Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening to City of Taft Planning Commission regular meeting for Wednesday, February 4th, 2026. We're holding the meeting in city hall. uh at 209 East Kern Street. The planning commission meetings are being held in person with full capacity seating and are livereamed at https colonwww.youtube.com user city oft public comment can be made in person and also can be received per the following. Written comments may be dropped off in the dropbox in front of city hall. Comments may be emailed to the city clerk at cityclerk@c cityof.org. Made by phone to the city clerk's office at 661-763 1222. Public comments not made in person will be accepted up until 1 hour before the meeting and any comments that are received will be read into the record. Uh we now have the pledge of allegiance and followed by the invocation of

salute. Pledge. 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. And we have Greg Mudge here today for our invocation. Thank you, Greg.

Pray with me. Father in heaven, we pray that you watch over this meeting tonight and remind us of the wonderful privilege that we have and opportunity to serve the members of this community. We ask the love of Jesus will dwell on our hearts. We make decisions tonight that will impact the lives of those that live here. Help us to truly appreciate this blessing that you provided us with. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Okay. May we have roll call? Chairman Livingston here. Vice Chairman Schirtz

here. Commissioner Dowen here. Commissioner Don Black here. Okay. Okay. There's four present with one absent. Yes. Uh item one on the agenda is a public hearing 2025 annual progress report for city of Taft's six cycle housing element and general plan. Do we have someone here to actually make that presentation? Jenna is on Zoom to make that presentation from decision engineering. I don't know where she is. Hey Jenna. Hey.

Are we That's I got to get the other keyboard. Sorry, it looks like the video is muted and so is the audio. Give me just a second. Sorry. We're not going to approve our minutes. I don't see it on the Oh, that's number three on the floor. Jenna, can you hear us now? H Thank you. Sorry. It's probably to accommodate her. They are ready for your presentation if you're ready to go. Okay. Thank you all. Yeah. Fire away.

Um so I don't have a formal uh partic formal presentation. I just generally talk about the uh 2025 annual progress report. Um and this is for both the city's six cycle housing element and the general plan. And so these are required by the state. Um and it's to uh report on the status and progress in implementing both the housing element and the general plan. Um these have been prepared um separately as provided in the resolution and tonight we're here um to consider this uh as a recommendation to city council. And following um recommendation and the city council meeting, this will go off to the state um with the deadline of submittal being April 1st. But I'm here to answer any questions.

All right. Uh how's it going? Is it done? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. What we've got here is actually um the a good deal of this we've actually covered in one sense or another while we're going through the update to the general plan. So most of this has already been before us in a different format but then not the final format. Um and then we are required to do a regular progress report and that couldn't be done until we'd finished the preparation work. So, we're now really uh unless there's any specific problem or plan uh about the plan or question about the plan that anybody might still have, I think we're in a position where we can open the public hearing, invite anybody to have anything they need to say and then close it and and go for a vote. Does anybody have anything else they want to chat before that?

No questions? No.

Okay. Um, in that case, we're going to open the public hearing. Seeing nobody listed as requesting to speak on that item, I'm closing the public hearing. And um, I am open to a motion and second. I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution entitled a resolution of the planning commission of the city of Taft recommending the city council approve and confirm the findings of the 2025 annual progress report for the city of Taft general plan and the sixth cycle of the housing amendment 2023 through 2031 and find that the project is exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act has set forth in section 15061B3 of the secret guidelines.

Okay. Do I have a second? I'll second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Can we have the roll call? Commissioner Dav, yes. Vice Chairman Schz, yes. Commissioner Black, yes. Chairman, yes. Okay. And this will go to the city council for their actual approval for submission. Um, we are now moving on to item two and it's citizens request for public comments and I see no request for public comment. So, we will dispense with that and move on to item three which is the minutes and I'll need a motion and a second for that. I'll motion. I'll second.

Okay. All those in favor? I guess we're going to do a roll call vote again. Den Chairman D. Yes. Vice Chairman Sch. Yes. Commissioner Black. Yes. Chairman Livingston. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Approve as submitted. Item four, planning director report. Um I assume unless there's something that uh precision civil has to say that we're going to skip that one. Yeah, we have no updates. Okay. Uh then on to item five where our city attorney can, you know, filibuster if he likes. We got plenty of time. I'm gonna disappoint everyone.

Ah, okay. Um, then we're at item six, which is commissioner comments. None at this time. Well, I just want to say, welcome back. We We haven't met We've met since December, and this is the first meeting since December. All right. Well, hope everybody had a very merry Christmas and got back safe and sound and uh yeah, thanks for everyone. Here we go. Let's make this play a place. Um, if there are no other comments, we need to identify a representative to the city council. We have had one person make the presentation. My cub scout uniform. Yeah.

And we're now Yeah. He was very very formal cub scout uniform. He looked great. Yeah. Looked in charge. Um, but since we're trying to keep me from doing every one of them, it's up to one of the other two here to decide if they want to do it or we'll pick one. Is it next Tuesday? It would be a week from Yeah. next Tuesday. So, it'll be two weeks from now. Two weeks. One day short of it. The 18th, I think. 17th. I can do it. Okay. 17th. Is it the 17th? Yeah, 17th. I keep for reading days when so if you can do the 17th, we'll go ahead and have John. I'll do it.

Dowen will be our representative to the city council. Um, as usual, I'll be there. So, if there's any last minute questions or anything like that you want to um ask about before you do the presentation, you can feel free to do so. It also happens to be the Lunar New Year, by the way, the Chinese New that just tapped on my phone. I'm just not sure that. Okay. Um, well, all we're down to now is a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Got a second. Second. All those in favor? I I That was the fastest meeting ever. Pretty close. I'm not sure if it was, but it's close.