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Mr. Weinstein stated that there were definitely some comments that were made at the <br />meeting and also after the meeting that were in the "blogosphere" along the lines of City <br />staff trying to ram this project through the process. He clarified that this is a very <br />deliberate process that has lots of points for the public to be involved. He noted that <br />staff is still in the very early stages of analyzing and reviewing the project and getting <br />public comment, and that that it is still many months away from coming to the Planning <br />Commission and ultimately the City Council for a final decision. <br />Commissioner O'Connor inquired how long staff anticipates before this project comes <br />as a hearing at the Planning Commission. <br />Mr. Weinstein replied that it may be sometime early next year in the spring. He <br />indicated that staff still has quite a bit of work to do, including an economic study that <br />will drill down on some of the economic issues that have been raised by the Planning <br />Commission and by the public, such as retail leakage and the impacts of a big box <br />retailer on the community. He noted that staff will also be collecting all of the public <br />comments received on the DSEIR and responding to them in the Response to <br />Comments document. He added that staff is expecting a pretty big volume of <br />comments which will take time to put together. <br />Mr. Weinstein stated that staff is also talking about holding a joint City Council /Planning <br />Commission Work Session on the project, after which there will be a Planning <br />Commission and City Council hearing on project approval. <br />Commissioner Piper asked what retail leakage means. <br />Mr. Weinstein replied that retail leakage, in this context, means that if a big -box retailer <br />such as a Costco or a Sam's Club locates on the site, and people start purchasing their <br />goods like shampoo and fast food items there instead of at Lucky's or Gene's Fine <br />Foods or some other local supermarket or business in town, the sales that were going <br />to those other businesses is now lost and is essentially being transferred to Costco or <br />Sam's Club. <br />Commissioner Piper commented that one of the things people brought up at the <br />meeting then was their concern over the local grocer. <br />Mr. Weinstein said yes. He explained that there is a different way of looking at that too, <br />and what could be happening is that the City is actually losing retail dollars to other <br />cities when people drive to other towns to buy from a big box retailer there. <br />Commissioner Piper inquired what neighborhoods were noticed for the first meeting and <br />what neighborhoods are being noticed for the second one. <br />Mr. Weinstein replied that the same neighborhoods were noticed for both meetings. He <br />explained that the first part of the noticing is drawing a 1,000 -foot radius around the <br />project site, so everybody within 1,000 of the project site would get noticed; then <br />generally the neighbors bounded by Stoneridge Drive on the north, Hopyard Road on <br />the east, West Las Positas Boulevard on the south, and Foothill Road on the west were <br />targeted, and all of the folks living in those neighborhoods were sent a notice. He <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, October 28, 2015 Page 12 of 15 <br />