2013/01/24 Planning Commission MinutesROHNERT PARK PLANNING COMMISSION
MINUTES
Thursday, Janua ry 24, 2013
The Planning Commission of the City of Rohnert Park met this date in a regular session commencing at 6:00
p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers, 130 Avram Avenue, with Chairperson Adams presiding.
Call To Order
Roll Call
Declaration of
Abstention
Acknowledgement of
Publíc NotÍcing
Approval of Minutes
Conditional Use Permit
(AMENDMENT)
File No. PL2012-022UP
John T. Fenn/Beercraft
General Plan
Consisúency Fínding
File No. PL2012-041GP
Chairperson Adams called the meeting of the regular session to order at
approximately 6:00 p.m. with Chairperson Adams leading the pledge.
Prescnt: (4) Commissioners: Chairperson Adams, Commissioner Borba
Commissioner Armstrong, and Commissioner Giudice were present.
Planning and Building Manager, Marilyn Ponton and Secretary Suzie Azevedo
were present. Assistant City Attorney, Mathew Visick was also present.
Chairperson Adams acknowledged the posting of the Agenda of this meeting in
three (3) public places, per the requirements of the Brown Act.
Upon motion by Commissioner Armstrong, seconded by Commissioner Borba,
the minutes of the December 13,2012 were approved as presented with a 4-0-1
vote. (Commissioner Haydon excused).
Planning and Building Manager, Marilyn Ponton, presented the staff report. She
stated that the applicant, John Fenn, is requesting an amendment to an existing
conditional use permit to add beer tasting to the existing business providing retail
sales of craft beer a|5704 Commerce Boulevard. Ms. Ponton reviewed the
operational and site details of the proposed amendment to include beer tasting
and recommended approval as conditioned.
Chairperson Adams opened the public hearing.
The applicant, John Fenn, was recognized and briefly spoke to the Commission.
Chairperson Adams closed the public hearing.
A motion was made by Commissioner Borba, seconded by Commissioner
Giudice to adopt Resolution No. 2013-06 approving amendment to Conditional
Use Permit as conditioned. The motion passed with a 4-0-1 vote.
Ponton presented the staff report. The SMART station in Rohnert Park will be
located on Rohnert Park Expressway southerly of where the Northwestern Pacific
Railroad tracks cross Rohnert Park Expressway. ln order to construct the station
SMART to acquire a 1.79 acre
Planning Commission Minutes
24.2013
City of Rohnert Park
General Plan
Consistency Finding
File No. PL2013-042GP
CÍty of Rohnert Park
Environmental lmpact
Repor/Site Plan &
Architectural
Review/Sign Program
File No. PL2009-
02E|R/SR-PL2010-085R
Pacland for Walmart
undeveloped right-of-way from the City of Rohnert Park to proceed. The City is
agreeable to the sale of the property to SMART.
Ms. Ponton briefly reviewed other site details and recommended that the
Commission adopt Resolution No. 2013-01 that the Planning Commission finding
consistency with the General Plan 2020 for property purchase agreement with
Sonoma Marin Area RailTransit District (SMART)for a 60 foot strip of land south
a Rohnert Park Expressway and north of Seed Farm Drive.
A brief discussion was held between the Commission and staff. Peter Alexander
spoke briefly to the Commission
A motion was made by Commissioner Armstrong, seconded by Commissioner
Giudice to adopt Resolution No. 2013-01, finding consistency with the General
Plan 2O2Q for property purchase agreement with Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit
District (SMART) for a 60 foot strip of land south a Rohnert Park Expressway and
north of Seed Farm Drive. The motion passed with a 4-0-1 vote. (Commissioner
Haydon excused).
Ms. Ponton presented the staff report. This proposal is to abandon the existing
temporary twenty (20) foot access easement on the northerly property line of the
KRCB property and create a permanent twenty (20)foot access easement along
the easterly property line of the KRCB property (Exhibit C- Existing and Proposed
Access Easement). The new easement would be located between the KRCB
property and the future extension of Dowdell Avenue. This is land that, because
of its long narrow shape, would not be developable. Even though KRCB has
access from Carlson Avenue, because of the location of the building on their
property, it is difficult for maintenance vehicles to gain access to the antennas and
equipment on their site without the access easement. Prior to the terminating
the existing easement and creating a new easement, the City must find that the
actions are consistent with the Rohnert Park General Plan 2020.
Ms. Ponton briefly reviewed other site details and land use policies and goals and
recommended that the Commission adopt Resolution No. 2013-05 as presented.
A brief discussion was held between the Commission and staff.
A motion was made by Commissioner Borba, seconded by Commissioner
Armstrong to adopt Resolution No. 2013-05, finding consistency with the General
Plan 2020 for a quit claim deed terminating an existing access easement and
approving and authorizing a Grant of Access Easement to rural California
Broadcasting Corporation (KRCB). The motion passed with a 4-0-1 vote.
(Commissioner Haydon excused)
See attached report submitted by Kay Leonard, CSR License No. 11599 for a
complete transcript of the Walmart, January 24,2013 public hearing.
Planning Comm ission Minutes
Unscheduled Public
Appearances
Items from the Planning
Commíssion
Matters from Planning
Sfaff
Adjournment
Next meeting February 14,2013. Staff will potentially be bringing a 244 unit
apartment complex project to the February 28,2013 meeting.
There being no further business, Chairperson Adams adjourned the meeting at
9:40 p.m.
