrone.

No.

Supervisor Wilson?

Yes.

Supervisor Bushnell? Yes. Motion carries 4-1.

Thank you.

With that, we're going to the time set. That was supposed to happen 15 minutes ago. So bring them up here. Let's do it. Fishing. Are we guys fishing wildlife or fishing game? I can't remember these days. Fishing game. Fish and Game Commission. Still game.

Hi. Before you is the next agenda item, which is the annual report from the Humboldt County Fish and Game Advisory Commission. This report comes to you as a recommendation from your board when we did the deep dive into this board and commission. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Paul. He'll be giving you guys the annual report.

Welcome, Paul. As long as you can hear me, I'm good here.

We can hear you.

I'd rather stand. I'm a little nervous. I don't know why.

We're very intimidating.

Well, good afternoon, chair and members of the board. My name's Paul Amato. I'm the vice chairman of the Humboldt County Fish and Game Commission. Thank you for the opportunity to present the Humboldt County Fish and Game Advisory Commission's annual update for 2025 and 26. I'll provide a brief overview of our activities this past year, highlight the key topics we monitored, share important presentations that we received, and close with the implementation action measures where we request the board's continued support. Over the past year, the commission has focused on improving our effectiveness and ensuring our work aligns with the county's goals. One of the first adjustments we made was moving our meeting start time from 6.30 to 6 p.m. The small changes help give speakers more time for the presentations and a deeper discussion. As part of strengthening communication with your board, we also invited supervisors to share their ideas and guidance directly with us. We've continued to look for ways to support your priorities as outlined in the Humboldt County plan. Throughout the year, the commission monitored a wide range of resource-related topics that influence wildlife, land use, and public access across the county. These include updates from the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, developments of the Nordic Fish Farm Project, research on costs associated with fish cleaning stations, progress on Worfinger boat ramp repairs and the eelgrass clearance issues, and the continued loss of access to fishing and hunting areas. We also followed updates on offshore wind development, which remains on hold, as well as mammalian composting, fishing and hunting regulation changes, review of the natural resource element, and the anticipated restart of the grant cycle pending CDFW approval. The commission also continued its longstanding work administering the Fish and Game Commission grant awards. This year we recommend that the board approves grants totaling no more than $5,000. These small but important grants support community-based natural resource projects throughout the county. We also drafted a new set of bylaws in January 2026 to help modernize and clarify our procedures. Over the past year, we welcomed several informative presentations. In February, Caltrans Environmental Branch Chief Dominic Vitale updated us on the Firm Bridge emergency repairs and future replacement options. In March, Clerk of the Board Tracy D'Amico discussed changes in membership and appointments. In April, Supervisor Natalie Arroyo met with us to discuss implementation of the Humboldt County Plan. In August, Supervisor Steve Madrone joined us and in November, Tracy Tomiko provided further updates about commission structure and the importance of formal bylaws. Finally, in December, CDFW's Sean Fries presented updates on the status of CDFW lands. Before concluding, I want to highlight the key county implementation action measures where the board's support is essential. These measures include agricultural and oak woodland conservation programs, updates to streamside management rules, regional water management planning, water quality regulation updates, review of projects near wild and scenic rivers, and oversight of water export proposals. Additional measures include support for commercial fishing facilities and rural development planning in the King Range. These efforts require coordination across multiple county departments and ongoing board engagements. In closing, the commission remains committed to supporting the board's vision for responsible resource management across Humboldt County. We appreciate your continued partnership, direction, and support, and we look forward to another productive year serving the community and its natural resources. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Awesome.

Is there any questions from the board before we take it to public comment? Appreciate all the work you guys do. I mean, if you look back at the original charter, it was to enhance people that hunted and fished in Humboldt County. And I know the form has changed a little bit, but you still have those values, and I appreciate that.

Thank you. I would also like to add that we did have a recent vote, and Kenny Priest will remain our chairman for the upcoming year.

Excellent news. Good news. Supervisor Arroyo.

