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agendas /materials directly from the County Clerk. <br />121 <br />Agenda Process <br />Internal processes in the Planning Department, Manager's Office, and Clerk's office <br />will need to be updated if the amendments are adopted. Initial meetings between the <br />departments have indicated that necessary adjustments can be made although it will <br />be a change from existing processes. An example of an internal change is that, in <br />order to meet statutory requirements, the first legal advertisement for the public <br />hearing would run on the same day internal departmental agenda review occurs <br />(generally Wednesday afternoon). The current internal agenda setting process <br />allows items to be "bumped" from agendas if necessary; public hearing items could <br />not be "bumped" without incurring costs of running new legal advertisements and <br />running cancellation ads, if necessary. Additionally, for items that require mailed <br />notifications, Planning staff would likely have already prepared the notifications for <br />mailing by the time agenda review occurs, although the actual mail out is on Friday. <br />If public hearing dates are chosen that do not correspond to a regular BOCC <br />meeting, for example, holding public hearings on BOCC work session dates, the <br />internal agenda process is different. However, staff would have little ability to remove <br />public hearing items that were filed by published application deadline dates. <br />The existing practice of isolating UDO /Comprehensive Plan- related items on <br />separate meeting agendas (the quarterly public hearings) likely results in more <br />predictable BOCC regular meetings since some planning - related items can generate <br />a great deal of public interest and comment. However, most items in recent years <br />have not had significant public comment at the quarterly public hearings. <br />Currently, quarterly public hearing agendas are normally posted to the website at <br />least 10 calendar days prior to the public hearing. If land use public hearings <br />become part of the BOCC agendas, the materials for the public hearing would be <br />posted along with the BOCC agenda (generally 4 calendar days prior to the meeting <br />date). <br />Orange County's practice of holding quarterly public hearings is fairly unique in North <br />Carolina (staff is aware of only one other local government — the Town of <br />Hillsborough —that limits public hearing dates to only four times per year). Most local <br />governments in North Carolina have at least one meeting per month where planning - <br />related items can be heard (either as part of a regular meeting or as a meeting <br />completely set aside for planning - related items); some have more than one meeting <br />per month. It should also be noted that having more potential public hearing dates <br />per year would likely spread out the same number of items per year over more <br />meetings (e.g., there would be fewer items per hearing date). The number of items <br />Orange County typically hears in a given year likely does not warrant a monthly <br />meeting set aside only for planning - related items since there have been quarterly <br />public hearing dates with only a small number of "easier" items. <br />It should be noted that, especially for non - government initiated items, it could be <br />undesirable to limit the number of items on any particular agenda if the applicant has <br />met the application deadline date. Staff's informal polling of local government <br />El I <br />