Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Just so you know, who is it? So we can go get the yearbook. Mike's your li. All right. Well, let's call to order our planning commission meeting for um June 24th. 24th. Wow, there's half over already. Um we'll get started with the pledge of allegiance led by Commissioner Collins. I alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we're on to our Oakland training. It's coming in rider. Sweet. Oh, I want All right. Fancy fancy new slides. Yes. Because I know how excited everybody is at our annual training on open and public meetings act. So I actually used a different PowerPoint. Uh I had one of our law students who's doing an internship with us this summer basically create this evidently he is a big James Bond 007 fat. So you will see pictures of 007 throughout the sweet. Awesome. There you go. All right. Next slide please. Okay. So, in case you ever wondered, there are the statutes for the act, open and public meetings act. It's not very long. Three sections. Uh section two is usually the ones that are

applicable. But if you have any questions, you can just check on these. Then for next year, if there's anything specific you want me to focus on, uh, let me know which sections and we can do something different for next year. So, uh, next section. All right. For the most part, purposes of um, sorry, that's okay. Public meeting. Yes. So, basically, it's to do everything openly. I'm busy. Good job, Steve. Good job, Anna. All right, so bottom line is we are one of the only things to which the act applies. And so, uh, two things to keep in mind are on the bottom. Our actions are done openly and we conduct our deliberations openly. Evidently, uh, James Bond and the Bills did hideouts and that is a no no. That's why you put that little thing there. So, we try to do everything in the open. Next slide. Uh, keeping in mind the act is very strict in terms of interpretation, we lean on the side of having the meetings be open just out of curiosity. Have we ever done a closed meeting? No. Commission doesn't do closed meetings at all. Right. So most of it doesn't apply to us, but if it's city council, it might be more applicable, but lean on the side of open meetings as opposed to closed meeting. There's a very narrow exception of closed meetings and why you can have a closed meeting. Um the case on point is Karn's Tribune Corporation versus Salt Lake County Commission, which is interesting because having just did a little weeding on this case. Uh Salt Lake County Commission got sued and ultimately was found at fault because

they decided to have a close meeting regarding an annexation issue, which I thought was ironic considering we've been having that annexation issue sitting in the airport. So they got sued because Salt Lake County decided to to talk about the annexation in a closed meeting and Karn's Tribune basically said no, it should be an open meeting. So lean on the side of caution. It should be an open meeting. Next slide. When is a meeting a meeting for the act? And so and then this is where at the end the pop quiz so to speak. We have some examples, but it's when you have a public body with a quorum uh for the purpose of either receiving public comment to deliberate about matters or to take action such as voting. Uh a meeting is not chance meetings or just bumping into someone. Uh and so basically public body with a quorum. So keep that in mind and again feel free to let me know if you have any questions and I'm happy to stop and try to answer those for you. All right. When should a meeting all when should a meeting be open? So like like again like I was saying always almost lean on a side of caution have it be open. Uh again I'll talk a little bit about the very limited circumstances when the meeting will be closed. Next slide. All right. Requirements for open meetings. And again, I'm glad that we have Steve over here who's been doing it for many years. And so, this is kind of more on Steve's end as far as responsibilities. But 24-hour notice is one of the things that we need to give. And then also within that 24-hour notice, uh include the agenda, the date, the time, and the place. Steve does an excellent job sending an email out. uh

the Friday, usually the week before, letting us know what's on the agenda. Again, there's an exception if it's an emergency meeting. Um we can kind of circumvent the 24-hour notice if there's an emergency, but otherwise at least 24 hours. Bank commission never had an emergency meeting? No. City you guys talked about. Yeah. Was city council maybe if there was a disaster and they needed release funds or something. Okay. But again for us it really doesn't apply. Okay. So uh again requirements then regarding the agenda first of all. So uh on the agenda which I actually included a screenshot of one of our recent agendas at the end of the PowerPoint. We need to provide reasonable specification in terms of what is on the agenda. again including um date, time and place. Also, it needs to be recorded and kept um written minutes and the recording which should be made available to the public within 30 days so that someone wants to do a grandma request, court order, whatever, it's available. If you guys want a 1986 meeting, please bring your own tape recorder. Noted. How long do you have to keep them? Forever. Oh, really? I'm trying to buy one so I can convert them all to digital, but it's not on the top priority. Also, if you want some written on a floppy disc, I can give those to you as well. I have some on a zip drive. Yep. I got three and a half floppies and five and a quarter. mini recorder. Big recorder. That's why your office is so full. You

