Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the April 2nd, 2026, Stanislaus County planning commission meeting. We'll start off with a few reminders. Please silence your cell phones during the public hearings. We're happy to accept any and all comments on the projects. We ask that you avoid repetition. It's okay to say that you agree with the previous speaker rather than to repeat what's already been said. Let the record reflect the commissioners Campo, Burketto and Sabala are absent this evening. Now, please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The Citizens Forum is a time for the public to speak on issues that are not on tonight's agenda. However, the Commission will not be able to take action on any items. Is there anyone that would like to speak on an issue that is not on tonight's agenda? Hearing none, we'll move along. Minutes. I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of March 5th, 2026. I'll make a motion to approve. Thank you, Commissioner. A second. Second. Thank you, Carmen. All those in favor of approving the minutes of March 5th, 2026 as submitted, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. And any abstentions?

I abstain.

One abstention. Thank you, Commissioner Huff. Director Freitas, any correspondence for us this evening?

Yes, you have two items of correspondence that were too late for your agenda regarding Consent Item 7A, the Appeal of Staff's Denial for the Staff Approval Application 2025-0126, the Towers LLC. The first item is an email from Julia Chan dated March 27th, 2026. And the second one is an email from Denise Horta dated March 27th, 2026. And just as a reminder, those two items are on your consent agenda. And we do have in that correspondence is a request to have the item heard. So the chair may want to consider just pulling the item.

Certainly. So first, any commissioners that would like to declare a conflict of interest this evening? All right. Hearing none, we'll move along. Consent items are items on tonight's agenda designated by an asterisk next to an item requiring a planning commission public hearing, but which following an initial evaluation by staff have been found to be consistent with existing county policy in the general plan. However, after some discussion, I'm going to pull tonight's item. the appeal of staff's denial of staff approval application PLN 2025-0126, the Towers LLC. I'm gonna pull that from the consent calendar and we will open the public hearing on that here in just a moment. So with that, is there a staff report associated with this item, Director?

So I'll just kind of give a little bit of a statement beforehand. So this item was originally before you on March 5th, and it was continued to May 7th at the request of the applicant. Staff advanced it to tonight out of an abundance of caution due to some concerns that were being raised with regards to the shot clock. Staff's position has been and remains that the shot clock was was stopped at the time that the application was denied. And since we scheduled it for tonight, the applicants have asked for an indefinite continuance, which we feel is the most appropriate path to take with this project. This gives the applicant some time to look for an alternative site for the tower. So our recommendation this evening is to continue it indefinitely. The only decision, we have not released a full staff report, so we would not be prepared to hear this item and have a decision made on the appeal itself. So the only decision really tonight is to continue it either indefinitely or to a date specific.

Got it. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions for Director Freitas on this matter?

If it was continued to the original planned date of May 7th, will the staff report be done in time for that?

Yes, the staff report would be done.

All right. Any other questions? Okay, hearing none, we'll open the public hearing on this matter. Any members of the public wishing to speak in opposition to staff's recommendation, please come forward. State your name for the record.

