Planning Board - 110420 Agenda Packet

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D R A F T transparency so I don’t want to take away their opportunity to have the chance to comment to us and or the BOCC so I 113 don’t want to remove the comment period, I just think if we can put it into time limits and focused on what we’re dealing 114 with and not just commenting on things at aren’t pertinent to the agenda item being presented. 115 116 Melissa Poole: Why can’t we do a combination of the two? The one meeting we had 200+ people so even at 3 minutes, 117 without having a cutoff, even allowing people who hadn’t spoke before, we would have still gone beyond. With working all 118 day and remote learning, it is unreasonable, 11:30 I cannot do and I am not going to keep doing it. It is just not feasible for 119 me. 120 121 Kim Piracci: I agree with Melissa and that is why I think we should come to the meetings understanding that we can stop 122 them at 10 p.m. We can say this is enough, let’s end the meeting now and reschedule the meeting if that’s needed. 123 124 Alexandra Allman: I think we should pick a set amount of people, so it’s 3 minutes, we pick a set amount of people and tell 125 the rest of the public to put their public comments in a place, like a google form or similar. I’m with Melissa, past 10 p.m. is 126 too long and we can still take public comments and not have to be there for 3, 4, 5 hours. 127 128 Craig Benedict: The new state allowance with virtual meetings is that even after the County Commissioners’ Public 129 Hearing is closed, there’s a 24 hour period where people can provide written comments. With the public interface that you 130 have, you could do something similar. You could say there is x amount of hours or x amount of people to talk and then 131 provide the people who didn’t have an opportunity to talk, written comments to the Planning Department within a day or 132 similar. That would give them the opportunity to be heard with written comments and you still have the opportunity as 133 being suggested that if there is 100 people and you want to have a special meeting, you can still have that opportunity. 134 135 David Blankfard: Could we have a system where the first 45 people are allowed to speak and if you don’t make it within 136 that 45 people then you would have to write your comments. 137 138 Perdita Holtz: You could do something like that; it would essentially be limiting the amount of public comment to a set 139 amount of time, if you assume everybody gets 3 minutes. I would also suggest that when you know there is a 140 controversial project, that we want to encourage people to send written comments beforehand and have a policy in place 141 that written comments are encouraged and there is a set time limit of say one hour or whatever the set time is for public 142 comments and it is the public that show up that get to comment. 143 144 David Blankfard: I think if we say we’re going to limit these meetings to 11:30 which is 4 ½ hours which is a very long time, 145 I think we just say the meetings are going to last until 11:30 p.m. and we will accept this many people to comment and if 146 you are not one of the first ones to comment or don’t make it within the number of people then you will have to submit your 147 written comments. 148 149 Randy Marshal: I like the third bullet here, I think it gives us the most flexibility. If the Board anticipates the meeting will 150 run long, members could discuss a potential end time during the portion of the agenda for considerations of additions to 151 the agenda which is near the beginning of the all agendas. In other words, on any meeting in which we anticipate a lot of 152 people who want to speak, we can say we understand there are a lot of people who want to speak and we can discuss 153 and decide amongst ourselves how long we want the meeting to run. We could also say we could schedule additional 154 meetings like we did the last time, two weeks later to hear additional input and feedback if wanted. I think that gives us 155 more flexibility than setting a hard and fast rule at any time not knowing what the situation will be specifically. 156 157 Hunter Spitzer: Are these new rules going to apply once we get back to a physical space to have meetings? I understand 158 why we hold them this way virtually but once we get back to Margaret Lane or the Whitted Building will it still apply? 159 160 David Blankfard: I would say it would still apply. I agree with Randy’s position that at the outset of each meeting, we say 161 we will have a continuance, the key is to make sure that the people that talk the first night aren’t going to talk again 162 because we’ll get the looping. 163 164 Perdita Holtz: We would just need to tighten up the language and the information we provide and make it clear that 165 everybody gets to talk once for 3 minutes, if that’s the amount of time you want, and if it’s continued to another meeting, 166 you don’t get another chance. 167 168 9