General information:

Group Chairman Dave Cross called the meeting to order at 5:36 p.m. Fifteen people attended, including 11 county staff and consultants.

Minutes:

The Nov. 5 meeting minutes were approved as corrected.

Leadership:

After those present signed the committee’s recommendations for Chairman Dave Cross to present Dec. 2 to the Board of Supervisors, he offered to yield the chairmanship if someone else wanted to lead the group on whatever we tackle next. Everyone was happy with his leadership and didn’t want to change. Susette Naylor agreed to also attend and represent the steering group at the Dec. 2 supervisors’ meeting.

General Discussion:

We discussed what to do next. We decided to do nothing more with our initial recommendations until getting the board’s feedback Dec. 2 and some review by the Planning and Community Development leadership to see how the recommendations fit into existing staffing and budget plans.

Tom Frutchey explained what the other steering groups are doing, such as looking at how applications are assigned, dealing with mansionization, and consolidating policies and ordinances into a single document.

Possible topics for our future include examining what to do about members of the public who aren’t interested in a positive interaction with county staff, developing information on what key users want – such as realtors or architects – from the county when they enter the planning process, the physical layout of the planning counters, creating a system to measure how much service has improved because of the Process Improvement Team.

Group members questioned how committed county supervisors are to the PIT process. Supervisorial staff Salud Carbajal and Bob Royster said the board seems very committed to the process, but also must consider the budget. They expect the board to endorse most of the recommendations and direct departmental leadership to report back with a detailed explanation of what can and can’t be done, implementation timelines and staffing needs and limits.

Cross asked if we are closer to having a comprehensive definition of what a ministerial permit is. Frutchey said steering groups two and three are working on that. He said that a college student has been hired on an hourly basis to review two years of cases, and will determine, among other findings, how long it took applications to be processed, by type of application.

Steve Mason said the county is seeking a programmer to create online information on the requirements for submitting applications, build a FAQ (list of Frequently Asked Questions), track counter questions and build web content. Group members want the web site to show applicants what happens if certain conditions exist on their site or application. Mason said the county has a web-based survey, but hasn’t used it because it needs to be more user friendly. He said it would take more resources than are now available to have online payments, and that this change needs to be a County change, not a P&D change. A search engine should be available within three weeks. The web site will stress good public relations and have phone numbers for users who are more comfortable speaking to someone.

Bob Royster also wanted to use what other counties are doing to make the certificate of compliance process in Santa Barbara County less onerous.

Frutchey discussed the need to revise the attitudes that currently characterize large segments of the application review and approval process. Conflict is now commonly engendered, whereas we could benefit both the applicant and the County as a whole by working in a more collaborative manner that furthered common interests and completed superior development. Although some people bring an attitude to the counter for their first meeting with county staff, expecting to be denied an inalienable right and being ready to fight over that loss, this is less of a problem than how the overall process engenders conflict on an ongoing basis. The steering groups need to find a way to let the public know that things are changing and that the county staff and public should approach their application as a collaborative process that can usually be resolved to mutual satisfaction. The process has to bring people to the recognition that we begin in agreement on 80 % of the issues and must find a way to resolve the rest, he said. Instead of spending money and time fighting, we could all spend them on making better projects.

At the next meeting, Dec. 3, the group will review the Dec. 2 supervisors’ reaction and what the other steering groups are doing. We will consider timelines from the supervisors and department leadership and how to frame the initial interaction to be less hostile.