Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

ahead and call this meeting of the Dallas Planning Commission to order. So, we'll have a roll call of commissioners. Commissioner Newell here. Commissioner Spaford, I'm sorry, guys. Uh, Commissioner Schulty, Commissioner Banford on his way. Commissioner Kawash, Commissioner Grow here, Commissioner Swanson here.

Okay, we have the minutes before us from the July 10th meeting. I apologize for not being here, but I read the minutes and it seems like there were a couple of interesting topics on there. Hawthorne Avenue and the Dallas Golf Club. And I uh appreciate the the good work that was done and what was reflected in the minutes, but I'm not in a position to say that the minutes reflect the activity because I wasn't here. So, any comments or entertainment of approval of the minutes from July the 10th? Here he is. We started without you just so you'd feel bad when you walked in. Hold on. I'll I feel fine.

Minutes. I'll move the minutes. I'll second. We've got a motion and a second. All those in favor of the minutes of July 10th, say I. I.

I. Pass. So, uh, there's no one here in the audience, which was my concern for folks that might have come out for the public hearing that we had scheduled, but, uh, I learned from staff today, and some some have heard, some have not, that the conditional use application for 100 Acre Academy to repurpose the church on Court Street, uh, they withdrew their application today and they made a decision not to pursue approval of their application and I just have one quick question as to the mechanics of that. Uh I know that there is a not insignificant fee attached to a land use application of that magnitude. What happens with that Chase?

Are they going to get a refund or are they going to defer and maybe resubmit? So that is uh somewhat open. Uh we have drafted administrative policies that handle refund of land use application fees uh but that was never ratified and approved. So um under that proposed policy uh you would get a 30% refund if you uh have withdrawn after public notices have gone out but that's not like written and official. So, city manager could approve whatever I suppose he feels is appropriate. Sure. Sure.

Yeah.

I'll just go on record to say that uh an application was made. Considerable uh time and effort and staff time went into the preparation of the public hearing. And uh I think that that should be acknowledged. And you know, if the city manager makes a decision to refund all or part of their application fee, uh, I just want to and and I have no opinion on that. That's not our that's not in our purview of our of what we do. I would just like to say thank you staff for the work that you did on that uh in anticipation of running a good public hearing. So um that's that's about it. So, and if they if if they come back, you know, I'm sure that you'll handle it all appropriately. I just want to recognize staff and the good work that gets done. these things happen and uh my understanding was if I if I was read the communications correctly is uh they weren't the the applicant uh after reading the staff report and the recommendation and everything that they would have to do the conditions of approval of the conditional use they weren't prepared to meet those conditions to uh to go forward uh for cost efficiency reasons. etc. So,

and I think that goes beyond just the land use conditions of approval, I mean, yeah, there were some there as well, but um from a fire life safety standpoint, a building codes compliance standpoint, um as they got further and further into the process, the number that they were looking at just kept going up. So, it wasn't just the land use side. there were a lot of issues with trying to convert an old building as I'm sure we're all aware. So,

it's a neat building and it is sort of a a a historic landmark in town. And uh so I I mean good for them and and we'll see if we see them again and and if not uh well I like I said I just want to make sure that that staff gets recognized for for their due diligence and getting the work prepared and the applicant chose to withdrew. And uh I have no comment on whether or not they should get any or all of their uh fee refunded to them. I just wanted to recognize staff. Thank you. It was a good was a good staff report and it would have been an interesting discussion. So

yeah, and I just like to say that 30% seems generous if that were approved to give it back because the large bulk of what has to happen before with research and writing and notifications and everything else, we're obviously free, but the building isn't. Um, and afterwards, all you really have to do is notify and and you know, cross the eyes and dot the tees and all that stuff. I mean, if they withdraw it after the hearing, I I don't think they get a refund at all. Oh, okay. That should So, they just barely made it again. Yeah. Okay.

Um, but uh yeah, so we'll we'll nail down a final policy as to how that'll go and we'll move forward with that. just keep us keep us uh uh keep us uh a breast of of that development as occur. Let us know what happens with that.

Yeah. And as we are speaking of a related topic, um I I will say as well that uh this particular applicant uh uh encountered a situation that some other applicants have also encountered. Um, there are some scammers out there who are using publicly available information off of our website to try and extort uh development fees out of our applicants. So, um, wanted to put all of the planning commissioners on the alert as well. Um, if you get emails claiming to be from John Swanson asking you to pay him $5,000 fees, uh, maybe maybe don't do that.

No, just contact John and tell him you want cashmark duff. So, do be aware that there are scammers out there. Always use common sense. Why don't these people get real jobs? I mean, it only takes one to strike it rich, right?

