e e e e e e e e e e there we go all right well gavlin the
Planning Commission meeting February 11th at 50:2 roll call uh commissioner kermes and commissioner mmud are not here but uh commissioner feling here commissioner
Bania here commissioner ladyy here meeting minutes from January 7th I just reviewed them and gave them to Joe are you guys good do you have any changes no no motion to accept minutes a motion to accept okay have a
second all in favor say I I I minutes are approved number four Planning Commission annual training what we all have come to love yes we know you love it and that's why we're back here again this year um happy 2025
it's officially now kicked off now that we're doing the training um no I I'll just start by introducing I I think you all know Madison Richard another planner in in my office that helps with the City of Newport um project we planning services and so we do this training U
once yearly because it's really important for even staff to kind of refresh on what uh what is good what do good meetings look like what does good process look like and so this is a good opportunity for us all to kind of have that conversation on a yearly basis um we're going to split this presentation
into like four different parts we'll be trying and be pretty efficient but uh we do kind of need to dive in in some areas and kind of get into the weeds so if you do have questions as we go along there will be section breaks that you can plan to ask any questions but you can also just shout them out so you know you know
that that's that's going to be perfectly F so with that Madison will be kind of kicking things off with a little bit about planning yeah so we'll go ahead and start with Community planning it's also known as urban planning um so to talk
about kind of the goal of planning is to maximize health safety and economic well-being of all people in our communities um so this involves thinking about the things on your screen I kind of like to break it into like live work play is kind of what planning is about so like where do people live in your community where do people want to live
where do people work work can you attract businesses and then where do people play where do people spend their time outside of it kind of in that third place um so we as professional planners work with residents and then elected officials you all um to guide our communities layout what it looks like
for the future we kind of fit things together where do things fit in the community what makes sense where and what can we attract to the community um we as planners make recommendations based on the zone and code and community plan that we'll get into um and then it talks about kind of the greatest
challenge the planners have is imagining what'll happen to the Future so like 10 15 20 years down the line what does your community look like and how can we set you up for Success moving forward um so why it's important so you'll see this list on your screen we can kind of walk through it um shaping a
community so you shape what Newport looks like long term with the decisions you make on like day-to-day meet like meetings and then also at long term so like the discussion we had about your community plan and then the zoning code updates we're doing and those sorts of things um it encourages public dialogue
so you get people in front of you from the community people who want to come into your community and you get to shape what that looks like um competing interests so what you all hope Newport looks like in the long term versus what a developer might look for versus what other residents are looking for you kind
of manage all of those different expectations um public Investments so you want to plan your community thoughtfully you want to make sure that you're not putting a development in and then two years later you have to come out and rip all the roads out because it wasn't done right the first time or your snow plows weren't considered we want to make sure that all departments have an
input and the public Investments are being done well um and supporting and justifying the decisions so we want you all to be prepared and then as staff we want to be prepared to justify our decisions if something does happen and if something's challenged in court we want to provide you with objective and factual
information so who plans um everybody but we'll kind of break it down in a few different sections so you all as public officials your city council mayor Joe your city administrator are all public officials developers who want to come in and build developments um planning professionals so Nathan and myself we
went to school for it and we want to work as an advocate for you all at a larger scale to make sure you all are getting what you're looking for and then the public so the residents of your city um specifically the youth you want them to grow up here go to school here stay here come back to your community um it's
important to keep those people in mind what are they looking for what does the future sort of look like for new um so different types of plans so long range planning this is your comprehensive plan these are large land use plans that'll be put in front of you Redevelopment so this is a larger scale
strategic Redevelopment plan for maybe an area that was blighted what can we do to revive that area how can we like long large range plans work um Master planning this is a little bit more specific so it's your downtowns your campus areas something that's not typically as large as a city but you're
focusing on one specific part of your city and what does that look like housing studies so it looks at what housing options you have what housing options you need and then what housing options are you missing so do we need to be planning for more Town Homes who we need to be planning for more condos or people looking for single family in the
