Sunday, February 25, 2007
Michael Richardson - Planning Dept. Point Man
This interview with county planner Michael Richardson took place on Friday, Feb. 16. Some of the issues discussed are also covered in the Executive summary of the Planning Commission report, which can be found here on Eric's blog.
What is the status of the Reggae permit at this point?
The permit has been approved for ten years; last year was the first year so they’ve got nine to go. Part of the approval was a condition that they submit annual reports documenting things that went wrong and how effective the mitigations requirements were.
For example?
There was a requirement that they keep the dust down by taking certain steps. There was a requirement that they have a certain number of firefighters on site and that they have an emergency response plan, that they do traffic mitigation on the freeway and such. The report showed how well those conditions the planning commission imposed are working, how well they mitigate the impacts.
Who exactly is they?
In this case the report was submitted by Carol Bruno, People Productions.
As you are probably aware the Mateel has filed a lawsuit against Carol Bruno and against Tom Dimmick, the property owner, challenging his right to break their lease. Also Dimmick and Bruno have announced a music festival called Reggae Rising on the same weekend as Reggae on the River. Both sides seem to be marshalling their forces to attend the planning commission meeting March 1.
Oh great.
What will happen at that meeting?
We’ll be recommending that the Planning Commission receive and file the annual report. And we will set the attendance level for this year’s event.
Has your staff made a recommendation for that level?
It hasn’t been finalized yet [it has since] but tentatively I’m suggesting that they not increase the attendance levels.
What are the official levels?
(He takes a minute to find a document, then reads from it.) The attendance level shall range from a low of 8,500 ticket sales plus 2,000 personnel to a maximum of 14,500 ticket sales and 2,400. Attendance approved for the 2006 was 10,500 sales and 2,400 personnel. We’re recommending that they not increase it for 2007.
[Note: the final report actually suggests a drop by 1,488, a number whose significance will become clear later in this interview.]
Where does the low number come from? 2005?
Yes. That was the approved number up until 2005.
For French’s Camp, not including Dimmick Ranch.
Correct.
And the highest number is the potential maximum within the next ten years?
Right.
Boots Hughston of 2B1, the producer hired by the Mateel mentioned an independent count of the actual attendance. Do you know anything about that?
Yes. That’s included in the report submitted.
Do you know who did the count?
You’ll see that they signed it. It’s awfully hard to read the signature so it seems we do not know who it is.
This was someone hired by People Productions?
Apparently.
[Not to spread idle rumors, but a reliable source told me the report was done by Bob Barsotti from the Hog Farm. Barsotti did not return my calls asking for confirmation.]
And what were the numbers?
They say Thursday there were 8,306. Friday it was 13,618. Saturday: 15,888. And Sunday it was 13,451.
So the peak on Saturday exceeded the permit.
It exceeded the permit by more than 1,400.
Is that a problem?
Well, I think so. And I think the Planning Commission will have a hard time approving an additional increase, especially given that there's no explanation offered as to why the levels exceeded what was approved. And there was no proposal regarding how to keep that from happening in the future.
A major bone of contention between the two sides is this permit. You’ve been quoted previously saying the permit is for the property itself. The Mateel says it’s their permit because they put on the event. Which way is it?
Well, we issued the permit to the property owner. The permit runs with the land. Any contractual arrangements between the property owner and the Mateel are outside the scope of the permit.
So it’s not your business who runs the festival.
That’s right. There are conditions of approval that any producer will have to meet, that’s what we’re focused on. All of the reviewing agencies have to be onboard, the Army Corps, Fish and Game, Dept. of Forestry, Fire Protection, Caltrans, CHP, the Sheriff. They have to demonstrate that they have the support of all those agencies going into it.
Those supporting Reggae Rising have repeatedly mentioned concerns regarding "safety and security." That would seem to be obvious things those agencies would be looking at, and presumably the Planning Commission would also be looking at the same things. Is there an issue with safety and security in your mind?
I think a lot of the mitigation efforts in place address those concerns. So yes.
Are they adequately addressed?
In some ways yes. For instance the traffic mitigation measures put in place seemed to work really well. According to the traffic engineer hired to monitor all that there was no point where traffic was backed up beyond the Piercy exit, which had happened in years past.
