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Approved 12/12/16 OC Board of Adjustment – 10/10/16 Page 64 of 113 then you’re doing bona fide farm purposes then you are exempt from all zoning regulations in the county 1 and Mr. White is an expert in both education and his work and training in analyzing food system policy, 2 especially with experience in Orange County specifically, so that’s the purpose of this highly relevant, 3 couldn’t be more relevant, to the issue that this Board is facing tonight. And his testimony can be very 4 beneficial in the Board making its determination with respect to affirming Mr. Harvey’s decision. Mr. White 5 could you tell the Board about your work in this region, in this County? 6 7 Erin White: Sure. I’ve been working with the conservation trust in North Carolina on a farmland protection 8 plan for the Triangle region. It’s in final draft stages now. It’s getting reviewed by all of our stakeholders. 9 And the plan has studied Chatham, Orange, Durham, Wake, and Johnston Counties through GIS analysis 10 expert interviews, focus groups, developing a strategy to bring a comprehensive farm land protection effort 11 that could be coordinated at the regional level that draws on County level wisdom, local knowledge, local 12 farm conditions and especially on each County’s existing farm land protection plans. Which is a fairly well 13 organized body of knowledge about how each County approaches agricultural preservation issues. 14 15 Andy Petesch: So I would again call for Mr. White as an expert in farm system policy. 16 17 LeAnne Brown: I remove my objection and it’s your decision. 18 19 Barry Katz: We have to make a decision about whether he’s an expert? I don’t understand this. And also 20 what is the relevance… are you going to get to what the relevance of all of this is? 21 22 Andy Petesch: He will testify as to Orange County state policy with respect to exact issues that are before 23 this Board in terms of the role of agritourism and the activities that are planned for this farm and whether 24 that would fit within the statutory definition of agritourism, which would make this exempt. 25 26 LeAnne Brown: Well, I have an additional objection which is this: If he’s going to testify about what 27 agritourism means and whether this is agritourism then that evidence would be inadmissible because that’s 28 the ultimate decision for this Board to decide and you’re not allowed to receive expert testimony on the 29 ultimate issue for which you’re about to decide. So if that’s the purpose of his testimony that’s my additional 30 objection. 31 32 Karen Barrows: What do you think James? 33 34 James Bryan: So the attorney’s make some really interesting arguments. One thing that this Board should 35 keep in mind is it’s quasi-judicial. You’re not actually judged with law degrees and stuff like that so what the 36 statutes allow you to do is accept a lot more evidence into the record and then at your deliberations you do 37 findings of fact and you say what you relied upon and what you did not rely upon. So you might recall 38 different hearings when you had a lot of people testify stuff that was irrelevant and you let them speak and 39 then at deliberations you did not use that in your decision. Because of the time and because of what this 40 Board has already done there’s probably a lot of testimony that you’ve already heard that might not be 41 relevant to this. We went into very great detail for everybody so I would say out of the sake of fairness to let 42 them introduce their evidence and if you find that afterwards it was irrelevant then do not base our decision 43 on that. 44 45 Barry Katz: But we don’t have to decide whether he’s an expert for these purposes? 46 47