area um that's what a housing study will provide typically and then small area plans so this is typically what developers will bring in front of you so it'll be your individual site plans your subdivisions your PS um all the way down to your individual your comprehensive plan this
is your longest range plan um it goes out 10 15 20 years it's a plan that's pretty comprehensive as it says um so it covers super large range topics like housing population and job growth Transportation um and it covers your entire city and then sometimes it goes
beyond your city as well into future Urban expansion areas um so your comprehensive plan will get gearing up to start that in a few years for your 2050 plan um but right now your 240 plan is what you're looking at um when you're
evaluating all the applications today yeah it's a the desial update is um approved in a couple years but we're going to start looking at uh stuff from the me Council as early as September so yeah we get started early and it it goes
Super far out so your community plan is kind of the end all be I think of what you think of what your community is going to look like long term um so what does it look like to implement the comprehensive plan so we talk about it in terms of like you have your 20 240 plan in place right now how do you implement something that is so far out um so you use it to support
and deny development proposals and then zoning code and changes so that sort of looks like do you want where do you want industry in your area where do you want businesses where do you want housing you can start to look at that long term and then that can impact development proposals you're getting today so 20 years ago someone might have said we
feel like this is a great place for housing and you might have changed your mind and now we're shifting down we're thinking more mixed use we're thinking more commercial um and then you use it to support and deny your zoning code and change so this is what we talked about when we had our meeting the other day where we were walking through zoning code um updates to match the
comprehensive plan so you want them to really align with one another you want your current zoning to impact what your future zoning is going to be because obviously if you let someone come in to your community and do a proposal for a huge amount of housing but longterm you wanted commercial there that's not going to align so you want to make sure those
are matching up um and then kind of like we talked about infrastructure Investments your roads sidewalks Parks public spaces you want to be thinking about those longterm because once a development goes in it's really hard to make something a park versus thinking about the long term this is where we want Parks we want Trails how can we incorporate those things on a day-to-day
basis Guided by this long-term plan I would just add that the city is currently doing a Trails master plan and so part of the Great utility of the trails master plan is that that can get kind of um basically referenced or brought into the city's comprehensive
plan so that you have a really um comprehensive assessment of your trail system and where there's needs for greater connectivity and then that does lead into as as staff receive development proposals and things of that nature we always make sure to check some
of those plans including a Parks or a trail master plan in order to make sure that the the connections that have been envisioned by the community don't get forgotten or lost that they're implemented so just one of those great benefits of having some of those plans um so the basis for planning
Authority in Minnesota um so state and local Authority was defined by the village of uclid versus Amber real realy um this is a case from a decent amount of time ago um I don't know the exact years but it happened the 30s it happened um in the village of uclid which is just outside Cleveland which is
known to be a really Industrial Area um and uclid specifically put in a zoning code Zoning for area use and then height and other like setback standards um so they set this in place basically to prevent large industry coming in and
taking over their little village that they had um and it was ruled that they were allowed to do that because they were trying to preserve and protect the public safety and Welfare of their community so that's kind of one of the large planning cases that's always sort of talked about um and then your local authority of Minnesota is granted by the
state so your county and City enabling legislator is on there you want to check it out we know you want to review those I know I know you I'm actually writing it down because I'm going to if you if you uh you can go down the Wikipedia a rabbit hole on that um uid versus Amer
realt case it it is brovich situation yeah if you're into it it's it's always it's it's always a good time so we have a little H section break here uh just want to see if you have any questions uh so far for us on some of that initial
information hearing nothing we will move on so uh we talked about this at our meeting last week but this is really important I think it's really the foundation of one you know of the planning commission's responsibility um primarily we're looking at
um several layer different layers of of different types of review that the city does uh some reviews are administrative as you will will recall when staff receive building permits and Associated you know building plans those things are reviewed administratively they meet
approved the the the applicants on their way towards implementing their plan um and all is and all is good as as we move down this pyramid of discretion you have um different responsibilities as as a as a