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CITY OF ROHNERT PARK
PLANN
: ::.::T: l "' öRflGlil NAü
THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2OI3
REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDTNGS
FOR ITBM NO. 8.4
FILE No. PL2009-002SR/srn /ptZO10-08SR
SHBLL MACPHERSON/PACLAND
4625 REDT/üOOD DRIVE
CONSTDERATION of applications for the Expansion
and Al-teration of the existing Vüal-mart Store for
Property located at 4625 Redwood Drj-ve
CITY OF ROHNERT PARK
130 Avram Avenue
Rohnert Park, Californj-a 94928
REPORTED BY: KATY LEONARD, CSR
Certified Shorthand Reporter
License No. 11599
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APPEARANCES
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PLANNING COMMISSIONER /CNE]RPERSON SUSAN ADAMS
PLANNÏNG COMMISSIONER DAVID ARMSTRONG
PLANNÏNG COMMISSIONER JOHN E. BORBA
PLANNING COMMISSIONER GERARD GIUDICE
PLANNING COMMISSIONER SUSAN HAYDON (Not present)
PLANNING AND BUILDTNG MANAGER MARTLYN PONTON
ASSTSTANT CITY MANAGER DARRTN .]ENKINS
CITY ATTORNEY MATTHEW VISICK
FIRE MARSHAL DAN ADAMS
ENGINEERING TECHNÏCTAN RICK PEDRONCELLÏ
GREG TONKOVICH, MICHAEL BRANDMAN ASSOCIATES
GRANT GRUBER, MTCHAEL BRANDMAN ASSOCIATES
ZACHARY MATLEY, Ì/ü-TRANS
AMELIA McLEAR, T'üALMART PUBLTC AFFAIRS SBNIOR MANAGER
MTRTAM MONTESTNOS, SHEppARD, MULLTN, RTCHTER & HAMPTON
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ATTACHMBNTS &
HAND OUTS
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City of Rohnert Park Pl-anning Commission Agenda
City of Rohnert Park Planning Commission "VrlalmartExpansion" PowerPoint presentation, Jãnuary 24,
2073
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PROCEEDINGS
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 20L3
AGENDA TTEM NO. 4
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right. So, Item
No. 8.4.
And Marifyn, if you'1I introduce all the
particul-ars here, that would be great .
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: ThanK
you, Chair Adams.
Before h¡e begin, I know you introduced some of
the City staf f . I'd l-ike to continue on that vein.
Our f ire marshaJ-, Dan Adams, and members of
his staff are here tonight to assist us. AdditionaIly,
we have our EIR consul-tants, Mr. Grant Gruber and
Mr. Greg Tonkovich f rom Michael Brandman Associ-ates. Vüe
have Mr. Mark Spencer and Zack Matley, our
transportation consultant.s f rom Vü-Trans, and Cathy
Spence-Well-s, our planning consultant.
Additionallyr âs I mentioned earlier on the
dais r r^rê have additional- letters and cards . Suzie will
pass those out, si-nce the packets \,,,Tere distributed.
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We recognize there is a lot of information
tonight, and the staff and the consultants are here and
prepared to anshrer additional questions you may have and
any clarifícatíon during the comment period.
Ilüe wi 1I be ta ki ng brea ks short. brea ks , and
we will have an intermission break into the depending
on how long our hearing goes tonight.
So, with that, I will begin our presentation.
STAFF REPORT
PLANNING AND BUILDÏNG MANAGER PONTON: OuT
requested entitl-ements tonight. before the Pl-anning
Commission include certification of the tlÍal-mart
Environmental- Impact Report and consideration of t,he
Site Plan and Architectural Review and sign program
approval f or the Wal-mart expansion program. This item
h¡as continued from the December 13th Planning Commission
hearing at the Applicant's request.
Our presentation tonight is to focus on the
key elements of information contained in the Staff
Report and provide an overview of the pro j ect. üüe'11
also summarize the EIR anaLysis and conclusions that
woul-d require adoption f or pro j ect approval.
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BriefIy, on the overview, the application hras
submitted for the Site Plan/Architectural Review and
sign program for the expansion of the existing V{almart
store at 4625 Redwood Drive.
The exi-sting store and parking occupy
approximately a 13-acre site, which fronts Redwood
Drive. The site is designated as regional commercial in
both t.he General- Pl-an and on our Zoning Map. The
existing store is approximately 131, 000 square feet.
The proposed expansion woul-d increase the
floor size by about 35 a little over 35,000 square
f eet to a total- of about L66,700.
The application includes changes to signâ9ê,
building architecturer reconfiguration of the store
parkirg, and changes to the lighting and landscaping.
Just briefly, this slide cal1s out the
milestones on this project: The application originally
came in, in '09. The Draf t EIR h/as prepared and
circul-ated f rom August to October of ' 0 9 . It h/as
released for public review in.Ianuary of 2010. And in
April of that year, the PJ-anning Commission considered
the pro j ect and the f inal- impact Final Environmental-
Impact Report and voted to deny the certification of the
FEIR.
An appeal of the Planning Commissions decision
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hras filed, and in July of that year, City Council
considered that appeal and took action to certify the
Final- BIR and approve the pro j ect entitl-ements.
To continue, following the City Council
act.ions, a suit h¡as f ited chal-Ienging their decisions,
alleging that the Final EIR was deficient and cited
three areas of def iciency. One hras the f ail-ure to
include all the transportation demand management
measures; improper approach to the cumulative noise
analysis; and f ailure to incl-ude all the f easible
mitigation measures for greenhouse gas.
In June of 20L1, the Court íssued a decision
upholding the first two claims, but not the third. The
Court foll-owed with an order to set aside t.he City
Council action.
