Interaction Group
Santa Barbara County Process Improvement Steering Groups

Sept. 17, 2003 Minutes

Andersen’s Pea Soup, Buellton

 

General information:

 

Group Chairman Dave Cross called the meeting to order at 5:33 p.m. Thirteen people attended, including 10 from county staff or county consultants.

 

Meeting Minutes:

 

The minutes from the Sept. 3 meeting were approved after being corrected. Corrections were made that we are a group, not a subgroup, and that one of our possible mission statements should read “give the applicant a sense of what the likely outcome might be and when.”

 

Action items

 

We received reports on action items from the previous meeting, including defining ministerial permits, user identification, public education and website development. We agreed that each subcommittee should submit a written report on their work since our last meeting. The reports should be e-mailed to group note taker Jerry Bunin by the Friday before our next meeting. The reports will be included with the meeting minutes e-mailed out before the next meeting. We also wanted to get the minutes from the other three groups.

 

The CEQA definition of ministerial permit is:

 

"Ministerial" describes a governmental decision involving little or no personal judgment by the public official as to the wisdom or manner of carrying out the project. The public official merely applies the law to the facts as presented but uses no special discretion or judgment in reaching a decision. A ministerial decision involves only the use of fixed standards or objective measurements, and the public official cannot use personal, subjective judgment in deciding whether or how the project should be carried out. Common examples of ministerial permits include automobile registrations, dog licenses, and marriage licenses. A building permit is ministerial if the ordinance requiring the permit limits the public official to determining whether the zoning allows the structure to be built in the requested location, the structure would meet the strength requirements in the Uniform Building Code, and the applicant has paid his fee.

 

Group members wanted a less subjective definition written in everyday language that the general public could more easily understand. The group decided to consider at our next meeting a recommendation to rewrite county planning ordinances in less technical terminology so they would be more understandable to someone seeing them for the first time.

 

User identification

 

Each team member is supposed to develop a list of users, including the staff, professionals, and general public, and their experience levels and knowledge of the process. The list will be used to create an action plan to improve communication based on what has and hasn’t worked in the past.

 

Public awareness

 

The team is contacting adult education officials to examine offering classes that would explain the permitting process to novices. The team also recommends regularly setting aside a portion of counter space at Planning and Development and having a staff person there to explain the process to new applicants. Group members said any class should have bilingual services available. County staff on the subcommittee will check bilingual resources on staff, equipment for developing an information video on the ministerial permit process for airing on the government access channel, and using the media to advertise any classes.

 

Website development

 

The subcommittee has contacted county information technology staff, who offered to donate time to develop web pages on the ministerial permit process. They would use drop down menus and a flow chart guiding users through the process of adding rooms or such. The end product should allow the user to have a clear idea of costs and the likely outcome. The group recommended that the web pages have disclaimers and a phone number to refer people for more information.

 

Future action items to consider

 

The group is interested in giving the public some way to initiate changes in the ministerial permitting process after a user discovers a problem and in possibly creating an ombudsperson. A new subcommittee focused on “continuous improvement” was formed to examine this.

 

The group also favors revising Planning and Development job descriptions to encourage creativity, innovation and problem solving and making sure department supervisors keep all department staff aware of how the line staff is interpreting and applying the ordinances. New staff should be assigned a mentor to assure consistency in application.

 

General discussion

 

We had a general discussion about removing conflict from the planning process by building relationships based on finding issues in common rather than structuring the interaction on divergent interests. The process should get everyone going in same direction as quickly and easily as possible. We also discussed how conflict could be reduced if users trusted decision-makers to support quality projects in public hearings even if there is substantial negative public comment. The group suggested training decision-makers on the topic and developing better criteria for when an appeal is justified. We agreed to consider this at the next meeting.

 

Adjourned:

 

The meeting adjourned at 7:23 p.m. The next meeting is Oct. 1, 4:30 p.m. at Andersen’s.

 

Subcommittee updates

 

The User Identification Subcommittee update is as follows:

 

1. Members are currently working independently to develop lists of all known users (stakeholders) who interact at the counter and ways in which to map the interaction between them.

 

2. Subcommittee members will be meeting on October 1, 2003 at 3:30 pm at Pea Soup Anderson to discuss the following:

 

A. Clarification and consensus of the sub-committee goals and objectives.

 

B. Time line for completion of tasks associated with the identified goals and objectives.

 

C. Communication

 

D. Discussion of Subcommittee work already completed.

 

A verbal subcommittee update will be provided to the steering committee during the regularly scheduled October 1, 2003 meeting.

 

Dan Nemechek, Planner

Building and Safety Division