Thank you, Paul. It's great to see you here. Great presentation. And it's been a couple months since I met with you all, so I'm just curious, of those things you talked about, what has the most energy and passion right now for the commission? Is there one issue or a couple issues that are really coming to the fore?

Well, after mammalian composting and eelgrass removal, really it's just access to the water and really getting something for... Fishermen to be able to leave their tools, equipment, go out fishing, feel safe. And that's really been a driving force and, uh, for, uh, for the commissioner. And then of course, some of the things we talked about from the Humboldt County plan, we had a challenge. kind of getting some of those in front of us and seeing how the commission can do a better job with that. And of course, you're helping us with that. And hopefully, between you and Bruce, we can get a little more motivation on that. So those are key elements.

Awesome, and just for the board's awareness, we were talking about some of the implementation measures that are appended to the general plan, and I was hoping to hear some input over time from the Fish and Game Commission about which of those, if there are any recommendations on those, because there are so many, so I really appreciate y'all taking a look at this.

Okay, Supervisor Madrone.

thanks paul and really the dedication of all the members of the commission are very much appreciated it's always always uh informative to go to the meetings and just watch the process of grant review or other issues and i know like you said access to the water our ramps that comes up you know our ramps are in desperate need of maintenance and we lost one at big lagoon for access so parks budgets have been really underfunded for a long time. And I, for one, I think other board members are hoping that at some point in the future we might, I don't know if it'd be a parcel tax process or whatever, come up with some increased funding for parks and trails and boat ramps and things like this. So I appreciate you all keeping on those issues and bringing them forward to us. And please let us know when there's important issues rather than just an annual report. I'd love to see you guys more often coming forward and giving us more regular updates on what are the high priorities and asking us how can we all work together to get those done. So thank you again for your service and appreciate the work of all the commission. Thank you.

All right. Do we have any public comment online?

We do not have anybody online, Chair.

All right. Anyone in the room that wants to comment on this? Seeing none, I just have one. I had a... some folks over time that have asked me about this, and then I recently received some correspondence from a constituent about shotgun wads and the plastic that's happening and the plastic pollution from shotgun wads. This is where, when people are shooting shotguns into the environment, there's a plastic what's the wad which holds the shot and it shoots out into the environment. It's about the same amount of plastic as a plastic bag. There is some efforts afoot to move into biodegradable, uh materials because it used to be biodegradable shotgun wads used to be made of cardboard and now they're plastic and so i would say like you know imagine if you're shooting these pieces of plastic into the environment we would be concerned about that and we see them on the beaches and especially at the lagoons especially at stone lagoon where there's people have collected thousands of them they make art with them and other things. And so, but there's just a lot of concern. And so I was just wondering if, can I send those folks your way to, maybe you guys could have a discussion about that? Is that something you guys would be interested in?

Please send them to us. Okay. And we would love to hear that.

Yeah, okay. Because again, the... Whole countries have gone to replacing those with biodegradable components. And again, I mean, if I took a handful of shotgun wads and threw them out my car window, I would get fined $1,000, right? So it's like we need to have a, we need to, we're looking at addressing all kinds of plastics in the environment and we have to really, I think this is one of those places where we could improve and I think we'd all be better. So with that, is there a motion to receive and file this report?

So moved.

I'll second it. So motion is seconded to receive and file. Is there any, oh wait, we only have four of us. Am I allowed to do this with four of us?

I believe that you could, but it's probably better to do a roll call.

Okay, we'll do roll call, please.

Supervisor Arroyo? Yes. Supervisor Madrone?

Yes.

Supervisor Wilson?

Yes.

Supervisor Bone?

Yep.

Supervisor Bushnell is absent.

Okay. We have like a couple of minutes. Thanks. You did a great job.

Thank you. It's an honor to serve.

Yeah, and we're looking forward to the future. We're five minutes away from the time set, so everyone can stretch for five minutes, maybe take a break, those sorts of things, especially since we're going to really time crunch in the closed session, so we'll be running right in there. So there you go. We have three supervisors in the room, so good enough to read it in.

