Below is the full video of the April 11, 2023, Arcata Planning Commission meeting.

This meeting was designated as a “Special Meeting” — a term with certain legal ramifications. I believe that to call this a Special Meeting is incorrect — more on “calling it a Special Meeting” is in another article here. Calling this a special meeting allows, by law, an allowable reduction in the manner in which input from the public is taken.

Far more people were in the audience at this Planning Commission than at prior Planning Commission meetings. At a typical meeting, there are 4 or 5 speakers. At this meeting, there were 21 members of the public who spoke.

Here is Community Development Director David Loya discussing matters with Planning Commission Chair Scott Davies. Commissioners Tangney (left) and Mayer look on. About 16:00 minutes into the video; about 12 minutes into the meeting. Their private discussion lasted approximately one minute.

The question at hand was whether to allow public comment on each section of the business items on the agenda (as is the case for a “regular meeting”) or have public comment only at the start of the meeting, under the early “Public Comment” agenda item. The rules for a “special meeting” allow the Chair to not include any public comment other than at that first period — that is, to have no public comment for the actual business items of the meeting.

The Chair had initially announced that there would be no public comment taken for the business items of the meeting. Following the private discussion with David Loya, the Chair announced that there would be open comment on the business items later in the meeting.

The large items of the evening were:

• Improvements to K Street for bicycle paths and public safety;
• The L Street – K Street couplet concerns, and how this would be addressed in the Gateway Plan and the General Plan;
• Circulation and Mobility sections of the Gateway Plan and the General Plan.

As it turned out, the time given for public comment on these items occurred after all of the Commissioner’s discussions — and decisions — at the end of the evening. And thus, once again, the public comment occurred in a manner in which it was superfluous to the Commissioner’s decisions.

The public is allowed to speak, allowed to write letters, and allowed to provide input — but there is little or no evidence that the wishes and interests of the public are being considered. The petition shown to the Planning Commission — currently with over 650 names, for the creation of an L Street Linear Park and against the formation of a thoroughfare road along the L Street Corridor — has resulted in no mention or visible recognition.

It can be noted that the input from Arcata’s Transportation Safety Committee and from the Parks and Recreation Committee also were not brought up at the meeting, and appeared to also not be considered.

Here is the full video of the meeting. Sections of this video and transcriptions of portions of the meeting will appear at a future time on Arcata1.com, either as an addition to this article or in future articles.