Update on Friends of Carmel Cultural Heritage appeal of the Historic Resources Board's 23 January 2006 decision to remove 45 post-1940 properties from the Inventory of Historic Resources pending completion of an update of the Historic Context Statement.
At the 7 March 2006 Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council meeting, the above referenced appeal was continued by the City Council.
Transcript from the 7 March 2006 City Council meeting, Public Hearing, Appeal.
Mayor Sue McCloud: "The next item is Public Hearings. This was, as I mentioned in the beginning, Consideration of an Appeal of a Decision of the Historic Resources Board to remove properties from the Historic Resources Inventory that were developed between 1940-1956. And staff is...Brain, do you want to..
Principal Planner Brian Roseth: "Thank you Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. Before I go into this, I would like to give..."
McCloud: "We're not going to go into it, we are going to continue it."
Roseth: "Oh, I'm sorry."
McCloud: "Remember?"
Roseth: "I wasn't here at the beginning of the meeting. That saves me all this.
Laughter.
City Administrator Rich Guillen: "Yes. Staff is recommend we continue this item because we need further review of the issues,(pause) mainly with the Coastal Commission.
McCloud: "The Coastal Commission contacted us on Friday afternoon and because of their schedule this week down here, there is otherwise not time to get together with them. So, and Don you have talked to the attorneys...So, we've agreed that we would...with Susan Brandt-Hawley and the Coastal Commission...We would postpone, continue this."
Councilman Gerard Rose: "So the gist, as I understand it, is that we are postponing this so that our staff can speak to the staff of the Coastal Commission about this proposal. Is that right?"
McCloud: "It's a large...It's...Yeah."
Guillen: "That's correct."
Later that week, on Thursday, 9 March 2006, Enid Sales, Director of the Carmel Preservation Foundation, orally recited her letter to California Coastal Commission Chair Meg Caldwell and Members of the Coastal Commission at the Coastal Commission's meeting in Monterey.
Letter to Chair Meg Caldwell, and Members of the Coastal Commission from Enid Sales, director of the Carmel Preservation Foundation
CARMEL PRESERVATION FOUNDATION
P.O. BOX 3959 ~ CARMEL, CA 93921
CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION MARCH 7, 2006 MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA
TO: Chair Meg Caldwell, and Members of the Coastal Commission
FROM: Enid Sales, Director of the Carmel Preservation Foundation
RE: Request of an Overview of Commission Staff of the Implementation Plan of the Local Coastal Plan for Carmel, CA.
We feel that Carmel Planning Staff consistently violates the conditions of the IP regarding Historic Resources. Our concerns are with the Inventory, the consistent refusal to include relevant evaluations of the Carmel Preservation Foundation on the Agendas of the Historic Resources Board, and the Planning Commission. Following are the violations.
1. After a letter to property owners of their inclusion on the Inventory,
they did not record these buildings as required.
2. Conducted a Workshop for Owners that explained in Planning terms not too
clearly what the requirements are, but did not support the Preservation
Program. Instead they blamed the Coastal Commission because they had
made the City select an Inventory and have such a Program.
3. The City upset Owners at this meeting to such an extent that 93 requests
were made to have their properties removed from the Inventory and there
are only 300 Resources altogether on the Inventory.
4. Finding it onerous to deal with buildings one by one, their next
strategy was to remove 45 more properties from the Inventory because
they were built after 1940, the date that the Context Statement stops
its historic evaluation.
a. The Context is advisory not regulatory.
b. The Planning Department has the responsibility of updating the
Statement every five years.
c. An appeal was filed re these 45 buildings by CPF, and was
scheduled, by Municipal Code to be at the first meeting after
the filing, which was Tuesday, and the Council continued the
hearing without setting a future date even though it was
publicly requested.
5. Since the LCP was certified in October 2004, the City has misused the
methodology for determining what properties are and are not historic.
We need your Staff to examine the their use of ineligible, loss of
integrity, age, and misuse of the Secretary of Interior's Standards.
6. There have been two requests for Mills Act Contracts, Both buildings
are on the Carmel Historic Register. Both requests have been continued
twice with no explanation for why they can't proceed. This has been
since December 2005.
We sincerely request that we can make our specific problems clear directly to Central Coast Staff so that we can be assured that the excellent Implementation Plan can be practiced correctly. Thank you.
After Enid Sales' presentation, the Chair spoke to Charles Lester, Deputy Director, Central Coast District Office, and he said he was going to speak with the Mayor. The Chair made it clear that Mr. Lester must and with what Enid Sales had requested.
On or about Friday,7 April 2006, City Administrator Rich Guillen remarked that the meeting between the City and the Coastal Commission Staff was about all of the Local Coastal Program (LCP)---this was a factually inaccurate statement. When confronted with the reasons stated by the City at the 7 March 2006 City Council meeting, Guillen refused to admit the reason for the meeting was the Historic Resources Board's decision, upon the recommendation of Principal Planner Brian Roseth, to remove 45 post-1940 properties from the Inventory of Historic Resources. Defensively, he reiterated that the meeting was not a public meeting and "I don't have to tell you."
In the context of the 2005 Monterey County Civil Grand Jury Report citing the lack of "open government" in Carmel-by-the-Sea, it is extremely disappointing, discouraging and disheartening to learn of a City Administrator who responds to a citizen's query with defensive prevarications,instead of genuine interest for a citizen's concerns.
Finally, in an April 7, 2006 Letter to The Carmel Pine Cone, Olof Dahlstrand wrote of the incumbents responses to his question on the meaning of "open government;" "the incumbents' replies showed their continuing misunderstanding of this concept which has dogged them for several years. (The reluctance of the incumbents to support an open public discussion of the issues in the privatization of the management of Sunset Center comes to mind.)" Is it any wonder then, that the City Administrator, who serves at the pleasure of the City Council, similarly suffers from a "continuing misunderstanding" of open government?" The City Administrator and the Members of the Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council just don't get it and never will get it!
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