That's it. Anyway, thank you. Thank you for that and thanks for giving me the heads up because I I that was it helped my day to know that that I wasn't going to get caught by so public hearing not occurring this evening. Uh so we're going to move on to item number five which is other business which is planning commission handbook and head and commissioners training committee, best practices committee, and commissioners uh uh training handbook committee. So, Mr. Schulty uh Commissioner Schulty brought this up as a discussion item for us a couple of months ago, sort of at the beginning of the summer, and we're following through on that. So, now we've got the luxury and I want I don't want to go on and on with this all evening long because we're discussing uh sort of a policy situation and I will say that we're sort of flying on our own here. This wasn't an assignment that was handed to us by the city council or the city manager. This is something that we're taking up of our own valition. And I commend John Schulty for stepping up and recognizing some gaps in the way we uh provide service not only to our constituents but also to each other as planning commissioners. So he wrote up a really nice outline here. So I say we just kind of and I'll facilitate and we'll discuss. We're not here to make a decision this evening uh unless we decide to make a decision this evening. But uh I I just say we kind of roll through this and if we need any clarifications by by your intent, John, we'll get to that. Uh so is there anything you'd like to say before we sort of get started on going through the outline? Go for it. Okay.

Okay. So, uh, the the outline that John emailed to me the other day, uh, as a suggestion as to how we sort of break this down into small smalls size, uh, uh, bites as we move forward with this. Uh, he talks about forming two committees, uh, best practices committee and a planning commission training committee. uh staff included in the staff report and I printed out my own copy. I see one have one. The Oregon planning commissioners handbook which is put out by the uh uh American Planning Association of Oregon and DLCD. It's 10 years old and that was my it was a red flag to me. I'm like well maybe we could do a little bit better than this. But I read through this today and it's actually not a bad guide for us to use as we educate ourselves and future commissioners and with a vacancy. This is on the commission right now and I'll ask a question about that later. Uh we'll I think it's it's very relevant to where we're at right now. Um, so the last time we discussed this, I recall, and I'm just going to throw this out there and we can all talk about it. I I believe that we discussed that we would pursue developing a commissioner training handbook specifically to Dallas as the first step and then a best practices committee to follow going forward. So rather than form two committees that work concurrently, uh I see a logical path to say let's develop a deliverable which would be a Dallas specific commissioner handbook and then uh uh

then make a decision to develop a best practices committee that would function into the future. uh these committees. Uh I I did communicate with with uh city manager a few months ago when this idea was first presented and we're free to do committee work uh workshop group work outside of the confines of these official meetings. uh you know one of the comments that that I've heard and and one of the deficiencies that I see is you know we get busy uh wrapped up in our official business of making decisions on land use applications whether they be quasi judicial decisions that we make or whether they be uh a higher level decision where we make a recommendation to city council. uh we we kind of lose sight of some of the higher goals that are out there uh for what how a community planning commission is supposed to function. So, I took a hard I I looked at the Oregon Planning Commission handbook that's developed by the state and I was I was really drawn to the 14point uh uh page on on on page 17, which is build a better commission. And there's 14 points. And I believe that that might be a very good outline for a committee to take the rules and requirements for a planning commission as put down by state land use law and maybe customize that to Dallas a little bit. So, am I on track so far? I mean, I I want to do I want to do things in order. If we want to form a longstanding sort of

permanent committee on best practices and improving the Dallas planning commission, I think a good start would be to try and develop a a handbook specific to us that would be supplemental to the state commissioner handbook and and move forward from there. Any thoughts on that, John?

Uh, yeah. I'm so thankful for an opportunity like this for us just to compare notes. It it's so valuable. Let me share with you really where I'm coming from. Uh something I don't understand and maybe you all can help me. You all my perception have much more background in how planning departments work this and other ones. Some of you are in planning departments or have been or you've been on these commissions for a long time. And I don't and I feel as kind of an outsider, we're really missing half of what we should be doing here. I don't get the sense that anybody else does. And that's what confuses me. And I'd like to share just a little bit over the last couple weeks. I've done a lot of research on my own aided by Google's uh Gemini or ChatGpt. The spectacular research. I mean, it's just unbelievable what you can learn from your home in two minutes. It's just unreal. I asked Gemini in depth to look in that handbook, elsewhere in DLCD, and in planning commissions all around this state to to make a picture for me of what it is that those commissions were intended to do and what they're doing. And the picture I got is this. Overall, what DLC intended these commissions to do is two things. Public hearings, which are sacrian. We don't touch public hearings. Those are legal scripted. I have no comment about those. And that's what we do. And we do it really well. You're very good at this. We really do this well. what the so many other commissions do. Starting at DLCD, what their recommendation is is so many things that we don't do.

We're supposed to be the point of the arrow on strategy and deep community involvement. It goes on and on and on things that we reviewed. I made a presentation on that handbook and we said we don't do that. We do code. And I don't understand why with the background that you all have in this that you don't have the same sense that we should be doing so much more like we are instructed to do in that manual and like so many other commissions are doing. I don't understand the resistance. I don't understand why we're not saying we're missing half the opportunity to serve our committee. And and my concern is I'm really missing something. I'm screwing this up somehow. What about that? Do Do we Does anybody else have the same sense that we're doing half of what we can and should be doing here? Or is that just me? Well, that's not just me because that manual says that. and and I asked it to go through many different city chat GPT to go through many cities specifically and map out for me what their planning commissions actually do and it's what I just described it's what's in that manual but that we don't do and so for me this is a tremendous sense of urgency and we my view is we keep kicking the can down the street kicking the can down the street and we're going So my recommendation, John, thank you for the privilege of just saying this. Okay. My recommendation is it says in that is the next step would be to go to city manager and make the presentation that I made a couple of months ago because what chat GPT tells me is it's whether we do just this or both these is up to the city manager and the city council.