As a result of t.hat. directive, in,June of
20L2, the City Council adopted a resol-ution to rescind
and set aside the certification of the FBIR and the
approval of the additional entitlements.
These actions were rescinded without
prejudice, allowing the same or simíIar project to
return for consideration by the City in the future, with
environmental- review.
The project before t.he Planning Commission
tonight is the same project considered in 20L0 with a
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Revised FinaI EIR.
A l-ittle bít about the tlüal-mart pro j ect. It' s
undergone some changes in the past. It hras approved in
7997 for a total of 132,000 square feet. In 2004,
expansion to the garden center hras approved, which
enclosed that area and added on about another 1,900
square feet.
Currently, the total square footage including
the garden center is about 130,500 square feet.
The store nohr includes space for general
retail, limited food sales, associated support areas,
McDonald's, stock roomsr êntrance area, and the garden
center.
This is an aerial map to acquaint you with the
location. ( Indicating )
This is Redwood Drive, and the store area is
located here, outl-ined in ye1low (Indicating) . It is
bounded by Redwood and Dowdef l- on the west .
The northern boundary cuts through, separating
the Outback Steakhouse and the Driven Raceway from the
lValmart area. And on the south, there is a grassy area,
the area of future expansion, and a drive area and Home
Depot on the south.
Vüe will be talking about Miltbrae later, so I
wiII point that out. So, this is Millbrae and that is a
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county road. ( Indicating )
Just to give you some ideas, this is the
current store entrance of the Walmart as it is today
( Tndicating ) .
As I mentioned earlier, on the south is the
area of future expansion, and over here is the area
between the driveway and the Home Depot. (Indicatirg)
The project. is proposing to add approximately
35,000 square feet to the building arear rnost.ly on the
southern end of the structure. It will- incl-ude f ood
service, vision center, pharmacy, photo labs, grocery,
and two separate new loading docks and stock areas for
the grocery area.
The store hours are proposed to be expanded
from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. to a 24-hour operation, and
it's expected to generate approximately B5 neh, jobs.
Just briefly, so you can see what is being
proposed, in comparì-son, the existing square footage
that's been delineated by merchandise saJ-es, food saIes,
stockroom t têceivirg, ancillary, and garden area
( Indicatirg) , the difference total-ing 131, 000 square
f oot nohr up to L66,000-pJ-us square f oot in the f uture.
A littIe bit difficul-t to see, but r^/e do have
these site plans on the easels, so everybody, including
those folks sitting in the lobby, has a chance to see
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this Site Plan. But brief ly, I'l-I orient you, because
it's hard to see.
Redwood Drive Redwood Drive access points
here and here. Dowdell Avenue access points here and
here. A neh¡ truck loading ramp, docks on the south end
right here (Indicatirg). And I will go into the a
little bit more detail- about trucks and the delivery
rout.e on a couple of slides coming up.
The expansion would also conflgure
reconfigure the parking here, movi-ng it further out and
creating parking along the southern area (Indicating).
Trees and landscaping are also proposed to be added to
the parking area.
This is a department plan, and itrs a little
bit more easy to see than the Site Plan. This is the
general merchandise. This is the area of future food
sales. This is the food sales support.
This is also receiving areas (Indicatirg) .
And these are ancillary areas, such as cart storâ9€,
restrooms, and vestibul-e areas . And this is the pro
this is the existing garden center. (Indicat.ing) So
that gives you a little bit of an idea of how the space
is going to be laid out.
Some of the improvements incl-ude upgrades t.o
the exterior elevations. That is the entitl-ement Site
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PIan and Architectural Review. So, we wiIl be looking
and some of thoseat those ext.erior elevations, colors,
improvements within that entitl-ement.
The plan proposes to incorporate design
features to reflect the mission-style design theme, and
that is consistent with the citywide design guidel-ines
that hrere approved l-ast year. There will be ne\^r ti1e,
roof , âî cade ¡ colonnades t âr.chways, cornices.
And in your packet you have seen and will get
to decide a mix of liqht and dark earth-tone colors,
and set of f by bl-ue tiles. So, there is quite a bit
of change in the exteriors, and we'l-l- l-ook at those more
closely.
AdditionalJ-y,
fence and a freestanding
center which will front
and it will wind around
elevation.
there will be a wrought-iron
masonry wall around the garden
both on the eastern elevation,
to a portion of the northern
As I mentioned, these are a little hard to
see, but this is the east, which is the front area of
the store, the entrance here (Indicatirg) .
All the neh/ trell-ises, col-onnades, archways,
masonry columns have provided quite a bit of
architectural detail.
There will be the blue tiles running along
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this roof l-ine area to set of f the expanse and then, of
course, the garden area and the masonry wall and that
wraparound to the north.
Again, this is the western elevation, which is
the back side (Indicatirg). It's very simpJ-e. There is
no il-luminated signage or lights. There is one plain
channel l-et,ter sign, but no staff has worked with the
Applicant and one of our conditions does not al-Iow for
illumination on the west side.
This is the southern elevation, which will be
our new which will be part of the ner^/ expansion and
the truck-loading and dock area.
Additionally, this is the elevation on the
north garden center here, and the wraparound masonry
wal.I, and this is the existing loading dock area
( Indicatinq) .
A little bit easier to see is the conceptual
view of what's proposed. As we discussed, there are
numerous trel-1ises. Therers an attractive use of a
number of col-ors f or shading to set of f the expanse.
There's architectural detail that calls out a relief
instead of a long, straight, I j-near f ront entrance.
There is relief in the architectural details.