and I'm a concerned citizen. Hello, is that better? I'm soft spoken, I'm sorry. My name is Denise Huerta and I am a concerned citizen. I was here of Newman. I was here last hearing on March 5th. And I just want to give this information again because perhaps there's more information. I just want to put it on the record for your consideration when decisions are being made because I know each of your individual role is crucial and important to not only just the location but the health and wellness of every individual, our children, our elderly, me, my mother, my father, my sister, my nieces, all of us, whether we're at a school, home, or a business. So there are already two cell towers by Dollar General and the Business Park. And this came to our community's awareness and kind of opened up info, right? And so it's like, oh, wow, let's look at this information. We need to be more educated about this and how it might affect us. So I did mention Environmental Health Trust Organization. And they have a current lawsuit with the Federal Communication Commission, which oversees all of telecommunications. I want to try to quickly read through this. Before I do that, I want to show you January 28th, and you already have this in previous emails. January 28th, there's a letter from Environmental Health Trust to Honorable Chairman of the House Committee, Energy, Commerce, so forth, regarding the FCC oversight hearing, which ignored the petition and the ruling of the court in Washington, DC, that stated they need to look at their RF measurements and reduce them, or look at them and consider what needs to be reduced for the safety and welfare of the people. I want to show you, in those links, there is a map chart. And it is comparison of RF exposure limits in several countries. And it shows the United States, I'll just read this real quick, a long list of countries, including a not limited to Italy, Switzerland, Israel, China, Russia, set their human wireless radiation exposure standards at 10% or less than US standard. Why is FCC so far behind other countries in protecting its citizens from excessive wireless radiation? And they have a chart that you have. And it says, addressing the existing and potential harms from wireless radiation as reflected in the ample and rapidly growing scientific record is urgently needed. This is especially true in light of FCC and FDA's failure to address the plus-four-year-old federal court mandate to precisely do that and recent efforts by the FCC to loosen restrictions on broadband deployment. And so you have this already. And again... I'm just bringing it to the public's awareness. And there's also a 2020 report of 5G health, and now it's probably going to go to 5.6, an environment. And there are 15 recommendations of what they can do to reduce the harmful effects, including our bees, which affect our orchards in Newman. So court ruling on FCC's lack of adequate review for wireless exposure limits, and you have this also. landmark federal court ruling against the FCC. On August 13, 2021, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled the Federal Communication Commission ignored scientific evidence and failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its determination that its 1996 regulations adequately protect the public against all harmful effects of wireless radiation. So my health and wellness I'm concerned about. So FCC's refusal to update 1996 limits the legal case challenged the FCC's 2019 decision not to update its 1996 regulations regarding allowable radio frequency radiation, RF exposures from wireless technologies, including 5G, cell towers, Wi-Fi, et cetera. Evidence of harmful effects to below FCC limits are based on the belief that heating is the only proven harm from RF. Over 11,000 pages of evidence, 447 exhibits in 27 volumes, was submitted to the court documenting biological effects and illnesses from wireless radiation exposure below heating levels. Research has found brain damage, headaches, memory problems, reproduction damage, synergistic effects, nervous system impacts, brain cancer, genetic damage, as well as harms to trees, birds, bees, and wildlife affects our orchards. The court findings. The ruling stated that the FCC's, quote, arbitrary and capricious, quote, decision to maintain their 25-year-old exposure limits did not address evidence indicating non-cancer such harms such as impacts to children, testimony of persons injured by wireless radiation impacts to the developing brain, impacts to reproductive system, impacts to wildlife and environment. The court ordered the FCC to provide a reasoned determination as to whether the evidence warrants a change in 1996 RF limits. There are recommendations they can do this. Limits, especially in regards to children's vulnerability, long-term exposure, environmental impacts, new technology developments, and ubiquity of wireless. How FCC cell phone tests only measure heat and allow space between phone and body. There's so much more of the timeline. I'm just going to read the bold. FCC compliance does not ensure safety, lack of oversight by health and environment, agencies, FDs, dismissal, of harm deemed insufficient. The court did not agree that cell phones do not cause cancer. That's another topic. Children's vulnerability and effects of long-term exposure ignored by FCC wildlife remains unprotected. Outdated regulations for RF radiation. No risk analysis or review for totality of science. No agency has reviewed all the latest science. Usually the EPA and FDA use risk assessment to characterize the nature and magnitude of risk to human health for various populations such as children, pregnant women, the FPA. EPA also estimates ecological risk including plants, birds, wildlife, aquatic life, when groundbreaking studies are published, and so forth and so forth. This has never been done. Talks about FCC, FDA have failed their obligation to prescribe safe RFR guidelines produced from wireless communication devices to protect the public health and safety devices are becoming more sophisticated. Their use is as common as daily as brushing our teeth. and the wireless industry. It just goes on and on about that.

