HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/9/2021 Item 4a, Schmidt
Delgado, Adriana
From:Richard Schmidt <slobuild@yahoo.com>
Sent:Thursday, October
To:Hill, Robert
Cc:E-mail Council Website
Subject:MND availability for night hiking pilot project
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Bob, in your staff report on the night hiking business for the last council meeting it is stated in footnote 2 that the CEQA
MND for the pilot project is available: "The MND is available online at:
https://ceqanet.opr.ca.gov/Project/2017091049."
It is NOT available at that site; only the fact the city filed one is there.
I would appreciate access to that MND.
I am copying this to the council because, frankly, I'm astounded at the repeated false statements in staff documents
regarding availability of documentation to support staff's conclusions.
As we've already gone over, Riggs et al. is not publicly available, yet the current CEQA document repeatedly references it
as evidence as if it were available. When I approached you about this, you kindly provided me with a copy. When I read it,
I found it did not in fact provide evidence for many "facts" attributed to it in the CEQA document. When I pointed out
specifically there was nothing there to justify the repeated written statements that Riggs et al. had found illegal night use
average 65 per night, you informed me that information was on a privately-held Excel spreadsheet, and you kindly
provided me a copy.
Upon studying the spreadsheet, I found absolutely zero way to get from its data to the claim of 65 historic lawbreakers per
night. (That "historic" claim being based on data from a short sample time.) But by then it was too late to get back to you
before the meeting, so I'm doing that now.
A huge deal has been made of the number 65. Since it doesn't come from the private Riggs spreadsheet, where
does it come from? Please provide me with evidence for that number.
Finally, in 2017 for an identical project, staff determined an MND (Mitigated Negative Declaration) was appropriate
because there were CEQA impacts that required mitigation. Yet now staff has determined an Unmitigated Negative
Declaration is appropriate because there couldn't be any CEQA impacts. I find this puzzling. What has changed since
2017 to justify staff's denying the project has impacts?
Thank you for your responses.
Richard
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