This is J-ooking from the area near the garden
center, so you get a picture of the walkways, the
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arrival from the crosswalk areas into the pathways for
pedestrians, and the trell-is area.
Here, yoü can see the color changes and the
setoff by the bl-ue tiles and the relief, with the
architect detail- and the tower elements. (Indicatirg)
Another view from the parking lot looking to
the entrance . ( Indicating )
This is an elongated view near Redwood Drive,
looking at the entire front eastern front elevation,
so you can pick up the change of roof-l-ine treatments
and col-or changes and shading.
As I mentioned earlier, there wilI be some
changes in the signage. It. will be replaced with new
signage that is call-ed out in the Applicantrs sign
program appfication, which is one of the entitl-ements
they are requesting this evening.
The amount of signage is less than is
currently in place, and it will be limited to the
east-facing front of the building, and no il-l-uminated
signage on the west face of the building. But there
will be one sign on the west.
Just briefly, this is a depiction of the sign
program that is in your binders, Exhibit 5, and it.
ref lects t,he description of the signs that I j ust gave
you.
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Access to the site woul-d remain the same r âs
h¡e discussed earl-ier, from the two main access points on
Redwood Drive.
There are no changes proposed to the current
truck delivery route. And we'11 l-ook at that more
closefy.
tÍe will be making ADA/Pedestrian improvements
to improve connectivlty and provide for safe access for
pedestrians. The store expansion would reconfigure the
parking area to provide additlonal stal_1s and
landscapirg, as I mentioned, on the sout.hern expansion
area.
Additionally, a total of 785 parking spaces
woul-d be provided, which currently exceeds the parking
space requirement for a store of this size, and that
wirr be 556 spaces. so, there is an additional- amount
of parking providedr €Xceeding the current requirements.
Additionally, blke racks will be provided to
hold a capacity of 38 bicycJ-es, and they'11 be instal-l-ed
near the front entrance to provi_de access for fol-ks
coming in on bikes.
The parking Ìot landscaping will meet the
City's standards as required loy the conditions of
approval. And we'f f go over that a little l_ater.
As I mentioned, the truck delivery routes wil-l_
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enter from Redwood Drive. They can come west. There is
a loading dock here. They can subsequently turn, and on
an interior road access, still on-site, come around and
back in to the two ne\^r proposed loading docks for the
grocery area, which is this area. (Indicating)
General merchandise deliveries will continue
to occur at the northern area for the loading and
unl-oading. Grocery deliveries, as I mentioned, will be
down in this area (Indicating). The driveway is
restricted to trucks onJ-y.
They must back in and come out and exit. They
are not to come out onto Redwood to interfere with
transportation by cars and pedestrians. That would be
posted, and that is a requj-rement. that staff is
recommending in the conditlons.
Vüal-mart has acknowledged that signs will be
posted to direct the truck traffic in this area.
Truck delivery area may change when tlüilfred is
improved, and front entrance improvements continue on
Dowdell. And at this time they will f ol-1ow these truck
delivery areas. And, as I mentioned earlier, they have
the option of coming around to Millbrae and exiting that
h¡ay al- so .
I mentj-oned earlier there wi-11 be improvements
to pedest.rian access and ADA access. So, pedestrians
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coming from the south can come in on the nehl walkways.
There is a bus stop right here (Indicatitg).
They wiIl come in on the neh¡ area designated, and come
in to the pedestrian walkways near the garden center.
Additionally, pedestrians in this l-ocation who
are coming out of Outback or Driven Raceway can come
aJ-ong this path (Indicating), and also cross safely in a
designated area and through the parking to the area of
the garden center and be on the pedestrian hray under the
arches and col-onnades to provide a saf e access.
There wil-1 be proposed changes to the lighting
and security. There wiIÌ be new energy efficient
lighting. Vüat.tage will be reduced f rom a thousand watts
to 400 watt energy-efficient lights. The same
low-profile, flat-lens, high-efficiency tighting and
light standards would be install-ed in the expanded
parking area to the south of the store. And the lights
will be fit.ted with cutoff shields so there will be no
spillage onto the perimeter of the site onto other
properties.
Cl-osed-circuit security cameras with high
resolution will be installed, and t.here will be review
and approval- by the Department of PubIic Safety.
Parking l-ot security will also be provided and
evaluated periodicalJ-y f or ef f ectiveness.
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Moving forward to discuss a l-ittl-e bit about
the background of the EIR. It's this sl-ide will- be a
brief overv j-ew and history of what has t.ranspired.
A Notice the Preparation was issued in '09.
The Draft EIR was prepared and circulated for 45 days,
beginning in August of '09, and a Revised FinaI EIR h/as
published on November 30th of 2012. And that is what's
being considered here tonight with these entitlements.
Just briefly I wonrt list them all, but
these are the environmental- issue areas t.hat \dere
examined in the Draft BIR.
This slide shows the four traffic impacts that
the EIR concl-udes are significant and unavoidable after
mitigation. As the Staff Report points out on your
pages I6 and 11, these impacts are considered
significant under existing condit.ions \^rithout the
proj ect.
I f you have questions on these particul-ar
itemsr wê do have our traffic consultants here to
specifically answer them tonight.
The Revised Final EIR was prepared to address
the Court's identified deficiencies in the Final-.
Speci f icalJ-yr âs it rel-ates to the
Transportation Demand Measures Anal-ysis and the
Cumulative Roadway Traf f ic Anal-ysis, the Cit,y has
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undertaken additional analysis for these two topics,
consistent with the Court's ruling.
The additional- analysis associated with the
traffic and noise amplifies and clarifies the original-
concl-usions in the Final- EIR.