buy a machine to actually read that anymore. I'm sure you could. Beta uses not even here, man. [Music] Anyways, to the requirements. Yeah, last meeting was his last um technically. Let's see. So requirements again we also need to have a note of all members who are present or absent. Uh a summary of public comments and recordings be labeled full length and unedited. The good thing about technology nowadays is it's all kind of done broadcast on YouTube so we can easily meet these requirements. All right, let's talk about when a meeting can be closed which is not often. And again, this is just the act itself. Doesn't really apply to us as the planning commission, but certain areas. If there's an ethics complaint, if we're talking about someone's health, character, professional competence, uh collective bargaining, imminent litigation, uh the purchase, exchange, sale, or lease of real property, water rights, or developments. And so those are the only limit exceptions that we have closed meetings. Um question development agreement. Can we close it for a development agreement? So say that subnote only if it would reveal an appraisal value or prevent from completing the transaction on the best possible terms. Again, 205 is kind of where these exceptions are noted. Is it? Okay. But again, you bring up a good point though. Do note the caution because there's always that fine line. Uh again, I think at the end

of the PowerPoint, there's actually uh the question that talks about how far you can talk about something like that without causing that line being violation. Other questions though on on this? No. Okay. All right. So, what can we do to close a meeting? First of all, we need to start off with a public meeting with a quorum present and then up the quorum 2/3 then need to approve of having the closed meeting. Uh we need to put on the record the reason for having the closed meeting. We keep it very limited. uh we need to provide what's called an anchor location of where that close meeting will take place and then uh there will need to be a vote of the two/3 of the quorum so that the close meeting can take place. All right, James Bond Connory evidently is his favorite. So what cannot be done at a closed meeting and the important stuff approve an ordinance resolution rule regulation contract or appointment nor can the planning commission or the body vote on a motion except to close the closed meeting. You can have a vote on that. Um, basically we can we should be doing the stuff that we would otherwise be doing at an opening at an open meeting such as talking about ordinances, resolutions, contracts, etc., etc. Next slide. What must be done after a closed meeting? Uh, very similar to open meetings, keeping a permanent uh, file of the minutes and unedited recordings. Again, keeping in mind that someone can

do a grandma request, court order, or a legislative audit. And so that's why uh we want to kind of keep good paper trail of everything. All right. With the pandemic and ever since the pandemic, uh virtual meetings, so Zoom meetings, I think I talked about this last year as well. It can be done. Very similar requirements. Again, keeping in mind the 24-hour notice, letting everybody know the anchor location so that if someone wants to actually attend in person as opposed to virtual, they have the opportunity to do so. And then also providing electronic means to do so such as a link or right. All right. Not that we ever want to talk about this, but consequences of violating the act. Uh the court may then void any action that the entity whether it be city council, planning commission etc. uh void any actions and decisions made uh and also an individual within that organiz within that body and also be guilty class misdemeanor. Again something you want to avoid. Can we come in? Have to sign in on the book and then come on in. It is an open meeting. I All right. No, I think Yep. Perfect. This is All right. So, this is I just took this one. The most recent planning commission agenda. uh all looks familiar for everybody I'm sure and Steve does an excellent job of you know providing us the agenda uh the week before I specifically highlighted the two things I want to kind of just

focus on at least for this year uh legislative items and administrative items. anyone able to kind of tell me the difference between the two and kind of why I wanted to highlight the two at least that I wanted to focus on for this year. One, anyone know the difference between legislative items and administrative? Well, the legislative items are amending something requires a public public open public meeting recommendations to the city council where the other ones done after we're done. Yeah. Exactly. If you don't answer these correctly, we're watching those videos. All right. What's happening there? Which one's the quasi judicial portion? He puts that one aside. I won't get to that. But you did mention that. Let's talk about speaking of let's move to the next slide. So here's here's your answer. So basically each of you wear two hats. Uh when you're discussing items on Steve's agenda that are legislative that is when you're making recommendations on a general plan or land use ordinance. What's important about legislative and it's a political process is then each of you can have some discretion in terms of listening to public input uh providing some of your own input as well and using some of your own discretion. There's your legislative. Now the difference then is under the administrative or the slashcompliance hat that sometimes you also wear. Again, using Steve's agenda, he breaks it down to two sections. You have the legislative items, administrative items. On administrative is when each of you are acting as a land use authority, a member is only looking at whether an

