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D R A F T 5 Laura Nicholson: I brought it up in a previous meeting and the consensus was it is easier to fix it this way. Judging by the push back I think there are things going on the new members don’t always get. Lydia Wegman: I am stating for the record my main problem is having the Planning Board offer its view before the public hearing is problematic. The Planning Board will never be sufficiently informed to offer a well-considered view without having heard the presentations at the BOCC meetings. Pete Hallenbeck: I understand, we are all wrestling with this problem. At least this mechanism has a way where the Commissioners can identify that this one is going to take a while, etc. Perdita Holtz: In this process it would also allow the lay person to actually speak to the Planning Board, in a lot of communities if you are not an expert at the quasi-judicial hearing, you don’t get to speak. If Orange County were ever to perhaps be sued over that, we might adopt that type of attitude about it too. This process would allow the lay person to come to the Planning Board and speak their concerns and why. Lydia Wegman: You’re right Perdita but I’ll just note that because of the public hearing, the layperson’s testimony is irrelevant. It would have to be made very clear to the lay person that while they might speak at the Planning Board that because it is quasi-judicial, by the time it’s before the Board of County Commissioners, only expert witnesses can give testimony. Pete Hallenbeck: Again, with the solar project as a reference, if there were interaction with the Planning Board while the developers were here there are a lot of questions, answers, interchanges that just can’t happen at a quasi-judicial setting and the resident have an opportunity to get better organized so that when you went quasi-judicial and you have to swear in you have experts and it’s much more focused. Lydia Wegman: The three most critical elements in that was the staff could not make a recommendation. Craig Benedict: Nor the Planning Board. Lydia Wegman: Nor the Planning Board, they are the most critical ones and they are the only ones in fact which the case if it ever went to court would be considered. The key one was ‘the use will maintain or enhance the value of contiguous property’. In the case of the solar application, there was an appraisal offered by the solar company and I bet that appraiser, even if he showed up, would have come and said whatever he was going to say to the Planning Board and at the public hearing they have a new appraisal and a new appraiser which no one had seen before. And there would be nothing that could have been done. Pete Hallenbeck: There’s another example, they showed this picture of these panels that were further away than what was planned with trees there and claimed that was equivalent and so to have that opportunity to do that in advance… Lydia Wegman: The advance doesn’t necessarily stop the applicant from showing up with new information that is crucial to the decision. Pete Hallenbeck: I think it is a great way to think through the ramifications of the process because we have an example to look at. Those are the discussion you can have when you’re not constrained by the quasi-judicial process and the benefit there if we had this discussion is the residents would have an opportunity to see and get feedback from the Planning Board and staff and all of that would help them to make a better presentation. Lydia Wegman: It is disingenuous to the community to pretend that what the Planning Board and staff can offer an opinion on the 3 most crucial elements. I think that is a flaw in the process. Perdita Holtz: That’s under state law, it’s not something we can change. In some communities the Planning Board doesn’t hear the quasi-judicial matters at all. 13