The revised EIR al-so provides an update to the
baseline conditions. It does not present any
significant nehr information, and none of the changes to
the baseline conditions woul-d materially affect the EIR
such that recirculation woul-d be necessary.
As discussed in the Staf f Report, the Pl-anning
Commission's review of the BIR tonight is limit,ed to
those issues ident.ified in the Court's ruling. The
Commission is being asked to approve the statement of
overriding considerations that are included as an
exhibit to the draft resolution certifying the EIR.
That is your Attachment A.
Adoption of a statement of overriding
consideration is necessary, because the EIR indicates
that the project, taken together with the proposed
mitigation measures, wilI result in four envi-ronmental
impacts that remaj-n significant and unavoidable.
As a consequence, the Commj-ssion must balance
the economic, legal, sociaJ-, other benefits of the
project agaj-nst the unavoidable environmental traffic
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impacts in determining whether to approve the project.
As required by CEQA, a program for ensuring
implementation, the mitigation measures is also
included. The Applicant's compl-iance with this program
is listed as condition one in the conditions of
approval.
Staff anal-ysis of the applj-cation begins on
page 20 of your Staf f Report. It htas the pro j ect htas
anal-yzed for consistency with the General- Plan and for
municipal code compliance, including the items showing
on this slide.
Issues requiring compliance with the City
codes and deveJ-opment standards have been addressed in
the conditions of approval.
As an example, as f mentioned earlier,
Condition No. 24 requires revisions to the Site Plan to
comply with parking lot tree standards. So, when the
Site Plan hras submitted, and staff has recommended some
changes to meet the City standards.
The recommended action tonight is pertaining
to the addition of the Vüalmart. store, and it is a
permitted use under the regional- commercial zoning.
Based on the staff analysis, the recommended
conditions and findings, this application meets the Site
PIan and Architectural Review standards, as well as the
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sign program requirements.
Staff is recommending adoption of the three
resoluti-ons bef ore you. tlüith that, I ' l-l- concl-ude my
presentation. Andr âs I mentioned, \^te do have staf f and
our consultants here t.o aid in any cl-arification or
questions you may have. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you. That h¡as very
thorough.
At this point, I think, gentlemen, we'IL have
questions for staff, and then if itrs all- right with
you, then we'II invite the Applicants to come forward.
My question is, Do you want to take these
three together t oE do you want to do 1 and then 2 and
then 3?
COMMISSIONER GTUDTCE: That wou]-d be my
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Unl-ess hre approve the
first one, the EIR, we don't get to the others.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: So, letrs take No. 1 and
talk about that.
Is that
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: YCS.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: So, l-et ' s go ahead with
.Tohn. Let's start with John.
And then j ust f or the audience ' s cl-ari f ication
here, members of the Commission can ask staf f quest j-ons,
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and then we'll have the Applicant come up and make their
presentation. Then we'll be able to have an opportunity
to ask questions of the Applicant.
At that point, we'11- invite members of the
pubJ- ic who have turned in a spea ker ' s card . So, f ar hre
have, what 32? And you've got 35 cards up here.
Af ter all- of you who would Ii ke to speak, have
had an opportunity to speak, '¡,re're going to Iet the
Applicant have a littIe bit of time for rebuttal.
At some point, therers a gal over here whors
typing faster than Irve ever been abl-e to tal-k. She's
going to take a break. At least 'n¡e' re going to pin the
responsibility for the break on her.
So, we'Il- go ahead, John, if you want to get
started.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Yeah. At this point., f'd
rather hear some more before I have questions of staff.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Okay.
David.
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: My question is
primarily as it relates to the implications of the
traffic issues in the intersections.
In reading through this, in essence, we'd be
making unavoidabl-e impacts that are substantì-al, and
we'll be indicating that there's a this is one of the
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factors that is considered excessive, in terms of its
impact.
My question being is that, I hras
questioning the that sometimes it would indicate a
preface of improvements with uncert.ainty as to whether
necessary improvements wil-1 actually be implemented. I
didn't understand that wording.
I'm referring to page L6 of the Draft EIR,
"Significant unavoidable impacts, " and bullet "Basel-ine
Plus Proj ect Intersect ion Operations . "
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: You're on page L6 of the
Staff Report; is that. correct?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right.
And is this six paragraphs starting with
"Baseline Pl-us Pro j ect Intersection" ?
COMMISSïONER ARMSTRONG: Yes.
My quest j-on really is, What you' re saying is
that it may or may not be able to have these
improvements performed whether theyrre mandated or not.
I mean, that's my question.
Is that County-based, not our prerogative?
Vühat does the wording rea1ly refer to?
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: ThanK
you.
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I I l-1 as k the representatives f rom tlü-Trans to
ansr^¡er that question. This is Zachr Matley.
ZACH MATLEY: Good evening, Commissioners.
Zacl;r Matley, with Vü-Trans, which prepared the
circulation analysis.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: If you could speak üp,
that would be great.
ZACH MATLEY: I'l-l- make it ni-ce and loud.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: PeTfect.
ZACH MATLEY: Okay.
With respect to the significant and
unavoidable circul-ation impacts and uncertainty whether
certain mitigati-ons can be put in pIace, a couple of the
impacts are occurring at County-operated intersections,
both of them on Stony Point Road.
So, the EIR and the approval of project would
require Vüalmart to pay a fair share towards the
improvement of signal-ization at those intersections, for
instance. However, there's no guarantee that the City
can coll-ect that money and know that the County is going
to, indeed, install the signal.
