Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I think I've still got a couple of minutes, but no, I'm not going to make the same mistake.

Okay. Welcome to uh City of Taft's Planning Commission regularly scheduled meeting for Wednesday, March 4th, 2026. We're meeting at the city hall chambers at 209 East Kern Street, Taft, California. and meeting uh begins at 4:00. City of Taff Planning Commission meetings are being held in person with full capacity seating and are livereamed at https colonwww.youtube.com user city oftaft. Public comments 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 city clerk@c cityoftaft.org. Uh they may be made by phone to the city clerk's office at 6617631222. Public comments not made in person will be accepted up until 1 hour before the meeting. Any comments received will be read into the record. Um okay. We will do the pledge of allegiance. And um Don, would you lead the pledge? Sure.

And then we will have our invocation. 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 will be having our invocation. Bella Black. Thank you. Heavenly Father, thank you for this planning commission. I ask you for your guidance and your wisdom. Be with each of them as they come together this evening. Give them your patience and a spirit of cooperation so that they may work together effectively. Father, guide their thoughts and bless them in their work so that they would accomplish here this evening to bring you glory in the city of Taft. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Okay. May we have our roll call?

Chairman Livingston here. Vice Chairman Church here. Commissioner Don is absent with notice. Commissioner McDaniel here. Commissioner Black here. Okay. So, first item of the agenda is a public hearing. Conditional use permit 20261 with conditions to conduct an offsale beer and wine sales type 20 ABC license. Uh planning director, would you please?

Thank you, chair. Um as you said, tonight's item is a conditional use permit um requested by Zachary Brown, the applicant who is in attendance tonight. Um, should you have any questions after my brief presentation, um, uh, the conditional use permit, uh, if approved by planning commission tonight would allow, um, the property to conduct offsale beer and wine sales. Um, specifically, a type 20 ABC license. Um, the property is located at 431 Kern Street, um, on the south side of Kerna, um, and east of Fifth Street. Um, as you may remember back in December, um, the applicant submitted, uh, planning commission approved a conditional use permit uh, for the property to conduct out or tobacco sales um, within the the convenience market. Um, that at that meeting um, planning commission approved that CU by a vote of 5 to zero. Um, and uh, in January of this year, the applicant submitted this new CUP requesting approval of the alcohol sales, the off-site al offsale alcohol sales um, for consumption off off the premises uh, where alcohol sales are sold. Um, this uh, ab this ABC license type will only allow the sale of beer and wine um, not hard alcohol. Um, this new cup request uh is required per the Taft Municipal Code, specifically section 6-12-5B2. Um, uh, in that section, uh, alcohol sales are either there's two different um, you can either go through a site plan review if you meet certain requirements or a conditional use permit for certain requ um, for other

requirements. Um this one uh requires a conditional use permit specifically because um the lency premises um it's located in a census track that has more licenses issued than the maximum number of authorized licenses um and that's deemed overconentrated by uh ABC or alcoholic department of alcoholic beverage control um hence the cup. Um so um there has been uh conditions uh standard conditions of approval that are required by the code um for both all all alcohol sales and off-site alcohol sales um off offsale alcohol sales. Um those have been um included in the resolution and um if planning commission approves um those conditions would be placed on the project. Um because the the cup is located in the census track that is deemed overconentrated by ABC. ABC does require findings of public convenience and necessity. Those are outlined in the staff report. Um they're highlighted on page two. Um but the actual findings are further down um under the conditional use permit findings on page four and five. Um the project is exempt from SQUA through a an existing facilities exemption the 15301. Um and staff recommends approval of the conditional use permit. So

deal. And if I remember correctly, you usually have to write a request through the police department and they haven't had an issue. That's correct. Correct. Yeah, we sent a um request to the uh police chief uh late January um and as of date, no response back from them. So, okay. Does anybody have any other questions for Luke? How's it going? No, Luke. Yeah. Oh, Luke. No, thanks. I Sorry. Yeah. Um we'll open up the public hearing in a second then. All right. Luke, is anything conditional on waiting for the chief of police?

No. um t typically if they don't respond within um it's either 10 or 15 days um I can't remember the specific uh routing but they haven't responded within 10 or 15 days then we take that as no comment from them okay yeah that's usually been the case and we have the unique issue that all of our commercial is in basically one census district so or precinct so we're kind of stuck with this one every time um okay if there's no further questions of Luke. I'm going to open the public hearing. If the project proponent has anything that you'd like to ask him or anything he'd like to say, this is the time to do it.

Okay. Is that on? Yeah. There we go. Perfect. Uh yeah, just wanted to say thank you so much to Luke and uh Naen for making it happen. I know we ran into some speed bumps there, but uh appreciate you guys. Thank you guys so much. Uh, did you guys have any questions for me? How's it going? It's going good. All right. It's going good. We uh, you know, started started where we started and, you know, coming up from there and we only thank the folks at Taff for uh, you know, getting us where we're at right now. So, we're extremely thankful for everybody and all the support. All right. Well, if there's no further questions, we're going to close the public hearing. Thank you, guys. Good job. And we'll call for the vote. Roll call, please. Need to make a motion. I have a motion. I'll make a motion.

Sorry. I don't know why I wasn't thinking of that. Like to make a motion. Near me read it. Oh, son of uh

That's what you get for making the motion. Motion to adopt the resolution entitled resolution of the planning commission of the city of Taft approving conditional use permit number 2026-01 with conditions and conduct offsells beer and wine cells type 20ABC license located at 431 Kern Street within the downtown transit mixed use DT-U zone de district on the south south side of Kern Street east of the fifth Street APN 03109019 and4 and find that the project is exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act SQUA as set forth in section 15301 and the SQUA guidelines existing facilities.