Thank you, Chair Wilson. It is the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California Government Code Sections 54954.5 and 54957 in order to consider the public employee performance evaluation for the position of the Chief Probation Officer. It is also the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California Government Code section 54957.6 in order to review the county's position and instruct its designated labor negotiators. It is also the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California Government Code section 54956.9 . In order to discuss existing litigation in the cases of Corinne Morgan Thomas and Doug Thomas et al. versus County of Humboldt et al., case number 1-22-CV-5725-RMI, OB versus County of Humboldt, Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2200748, AK versus County of Humboldt, Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2200882. Eric J. Lively versus County of Humboldt et al. Case number 3-25-CV-05134-JD. Redwood Oil Company versus Board of Supervisors of the County of Humboldt et al. Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2600683. County of Humboldt at all versus County Humboldt Division. County of Humboldt Division of Environmental Health. Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2600705. K Marie Gibbs versus County of Humboldt at all. Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2301390. Jordan J. Place versus Humboldt County District Attorney's Office at all, Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2601718, and Courtney McRae Zanoni versus Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2601721. Finally, it is the intention of the board to meet in closed session pursuant to California Government Code section 54956.9 in order to discuss the initiation of litigation in one potential case.

All right. Do we have any comment online?

Thank you, Chair. There is no comment online.

All right. Bringing it to the room.

Well, that was the longest one I've ever seen. Scott, there, you should have given a break halfway through it. I think we have, what, 12 items in closed session here at this time. Ever growing, I'd ask for an estimate of time when I'm done speaking here as far as when you think, assume you may be back returning. Did wish to make comment. There's two cases on there that have initials, most likely CWS cases that are ongoing. Been on there for quite a while. You have AK and OB. I always find it interesting that the Humboldt County LR et al versus County of Humboldt Division of Environmental Health that you're apparently suing yourself for some reason there. Hmm. Probably somebody from the media will find out what that's all about. Um, and then of course we have, uh, you have one anticipated litigation. The rest of them are on there. Hopefully you can get some of these things settled and off your plate. I know you have people like John Ford that are good at settlements on things of this nature and, uh, maybe next time you won't have possibly four or five hours. It's kind of hard obviously to pay the attention to all of these things when they get bundled at one time as far as closed session, possibly give each of them the time that they deserve. Thank you for my opportunity to speak.

Thank you, is there anyone else? Seeing none, do we have a time estimate? A few hours at least, right?

I would say two to two and a half hours.

Okay, that's an estimate.

That is an estimate.

No one count on that. All right, with that, we're heading to conference room A. Please move there as quickly as possible. All right, thanks.

super then let us reconvene all right we are back from closed session and i will pass it over to county council for a report out of closed session thank you vice chair arroyo there was no reportable action taken with regard to items k3 through k7 in k9 through k11

With regard to items K-8, K-13, and K-14, the board voted 4-0 with Supervisors Bone, Madrone, Bushnell, and Arroyo voting yes and Supervisor Wilson absent. To authorize the Humboldt County Counsel's Office to defend the County of Humboldt, the cases of Eric J Lively versus County of Humboldt at all case number 3 colon 2 5 dash CV dash 0 5 1 3 4 dash JD Jordan J place versus Humboldt County District Attorney's Office at all Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV 2 6 0 1 7 1 8 and Courtney McRae Zanoni versus Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, Humboldt County Superior Court case number CV2601721. With regards to item K-12, the board voted 4-0 with Supervisors Bone, Madrone, Bushnell, and Arroyo voting yes and Supervisor Wilson absent to approve the initiation of litigation in one case. The specific action, defendants, and other particulars shall once formally commence be disclosed upon inquiry, unless to do so would jeopardize the county's ability to effectuate service of process on one or more unserved parties, or that to do so would jeopardize the county's ability to conclude existing settlement negotiation to its advantage, as set forth in California Government Code Section 54957.1 . Thank you very much. And with that, we are adjourned.