And the portion that Vüal-mart
is attributable that is attributable to the Wal-mart
traffic is a sma11 increment of the cumulative traffic
growth. So, their f air share is not enough to instal-l-
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the full signal.
Simil-ar types of conditions are occurring at
the other intersections where impacts were identified,
Redwood and Irüilfred, as well as the 101 South ramps and
the 101 northbound offramps at Commerce, where the
tlüal-mart pro j ect is contributing an incremental j-ncrease
in traffic to conditions which are already considered to
be unacceptabl-e, whether or not there' s a llüalmart or
not. But it is stil-l adding and exacerbating an impact
that would aJ-ready be there.
So, agaì-n, these are not things that are
incl-uded currentJ-y in the City's Traf f ic Impact Fee,
their Public Facilities Finance P1an.
They can obtain a portion of the funds from
Trüa1mart, and they will-, but whet,her it' s enough to
compl-ete it is not enough to complete the full range
of improvements.
There's a lot of other cumulative projects,
cumul-ative growth that's contributing towards those
impacts, certainly the largest being the casino. So,
there's other mechanisms for financing those
improvements which have to be combined.
However, again, it's not an absolute certaint.y
that they wilI be able to be completed, since there is
not they're not a Traffic Impact Mitigation Fee
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program isn't already in place to take that.
This they'11 be paying their fair share.
It h/as a conservative approach taken to identify that
matter.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Are t.here any questions ?
Are there questions for this gentleman while he's
John ?
COMMISSIONBR BORBA: ,Just so I'm cIear, the
intersections you refer to are already operating at
above acceptable leveIs at certain times of the day;
correct ?
ZACH MATLEY: Vüe Iooked at di f f erent time
frames. There's the near term and the long term. And
wherever an impact hras identified, it was at a location
that h¡as already identified as operating deficiently
without the proj ect. Correct.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: And did you, in your
analysis and maybe I just missed it. f 've been over
it again today but do r^re have traffic counts
estimated for the casino, in terms of that impact as
wel-l? -- initial numbers that hrere formulated?
ZACH MATLEY: Yes. There \^/as an Bnvironmental-
Impact Statement prepared for the Rancheria project,
which hre rel ied upon when hre did the original analysis
in 2009.
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That particular pro j ect, there \^rere several
alternat.ives that hrere being examined. Al-ternative A
was, by f ar, the largest. That's the one that h¡e
assumed to be conservative.
Since that time, the casino size has actually
been ramped back. It's not quite as large as was
originally proposed when h¡e did this a couple years ago.
But it is absolutely incl-uded in the counts.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Gerard?
COMMISSIONER GIUDTCE: NoI at the moment.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
ZACH MATLBY: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: So, let's go ahead and
hear invite the Applicant up.
How did you want to do this, MâriJ-yn?
You have a 1ot of tables over here.
Is that just for
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: EitheT
f or the Applicant or consul-tants. They're f ree to use
it.. There is a mj-crophone there.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All- right. So, let's have
your lead, whoever it is, come up and introduce yourself
and tell us how you want to do this.
And just for, you know just for the fun of
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it, about how long do you think this part of your
presentation is going to be?
AMELIA McLEAR: About two minutes.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All of you are going to
take t.wo minutes?
AMELIA McLEAR: Just, me. Werre here for
questions though.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: You donrt have a
presentation that you want to make?
AMELIA McLBAR: Yes. But it's just really
brief.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Go ahead.
AMELIA McLEAR: Good evenirg, Chair and f ell-ow
Commissioners. My name is Amel-ia Mclear, and f 'm
lValmart's senj-or public af f airs manager f or Northern
California, and I'm based in Sacramento.
f want to take this opportunity to thank you
for considering the renovation and expansion of our
current store here in Rohnert Park, including the
Revised Final Envj-ronmental- Impact Report.
I would al-so like to thank Planning staff for
the significant time that theytve invested in our
proj ect.
And j ust as importantly, I woul-d l-ike to t.hank
aIl of the Rohnert Park [lüalmart associates who are here
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in the room tonight, along with our many locaI
supporters. Thank you al-l- f or your long-time dedication
and support of this project. It has been a long time.
We are very pJ-eased that the ma j ority of the
EIR previously certified by the City \^ras upheld in
court, which speaks to the quali-ty of the work and
pl-anning that has already gone into this pro j ect.
As you are awâre, the trial- court ordered the
City to address only two issues in t.he prior EIR,
transit demand management measures and cumulative
roadway noise impacts.
And your Pl-anning staff has thoroughly
reviewed those two areas and provided additional
information. And we believe they've been adequately
addressed by the City in the Revised Final EIR.
The number one reason h¡e are here tonight is
our customers. Our customers are telling us they wanL
the B5 new jobs, the one-stop shoppi.g, the upgrade and
remodel of the store, and the economic stimulation that
this pro j ect wil-1 bring.
In addition, I'd like to share with you some
of the recent activities our store has been doing on
behal-f of the community, which are reflected in the
updated statement of overriding considerations provj-ded
to you by staf f f or approval-.
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Vrle are coming up on our ZLst- anniversary of
doing business here in Rohnert Park. And during those
nearly 2t years, Ì^re have had the opportunity to serve
the local community in a number of hrays.
The store proudly donates an average of $3,500
worth of merchandise and vol-unteer hours to Iocal
charities each week, towards hunger relief efforts, park
cleanups and other activities around Rohnert Park.
fn addition, wê award community grants
throughout the year to support organízations such as the
Rohnert Park PoIice Department, volunteer firefighters,
senior centers, and school foundations.