It is elective. Public hearings are not elective. But what we do on their behalf in addition to that is elective. And what that presentation said is here are these camps. What do you want us to do? If you want us to give you a fuller series of of services, then we need a committee like the best practices committee to show you what that would look like. And by the way, that has to come first because the training manual can't be written until we've decided if we want to change. So that's where I was coming from is the next step is just to give the presentation we already have to our city manager andor somebody on the city council if he wants to. It's his call and determine if our customer wants this. If not, what's the point? And they have the right to say no, we don't want to do this. We don't want to do this. We just want you to do that.

How do you think? And so what I'm hearing you say is that my idea to organize this I kind of got it backwards in your opinion that we ought to organize our our strategy and maybe uh strategize on our potential to do more. And again, I go back to this this one page in this handbook that says build a better commission. And you're right, we do about half of these and half of them just kind of get left by the wayside. So the caveat to that, John, is the ones that are missing, all the things that we don't do, the city manager has the right to say, "I don't want to do them."

So why don't we test that first and not waste our time? Because if they say if he says just keep doing what you're doing, it's a it's a short conversation. But I I don't think he would do that. I I there's so much more that we can do to provide value to him and to our city council uh as experts on land use.

Well, I'm going to ask uh our staff that are here, how do you how would be the best way to approach Brian with this idea? Would it be a meeting perhaps a couple of us meeting with him privately or bringing this to the city council in one of their work sessions or at an official meeting? I mean, I don't again, and you said it perfectly, I I am well-versed and have a lot of experience on the official duties of this body. I've done it in I've done it in well and I've I've seen it done poorly in different places where I've worked and I've had experience. Uh I had the the unique experience of working for a period of time for the department of state lands where I got to sit on the other ta side of the table even though I was working for a state agency. the state owns land and I would go to as the land owner representative of the property owner the state of Oregon and I went to county and city planning commissions all over the state to represent the state of Oregon as the property owner. So I've been on both sides of the table. That was actually kind of a cool experience because I got to beat that person and make a presentation on an annexation or a zone change or a conditional use or something that was going to have an impact on a community where you know folks like us live and breathe and have to and have to uh you know work with the decisions that are made. So what's what's the best way to approach the city manager? because I don't want to blindside him by showing up at a planning at a city council meeting. I want him to be fully aware of what we're up to. So, what do you think, Andy?

I want to step back a second. I'm hearing John say that there's two things we're supposed to be doing and that we're doing the one which is the these meetings where we deal with stuff and the other is something and from reading this it sounds like it's doing the kind of planning for the community but I want to hear ex we're talking about going to the city manager with a proposal for something, I want to hear it expressed just what that something is. Cuz if it's us doing planning, I don't feel qualified really to do the planning for the city.

Strategic. Uh yeah, strategic planning. I mean, we have a we have a comprehensive plan. We have all those other things that have been worked on usually by professionals who know what they're doing with planning and can look at it with all the things that they know about and experience and do it. What are we talking about is this other half that we're not doing. I don't know what that is because if we if you tell me what it is, I'll tell you whether I think I can do it or not. My answer to that would be that we do this. We do public hearings.

We have evidence that the DLCD is saying we should be doing a whole laundry list of things. Some of which you meant the list is what say what they are please.

ELCD says here's a list of things we should be doing that we aren't. In addition to which there are all these other commissions in this state who are doing things that we're not. What this committee would do would be to go to those commissions and to DLCD to invite DLCD here as part of this team to out of all of that create a list. This is what other commissions are doing that we're not. Do you want us to do these things? the specific list. In the presentation that I gave last time, there was a mockup in there of what that list would look like and it says you go through and put a tick mark. You want us to do this, not this, this, not that. It's in that last presentation. So, the specifics of what would be on that list can't be determined until we coordinate with DLCD and go ask these other commissions what's on the list. I guessed what would be on the list. It's going to be a lot more than that. The permission that we're asking for is do you want us to even go through the effort of creating that what that list if the answer is no like why would we do it why would we do it so it's a very simple thing do it's very very simple do you want us to show you what other commissions are doing that we're not for you to consider whether you want us to do them it's that simple

can I ask a cut to the chase question yeah do sorry if I'm blunt I tend to be um Chase, do you have any indication if any of these things Chase that we're talking about strategic planning, um funding issues, uh planning future comprehensive plans, any of those outside things from quasi judicial, does the city have any interest? is not being involved in it.