community and in particular this this is where applications and and proposals are reviewed by the Planning Commission in the city council and so we talk uh we talk all the time about that quasi judicial role that's again effectively like you're kind of a judge you're
looking at the the context of an application the facts of the case you're establishing findings of fact we've talked about that considerable amount before uh and then approving on on you know an application on its merits and typically you're going to be applying conditions to address concerns there
might be and that is all within the city's uh role as a quasi judicial reviewer uh for variances conditional use permits and subdivisions and then as we get into zoning and comprehensive plan updates that's again where we have discretion we can decide how we want to
move when we pretty much when we want to move um and really have that um flexibility as a community to do what we want of course there's always you know have to have reason we can't um create laws that are arbitrary uh but we can uh really um
kind of control our own destiny with with these types of commitments so um that's one of those really important pieces again that we will always continue to talk about um and as I mentioned U with administrative decisions it's really just building permits and Zoning permits things like
new homes fences tree removals etc those are a truncated review and it's good it's good customer service to get things out the door that can be reviewed quickly quasa judicial as I mentioned we've got a little bit more of a process you get you get someone that submits an
application we make sure it's complete uh then we schedule it and review it and provide a staff report for a Planning Commission where you hold a public hearing and then provide a recommendation to council and and then they uh the city council provides an action and so again variances cups iups
we've talked about all of those um before subdivisions are another larger review but they are still that type of decision and then we get into those legislative decisions U so we've got the zoning amendments both map and text and
then comp plan updates comp plan updates can look like a minor text change to the comp plan or something as big as a a desal update where we replace the whole thing so they they there are a lot of different levels there and the city can initiate these things on its own it
doesn't have to wait for an applicant all right so that is uh out of the way are there any questions for me and it's okay not to have questions because we do talk about this a lot so okay yeah I'll go back to that nice
relaxing image this is a nice Trail in Newport okay um all right Madison's going to help us get into the the Weeds on some of these applications yeah so we're going to start um on the applications that are considered like closest to that like administrative level and then we'll kind of go from there um so variances so these are least
discretionary um the state statute has required practical difficulties and you'll see on the screen this approval of variance this is from newport's code so these practical difficulties that are listed basically align straight with what the statute says um just so we're making sure you all are completely
covered um and it talks about these are really specific Case by case on which applicant meets which criteria um of difficulty but it can range from the property owner didn't create it to themselves all the way to like this is they want to use the property in a
reasonable manner so there are a lot of different ones on here but everything is kind of sort of case toase on variances in terms of the site and what their practical difficulty is I just want to mention um variances you'll sometimes hear people say well um there's precedent my neighbor got one
and that's not how it works unfortunately um each variance is reviewed on a case-by Case basis so as staff when we're providing recommendations to you we're thinking about those types of things hey there's actually not a precedent for variances you know just because one person got a variance doesn't mean the facts are
exactly the same in in the other case um which could appear similar on the surface but may not be the case so want to mention that as well um and then conditional use so your conditional use permits that you'll see um this is a use that is permitted in code but we want to add some
prescriptive conditions on it you want to make sure that you are allowing it with certain stipulations um so for example if someone wants to bring a school in but you want to limit the hours the school's allowed to operate or something of that sort so you can limit like a few
different things within it but they have to have a rational basis to them they have to be legal um and then these run with a land indefinitely so if it's not specific to that one business or that one applicant it'll run for the entirety of that site's existence um similar to
this is interim use permits but interim use permits do not run with the land indefinitely so those have a time limit so you'll hear like the conditional and interim use permits sometimes together sometimes separately um subdivisions so this is what you think of as like a neighborhood
coming in it's the creation of a lot of New Lots um it has the largest impact typically on your community because you're building a significant amount of housing um it has infrastructure needs so you'll need New Roads new sidewalks Park dedication is always really important so we want to make sure that there's enough
Green Space left in the community that there's open space um and then this is obviously pretty permanent because you're putting in a new neighborhood you're not going to come in and tear it out a few years later hopefully not hopefully not um your zoning ordinance so changes in the zoning ordinance um create rules