And just this week our associates have placed
two donation bins in our store to help wit.h the Rohnert
Park famil-ies who are recently displ-aced by the
apartment fire.
And, in fact, I stopped by the store this
afternoon, and the bins are completely chock-ful1. So,
hre are very thankful to have such wonderful- and generous
customers.
Vf ith your approval of the Final -- oE t the
Revised FinaI EIR, our store's remodel and expansion can
move forward, and our opportunities to increase
community benef its will grohr as wel-l-.
Thank you for your consideration. And our
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entire pro j ect team is avail-abl-e f or your questions.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Ameli-a, thank you very
much. tlühy don't you stay up there f or a minute.
Does anybody have any questions for AmeIia?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: I don't, no.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
John, do you have any other questions before
we open the public hearing?
COMMI SS IONER BORBA: f 'm okay.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: David?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: No.
(tlühereupon the PubÌic Hearing was opened. )
PUBLÏC HEARÏNG
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Al-l- right. Okay.
So, \^¡hy don't r^¡e go until 7:30, and we'II take
a break there. As I mentioned bef ore, I woul-d like to
invite you to l-imit your comments f or two minutes.
Now, I'm not completely col-d-hearted. If you
have something that you absolutely think you have t.o
say I'm heading into bad legal- territory here you
had better limit it to two minutes.
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PETER ALEXANDER: I like where you were going.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS : I know . Just you and ITtê r
Peter. Nobody else.
So, the first three speakers actual1y, I'm
going to give you t.he f irst f ive speakers.
Mr. Overstreet, Ms. OversLreet, David P-E-T
T'm sorry. You live at 540 Pacific Avenue, lout I canrt
quite make out your last name there. Carol Cabral- and
Susan Hallows. Those are the first, five speakers.
I f you ' d li ke to come up, and when h¡e get to
No. 4, we'l-l- call up the next five.
How' s that so hre can move you on a I ittle
bir?
Mr. Overstreet.
R. OVERSTREET: Okay. My name is Ruben
Overstreet, and I f m a û{almart supporter. My f amily and
all of the rest of the friends that, hre have al-l- shop at
[lüaImart. And I'm sure there's hundreds and hundreds of
f amilies out there that do shop at Vrlal-mart.
You get a good deal at Vüal-mart. You get your
best prices at Vüal-mart. And they are eager to try to
make you happy.
One of my criticisms that I would like to talk
about is our Press Democrat. Itrs the most bj-ased,
lef t-wing paper that hre have.
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It h/i11 put out there anything they can find
about Vüalmart and bl-ow it. up on the f ront page. But
when Walmart comes out with a historic plan to employ
all veterans coming back from overseas and give them a
j ob all- t.hey have to have is an honorable
discharge that ' s not j ust you know, that ' s
thousands of them.
And then the comment by the lady the First
Lady, Michelle Obama, says it's one of the most
out.standing plans there is, and she's going to try to
get others stores to do the same thing.
Now, people that down Vüalmart you know,
this is some of the things that [lüalmart has done.
They've donated 99 million mea1s. They have donated 1.5
million volunteer works. They have gave more than $f
mill-ion donated every day.
The total donations I'm talking about
throughout the country is $28,900r368. And, I think,
you know, you won't f ind any other store that wil-l ever
do that.
Vüalmart is, in my opinion, an outst.anding
sLore. And Rohnert Park is great to have this store.
And f would appreciate it I'm sure there's hundreds
of families out there that will- shop at the tlüalmart
s tore .
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Mr. Overstreet, I thank
you for your time.
Mrs . Overstreet, wel-come to our Planning
Commission meeting.
BETH OVERSTREET: HeIlo. My name is Betty
Overstreet. And I am f or the expansion of the Vüal-mart
s tore .
Therers so many people that's out of work.
And, of course, Vüal-mart is going to put neh, jobs for the
expansion and stuff. So, this is great.
And T., myself I have a mother that's going
to be 91 years ol-d in June. And she still likes to do
her shopping. So, she's in a wheelchair, and she's on
oxygen 24 /1, but I take her to V'Ialmart, and she wants to
do her shopping.
And it would be great if it was more things in
there, like, you know, the groceries and stuff like that
where she can get al-l- the dif f erent stuf f . And it's
very difficult to take her from one store to another,
get her in and out of the car. And I woul-d appreciate
i f you woul-d approve the expansion.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
DAVID PETRITZz Good evening. Thank you. My
name is David Petrj-iuz.
33
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: I fm sorry. I didn't
pronounce your last name properly.
DAVID PETRTTZ: That's quit.e okay.
Irm field manager for Sonoma County
Conservation Action, and \,,re're the Ìargest environmental-
advocacy group in Sonoma County, with over 7r000
members.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: David, would you mind
picking that microphone up
DAVID PETRTTZ: I'm sorry.
Can you hear better?
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: I can, yeah.
DAVID PETRTTZ: We are opposed to the [tüalmart
expansion and the certi f ication of t.he pro j ect EIR and
the Site Pl-an, because \^re do not feel that the expansion
is in conformity with the Rohnert Park General Plan,
which calls for future grocery store amenj-ties to be
l-ocated in close proximity to residential neighborhoods
and accessibl-e on f oot.
The expansion al-so does nothing to address
those concerns in terms of either traffic congestion
and/or access on foot.
û{e donrt think that is particul-ar1y what
has been proposed is really suf f icient. And \^re f eel-
that, pârticularly with the casino expansion that the
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traffic congestion will- be exacerbated.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you, David.
Carol.
CAROL CABRAL: Good evening. I'm Carol
Cabral-.