So obviously I can't speak on behalf of the city council or the city manager but

given my experience there is a limited appetite to do certain things and the attention span of the city council is limited because they have so many other things about the city that they have to be paying attention to. Um and uh there's also the the political considerations that you know they have uh their own opinions, their own vested interests. Uh they're trying their best to uh represent the community. Um so the extent to which they're willing to entertain certain changes, uh whether that's uh from their own personal experiences or just a lack of experience, uh it it really kind of varies. But um there have been a number of instances here where we've at the staff level proposed uh some for example code amendments uh brought them to planning commission gotten uh essentially some some uh forward direction from planning commission um and city council uh didn't necessarily adopt all of those things and and that's that's fine. uh that's that's their that's their role. Um but to the extent that some things move forward into implementation and others did not um feels like there's a certain level of reluctance to monkey around too much with things that aren't obviously broken. And there are some things that that do appear to obviously be broken that the city council wants to address. They've they've said that one of their priorities is addressing the uh the pocket park provisions that we have in our development code. They would like to remove that requirement from the code. Um and so as a uh upcoming uh set of

language that we're going to be taking to them is is some staff reports uh relating to that that you'll see before we get to that point. Um, next year, next fiscal year I should say, we are scheduled for a uh parks master plan update. So, um, that'll be something that we'll hopefully have some of your involvement in. Um, obviously we got the transportation system plan update that you'll be seeing uh later this later this year, early next year uh for your involvement in that. So, we do have some of these longer range projects. uh 2 years from now we've got a new housing needs analysis that we're required to do and the following year there'll be a housing production strategy which will be a new thing for us uh but we'll be one of the last cities to actually implement one so um we'll have a lot of other examples to sort of crib off of um speaking from my own personal experience um you know I I got into planning a little bit to to change the world right um and it's It's hard for me to look around and see what I've accomplished working here for almost 10 years. And and partly that's because it's it's hard to see the things that didn't happen. Um so if you're if you're taking a bad idea and making it less bad um or making it not happen entirely, that looks very different than if the bad thing had happened. Um, so sometimes just towing the line, uh, you know, uh, staying the course is what it takes to accomplish the end goal of of improvement. Um, but I do think that there is certainly room to examine best practices, examine practices elsewhere, see what could be uh, adopted into code here in Dallas. um

to what extent the city council is willing to do such things is a different question. So it's you say this a different very diplomatic. Thank you.

Yeah, I I'm not sure I got all that but let me say it a different way. I am not ever going to propose anything that isn't sanctioned by DLCD ever. Which is why I'm saying DL should DLCD should be a Did I say that right? DLCD should be a partner in this. So there's nothing contra. For example, DLCD says that this commission should serve as the committee for citizen involvement and specifies in detail what that means and what it is we should be doing. It's an extensive thing in terms of outreach in the community. We never do that. I think it is a legal requirement. I could be wrong. I'm not a lawyer. I think it is a legal requirement. Just as one small example of what we should be doing and all we're saying is can we provide the service to the city of creating this list of best practices and you can pick what you want and reject what you want but we want to take that initiative to provide the best service that we can and there's some hefty stuff on that list. So maybe rather than present to the city manager's office and the administration to bring to council would not be uh a proposal but maybe an ask. What could the planning commission do to advance the city of Dallas above and beyond our minimum legal requirements? Because Carol, you were blunt and I appreciate that. And Chase, you were very diplomatic, but you also spoke some truth there. I have the unfortunate luxury of having been on the city of Dallas staff at a different time, under a different council, under a different city manager, under a different

leadership structure at a different point in time. And my observation is this, and I'm going to be very diplomatic here because I know that, you know, I'm I'm going on the record with this. I see the city of Dallas and the way we operate uh from the city manager to the city council and on down to the planning commission and the other, you know, the parks commission and the other committees that served uh to advance the cause of the city of Dallas. that our strategy from our elected leadership is to do the minimum legal requirements to to operate the city. And that could be cultural, that could be budgetary. There's a there's a lot of different I mean uh a representational uh uh government, a represented government, an elected government evolved. And there was a time when there was twice the planning staff that there is now. And there was a time when there was a lot more proactivity occurring in Dallas than there is right now. So, I think we need to take our leadership to take our our marching orders, our our directive from our elective leadership because like like John just said, if there's no desire for us to get creative and to do more and do more outreach and do more community engagement, uh if there's not the desire to do that from our elected leadership and the management that they employ, employ which is the city manager uh then we are kind of you know spinning our wheels if we want to do more so I think rather than make a presentation as to what we

think we should be doing maybe it's an ask what could we do more than the minimum legal requirements that would better serve this community then I think we could couch it as what would the city like to see us do to enhance their ability to meet their objectives to govern. Yeah. H how can we how can we store up and or help contribute to what they want to achieve.

So just as an I'm sorry. Does anybody else I just Well, I guess I'm not going to write anything down. I dropped my pen and I have no idea where it went. I'll find another one. Anybody else have any want to want to chime in? We're talking sort of lofty high elevation stuff here. But, you know, we've got we've got the luxury to do that for at least a a little while this evening. Uh, the way I see it, because like I said, I've been on both sides of the table. I've been in this game for a long time at several different places and I've done the bare minimum, the legal requirements, and I've done some sort of esoteric strategic thinking type work, which is engaging the public more than we have than we've been asked to do in the past. And I certainly don't want this commission, as it sits right now, to go rogue and start doing things without being asked. That goes without saying. I just want to say it out loud. So, just as an exercise, these 14 points on from the handbook like how to build a better commission, if we just go through them real quick. Number one, develop and adopt bylaws and procedures and stick to them. I think we've got that covered. We're doing our legal requirements. We run uh we haven't had anything that's been brought to Luba or challenged in the years that I've been on the planning commission. I think we do a good job at that. develop good and reliable information, data and maps to make them available to anybody who wants them. I would say that the city of Dallas does a good job of that and by extension us. Uh prepare and maintain an adequate general plan. That would be our comp plan. That would be our transportation plan. And we do that in cooperation in conjunction with city council. uh annually re-examine what we're doing as a commission, how well we're doing

