Pressure Builds for Planning Commission to Meet in Rural Areas

HumCPR Takes Case to Supervisors

On Tuesday, November 10th Executive Director, Estelle Fennell presented the Humboldt County Supervisors with the statement below asking for General Plan Update (GPU) meetings to be held in rural areas. At the same meeting, Syd Lehman of the Redway – Garberville Chamber of Commerce and Bonnie Blackberry of the Civil Liberties monitoring Project also asked for regional Planning Commission Meetings.

Letter to Humboldt County Supervisors

RE: A request for Regional Meetings of the Planning Commission

Dear Chairman Smith and Supervisors,

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comment on the public participation aspect of the current General Plan Update (GPU).

As you are aware, your Planning Commission is currently reviewing and deliberating on several sections of the Land Use Element of the Plan, specifically, Rural Lands (4.4), Agricultural Lands (4.5) and Forest Lands (4.6). Upcoming sections include Public lands (4.7) and Land Use Classification (4.8). As their titles imply, these sections deal specifically with the rural areas of your districts.

As you may, or may not be aware, there have been numerous requests from rural residents that the Planning Commission hold meetings in the rural areas in order to give landowners an opportunity to both give input and observe deliberations by the Commission, in short, to participate in the process.

The staff Revised Annual Report on the status of the General Plan, which you received on October 20th, includes the 2008 Annual Progress Report which addresses this very issue under section 6. Public Involvement and Education:

6.5. The meetings of the Planning Commission, whenever practical, shall be held in the geographic areas under consideration, or where the meetings of the Commission concern countywide issues as addressed in the Framework Plan, such meetings shall be held in the regional centers most representative of the issues to be addressed.

Aside from the commitment to fair and due process this statement promises, it is also a sensible and desirable approach to achieving a better Plan, by including those whom the Plan will most affect in the deliberations. And in some small way, it makes up for the inequality of access currently experienced by those who live beyond the urban areas and the reach of Humboldt Access TV.

The report also states “The Planning Commission shall encourage public participation in the land use decision-making process” (6.6). We hold that the public would be encouraged to participate if the Commission would take this small step toward being more accessible.

We urge you to ensure a meaningful degree of access to your districts’ residents by requiring that the Commission hold well-publicized and timely meetings addressing the land Use and other Elements of the GPU in the regional centers of Southern, Northern, Eastern and Western Humboldt County.