As we were preparing for the Board of Supervisor hearing scheduled on November 9th, we were contacted by Supervisor Peters passing on the neighbors’ request for a 60 day continuance. It was made clear in our individual meetings with the Supervisors that it was typical practice to grant a 30 day continuance to either the applicant or the neighbors. So per Supervisor Peter’s request we agreed to the continuance until December 13th (not the 60 days requested). During this delay, we have taken the opportunity to approach the community leaders one last time to try to find common ground on the project.

We feel very comfortable that we will receive approval of the project in December. Once the entitlements are approved in December, we will work to detail and complete the construction budgets based on the new site plan and elevations required by the entitlements.

We have set meetings with all of the Supervisors in anticipation of the hearing on November 9, 2011.  We continue working towards the completion of the entitlements.

The team of Chris Schulze,Ed Gillum(civil engineer), Jim Gillum (political consultant) and Tim Taylor are continuing to prepare for the Board of Supervisors hearing to be held on November 9, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. Lux Taylor will be arriving in town November 3, 2011 in order to meet with the team and the individual supervisors and prepare for our co-presentation.

It is with great pleasure (and some relief) that we share with you the Sacramento County Planning Commission approval on September 26^th; while we had a split vote (4 to 1 in favor on the rezone, 5 to 0 on the use permit (the self storage and outside storage) and variances, 3 to 2 on the use permit for the cell tower; we have our positive recommendation from Planning Commission.  The next step is to the Board of Supervisors on November 9^th but with this positive recommendation, we foresee a more favorable audience.

The application review process was substantially delayed due to a drastic reduction in planning staff in January 2011 and unforeseeable upheaval due to further staff changes in Spring and Summer 2011.  While we received a staff report recommending approval, it took many conversations, meetings and correspondence with senior staff and some prodding to deliver this staff report even within the timeframe it was received. 

While we had many more community members show up to speak out against the project at the various hearings and approvals than anticipated, we were able to address many of their concerns (although the planning commission still resulted in 3 hours of testimony and 20 speakers against the project plus 20 more bystanders cheering or jeering thru the testimony).  It was quite a scene and one that we would not like to repeat at the Board.  In order to head off any opposition, we have already met with each of the Board members (some, including Susan Peters, the local supervisor, several times), and have received mostly favorable comments.  We still anticipate community opposition at the Board and will be prepared for that final hearing.

Once we have the Board of Supervisors approval and all final conditions of the approval, we will be able to prepare an updated and final budget.  The budget has already had a few minor overruns since we had to make compromises with County staff, community members and neighbors to maintain the support that we did have.  Those items included constructing new wider sidewalks (a separated sidewalk will be installed on Marconi), enhanced building elevations (including more brick and pilasters), reduced signage, limited hours of operations of lighting, enhanced landscaping and reduced building area (we reduced the proposed project by 1,000 sq ft versus the 58,000 sq ft in the original application and proforma).  We will update the proforma to reflect these changes (if needed after further bidding and cost estimates) but we will also update the projections to include the cell tower, assuming that the Board follows the Planning Commission’s approval of the one cell tower (we originally applied for two cell tower use permits).