it, and how well we could do it better. We could circle that one. Number four, that would be an area where maybe a a a subcommittee of this group could do more if if the city manager and the council would like to do that. So, before you go further, can we agree that the first three are not really something that we actively do? I mean, we don't develop the bylaws. We reflect on them and are part of the process toward getting them passed. Developing the good and reliable information that's largely staff, right,

and preparing and and maintaining the inadequate general plan. The plan is prepared partly by us, but we mostly are just looking at it and saying, "Yeah, this makes sense to us." and then it goes forward. Well, we provide oversight, we would say,

but we're not we're not primarily doing these three things. These aren't our responsibilities that we have an impet input into it. But I don't want us to I don't want to think that I want to make it really clear when we're talking about what our responsibilities are and what we're supposed to do as a planning commission to point out that those aren't what the planning there's reading this thing there's a lot of thing it's talking about a whole lot of things and it's real easy if you read all these things that are in here to think that if a planning commission is supposed to do all this stuff it's not it's it's it's it's mixing what the legal representatives what the city council is doing all these things and it's trying to point that out but it's a fairly thin document so I want to make sure as we go through this process that we're clear on just what we're supposed to be doing and what we're what's our role and and whether it's advisory which I think a lot of it is or whether it's actually doing the preparation of these things. That's all I wanted him to say.

So what's your takeaway from that? I would say that see I would say we are doing those things by providing oversight to staff and making sure that those things are we're a part of those processes, right? But we're not necessarily the primary movers

for those things. We're not doing them. We're not preparing that. We're not collecting the data. We're not doing any of those things. We're looking at the data that's brought to us. We're not allowed to go out and do an a site visit with all of our meetings say you didn't go out and go get your own data. You're relying on what's in front of everybody. So collecting data and preparing it is we're specifically told not to do that. Anyway, that's I I just want to fair point

make sure that perspective is in here. To the contrary, as we look at the handbook from elsewhere in the handbook from DLCD and in what other cities are doing, take the comp plan for example, says this commission should own it, should regularly challenge the comp plan, we never do that. And so that's my point is if we make if we we look for best practices, we make a list say check off the ones you want us to do. We won't do the ones. We've been proactive in doing that in offering this evaluation of here's what we look like versus other cities. You tell us what it is that you want to do as opposed to out of the air try to tell us how to change or re-evaluate this commission. We my view is it's incumbent upon us to take that initiative init initiative to simply give the checklist and let them pick whatever they want ect with this conversation if we could refrain from referring to other cities I haven't seen any evidence of other cities and what they're as soon as there's a list that is shared with us of what we're not doing then by all means

I have piles of it lots lots of but my point is this that's why I'm saying we should have a committee to go through. I have piles and piles of research and much more available through DLCD. It doesn't do me any good to collect that. We need a committee here that in an organized way gets what you're looking for. I have so much of it already. I don't want to go through it. I don't I got to go home and have dinner. I don't go through it. If we don't go through this in five minutes, this is a process of that as a work group that we would go through. The information is readily available and there's tons of it and I have a lot of it already.

What is your concern related to that comment because I know there is one. My concern is having this a topic of a discussion every month. I don't know why we were revisiting it. I think there are things on this point to John's point. There are things that we can do better. um annually examine um having the community come out and share their thoughts about how we're performing, having joint meetings with city council, but beyond that, I mean I half the things I see like maybe four things on here that we're not doing of 14. So I agree. So build a list. What I'm saying is we should do that as a group. I

think we all want to do that. I think it might be your effort. Okay. I I can say this. H

how is a group here to serve our community? Are we going to say we're content with doing half our job? I don't get that. I don't What do you What are we talking about? I just don't. The resistance is unbelievable. And I don't understand why. I'm concerned when you say we're only doing half our job that we're all on the same page of and that was what my earlier comment was about. I'm not sure we're not doing the majority of our job by doing what we're doing. And I'm concerned that that your concern is that we do a bunch of things that aren't really our job. I'm

not proposing we ever do anything that isn't recommended by DLCD. I do say that.

So, and DLC DLCD should be part of the committee initiative to ensure that. And I hear that and I hear that as your opinion and and let me be perfectly honest. There are it's there are lots of uh uh local jurisdictions whether they be a city or a county that where the leadership and I mean the elected leadership and their management do not want to invite DLCD into the community to help us do a deep dive into the way we do things. There is mistrust between the professional planners at DLCD that maintain the uh the state planning goals and what local jurisdictions are trying to do. So before if we're going to have a discussion about inviting DLCD to come and give us instruction on how we ought to be doing things, that's definitely something that needs to come from leadership down. and and and and they they are the expertise. They are the the the the the folks that govern all of this land use law that we have in Oregon that's so unique to Oregon that is considered to be, you know, blue ribbon, gold star land use planning work, but there is there is there is a reluctance in lots of jurisdictions to invite DLCD in to meddal in local affairs. And I don't know because we don't have we very rarely have a joint meeting with the city council. We get sort of our our direction from afar and and and trickles down to us. I I would like to see an annual workshop with this group