for development and land uses um there's a lot of decision- making Authority so when we're looking at your zoning or update that we're currently working through um this is where you have the chance to make a lot of decisions on what you want the community to look like today and then long term so if you want
to get rid of mixed uses that's something we can talk about we have the decision to do that but it has to be rational and we want to walk you through all the options of what that looks like so there's some questions on the screen that you should consider when we're doing the zoning ordinance update what problems are we creating versus solving um we had a lot of discussion in the
meeting about non-conformity so if we reone this what non-conformity is exist that's always important to kind of consider because you don't want everything to be non-conforming in your city you want to kind of align with what you have um and then another reason we're doing the update is it consistent with your comprehensive plan does it
make sense do they go hand inand and puds are very similar sorry yeah puds are very very similar um they're kind of that and then also the combination with a subdivision typically so you'll see those established at the same time because the subdivision wants something different than VI a code so
this typically gives you a little bit more flexibility to allow a neighborhood certain things that aren't permitted in your codes you can do more lenient setbacks they can have more lots that are permitted based on the zoning those sorts of things is where zoning your comprehensive plan we've
dived into this a lot already but this is the creation of the vision um for development and land uses similar to the zoning ordinance this has a lot of decision-making Authority so when we come through and do the comprehensive plan we want your opinion on what you want Newport to look like long term and what you think the residents of Newport
will be looking for long term so what goals are we achieving what do we want and then keeping those things in mind infrastructure Trails Parks the things that are crucial to your community having its own feel and its own look and those sorts of things are kind of what
you want to keep in mind um so the commission's role so what is your role in all of these things so you implement the zoning code in the comprehensive plan you hold public hearings so when we have a a public hearing that people can come in and talk about a project you're typically the
first line um where people see this project and are able to give their feedback they don't always get to talk to us about it if they don't know about it yet this is kind of that body for them to express their opinions um and then you make recommendations to the city council um and then you as
individuals are able to bring stuff to us staff and we can bring something forward as a formal consideration of you think you have a really great idea for the zoning ordinance of or you noted hey I really feel like the future land use should be this thing can we talk about that we're able to bring that forward so we want your kind of thoughts and
opinions on what you want the community to look like um as your role here and then also as individuals who you know live here um best practices so understanding your role and influence over the community you obviously see a lot of the
developments that come through some people aren't as involved in their community so we want you to understand the influence that you have over veloping your community long term um taking the Public's concerns and and like under advisement and seeing are they relevant to the quest are they
applicable and then if they are how can we use this to inform the decisions we make um you all act as semi the government a little bit in terms of the way people trust the government they want you to consider their opinions and they want to be able
to express their concerns to you and they want that to impact things so kind of understanding that relationship you have have um and then also your role with us we want to provide you helpful recommendations and factual recommendations and we want to put you in a really good position with the decisions you're making and we want you
to feel like you can come to us with those same things we want to put you in a really good position to make a good recommendation to city council um and we hope that that is clear and easily conveyed to all of you um if you have questions we're more than happy to
answer anything you have um those sorts of things uh if I may comment um just like couple things um in how you know I try to support um staff and our consultants and uh number one is um we
do always want to make sure that we can answer all the questions we think a Planning Commission or a city council will have and you know you can always play that that mental exercise of you know try to stump the planner and it's a great it's a great way to develop a
presentation for a planning commission or councel and then additionally if there's one way where you know you're probably going to see some frustration on the administrator's part is when you know a Planning Commission or a council creates gotcha moments because it just
doesn't make anybody look good it doesn't make the the Planning Commission it doesn't make the council and it doesn't make the staff look good and and I totally agree with this that it does create a distrust in the system so that's something where I strongly encourage folks hey you know if you have questions or if there's a real concern
ER let us air it out let us you know get that background before the night of the meeting and we can have a meeting we can figure it out and we're going to hopefully work together as a team so just wanted to comment on that because it really I I totally agree it and that's that's something where you can
