LAKEPORT – The Lakeport City Council faced a quandary at its Jan. 6 meeting over whether or not to add information to its draft general plan which was approved nearly two years ago but inadvertently left out.
Utilities and Community Development Director Mark Brannigan asked the council for direction on what he should do about language that they had directed be added to the plan relating to the 700-acre City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District (CLMSD) property, which officials have talked about developing into a golf course and subdivision.
The missing language was brought to Brannigan's attention at a Dec. 3 public workshop on the draft general plan and its environmental impact report by Suzanne Lyons, the city's newly elected council member, before she took office.
At that time, Lyons questioned why specific information about how the CLMSD land was to be developed wasn't included in the plan, as Lake County News reported.
Brannigan told the council last Tuesday that, at the December workshop, he didn't know to what documents Lyons was referring.
Following the workshop Lyons met with Brannigan and interim City Manager Kevin Burke. From there, Brannigan, Redevelopment Manager Richard Knoll and Planning Services Manager Andrew Britton started looking for the documents Lyons had remembered existed but weren't reflected in the draft general plan.
It turns out that Lyons – who regularly attended Lakeport City Council meetings for a few years before seeking election – was right, there were such documents.
Brannigan said staff found them and wanted council direction on what to do next.
In 2007 there was a gap in progress on the general plan, the update of which began in 2002, Brannigan explained. He attributed that gap to a "changing of the guard" in city staff.
He provided the council with a time line of actions it had taken in regard to the CLMSD land, plus accompanying documents.
On Feb. 6, 2007, the council approved a motion to refer proposed draft general plan amendments that were prepared by consultant Dale Neiman – at about the time as he was hired as Clearlake's city administrator – and a committee established by the council to negotiate the CLMSD's proposed development.
As Lake County News reported in February of 2007, Neiman was hired the previous fall on a proposed development agreement between the city and Boeger Land Development for the CLMSD property.
He and the committee appointed to negotiate the agreement – which included Jim Burns, a partner in Boeger Land Development, then-Mayor Roy Parmentier and Buzz Bruns, then a councilman – forwarded to the council for its Feb. 6, 2007, meeting a proposal that the property would not be under a “specific plan” but under a “master plan” designation in the general plan.
Neiman told Lake County News at the time that the language change was meant to save time and money for both Boeger and the city by removing the specific plan step from the process. He felt the same ends could be achieved through an environmental impact report and project review process.
Some city staff had been concerned at the time that by removing the specific plan – which is a land use process for developing a specific site – an extra level of public input and involvement also would be removed, and that the land would miss out on being analyzed in a meaningful way.
However, the council, at its meeting on Feb. 6, 2007, forwarded the changes to the Lakeport Planning Commission, with Parmentier directing that it be on their agenda as soon as possible.
Richard Knoll, then the city's Community Development Department director, took the proposed changes to the Planning Commission on March 14, 2007.
City staff recommended that the commission not accept Neiman's proposed language changes “because the city has never done any kind of planning for this piece of property, which is a requirement of the city,” according to minutes from the meeting.
Commissioners at the time also expressed concern over including language in the general plan regarding residential development or a golf course on the property until a plan was completed, suggesting the city “was getting ahead of itself.”
The commission decided to propose that the area be designated “General Plan Area A” rather than the master plan or specific plan options.
On May 14, 2007, the City Council received the commission's suggestions and a public review draft of the general plan update.
The following month, on June 19, 2007, the council approved the commission's recommendations for the CLMSD areas, along with some minor plan element changes. At the same time, the council also approved a proposal from its general plan consultant, Quad Knopf, to work on a new sphere of influence area general plan update, which would be incorporated into the general plan.
Brannigan said last Tuesday that it was on July 11, 2007, that the general plan was put into a “holding pattern.”
According to city documents, at that meeting the council received a staff update which noted the holding pattern was necessary so that the process to develop the sphere of influence section for the general plan could proceed, “and further general plan goals, policies and programs can be prepared and incorporated into the draft general plan and addressed in the environmental impact report (EIR).”
Budget, cease and desist order draw the focus
After that, the city's budget issues began to surface, said Brannigan, and the changes to the plan and the study for the CLSMD property weren't completed.
He said minor modifications to that section in the general plan are now being considered, and the golf course development language could still be included if it didn't impact the draft EIR.
Brannigan also noted that the general plan could later be amended; general plan amendments are allowed four times annually.
He suggested the council could continue without major revisions, which would mean leaving the language that refers to the CLMSD property – which isn't currently included in the city limits – as a specific plan area. Or they could remove the language and change the proposed sphere of influence – areas the city hopes eventually to annex, such as the CLMSD – language to an area of interest.
As it stands, only part of the CLMSD property is included in a prospective sphere of influence mapped out in the plan and illustrated on the map above.
Mayor Ron Bertsch was concerned about the council making changes to the plan now unless it was willing to open it up that consideration to public comment.
Brannigan said the language changes could be added later. He was for keeping the process moving forward, because the plan should already have been completed. “We have some liability to update our general plan.”
Eventually, the city will have to go to the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) to get formal approval for adding CLMSD into its adjusted sphere of influence, Brannigan explained.
Councilman Bob Rumfelt, who sits on LAFCO, said that LAFCO might question granting the sphere of influence change if the general plan isn't completed, and make the plan's completion a condition of approval.
Lyons asked if there's a date by which the plan has to be completed. Brannigan suggested it might be 2012, but he added that the plan's EIR – completed three to four years ago – is getting to the end of its life expectancy.
“That's another casualty of putting this off is we're going to have to redo the EIR,” he said. “And if we have to redo the EIR we're looking at two to three years, which will put us to 2012.”
Lyons asked if money was budgeted to complete the plan. Brannigan said there is a budget for finishing it, but not for having to do major revisions or a new EIR.
Parmentier appeared frustrated by the situation. “I don't know why we're starting to drag our feet,” he said. “Get off our butts and get something done.”
Councilman Jim Irwin asked him exactly what it was he wanted. Parmentier replied that he wanted to see the language changes inserted but wasn't sure that the city could do it now.
The costs to do the specific plan study are around $150,000, said Brannigan, adding that he didn't think there was a clear understanding of those costs in 2007. He added the city had hoped the proposed golf course developer would help fund it.
City Attorney Steve Brookes offered the council an explanation of why the plan got off track.
“When the cease cease and desist came in, everything went out the window. That's the historical perspective,” he said.
Brookes was referring to the cease and desist order – originally coupled with a hookup moratorium on the city's sewer system – issued against Lakeport by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board in January of 2007 in response to a release of treated wastewater the previous spring, as Lake County News has reported.
In order to meet the terms of the state's order, the city had to spend millions of dollars to increase its system capacity, as well as devote large amounts of staff time to the process.
Brookes also noted that the developer, Matt Boeger, had helped fund Neiman's consulting position.
Lyons asked if there was public comment on the situation. Bertsch wouldn't open the discussion to public comment because he said they weren't going to change it the plan's language, a decision which angered audience member Janet Cawn, who wanted to speak to the subject.
Rumfelt made the motion to leave the language as it was, which Parmentier seconded. The vote was 4-1, with Lyons voting no.
Parmentier said that, in his opinion, the bottom line was that all of the CLMSD property should be in the city's sphere of influence. Brannigan said that the sphere of influence language would have to be approved by LAFCO first.
Brannigan said there will be at least two more hearings on the general plan in the months ahead.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
{mos_sb_discuss:3}
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