to talk about what to look at the last 12 months and and see what decisions that we made and were they good decisions and where did they end up? You know, we make a recommendation to city council. We made we've voted to recommend uh uh resonings and and any of the type four stuff that has been where the decision we make is reversed by the city council. So, we just got to make sure that we're operating in the way that that our elected leadership and their manager wants us to act. I believe that we are doing our legal requirements according to the law. The the extra stuff, the leadership side of what DLCD is is instructing us as to best practices may or may not be what our elected officials want. And I think that's why I think rather than make a presentation as to what we would like to do or what we intend to do, I think maybe we need to maybe change the language a bit and turn it into an ask what could we and we could offer a list of ideas. We could do this. We could, you know, we could do public outreach. we could uh have a a more proactive stance in long range planning or we could continue as we have been to do and when I say the minimum that's I'm not minimalizing it. I'm not saying we're just doing the bare minimum but we're do we are fulfilling the legal obligations of this body and I would and I would push back on anybody that says that we're not doing that. You're saying there's a lot more that we could be doing and with guidance from DLCD, we might be able to have a higher, better, more efficient impact on city business. But I think that's

something that we need to ask, not uh uh uh present an I an idea. I think we need to ask I think we need to ask what can we do more? We are meeting our our legal obligations to conduct these public hearings to process land use applications according to noticing and timelines and deadlines and staff is under tremendous pressure to act on a land use application in a certain number of days or it's automatically approved. So they knock themselves out to prepare a staff report for a public hearing that gets pulled at the last minute. It happened tonight, right? So we've met our obligation and the applicant decided to withdraw. How? So I think we need to the question we need to ask is what more than our legal minimum requirements do you want us to do? And the answer may very well be

you're fine. You're fine. You're doing great. Chase, you had a comment. Keep up the good work. Go ahead, Chase. I'm sorry. Well, you just you mentioned a little bit higher, so I tend to talk more.

That's that's fine. Um I mean I you're the uh president, so it's, you know, not my place to criticize. Um you did have her mention uh the idea of an annual review of uh the previous uh uh 12 months. Um there is uh some legislation which applies to larger cities uh not cities the size of Dallas but certainly that Dallas could do so voluntarily. Um that calls for the um uh collection and aggregation and reporting of data on exactly that sort of thing uh back to the state. How many conditional use permits did we have? what for, how many did we approve, why, um, you know, variance requests, all that, subdivisions, what have you. So, there is, um, some planning, data collection that's, uh, obligatory for larger cities, uh, but Dallas could certainly do so voluntarily. DLCD would not turn away a voluntary data submission. Um but that could be an opportunity to review and uh to see if uh the outcomes that are coming from the planning commission from the planning process. Um especially now that many land use application types aren't coming to the planning commission anymore. Um it could be an opportunity for the planning commission to review those in a less formal setting um than the decision-making process um to see if if uh what's coming out of those requests is consistent with kind of what the planning commission is expecting to see. Um and then of course report those findings back to DLCD if if planning commission so chooses. So

how about this?

It's a thought. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna make a proposal and you folks can tell me whether I'm on the right track or not. John Schulty, thank you because you're bringing your cons. You're you're not sitting there stewing. You're not resigning saying I I don't want to do this anymore. You you you're you're making the effort to do better, do more for the community. And that's something to be commended and I appreciate that. Here's what I offer. I think that John and then myself as the as the I'm not I've never been comfortable with the president. I prefer chair. I know why why that's just the way our code is written. If John and I set up a meeting with Brian Lada and went into his office in in in an unofficial capacity and had a closed dooror meeting and said, "Brian, what could we do more than our minimum legal requirements as a body? What would you support? What would you support to the city council? Would you support asking them that?" and then we could have a wish list of things that we might be able to contribute more and then have that discussion uh privately and then take direction from him as to how to go forward would that and I'm willing to do that. See here's my concern if we're going to start forming subcommittees. I work 40 hours, 50 hours a week an hour away from here. And since we moved our meetings from Tuesdays to Thursdays, I have no idea why earlier in the week worked so much better for me than later. But I I have limited capacity because I'm doing exactly this kind of work from the staff side for Benton County right now. So, I don't have a ton of time to commit to a subcommittee, but I will definitely

take the responsibility to to provide some leadership and support for Commissioner Schulty to take these take this idea to do more, do better, be more engaged with the community according to DLC guidelines. And I think that would be one of the things we'd specifically ask him. May we shall we invite the uh uh regional solutions team DLCD representative to come in and do a workshop with us because the answer may be no. We really don't want you to do that. We want you to just do what you do according to the law and and go forward from there. So that's my proposal. set up a meeting with with John and myself to meet with Brian at his convenience, obviously, and let him know that we would like to get some direction on how we could do more than our minimum legal requirements.