kind of see a a really good trustful system and and kind of good staff and a good process and maybe one of those ones that maybe doesn't work so well in my opinion so just want um so what is our role as staff um so we
don't decide anything we make recommendations to you all um and then we make decisions um for administrative reviews so we do those sorts of things but in terms of like what you'll see from us we'll be making recommendations to you um and our recommendations are based on the zoning code the
comprehensive plan we don't come and make our own personal recommendations this is a recommendation based on codes that you off put in place so we think this is where you want your community to go this is the recommendation we're putting forward and then you can kind of go from there with it um we consider precedent special studies those sorts of
things we keep a close eye on what's happening at the Minnesota state statute level with everything so a cannabis is a really good example when we brought that through we wanted to be really really thoughtful of all the changes that are going on and things that you all as public officials might not be as like tapped into every single new code update
that's changing a new language that's coming out um so we want to make recommendations based on those facts and put put everything in front of you in a way that we think is helpful and easy to digest and that you can process so we have good development in the city um o
sorry you're fine you're I was ready to go um our best practices um so we only want to bring approvable applications forward we work a lot on the back end if possible with developers with residents to get their questions answered to see applications so we're not bringing
forward applications that make no sense for the area make no sense for the site aren't thoughtfully planned we try and do a lot of that ahead of time so we're putting only good applications in front of you um yeah can I just talk about that for a second Madison so this is something that you know it's as I'm sure you were about to say it's not always
possible to bring only approvable things forward and I'm sorry I cut you off on that but um you know I feel strongly about about this because what we try to do is we try to tell people far in advance of their application whether there we think there's going to be support based on code or other things
that we we know about the city um and so we're telling them try trying to be very proactive about this is something that you know we don't see there being issues with or this is something that um seems kind of problematic and here's and here's why so that you know developer
applicant whatever that uh you might expect some resistance on this and so we try to be really clear with folks to make sure that they understand um the process and we're also as transparent as we can be about whether we do uh or don't think there would be staff or um
commissioner or Council support for things so yeah I just I wanted to provide that a little bit of the the sort of behind the scenes thing when we're meeting with people we really trying to be um helpful to them in whatever way we can yeah um and then in addition to that
we try and be as honest as we can um the no guarantees seems a little nefarious written on here but um just for the most part we try to be as open and honest about code and the requirements and what we would expect you all to say based on other applications we've seen and based on the history of the city um it's not
always possible obviously we can tell people things that are sometimes incorrect or we might think that the board would be supportive of this based on past things and then they might not be supportive um so we do try our best to be open and honest with property owners and applicants in the city um and we will continue to do that moving
forward I think that that relationship is really important we try and have a really good relationship with the residents and with you all to kind of make sure the process runs as smoothly as possible um we when making recommend a um typically we'll also recommend conditions we want to make sure those
conditions for approval are practical and enforcable so we don't want to add a condition saying staff will visit the site every single day to make sure they're in compliance that's just not enforceable or realistic Joe hatch will visit the site every day yeah Joe specifically it will happen yeah it will be there we do it that could be
enforceable so keep that in mind for future applications be for the dispensary um but we just want to provide you all with the best conditions moving forward that are realistic for both the staff side and also the public
facing side um the same thing with findings of fact um we try and articulate those very clearly with code to make sure that we're providing you thoughtful recommendations um whether it's for approval or denial whatever we're recommending um we want to give you all the best chance at making a
solid decision um and then we try not to be afraid to the ordinances we'll seeing we're bringing the zoning ordinance forward for you all um we want to make sure that all of the zoning codes comprehensive plans everything is well done for you all and if we see errors we want to be able to bring it forward to
you and say Here's how we think we can improve this and here's how we can do better so that you can do better so that Newport can do better here's a really pixelated image for you as a section break so this is an Overlook on the Mississippi I don't know
how what happened to this picture but I just want to re iterate so some of the stuff you guys are just talking about just so staff knows it has gotten a ton better I mean just the trust from me on this side I mean we talk even before meetings but we are getting more