Have you had input from the residents of Piercy regarding the plan for the festival?
We haven’t received anything in writing yet. We did receive a phone call, a voice message from (garbled Porter) complaining about some things, but there was no follow-up.
Have you received any public comments?
Not yet. [Note this interview took place before there was a call to write Richardson with concerns.] We’ve had comments from some of the agencies. For instance the Heath Dept. was not so happy with some of the ways they dealt with securing the permits last year and the work that was done covering those permits.
What do they look at?
They were mostly concerned with the drinking water system. I forget whether they had issues with waste disposal.
Back to the permit, as far as the Planning Commission is concerned the festival will move forward and who produces it is not an issue.
We are anticipating that the use permit will be used.
There has been talk about the potential for additional concerts using the same facility, Dimmick Ranch and French’s Camp. What would that entail?
They’d have to modify the approved use permit.
But no additional permit would be required.
That’s right.
Would you see any major problems arising from another 2 or 3 concerts in the course of a summer?
Certainly the Piercy residents might speak out against it, as the have in previous years. It could be that the only reason they’re willing to accept the event is that it occurs only once a year. More times to them may equal more impacts.
What is the direct impact on Piercy? The concert is down the road a few miles.
They submitted comments last year when the commission was looking at approving the current permit. They noted that traffic blocks those on-ramps and creates an inconvenience. I don’t know that that happened when the festival took place (in 2006).
Aside from possible complaints from Piercy, do you see any other problems that would come with having more than one music festival?
If you were to assume that the other festivals would adopt the same mitigation measures, then you could make the argument that the environmental impacts are reduced to less than significant levels, so there would not be additional environmental impacts from more than one event per year.
What else is on the agenda for the March 1 meeting where the permit will be addressed?
There are four items on the consent agenda. This one (Reggae) would come after any items pulled from the consent calendar. The only other item is a project from public works concerning a Coastal permit for construction on the hole in the Hammond Trail.
As far as the hearing goes on the Reggae permit, what do you consider to be relevant public testimony?
I think when the chairman kicks off the public comment section he’ll have something to say about that. The relevant testimony will be in regard to the use permit and the ability of the county to impose new restrictions on that use. I think they’ll ask that the testimony just apply to those areas and not get into all the other drama that’s surrounding the event this year.
What is the status of the Reggae permit at this point?
The permit has been approved for ten years; last year was the first year so they’ve got nine to go. Part of the approval was a condition that they submit annual reports documenting things that went wrong and how effective the mitigations requirements were.
For example?
There was a requirement that they keep the dust down by taking certain steps. There was a requirement that they have a certain number of firefighters on site and that they have an emergency response plan, that they do traffic mitigation on the freeway and such. The report showed how well those conditions the planning commission imposed are working, how well they mitigate the impacts.
Who exactly is they?
In this case the report was submitted by Carol Bruno, People Productions.
As you are probably aware the Mateel has filed a lawsuit against Carol Bruno and against Tom Dimmick, the property owner, challenging his right to break their lease. Also Dimmick and Bruno have announced a music festival called Reggae Rising on the same weekend as Reggae on the River. Both sides seem to be marshalling their forces to attend the planning commission meeting March 1.
Oh great.
What will happen at that meeting?
We’ll be recommending that the Planning Commission receive and file the annual report. And we will set the attendance level for this year’s event.
Has your staff made a recommendation for that level?
It hasn’t been finalized yet [it has since] but tentatively I’m suggesting that they not increase the attendance levels.
What are the official levels?
(He takes a minute to find a document, then reads from it.) The attendance level shall range from a low of 8,500 ticket sales plus 2,000 personnel to a maximum of 14,500 ticket sales and 2,400. Attendance approved for the 2006 was 10,500 sales and 2,400 personnel. We’re recommending that they not increase it for 2007.
[Note: the final report actually suggests a drop by 1,488, a number whose significance will become clear later in this interview.]
Where does the low number come from? 2005?
Yes. That was the approved number up until 2005.
For French’s Camp, not including Dimmick Ranch.
Correct.
And the highest number is the potential maximum within the next ten years?
Right.
Boots Hughston of 2B1, the producer hired by the Mateel mentioned an independent count of the actual attendance. Do you know anything about that?
Yes. That’s included in the report submitted.