So, some of you may may have an opinion, me, some of you, and I want to hear this. Some of you may be perfectly happy to only do our minimum legal requirements. That's really all I have time for. Yeah. From where from where I sit. But I fully support if there's a majority of this group that wants to form a committee to establish some strategies to do more than our legal requirement. I I support that. I don't know how much I could be involved in it, but I could definitely I I I commit to all of you to provide leadership in at least doing the ask. I

prefer the ask approach. Go meet with city management. I think you cannot do anything but an ask. In my opinion, anything else would be rude and presumptuous. So, I think you have to go with an ask. Anybody else? At some point, I just have two things I want to point out. Okay, I can do that right now. Let's Let's have it.

On page 15 is a list of the planning commission responsibilities. Now, this whole book talks about all kinds of cool things that the planning commission could be doing in big words, but these 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 are what the planning commission is responsible for. I'm comfortable doing those things and I think we're doing those things. going beyond responsibilities. That's what if Brian wants us to do them or is comfortable with us and we have people who want to do that, that's fine. I'm I think we're doing everything we're supposed to here. Some things better than others. The other thing is I keep hearing, let's look and see what other planning commissions are doing. The one thing I want to stress in that task is other commissions may not be doing what they're supposed to be doing or doing them well. And I would hate to say, "Hey, let's do this cuz this other commission's doing it." And then start doing something that's either illegal, bad, or not according to the, you know, what the our city wants us to be doing. So don't just look at what somebody else is doing and go rah rah. That's all I want to say.

There's also the risk of running against council, against actual policy elected officials. So the more sideways we get, the more adversarial potentially we could get with them. And I prefer to not be I I would argue that it's uh planning commission's responsibility to provide the city council with the best information that you are able to. Um, and city council will make such decision with that information as they are able.

I just like to indicate how we're not very many. And when I think of a committee, I think of four or five people sitting around a table conversing about such things and that would mean all of Yeah. Well, that's a public meeting. You'd have to notice it. Like there's staff. That's the other aspect to consider budget staff.

Well, that's a good point. If the more than half of us meet, it's an official meeting and there are legal obstacles or or challenges to to to doing that. That's why you'll see groups whether uh you know they'll call it a workshop or or a a work group where no DEC official decisions are going to be made. Uh but yeah, with that still public noticed. A work session is still public notice. That's true. It's a public meeting. So maybe it's good we do have council here. Uh so do you have an I think you get an understanding of what we're talking about here. Yeah.

How could we do more better for the city of Dallas than what we're doing now? And how do we ask?

Yeah. So I mean I've seen probably four or five different planning commissions I've worked with and in terms of their involvement and what they're proposing, I mean that's just going to vary by the jurisdiction. So, like my wife was um on the planning commission for Salem. She's a land use planner. That's her background. So, she served on the Salem planning commission for a few years. And in that capacity, sometimes planning commissioners would put forward legislative proposals. Um that's not as common in a smaller jurisdiction, you know, the the size of Dallas. Um I work pretty closely with Monmouth as well, another town that we represent. They function more like Dallas. you know, we're mainly hearing legislative amendments, quasi judicial um hearings, those kind of things. But I guess moving forward, I think meeting with Brian's probably a good first step. Um and then probably scheduling a workshop with the uh the city council to see what they want to do cuz that's ultimately going to be how the planning commission functions in terms of, you know, the the planning commission, you're meeting all your legal requirements. you're doing what you have to do in terms of what involvement the city council wants out of the planning commission. Beyond that, I mean, that's a discussion that's worth having, but ultimately it's up to them.

Yeah. For my purposes, that's a great idea, a great path forward, and it's an easy way of getting the answer. Can we do more for our city? And if the reality is no, then we know that we tried. So, I think that's a my personal opinion that's a great step forward.

Okay. So, how about this? Back to my back to my proposal. And we didn't get through your whole outline here, John. But you know what? This is a good start. Maybe we could pair this down. Uh uh uh simplify this a little bit and have a meeting. You and I and anybody else that wanted to join. I'm offering to do it. John's in the lead because it's your concept and you're the one that's put this idea forward and I want to give you full props for that and also respect uh the work that you've done on this and and the time and effort that you've put into it. And if anybody else wants to to join us with a meeting with Brian Lada, the city manager, uh please let me know. And you don't have to decide right now, but let me let me reach out to Brian. And this is something that I'll do. I'm not asking staff to do this for me. I'll reach out to him and say that Commissioner Schulty and I would like to meet with you and talk about how the planning commission could function at a higher level for the good of the city of Dallas above and beyond our minimum legal requirements. and then have prepared in our back pocket for that meeting a list of things that we believe that that that we might be able to do that are above and beyond those minimum requirements. Are we all comfortable with at least making that ask and and and seeing what the response is?

