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the date of approval. At this time, I'm going to welcome the applicants up for them to introduce themselves and they 1
<br />have a presentation for you as well. 2
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<br />Leon Meyers: Thank you. 4
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<br />Ashley Moncado: Thank you. 6
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<br />Leon Meyers: Welcome, Ms. Brown. 8
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<br />LeAnn Brown: Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is LeAnn Brown. I'm a local attorney and have been 10
<br />doing zoning planning and land use work for 40 years now. I am here representing Judea Reform Congregation 11
<br />Cemetery Corporation, the applicant in this matter. About 25 years ago, the State Board determined that it was the 12
<br />best practice for in special use permit hearings because they're quasi-judicial for there to be a lawyer present in case 13
<br />there was some issue that came up that the client needed representation. Engineers can present evidence to you, 14
<br />which is what's getting ready to happen, but I'm here if that's needed, and so without further adieu, following the best 15
<br />practice, I am here and that's about all I'm going to say to you. We have a team here that's going present to you, Tony 16
<br />Whitaker, the president of Civil Consultants, who is a professional engineer will be speaking to you. I would like to 17
<br />tender him as an expert. His credentials are included in your packet at Page 69 and would ask that you receive his 18
<br />testimony as an expert witness. We also have here as part of our team, Gary Phillips, of River Street Realty. He has 19
<br />provided a written report to you about maintaining or enhancing contiguous property, which I ask that you receive and 20
<br />that you treat him as an expert as well. His credentials in report are on Pages 38 and 40, and then finally Ed Holland, 21
<br />who is the director of the JRC Cemetery Corporation is here if we have applicant landowner-based questions, and 22
<br />without further adieu, I will call Mr. Whitaker up to be your first witness. Thank you so much. 23
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<br />Tony Whitaker: Thank you so much members of the Board for your attention to this matter tonight and thanks to staff. 25
<br />Staff has been great resource for us and putting together this application and tuning it correctly for your eyes tonight 26
<br />I want to start tonight just by looking at three photos. These are photos of the existing cemetery, and they are beautiful. 27
<br />These are shots or photos of the cemetery in different locations within, on the inside of the cemetery sort of looking 28
<br />internally, and on the left, you see some lawn or grassed burial plots. Yes, they are burial plots. They don't have 29
<br />headstones, but they are plots with flush mounted stones with ground and so to have those benches there with the 30
<br />trees behind them and this is just a characteristic sort of snippet of how this cemetery feels when you're in there, when 31
<br />you're sitting or standing or memorializing someone in that cemetery. On the right, the top photo, you begin to see 32
<br />some of the driveways, the gravel driveways that are in there and that's characteristic of all the vehicular ways on the 33
<br />site except for that one area of paving near the exit. Again, you see the character, the rural character, the scenic 34
<br />beauty of the location. In that top right photo in the lower left part of that, if you sort of imagine your eyes going to the 35
<br />background, you see actually wooded burial plots there in that photo. In the lower right, is a memorial garden that's in 36
<br />there just located off of the gravel driveway area. Again, just to show you the rural character and also talk about how 37
<br />this is in the rural context, it's in a rural setting, and it does have rural character and that's something that we want to 38
<br />preserve and that's something that the comprehensive plan wants us to preserve as we do any kind of development in 39
<br />this area. The point of showing you existing photos, even though we're not asking for approval of that part of the 40
<br />cemetery tonight, is to say we want to continue the same thing throughout another part of this property. The same 41
<br />style. The same character. The same look. The same kind of driveway and burial plots and with the same operator 42
<br />and same operating protocols for the cemetery. It's been there for 40 years, safely and wonderfully doing its beautiful 43
<br />thing as being a cultural resource in the community and we want that to be extended. As we performed our services for 44
<br />this project, we either heard articulated clearly by the applicant or it was just in all of the conversation they gave to us, 45
<br />these guiding principles that we were to use for our design services, and I won't read them all to you. You can read 46
<br />them as well as I can but the thread here is to continue the same character, to do it responsibly, to do it in a low density 47
<br />manner. A manner that's respectful of the vegetation and the wooded assets on the property, literally, the canape of 48
<br />trees is gorgeous and to be respectful of the neighbors. The properties around this property to be sure we do no harm 49
<br />to those properties in any kind of way because of what is happening on this property. To be a responsible neighbor and 50
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