application complies or not. Now, the difference then between the two is each of you as planning commissioners under administrative, you're pretty much limited to no discretion. You have to just follow the law on that and that's because you're acting as a land use authority because the question can only be answered with a yes or a no. Are there complaints or not? Right. Exactly. So the example that I like to use and and it's too bad Taurus is retired and not here. But my understanding he would he was a former judge. And so it would be like Tara as a judge basically saying, you know what, even though the law says this, I don't like it. My personal preference is I think people can drink and drive and do whatever they want. So I'm going to ignore the law. That is a no no. And that's kind of the difference then between a legislative item versus an administrative item is as an attorney, as a judge, I can't basically say, "Well, I don't care for this statute of this ordinance. I don't think I like it. Therefore, I'm going to ignore it. You're kind of tied. Your hands are tied to that. Uh food for thought. Why do you think that there is no discretion where it's an administrative item? You have to be careful constitutional rights and land ownership. Exactly. Um so it's because as as you indicated, application complies with all laws and the commission member who votes snow. So, you're kind of ignoring the law and saying, "I'm still going to vote no because I don't like it." Uh, or I'm going to just say that here's the reason why I don't like to I'm going to basically talk about my discretion. Uh, you're basically kind of denying the landowner's lawful use of the property, which again, it's like a judge basically saying, "I'm going to ignore the law. I'm going to tell you my personal

preference. It's either okay or not okay." And so you want any questions on the two. All right. Okay. We're legislative. I don't mind your standard of decision is low. I don't like it meets the standard. I don't agree with this meets the standard. Once you get administrative, it's meets the law or not. So the standards are a lot different. Well, a few years ago, we had one that was on the administrative side. It was the um heritage park and they were redoing the portico and the building. And I remember talking with the, you know, individual that was there because they redoing like the rock work down the side and the porticos were just like plain concrete. And so I just asked him, I'm like, "Hey, could you consider doing something?" And he's like, "Oh yeah, I'll do that." But it wasn't a it wasn't contingent on the vote or anything like that. It was just, "Hey, this your project would look better." So, I think we do, correct me if I'm wrong, we do have some discretion to make some suggestions or things like that, but I would have voted to approve it as is because it would have met the criteria of that. But I think as a result, it looks a heck of a lot nicer now than just plain cement pillars sitting there. Just going to know if he says no. The notes. Exactly. Um, and then I think let's move to our Oh, questions. Nope. Okay. All right. Even though it's worded as a pop, I'm just going to use hypo just hypotheticals and walk you guys through it. So, first one, a city council member sends an email to other city members two days before a city council was to be held. The email outlines some concerns that residents have shared with the council member about uh the groundskeeping at a city park. No agreement is made pursuant to this

email. Is there a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act or not? No. How many vote no? Okay. All right. The answer is no. The correct answer is no. And here's why. So, there is actually nothing in the Open Public Meetings Act that prevents members of a public body from exchanging electronic messages. After all, when you're not wearing your hat, either as a legislative hat, administrative hat, as a planning commissioner, you are a citizen. You citizen. Exactly. Uh and so, uh the the specific section of the the code is 210. That basically says you guys are allowed to communicate as a normal person, a normal resident, a normal taxpayer. Uh however be careful because if you go too far and you kind of then start doing predetermining of an issue then you might be in violation then under the act as well which is 208. And so there's that fine line uh between wearing the hat and not wearing the hat in other words. So keep that in mind. All right. Example number two. During public comment a city resident complains about the big potholes outside his house which was not on the agenda. The city council then discusses this issue at length of the rest of the meeting. The council votes on a motion to fill the potholes. What violations, if any, uh on the open public meetings act public wasn't informed of the item in advance took action. No agenda. No reasonable specificity. So there's that again. Walking that fine line. You're awesome, man. Walking that fine line. So, uh, there's nothing wrong with the city council discussing the potholes, even if they use the rest of the meeting