Very much so. And and I I I heard what you said, Tori, when you said I don't want this to be like a regular discussion point of every point that It was it was a question but yeah

yeah and you know we have the luxury because there's no one here except us this evening even though it's an official meeting to have this this frank discussion and and when I say and I and I want to be clear uh I'm not I don't have an opinion on how the elected officials and the city manager of the city of Dallas choose to do their business. Uh but my observation is that not just at the planning commission level but also at the city council level that we are doing the minimum legal functions to operate as a city. Uh and and that's fine if that's what council is directing their senior staff who's directing frontline staff that that's the way we want to function. That's fine. Uh, and I think we need to follow that lead. If we want to put ourselves forward as being more proactive or more uh uh more engaged in the community, uh we don't want to get sideways and end up in an adversarial uh uh we don't want to compete with the city council for any sort of leadership type role. You know, we we serve at the pleasure of the counselors that appointed us to this body. So, and I think that we need to come at it from that angle and and just be open-minded to whatever answer we get. Uh, so that's my proposal. I'll reach out to Brian. I don't know what his schedule looks like. He's he's a busy guy and there's a lot of stuff going on right now. But I

then so be it. At least we know where we stand.

But I think that we we can also ask for I was just tickled to death. however long ago it's, you know, the months go by so quickly. When we did have that, we were required to have that joint meeting between the city council and the planning commission on the millsite plan. I was just tickled to death, but I was disappointed by the outcome of that meeting because I saw us just fulfilling the obligation to have that joint meeting, but nothing we we we didn't engage with each other. I can remember we didn't we weren't asked to introduce ourselves. we weren't recognized uh at that meeting and I'm not gonna say well I I could say more but I I was less I was I was very enthusiastic about that opportunity and was hoping to say to get the opportunity to say at that meeting we should do this more often. This is great. We did good stuff together but we fulfilled our obligation to have that joint meeting. We did it. it was done. We all got up and we left. So that would be if we're going to make that list, I would say more engagement between this body and the city council going forward and and and at the same time continue to do the excellent work that we do. I'm impressed every time we have a room full of people that have incomplete information and maybe some incorrect perceptions about what's going on in our city. And we handle that with a lot of grace because it gets tough and we are, you know, we're just citizens here that are volunteers that are in here doing this thing. So, if the outcome of this is to just you guys are doing great, keep doing what you're doing, we're going to live with

that. But I think we're I I think we want to make the ask. And I'm I'm kind of asking the rest of you to give myself and John the authority to go in and and make an informal ask and then bring back what the outcome is. And that way nobody's, you know, we're not saying, we're not saying we're not doing our job. We're not telling them they're not doing their job. It's we'll make sure that everybody is is respect respected and thoughtful. We're not here to to to say it's being handled wrong, but just do the ask. What can we do more better? And I think that is everybody on board with that? Totally. I'm looking for a motion.

No. Yes. I don't I don't think I I just want to see some consensus. I don't think there's anything we need to vote on, but I think that's a good first step before we start forming committees and having an extra meeting only to find out down the road that it's really not what our leadership is wants from us. So,

I think that's where we're at on this. So, let me do that. I will get in touch with Brian. Uh, well, I'm it's already Thursday. I'll try tomorrow, but it might be early next week. And uh I don't really have access to everybody. It's really not appropriate for us to be like having like an email chain or anything amongst ourselves. So it's all got to run through staff. But uh uh I'll reach out to Brian, find out when he has availability that's, you know, uh that's appropriate for our schedules and his. And then I'll have staff let all of you know where we're at with it. and then we can expect to see some sort of an outcome from that meeting as a an agenda item at a future planning commission meeting. So that's my proposal. Nodding heads. Everybody okay with that? Council

works great. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. I I think we're we're on our way. We're having the discussion which is which is what you asked us to do and and nobody's resisting it. We're just being cautious and and I think that that baby steps are the way to go. I'm respectful of your opinions and your input. One at the end of the day, right?

I had a boss who used to say incremental change is the only change that lasts. And I think that's true. I think if you made wide sweeping changes, often they just get reversed andor modified backwards. But the small incremental changes are the ones that stick.

So I I think it's important and the most respectful way to go about it is to ask what could we do a little bit more? And who knows, you know, we might there could be a we we might be opening up a real can of worms here like, "Oh, the planning commission wants to do more. Let's give him this. Let's give him that." Well, let's let's see how it goes. But I Yeah, I I I agree with with your assessment, Carol. Uh so, let's do that. Okay. So, that's the direction we're going to take. Are there any other commissioner comments that you might have this evening for the good of the order? Anyone? Anyone? Uh, any staff comments?

Sorry. Did you sign the card? Oh, there's a card for Rich. What's that? Sad. Yeah. Um, I would just uh reiterate that uh you know, I'm I'm here to be a resource for all of you. So, as you're out and about in the community, if you see things that you know aren't working well, if you see things that could be better, if you have questions about why things are the way they are, uh certainly happy to uh find answers. So, um if you have questions, you know where to find me. See something, say something. Is that what I'm hearing?

Well, I mean, it's it's hard it's hard to update the code if you don't know what the issues are. That's right. So to the extent that you can be the eyes and ears uh not only for myself but for management and the council um you're out and about in the community one two three four five six times more than I am. So um yeah thank you very much. I I think this was productive and the fact that we didn't do it in a room full of that it was just us I think was helpful. It was recorded though. That's absolutely and that's why I was

very careful about the way I couched the discussion. So, because I don't think that anything was said here that was could be considered to be out of line or inappropriate. Menus. Yeah. We don't use that word. Okay. So, with no other commissioner or staff comments, it's 7:15 and I am going to close the Dallas Planning Commission meeting