Scott Mill plan held for review

As expected, the County Comissioners did not vote on the rezoning request at the meeting.  I'm surprised they gave the discussion only 5 minutes on the agenda, though.  Four activists spoke in the public hearing about their disgust with the wasted negotiations and loopholes.  This time Bill Ripley also commented. He said the committed elements were all still there, possibly excepting the elements that are already required by regulations, such as regulations on sidealks and right of ways.  He said that he could negotiate with the neighbors, Planning Dept., Commissioners, etc. if there are still problems.  Community member Carol Young responded.  She gave several examples of changes in the committed elements:  the new version says: the Sheriff's Dept. will monitor the noise, but the fines were removed; the buffer I mentioned yesterday is specified on non-existant page 5 of the notes; there are the same loopholes that allowed mass grading at Lyon's Farm (?); and the "infrastructure" allowed south of the powerline is not defined, so she said possibly that would include something like a pile of fill dirt needed on the site.  

 

Some Commissioners spoke about how dissatisfied they are with this process.  Ellen Reckhow called it "highly unusual and irregular" and Cheek (who arrived just before this item on the agenda) thought it came from the actions of several people, who probably had "good intentions."  Heron was most irritated with this whole affair and I think wants to vote on it as soon as possible and make any new process start from the beginning.  I don't remember Page saying he was very irritated, and I think Cousin was silent in this discussion.  I can't remember when she wanted to have this vote.  I think Cheek proposed that the planning staff look at the current plan and report back to the Commissioners.  They cannot vote on it until the Planning Commission rexamines the plan to see if there are any (narrowly defined, as Heron found out) major changes from earlier plans.  I'm not sure if there will be a vote on this in November.  I assume it depends on the findings of the Planning Commission.