CCMIN072696 - Laserfiche WebLink

Meeting Open to the Public, the meeting will be opened for comment on the f'mal EIR; those members of the public that have information that has not already been addressed may speak; action will then be taken on the Final EIR. (2) The same procedure will then be followed for the General Plan document and aH information contained therein. To the extent there is consensus on items in the General Plan, there will be one motion on all those items. If consensus is not reached on certain items, items will be voted on individually in order that Councilmembers can express their opinions. The Council will then take action on the entire General Plan. (3) The same procedure will then be followed on the initiatives and ballot language and whether Council wishes to submit ballot arguments. If aH those matters cannot be handled by 11:30 p.m., the meeting will be continued to August 7 at 7:00 p.m. If any Councilmember is unavailable on that date, the meeting will still proceed in order to finish the agenda on August 7. Alternatively, if Council chooses, it can deal with the Final EIR and the General Plan without taking further public comment and take public comment only on the initiatives. Mayor Tarvet indicated he made the motion to continue in response to the comments of the City Manager and the impression of the public that Council is not proceeding in a proper manner by having this meeting this evening, even though it is legally permissible. He wanted to make sure everyone was clear on the process to be followed and that the process will be concluded by August 7 with no further delay. Ms. Dennis was not in support of the motion. She felt there was a high element of risk in being able to fulfill her personal commitments to put things on the ballot as expressed by members of the public. The delay was not caused by those at the meeting tonight and she felt the reasons for delay were spurious, especially since the meeting with outside counsel had the support of the Council originally. She felt the object was to delay and she did not appreciate that. When one is in a situation when you are advocating something that is not doing well, there comes a point when you have to acknowledge, without disrupting the entire process, that you are not going to win. Everyone was here last night and questions could have been answered then. Council had an opportunity to submit questions in advance and no one expressed a desire to be included in this meeting other than the Mayor, who had a special concern and was proactive to seek outside counsel. She did not feel this motion deserves the unanimous support of the Council. She also felt the outcome on tonight's decisions will be substantially the same as on August 6. She was concerned about the delay and felt the atmosphere developing around this whole question is of concern. Mr. Tarver appreciated the comments of Ms. Dennis. He does not like this situation and is trying to avoid the impression of "tainting" the process. At every step, this process has tried to be fair to the public. It has taken three times longer than anticipated, has had more public input and debate than any other item in the history of Pleasanton, including the Hacienda Business Park. It has sharply divided the Council on a number of significant issues. As a result, the process is being attacked as unfair, undemocratic and stacked. In his opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a political process that has produced critics who 07/26/96 -2-