to talk about it, but they can't vote. Exactly. That fine line. You can you can discuss it all you want, but if you vote, you're going to be in violation. So, keep that in mind. And then finally, the city would like to sell a dusty old lot it has had for years to a developer who would like to build apartments there. The developer and the city are battling about price and the city council left to meet behind closed doors closed to discuss what the purchase should be. May the meeting be closed tbec finish the question. Yes. I think when you're talking values yeah prices. Yep. Exactly. Okay. So, valuation and appraisal is basically one of the narrow exceptions of when you can have a close meeting. Uh again, what if it's not very specific and no seller is identified or uh talking about just general possible improvements to a lot violation? Yeah. Perfect. So, and they can't vote on it even if it is exactly allowed to be a close meeting take. Weird. We can have we can have negotiations. We can discuss pricing. Can't vote on it until an open meeting where we're going to reveal that stuff anyway. Not necessarily. No. No. You don't have to reveal the price. You can say this is what an agenda item is. Yeah. Yeah. Months later, the discussion comes out. They Yeah. Yeah, but I believe so take minutes and you still have to have a reporting, right? Maintenance to so it doesn't affect the cost. You know, if we're selling land, we're

not going to get this or that and we can pretty much discuss what it's going to be and then just say we previously discussed it and that's what it is. So any any other questions because that's about what I have for this year. Now time flies because I think it wasn't that long ago at least for me that I was doing this and so but anything specific that you want me to cover for next year that you guys would be curious about regarding public meetings out? I saw just a a section there where I talked about disturbance during a public meeting. I was security. What would happen if we were in a public meeting and there was commotion, there was shouting, there was and the public wasn't responding to, you know, the chair trying to calm the meeting. What recourse do you have? Because some of these items could potentially be very may not notice there is a button underneath that you can push that goes to the police department. Did not know that either. Wow. Did not know that. That's what happens. You the vibe you're usually that room over there is dark. It doesn't It'll trigger an alarm that they'll dispatch. Yeah. It may take 5 10 minutes. I should have said by then. Depend where they're at. It may take them some time to respond. Yeah. But I mean, if it gets violent and stuff, you guys can get up and go into that little conference room, join the There's the specific wording on disruption of meetings. I saw that and that's what raised the question. It does not prohibit the removal of any person from a meeting if that person willfully disrupts the meeting to the extent that orderly conduct is seriously compromised. And so yeah, if if it gets to that point, you can basically ask that individual or

group of individuals then as assuming they I'm just thinking worst case scenario here. assuming long story short, I was involved in a public meeting once. They were discussing trails with a certain entity and it got very heated where the sheriffs did have to come in move certain individuals. So, I have seen it happen. Um, but I've just never seen, you know, law enforcement presence, you know, really in the area during one of ours. I always thought, what if something like that were to happen? Because there is that possibility. And you do say, I mean, we do have the right to say, you know, you need to excuse yourself. What if they say, I I have a right to be here just like everybody else. Then what do you do? Then what do we do? Well, we just stop the meeting and uh you know, a wrong answer. reasonable specificity. I won't I won't give too many details on it, but as Steve was pointing out, there is a button, okay, that I didn't know that that we can basically ask the police department, which is right next door, uh, to come on over because, as you may notice, the the anchor location that we're using is basically courtroom where, you know, a judge is on the bench and defendants on criminal matters are coming and yes sometimes it does get out of control and that's why it does have various features uh does have various panic buttons we call it in the area so that you know there's generally baiff present though too ex yes that's true and so on our end yeah it's a it's usually after hours and stuff but nevertheless it's there it's there and but that's a great question and I actually will double check and make sure that even if it's after hours if we need to and hopefully you know we never have

to use that you know but if we do the response is still going to be within seconds you know generally based on the the agenda that we see coming I think a lot of them we can probably anticipate when there's a potential there so I mean it doesn't need to be there every time but I think there would be for catwalks fair I didn't expect that many people will come and be upset. No. And I think a lot of the rules we have now for the public hearings make a big difference on that that front where before in the past, you know, some of those were a little more free flowing. The hardest part comes with public clamor. They start clapping and start cheering and or calling out a turn when they're still in their sheets. I think under control. It's just one of those, you know, you got a you get a ballot there if you need it. I volunteer if we ever need to. I'll pay that. All right. I thought that was like a crack clause or something. Well, that's good. I would have been pretty lucky. I mean, there's obviously people who have some emotions at times in the public hearings and that's that's understandable, but I think for the most part, but you're very I mean at some point that could Yeah, it's good good to keep in mind. Yes, I will definitely double check and make sure and then I'll let you guys know. But yeah, I think that's active at all times. I'll look into that. Good thing I understand. Dang. It's it's it's it's rigged so that you don't accidentally do it. It actually good. Again, I can show you by the way. Yeah, I'll have to go. I'll fill you. I'll show you. So most of them are like inset little things like even if you have to deliberately I'll let you know