substance we are getting more accurate information and so that automatically these gotta moments don't happen because we feel like we're headed down the right path and we're given as much information as we can and so I think that's a mutual you know mutually beneficial whereas
before before wasn't always that way but I think with the changes that have been made and stuff I think every time I get a packet if I've got a question it's certainly not incendiary because um you guys are providing us everything that you can um uh mostly it's just a you
know ignorance kind of a question but no I I feel like things have progressed in a way where that trust is now assumption which is a good thing so I really appreciate hearing that and it if you have questions comments and things like
you know where to find us so appreciate the comment um all right I'm going to talk a little bit about uh this is like bonus content this is stuff that want to make sure that uh we talk about Robert's Rules of Order and and just before we
maybe jump into this too much yeah we the city has not adopted it but I think I think it's just um you know this is kind of a a good best practice that can help a good and potentially I always look at it is the
more challenging or emotional a situation is and I can accuse myself of this it's always better to have your your your professionalism go up and your orders of decorum go up because then it you know can can keep a tense situation
a little bit more on track and so we're kind of proposing that we try and use something like this although this is not officially adopted by the city because then it can help when there's you know a room full of you know 200 folks upset about uh you know an
ordinance change or something like that so I I find it really helpful I did have like a training a few years back on that on the Roberts rules specifically yeah an attorney came in I'm guessing it was our attorney but yeah it was it was
Fricks yeah okay okay so yeah as Joe mentioned there there is not an official adoption of Robert's Rules by the city and in fact Robert's Rules is not necessarily intended in its in its form you know in the form you find in the book right the Roberts Rules book
not necessarily intended for the city as an organization and so cities do modify Robert's rules to some degree to make make it work better and so I did attach to the staff report what I thought was a kind of a helpful like primer and and resource on this issue so you can make
use of this and I think um just for example I think tonight's meeting I was kind of tracking the the way that we went through the agenda and I think I don't have any um any complaints about how you did it so um you know that's good well if we're looking at it from a
technical perspective right um we uh we we gaveled in to call it order uh you did a a staff called the role and then we moved into making motions on the items so you made a motion to approve the minutes that is a Roberts uh rules
type thing so uh basic principles though of Robert's Rules uh are that you have a quorum right and so we need this and and you know this to um to do business in the city which is three out of five members of the Planning Commission um all the members have the same voting
rights privileges Etc um one thing can be discussed at a time but we you know we do this well I think through our agenda and and staying on track um so some of those Basics are are covered by the way that we operate but I always think that um we can focus on uh things
like Jo said like just making sure that we're um following kind of following this as a general rule so making motions is is kind of the the most basic part of this and and you make General motions all the time you basically say I move to
and then whatever the action is um and so that that is a general motion there are a number of other sort of procedural motions that are in the staff report if you do have questions these things are typically for um items that are way like
long or comp complicated where you might want to call a recess or a continuation or something like that so Nathan I have a question before you go on um the the screen before I just have a question on um on the last bullet where it says that the chair should always remain impartial
so does that mean that when we do uh when there is a motion and we uh you know call the vote do we not vote does that mean that's a great question you should still vote as as a chair and so um I think I think the general idea is that the chair um tends to defer on um
making motions to the commission members and so they're not necessarily starting I wouldn't instigate tion why entertain ation versus give my motion yep okay and so I think yeah again like you did that on the meeting minutes item earlier so I
was thinking about that as well so um good job on that well done but no that the really the idea is to let the commission kind of um take the lead on some of those things when you're the chair try to because the chair's focus is often how do we run this meeting effectively it's about running the
meeting more than necessarily uh taking a position on items although you certainly have uh have the ability to and should vote so hopefully Joe I don't know if you have anything to add on that yeah I totally you know in my opinion when
you're the chair um or the president or whatever it may be for any type of committee or public group um your job is to run the meeting and then at the end of the day you know when I've been the chair of something in the past I would never vote
unless there was a tie um but I I would not recommend that for this but I think it's kind of just keeping that your primary job is to kind of manage and facilitate and really make sure everybody gets a chance to speak and kind of work towards consensus and that in itself is a hard job it yeah it is
and so when you're you know reviewing an item let's say you've got an item that is um you know it might be difficult you might be having a difficult time as a commission with it maybe there's a difference of opinion or something of that nature the chair uh is