How's that? Okay, kind of a dramatic reading there. Yes, I'll second the motion. Okay, we've got a second. Okay. Now, can I have a roll call vote? Vice Chairman Schirtz, yes. Commissioner McDaniel, yes. Commissioner Black, yes. Chairman Livingston, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Cast a 40 vote with one absention. Um, we will now move to item two for half a second because we have no people to public comment for the March 4th hearing. And that moves us to item three, which are the minutes. Um, do I have a motion to approve?

I would move to uh approve the minutes as printed and second. Okay. Can we now have a roll call? Vice Chairman Schz. Yes. Commissioner McDaniel. Yes. Commissioner Black. Yes. And Chairman Livingston? Yes. Thank you. Okay. with uh again a 40 vote that's approved for planning director report. Luke, have you got anything for us today? Nothing today. Thank you. Okay. Oh, actually one thing. Uh we will I believe we will have an April and a May planning commission hearing. So Okay. Just FYI. Got some stuff p planned. So that's good.

Yes, you may. That April April meeting is actually on April 1st. So, it's not a joke. Really is an April fool. Are you fooling us to be a joke? We're not trying to trick anybody in the community. I just want to give you a heads up. It's right at the beginning of Yes. Um, that's an occasional happen stance during the year. Um, I did have a quick question not related to that, so I'll wait till the end, but um, do we have a city attorney statement? No statement this evening, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, city. Any comments from the commissioners? Yeah. How you guys doing, General? Yeah.

Yeah. I just wanted to say um and it's just fresh in my mind because this week was um Dr. Seuss across America

week and um so many of us because of the various schools do a great job of kind of putting those days to read at their schools on different days. So, I've been to several schools this week and just what a tremendous thing to see our kids uh engage with literature and and literacy and and it was such a fun time to see members of the community. The fact that the the Taft College baseball team, I saw them at at um at both days that I was involved and just what a tremendous thing to see those athletes come in and really make a positive impact on the kids. uh they were excited. I had uh one student in particular today in one of my classes at the college that came in and read in Japanese uh to the kids. We me and him kind of rotated together and uh he read in Japanese and then he read it in English and so the kids just loved it. And I just want to say to our schools uh what a tremendous thing and uh keep up the good work.

Do I have any other uh fun? I I just kind I realized, Luke, you're not the code enforcement, but last time I saw the miniature golf course, it was looking a little rough around the edges. Um, weeds are coming out. Yeah. So, I don't know. I I haven't seen any activity around there. I haven't noticed any activity around there. I just thought I'd mention that. I don't know if somebody else would do you. You have a code enforcement officer in the city now? Yeah. Okay. I I don't know if that's something that they can deal with or what, but yeah, I guess we're in the middle of the conditional use permit and I don't know what he's doing to

he's coming up to the money issue where he's got to build the restroom on site or Okay. address that issue. So, yeah, that is worth asking at least have him swing by and chat with him. our code enforcement officer actually sent him an email in the last week or so regarding his weeds and he had come in and taken care of part of it. So, he is working on it. Okay. Thank you. All that matters. Right. Thank you. I appreciate the heads up. Um I also agree first of all that the the the reading thing I'm a huge fan of our library. I'm practically there every week reading something and it's always fun to see the kids doing that. But it was kind of nice on on the birthday of uh

Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss that the kids were in there also doing, you know, practically every kid came in needing to check out a Dr. Seuss book. So, it was it was fun to see that. Um, also for those who may not be aware, uh, Taft's High School's um, soccer team won it, uh, part of one of its tournament games last night and they are in the state tournament. Um, yeah, they're they their next game is the semifinals for the state championship in Ontario, I think it is. Yeah. Yeah.

So, anyways, I just think we should congratulate them. That's a that's a big deal. I don't know that they've gone as far ever previously. I'm not as big a there wasn't soccer when I was in high school, so I have no idea what the records are like, but it's definitely accomplishment at any point to make it to the state championships. Yeah, they're they're making history because they won for the first time the South Seoia League title and then they also won Valley which was the first.

So that's Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Yep. So anyways, congratulation to them. Now we are come to item number seven which is identification of a representative to the city council and we've had uh both these sides have done it. So I'm looking to this side now. Uh when do they meet again or when do they meet? Um it'll be Tuesday. Yep. On Tuesday. They don't come in at 4. Um, I'll tentatively say I'll do it. I got to make sure. Okay. Seems like there was something going on in 17th, but if not, I mean, I'm I'm always there. So,

okay. The opportunity. Well, you can lead me through it. I don't know what Oh, I'll I'll when you get there, I'll give you a couple hit points like who to talk to. All right. Thanks. Don't talk to them. Talk to them. No. Um, and you had a question? No, I just I can't do it that day, but I am open to do it. I will do it. Okay, I can't that's fine. Well, and we're trying to give everybody at the city council a chance to see who all of their planning commissioners are, what they're doing. So, that's fine. So, um then we will be appointing Don tenatively for that meeting and if not I will be there as a sub substitute. Um we are now at the point where we just need a motion for adjournment. Motion to journ.

Second and thirds. Thirds. Okay. Uh, we don't need a roll call vote for this. So, please vote. All those in favor? I I I Good night. Okay. 4 and0. Thank you very much.