And then again, just a very quick visual once again.

A very quick visual once again is the country comparison. Protect our citizens. I know you can't make decisions on this tonight. I'm just putting it out for public record. For your future decisions to take, please take into consideration for me, my mom, my dad, my sisters. my nephews and my nieces and my fellow business people. So again, America is on 10. You could look on the links that I gave you. So we're behind. And there is an agenda to roll these out very quickly in America. We are behind. And I'm asking each of you to take this into consideration and take a stand. take a stand for Newman, take a stand for me, my mom, my dad, and take a stand and really take that into consideration because it's going to affect us, it may affect you, it may affect Modesto, so forth and so forth. It's going to affect everybody because it's rolling out throughout America and someone has to take a stand and they already have. So there's other places that already have taken a stand. They filed the petition, there's a lawsuit, they're being pushed to comply. And so this is something new to us. I don't like being up here. I'm shaky because I don't, you know, this is new to me. I'm learning something new about civic, you know, so that's what I would really hope you would take into consideration. So today, indefinitely, I'm not a fan for that. I would oppose that. May 7th or May 10th, whatever it is. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Huerta. We all appreciate you taking the time to come here and speak to us on this. Appreciate it. Any other members of the public wishing to speak in opposition to staff's recommendation for the continuance?

My name is Natalie Zielinski. I also live in Newman, and I'm less than a quarter of a mile from the proposed cell tower. I agree basically with everything she said. I do have a couple concerns that when the letters supposedly went out, I did have one client come to me. I own a salon in town also. And I had a client come to me with the letter. And they live on Hardin. And I have several family members that live on T Street in the circle that we're supposed to get letters. And nobody that I know on T Street got notified. So the only reason why we knew about it is from the two people that lived on Hardin. And I was looking back at this also that Between Harvey Road and T Street, I do not know of a Harvey Road in Newman. So I don't know where that all came from. So just to make that aware that that's not there. I also have some signed petition that we've been having people sign. I don't know. I'm going to actually, I think I'll email them to your office. That way you guys have it there since I didn't know to bring extra copies for everybody. But that's basically all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Any other members of the public wishing to speak in opposition of staff's recommendation? Any members of the public wishing to speak in favor of staff's recommendation? Okay. Any other members of the public wishing to speak? Okay. With that, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back for discussion here with the commission. Any thoughts, any questions for staff? I will say I'm inclined to vote for the continuance. I feel that that's the right governance step here to give the applicant time to work this out to the community's satisfaction. I would agree with you, Commissioner.

And I'm willing to make a motion if you want.

I'll have a motion.

I'll make a motion to appeal of staff's denial of the staff approval of application number PLN 2025-0126, the Towers LLC, request for an indefinite continuance.

All right. Do I have a second for that motion? I'll second. Thank you, sir. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none, can we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Callas?

Aye.

Chimo?

No.

Huh? No. Murad? Aye. Willer?

Aye.

3-2.

Okay, 4-2 the motion carries and so the indefinite continuance is approved. Any other matters? Director Freitas? We have none this evening.

And do you have a report for us?

Yes. Since the board last met, since the planning commission last met, the board of supervisors on March 31st did accept the resignation of Commissioner Zavala from the county's planning commission. So sorry for not updating the chair's script on that. On the horizon for the Planning Commission on April 16th, we do have several items that we will have before you. We have two use permit applications, one in the Houston area, one in the Modesto area. We have a use permit with a lot line adjustment in the Modesto area and a rezone also in the Modesto area along with a general plan consistency request from the county's general services agency. for a grace and well site project. And on May 7th, we have one parcel map and a variance in the Oakdale area and one variance in lot line adjustment in the Waterford area. So we'll have some active next two meetings. And that concludes my report.

Outstanding. Thank you. I have no additional matters that are at the chair's discretion. And so with that, we're adjourned.