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Approved 2/4/15 5 Laura Nicholson: I brought it up in a previous meeting and the consensus was it is easier to fix it this way. Judging 216 by the push back I think there are things going on the new members don’t always get. 217 218 Lydia Wegman: I am stating for the record my main problem is having the Planning Board offer its view before the 219 public hearing is problematic. The Planning Board will never be sufficiently informed to offer a well-considered view 220 without having heard the presentations at the BOCC meetings. 221 222 Pete Hallenbeck: I understand, we are all wrestling with this problem. At least this mechanism has a way where the 223 Commissioners can identify that this one is going to take a while, etc. 224 225 Perdita Holtz: In this process it would also allow the lay person to actually speak to the Planning Board, in a lot of 226 communities if you are not an expert at the quasi-judicial hearing, you don’t get to speak. If Orange County were 227 ever to perhaps be sued over that, we might adopt that type of attitude about it too. This process would allow the lay 228 person to come to the Planning Board and speak their concerns and why. 229 230 Lydia Wegman: You’re right Perdita but I’ll just note that because of the public hearing, the layperson’s testimony is 231 irrelevant. It would have to be made very clear to the lay person that while they might speak at the Planning Board 232 that because it is quasi-judicial, by the time it’s before the Board of County Commissioners, only expert witnesses 233 can give testimony. 234 235 Pete Hallenbeck: Again, with the solar project as a reference, if there were interaction with the Planning Board while 236 the developers were here there are a lot of questions, answers, interchanges that just can’t happen at a quasi-judicial 237 setting and the resident have an opportunity to get better organized so that when you went quasi-judicial and you 238 have to swear in you have experts and it’s much more focused. 239 240 Lydia Wegman: The three most critical elements in that was the staff could not make a recommendation. 241 242 Craig Benedict: Nor the Planning Board. 243 244 Lydia Wegman: Nor the Planning Board, they are the most critical ones and they are the only ones in fact which the 245 case if it ever went to court would be considered. The key one was ‘the use will maintain or enhance the value of 246 contiguous property’. In the case of the solar application, there was an appraisal offered by the solar company and I 247 bet that appraiser, even if he showed up, would have come and said whatever he was going to say to the Planning 248 Board and at the public hearing they have a new appraisal and a new appraiser which no one had seen before. And 249 there would be nothing that could have been done. 250 251 Pete Hallenbeck: There’s another example, they showed this picture of these panels that were further away than 252 what was planned with trees there and claimed that was equivalent and so to have that opportunity to do that in 253 advance… 254 255 Lydia Wegman: The advance doesn’t necessarily stop the applicant from showing up with new information that is 256 crucial to the decision. 257 258 Pete Hallenbeck: I think it is a great way to think through the ramifications of the process because we have an 259 example to look at. Those are the discussion you can have when you’re not constrained by the quasi-judicial 260 process and the benefit there if we had this discussion is the residents would have an opportunity to see and get 261 feedback from the Planning Board and staff and all of that would help them to make a better presentation. 262 263 Lydia Wegman: It is disingenuous to the community to pretend that what the Planning Board and staff can offer an 264 opinion on the 3 most crucial elements. I think that is a flaw in the process. 265 266 Perdita Holtz: That’s under state law, it’s not something we can change. In some communities the Planning Board 267 doesn’t hear the quasi-judicial matters at all. 268 269