is really the one that can help to kind of try to go through each member and see if they have concerns or questions and try to sus out kind of the general direction we're going and then when the commission arrives to a determination on whatever you're going to recommend I
think there's always that that need to um back up the recommendation and so then you know after kind of getting the group towards a determination on Direction then the chair can try to work on findings a fact to support the recommendation so it's a lot I mean it's
it can be a lot to you know of responsibility I I think that you know Cher you do a good job so we've had some interesting meetings um so I think you know that's generally the idea of of the chair it's a good question uh motions um General motions
include approving the meet meeting minutes as you did today opening public hearings don't forget that when we do have a public hearing I gave a long presentation long- winded presentation and your eyes glaze over last time we didn't start the meeting we just went right into it right into the public
hearing right call so so after your eyes have unglazed after my presentation you can make a motion to uh open that publication hearing you give the public their forum for their feedback and then make sure you remember to close the public hearing and you're going to want to um the chair will note that the time
of opening and closing so those are General motions and then you know about making recommendations and of course a journey of the meeting um public hearings I did want to talk a little bit about these um this you know I think public hearings are
really a very critical part of the of the process we you know as the commission as decision makers and even staff really value I think the the feedback from residents in the community whether they're neighbors of the project or whatever is being decided or whatever
is on the table um their feedback is is extremely useful but unfortunately public hearings aren't necessarily the best forum for a back and forth with the public and so C some communities um or you know commissions and I'm not saying
this one has this issue a lot but um some communities tend to let the residents kind of drive a little bit and ask questions and make demands even um and that's not necessarily a good process for the city um it can introduce
issues um and potentially lead us down a road where there's risk to the city and and uh and we don't want there to be a lot of risk in in making good well-founded decisions so um generally speaking public hearings are a great opportunity to hear from the public and
if there are really good questions that you hear and there tend to be great questions and we have really uh well-informed residents that are have great feedback when they ask you questions that you also would like to know the answer to my suggestion would be to have
the commission ask staff the question and not necessarily have staff answer the resident so this is why staff if we're doing our job right um and we try uh sometimes we're not perfect but we we try to look to the chair and the
commission to say would you like us to answer this question um or alternatively my preference would just be to even either you know reframe the question and ask ask stff that way at all like generally and especially when issues get um you know emotionally charged I I
always will try to go back to the formality of the issue because it really you know when you have those tough policy discussions you know a lot of people can have very strong opinions so as a staff person I'm always going to recognize the chair because technically
I should not speak unless I've been recognized by the chair or the mayor so mayor and then if there's a council member uh I'm going to get the permission from the mayor before I answer commissioner Bon's question right or before I answer I should do it
definitely before that that resident and the reason why is the resident could be up there very upset about an issue and now they're GNA maybe potentially take it personally against the staff where staff hopefully is just doing their job as part of the process so kind of slowing that down instead of saying you
know hey person who lives there this is why we did it you know hey chair Lighty um you know if you'd like I can answer this resident's question chair Lighty uh staff did do some research and this is such and such and such and it kind of
diffuses it because it this is a formal process and in order to really be fair sometimes and I've seen this happen and and this does has happened where you have you know strong opinions and you get a lot of folks who may be against it
and they'll come out to a meeting and then they can kind of it's going to be very difficult for there's another Resident who maybe has a different opinion to feel comfortable to come and speak publicly where if we keep it a little bit more formal everybody is invited and that's the point of a public
hearing is to get all that input and we're not going to make a decision we will probably make a recommendation but then we can we can get everybody's opinion out there and if we keep it formal it can kind of in my opinion deescalate that's how I've been trained and I I think it works so um you know
that's that's what we're trying to do and I I know we're not always perfect but that's the hope is at a minimum um you have a good policy discussion yeah just the one last thing I would have to add is is staff are very happy to engage with residents and answer their
questions and typically you know people are are able to call us and just get hold of us directly and we can have a great informal conversation and we can answer a lot of their questions uh and we we can always make ourselves available after the meeting um for questions as well so you can always feel