sir. We'll tell Austin they did a good job on the slides. Yeah, that was great. Awesome. All right, back to you Steo or Okay, commissioners minutes. Anybody have anything they want to discuss? Okay, Steve, more update is just the council modified the R4 R5 ordinance. Um, they did not approve any of the changes to the R4, so it's still 12 units an acre. Um, and then they reduced the number of units per acre on the R5 from 25 down to 20. Um, so that was a small modification. the re the reszone on 6,000 by the railroad tracks was tabled because again they wanted the R4 with the higher density. Um so he's going to come back which next meeting for the R5 zone to reszone it. Yeah, you see Wendy's going up. Dr. Wendy's where is it? building Wells Fargo's building has finally gone vertical and we know it's going in that space next to it. They did say in one of the planning commissions what it was going to be. was going to be or something like Rio Pepe Rio, but under contract they were supposed to be done in with the shell the building in December of 24. Oh, so I think because they've broken that contract, they're not coming.

Maybe they'll surprise us and come, but yeah, I don't anticipate it. Was it the Woodbury hasn't given any indication somebody else's was the uh the non-change for the R4 and R5 public comment just that's what the counselors want was there any reason I'm concerned with and I won't go to too much detail um because there was a reasonzone prior on 5500 South and the residents weren't happy about multifamily 12 units and if we increase it to 18 they'll be more unhappy. Even though it was discussed during the same public meeting, everything's been out in the open, but it is what it is. Leave it there. That's all I've got. Okay. You haven't been approaching more by the logged in or the annexation. That goes to city council on July 15th for the plan. Sweet. And then after that, it's up to the applicant to apply for the annexation. He's been informed of the section of the statute it talked about if there's an airport within 5,000 ft and Ogden will have to approve for it. So, we'll just wait to see how that goes. The situation is just stupid. Any other private owner that came to the meeting? He would have to ask for us to amend our plan at this point. We can't just include him because he's never been part of the same. Well, I just didn't know if he had reached out to you. I haven't heard from him. Yeah, I think he's probably waiting to see what ultimately happens with one property. Yeah, I know. He called me on the way out and spoke at links to how great often's been to work with. Sarcasm. Oh, yeah. Well, I think at the end those two

properties make a lot of sense to kind of come together. Come together wherever wherever they end up. Well, I mean, what was it? They've been on Ogden's plan since 2003 or whatever it was. And they've Well, it's probably a longer than that. I just know the general plan was adopted in 2002, and that was part of part of it, but it was probably part of their annexation policy prior to that. Yeah. said something to the effect that he had already made plans to sell it or do something and then last minute like a week before everything was finalized obviously he came in like oh actually you can't do any of this stuff here's all the reasons why even though I've been trying to reach out to him for like two years he's just like hey this is terrible okay well commissioner calling this is your last official meeting we kind of said goodbye to you last now that you're all trained up. I'm all framed up and I'm ready to go. Let you know. Eight more years. Yeah. More years. She's like, "Get her out of here." Yeah. So, no, it's just been uh like I said before, it's been it's been fun. It's been interesting. You know, had some pretty fun meetings. I don't know who was there, what started throwing around high density housing and all the traffic and everybody coming out and yelling and stuff. That was fun. And you know, but it's been nice to see the city grow, especially over the last six years, significant changes as opposed to let's say even the last 20 from what I'm aware of. So, we got a good good set of folks here and you know, I'll trust you under the leadership of Steve, right, to continue to lead the city in the right direction even if uh the next legislative body disagrees with some of our decisions. But that's the most politically correct I've ever heard you.

I think that the tone of sarcasm sort of undermines it a little bit. Yeah. No, I you know really enjoyed show enjoy while it lasts. Have fun. Thanks Chris. Thank you. All right. So with that a final motion is in order. All right. I'll make a motion to second. All in favor? I opposed.