The City Council is meeting with the Planning Commission on Tuesday, August 22, for the first of three scheduled joint meetings.

Original wording. Incorrect.

“The Planning Commission completed its initial review of the Gateway Area Plan and
the Gateway Code on July 11, 2023, and provided a recommendation to the Council for adoption.”

Suggested change:

“The Planning Commission has provided their July 11, 2023, working draft of the Gateway Area Plan and the Gateway Code to the City Council for discussion and the Council’s and the Commission’s further consideration.”

The Agenda Packet for the meeting has this. Highlighting added.

“The Planning Commission completed its initial review of the Gateway Area Plan and
the Gateway Code on July 11, 2023, and provided a recommendation to the Council for adoption.”   (In two places)

Does this make a difference?  Yes, it does.

What the Council has been given is the Planning Commission’s working draft of the General Plan updates, for discussion and the Planning Commission’s own and their further consideration. (Note:  The Gateway Area Plan and the Gateway Code are included as part of the General Plan.)

The City Council has specifically NOT “provided a recommendation to the Council for adoption.”

The Planning Commission’s minutes: The error was fixed

What has been provided to the City Council and is on the record is not what the Planning Commission is recommending for adoption. It just isn’t. To say otherwise is not factual.

For some background, at the July 25, 2023, Planning Commission a similar issue came up. In the minutes for the previous meeting, from July 11, the minutes read:

“On a motion by Commissioner Yodowitz, and a second by Vice-chair Tangney, the Commission adopted the General Plan updates.”

The vote at the July 11 meeting was not about adopting the General Plan. The documents at play at the July 11 meeting were not there to be adopted.

This error was pointed out and discussed at the July 25 Planning Commission meeting, and the minutes were changed. The actual motion for this change was that the minutes should reflect that the Commission “forwarded a working draft of the General Plan updates to the City Council for discussion and ours and their further consideration.” Community Development Director David Loya said, “That’s a good clarification” and “I think that’s a really good change that should be made.”

[When the motion was put into the revised minutes, the wording was changed slightly — which unfortunately is all too often the case. The inaccurate version says ” to the City Council for discussion and consideration” implying that it is for the Council’s discussion and consideration. The actual wording was “to the City Council for discussion and ours and their further consideration” — both bodies will be discussing and considering this working draft.]

And the similar error in the joint study session Staff Report

As we can see, the person or people responsible for the Planning Commission’s meeting minutes made an error. The Community Development Director made a very similar error in his Staff Report for the joint study session agenda.

To repeat:  The City Council has specifically NOT been provided a recommendation for adoption. Not one little bit.

This small be significant error can be changed

Original wording. Incorrect.

“The Planning Commission completed its initial review of the Gateway Area Plan and
the Gateway Code on July 11, 2023, and provided a recommendation to the Council for adoption.”

Suggested change:

“The Planning Commission has provided their July 11, 2023, working draft of the Gateway Area Plan and the Gateway Code to the City Council for discussion and the Council’s and the Commission’s further consideration.”

The revised agenda can be labeled with the date of the edit and “Version 2” in a location at the top third of the first page, and re-posted to the City’s website.

While this is done, two small changes can be made.

1. Page 4 of the packet has “COMMITTEE/COMMISSION REVIEW”
   The link that is attached to “Transportation Safety Committee Recommendation” goes to the Economic Development Committee’s page.
   I believe the correct link is:  https://www.cityofarcata.org/DocumentCenter/View/12825/2022-08-02-TSC-Adopted

   This is an unfortunate coincidence, as the the recommendations of the Transportation Safety Committee have an extended history of not being reported correctly. (In one case, the TSC was said to be FOR the K-L couplet — and not AGAINST it — and other cases.)

2. The current version of the 7/11/2023 draft Gateway Area Plan is V12a.2
   The link for the Track Changes version of the plan goes to V12a.1
   V12a.2 is the more recent version, and has a white box on the cover with a clarifying sentence of text.