free to just direct the resident to contact staff after the meeting that would be a great option as well yeah um any questions on public appearing before I move on okay um we have uh a summary here of all
the different motions um this is generally in your staff report so I'm not going to dwell on this slide but I do want to just say that there are a lot of um different types of motions that can be considered at this point I think just a general motion is probably all you need
to uh to worry about for now cheat cheat and during the meeting sorry yeah sorry Joe what you know the recess taking a recess if you ever have long long meetings um and that's never the case here right uh that that can be an option
if if people need it so moving on I I did want to talk a little bit about the the public trust idea and just mention a few other things that a Planning Commission should consider one of the things that you should consider that we talked about uh previously last year I think was exp parte Communications
that's off the record conversations typically what expart communication looks like uh could be an applicant reaching out to you off off the Record out of a meeting um and reaching out to you directly to discuss whatever their preferred outcome might be or or
whatever it could be um in those cases I would suggest that you just inform them that you can't be having conversations outside of a public meeting about an item that's being considered by the city um and so that they should make submittals that they might need to make
or show up to a meeting where they can have that discussion on the record so you can also uh an even better answer is just to direct folks to contact staff so we can help you any questions on
that bias uh just to just to mention it um I think it's always worth examining anything that could could result in Lost objectivity of course no one is ever perfectly unbiased so we always recognize that um things like
relationships that you have um professionally or otherwise jobs Etc uh could could be factors to consider as you consider what your recommendation will be and lastly in related to bias is conflicts of interest and abstaining from voting um so understanding when
conflicts of interest um arise is important um staff are very good at helping you identify when and where a conflict of interest is present if you have concern I would just suggest letting us know we can always um talk to you and and importantly we can always talk to the attorney if we have
questions so there is a process to deal with that question abstaining from votes is typically um not something that we would recommend unless you do have a conflict of interest that you discuss with staff some people will just get uncomfortable and not want to vote and
that's not really a a good outcome for for the city so that uh there that was kind of what I had prepared for you and sort of the items that we felt like like um we hadn't talked about in a little while and wanted to refresh on of course um
we're always looking to see how we can do better and so I have a couple of I you know just questions for you um I would love to hear that we're doing perfect and to make no improvements but I recognize that um you there's always things to do to to improve how we do
business so with that you know are are meeting dates and times working for you is you know I've noticed that sometimes there there's a one or two members missing and so you know is there anything to mention with with meeting
time I like the 5:00 P pm time but dates is fine with me dates are okay the 500 P p.m. time I want it to be at 3 yeah I 5 5:30 is fine too I just five
five is I mean and the mayor had mentioned at one point that she wanted potentially the commissions to all come in at the same time so I don't know if that's that's and that's a five but I'm I'm fine with date and time as is um
unless other people have issues it works for me let's make sure we send out a survey if we can because we have two people that aren't here yeah noted um how do you feel about
information that you get in the staff reports from us do you do you think it's enough are there areas that you've noticed like oh man I have questions about this and um I'd like to know more I think they're great yeah I think maybe something for us is to make sure
we read them ahead of time and come informed right I think that's super important so we're not scrambling before a meeting we kind of look through our packets and that that also lends you know the trust that actually looking right at what they're providing so I I
think maybe that's more of an action item for us as a committee versus staff I don't know if you guys feel the same but sometimes I I'm scrambling sometimes I have ample amount of time to look and I look and I'm prepared but I actually try to read it twice because well and we know which meetings are
going to be more right fiery fiery so those ones we want to just make sure we're prepared for those um I also like that um well recently I mean I've been on the commission for a minute but uh that you
guys actually write in there um what the staff recommendation is because especially like you know um when we have to like shift roles a little bit and you're less familiar with that like when I come in as an acting chair it's it's really really helpful so I I do
appreciate that great and if you think of anything you're always welcome to reach out so as as mentioned that's what we have that's all thank you for your
attention thank you for your time all right that's all good stuff do you guys have anything you want to discuss no no entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn one motion a
second a second all those in favor to adjourn say I I I'll adourn this meeting commission at 547 beautifully e