Do you know who did the count?
You’ll see that they signed it. It’s awfully hard to read the signature so it seems we do not know who it is.
This was someone hired by People Productions?
Apparently.
[Not to spread idle rumors, but a reliable source told me the report was done by Bob Barsotti from the Hog Farm. Barsotti did not return my calls asking for confirmation.]
And what were the numbers?
They say Thursday there were 8,306. Friday it was 13,618. Saturday: 15,888. And Sunday it was 13,451.
So the peak on Saturday exceeded the permit.
It exceeded the permit by more than 1,400.
Is that a problem?
Well, I think so. And I think the Planning Commission will have a hard time approving an additional increase, especially given that there's no explanation offered as to why the levels exceeded what was approved. And there was no proposal regarding how to keep that from happening in the future.
A major bone of contention between the two sides is this permit. You’ve been quoted previously saying the permit is for the property itself. The Mateel says it’s their permit because they put on the event. Which way is it?
Well, we issued the permit to the property owner. The permit runs with the land. Any contractual arrangements between the property owner and the Mateel are outside the scope of the permit.
So it’s not your business who runs the festival.
That’s right. There are conditions of approval that any producer will have to meet, that’s what we’re focused on. All of the reviewing agencies have to be onboard, the Army Corps, Fish and Game, Dept. of Forestry, Fire Protection, Caltrans, CHP, the Sheriff. They have to demonstrate that they have the support of all those agencies going into it.
Those supporting Reggae Rising have repeatedly mentioned concerns regarding "safety and security." That would seem to be obvious things those agencies would be looking at, and presumably the Planning Commission would also be looking at the same things. Is there an issue with safety and security in your mind?
I think a lot of the mitigation efforts in place address those concerns. So yes.
Are they adequately addressed?
In some ways yes. For instance the traffic mitigation measures put in place seemed to work really well. According to the traffic engineer hired to monitor all that there was no point where traffic was backed up beyond the Piercy exit, which had happened in years past.
Have you had input from the residents of Piercy regarding the plan for the festival?
We haven’t received anything in writing yet. We did receive a phone call, a voice message from (garbled Porter) complaining about some things, but there was no follow-up.
Have you received any public comments?
Not yet. [Note this interview took place before there was a call to write Richardson with concerns.] We’ve had comments from some of the agencies. For instance the Heath Dept. was not so happy with some of the ways they dealt with securing the permits last year and the work that was done covering those permits.
What do they look at?
They were mostly concerned with the drinking water system. I forget whether they had issues with waste disposal.
Back to the permit, as far as the Planning Commission is concerned the festival will move forward and who produces it is not an issue.
We are anticipating that the use permit will be used.
There has been talk about the potential for additional concerts using the same facility, Dimmick Ranch and French’s Camp. What would that entail?
They’d have to modify the approved use permit.
But no additional permit would be required.
That’s right.
Would you see any major problems arising from another 2 or 3 concerts in the course of a summer?
Certainly the Piercy residents might speak out against it, as the have in previous years. It could be that the only reason they’re willing to accept the event is that it occurs only once a year. More times to them may equal more impacts.
What is the direct impact on Piercy? The concert is down the road a few miles.
They submitted comments last year when the commission was looking at approving the current permit. They noted that traffic blocks those on-ramps and creates an inconvenience. I don’t know that that happened when the festival took place (in 2006).
Aside from possible complaints from Piercy, do you see any other problems that would come with having more than one music festival?
If you were to assume that the other festivals would adopt the same mitigation measures, then you could make the argument that the environmental impacts are reduced to less than significant levels, so there would not be additional environmental impacts from more than one event per year.
What else is on the agenda for the March 1 meeting where the permit will be addressed?
There are four items on the consent agenda. This one (Reggae) would come after any items pulled from the consent calendar. The only other item is a project from public works concerning a Coastal permit for construction on the hole in the Hammond Trail.
As far as the hearing goes on the Reggae permit, what do you consider to be relevant public testimony?
I think when the chairman kicks off the public comment section he’ll have something to say about that. The relevant testimony will be in regard to the use permit and the ability of the county to impose new restrictions on that use. I think they’ll ask that the testimony just apply to those areas and not get into all the other drama that’s surrounding the event this year.