I can't bel-ieve vüe're sti1l kicking thi-s can
down the road. Vüe got rid of one. We have the
construction of the casino.
Tn regards to traffic, I commuted to
San Francisco from L975 to 2000
CHAïRPERSON ADAMS: Carol, Vou have to speak
right into that microphone. There's people out in
the
CAROL CABRAL: I'm sorry.
Regarding congestion, I commuted from 7915 to
2000 to San Francisco on a Gol-den Gate Transit bus. I
wat.ched the communíties build homes and businesses all
along the 1-01- corridor, past Healdsburg. No one ever
thought of widening the highway.
FinalIy, in approximatel-y, I think, L999 or
2000, they began to do their work. It has improved the
commute tremendously. I¡üe're only waiting f or the Novato
Narrows noh¡.
So, the way that the 101 improvement has
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allowed us to go from east to west in Rohnert Park is
great. tlüe know the casino is going to improve the
extension of Golf Course Drive.
I don't believe that if people chose to shop
at Vüalmart that they are going to be in
bumper-to-bumper traffic up on to 101. I think our
biggest concern is the Green Music Center.
It h/as built. There are no turn Ianes. But
in an event during bumper-to-bumper traffic from Snyder
Lane to Petal-uma Hill Road, that's an issue.
The other thing is, f 'm sure that the majority
of you are familíar with the CNBC, which is the
financial network of NBC. Mr. Lutman referred to the
wealth of the Wal-ton f amily.
CNBC has made a wonderful documentary about
Sam tlüalton and his vision for the poor and the
middle-class families of Arkansas. He wanted to build a
store for one-stop shopping providing val-ue and
affordable prices in clothing, home goods,
pharmaceutical needs and groceries.
Walmarts have expanded in the 48 contiguous
United States, plus Hawaii, Canada and Mexico. These
stores have produced employment, construction, êRployees
at each store, the distribution centers, the truckers,
the manufacturers, and the
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Carol, I thank you very
much.
CAROL CABRAL: Thank you. I hope hte get it.
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: All right.
Susan Hall-ows is next, followed by Kathy, 300
St.ony Point; Katherine Robey; Suzanne Cossette; LiIlie
Gomez; and Mr. McCormick.
I'm so sorry. My sight seems to be affected
by the flu.
Thank you.
SUSAN HALLOVüS: Ladies and gentlemen, my name
is Susan Hallows. f 'm a Iongtime shopper of Vüal-mart.
I'm here today in support of the Super Vüal-mart store.
I j ust came back f rom Reno not only t.o
okay. I just came back from Reno. Not only do they
have a Super Walmart sLore there, they al-so have
Raley's, Safeway, Scolari-'s, WinCo, just to mention a
few.
Having a Super Walmart store here in Rohnert
Park would be would help with unemployment, but also
provide taxes to the City.
Having a Super Ilüalmart store is not going to
put other stores out of business. You'11 still- have
your high-end stores that people will still shop.
Having one store where you can shop for
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clothes and groceries is a great concept. [lùalmart
carries your basic items. Your speciaJ-ty items such as
organic can be purchased elsewhere.
Giving the American people choices, thatrs
what it ' s al- l- about . You don' t want to shop V[aImart, go
somewhere else. This is America. Every store is
entitled to compete with each other. Thatrs what
Amerlca h¡as built on.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank yoü, Susan.
Kathy.
KATHY BROVüN: Hi. My name is Kathy Brown f rom
Petaluma.
I shop at Vüalmart al-l- the time, ât Ieast a
couple of times a week. And I even get my blood
pressure pills over there at the pharmacy. And I love
that store.
I've been in ûüalmarts in Hawaii, Oklahoma,
Texas, Albuquerque aIl over t.he country
Massachusetts.
And this one could stand a littl-e improving.
I mean, it doesnrt really come up to par as the
Albuquerque store did. lVow, what a store.
So, I think hre should have some groceries in
there, too. Stuff 1íke that.
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And from what I see tonight, it wouldn't be
t,hat much of a trouble to expand it out to the south
side. It's a very minor alteration for a great deal of
benefit as far as I can see.
So, I just wanted to put my two cents' worth
in there, and T vote yes on expansion. Yeah.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Kathy, f eel- f ree to shop
in Rohnert Park any time you like.
SUZANNE COSSETTE: HeIlo. My name is Suzanne
Cossette. I am retired from Rohnert Park School
District. I have Iived here many, many years beyond my
retiring time. r'm a homeowner of over 20 years.
I have supported this store since it hlas
built. I live in the H section, and it's very
convenient, for me. As I retiree, the prices are
reasonabl-e f or me.
And I did write a letter to the Community
Voice in rebuttal to the letter that \^ras written l-ast
week. It \^ras a 1ong, Iong letter against Vüalmart. And
I took a lot of of f ense with it. That wil-1 probabJ-y be
in the paper.
And I j ust want t.o say that I will continue to
support. the store no matter what your decision is,
because I will continue to support it and encourage
others to do so as wel-l-. Thank you.
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS:Suzanne, thank you very
much.
We mj-ssed somebody named Katherine.
KATHERINE ROBEY: Good evening. My name is
Kat,herine Robey, and f rm the store manager here at the
Rohnert Park VüaImart.
I've been working here in Rohnert Park for the
past three years and f or [lüal-mart for the past 17 years.
I started as a temp cashier during the holiday season.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS : Can you j us t .l- ean in
there?
KATHERINE ROBEY: Yeah. Sorry. It' s a little
intimidating.
I pride myself on staying active volunteering
in the community and working alongside the business
community in my board position on the Chamber of
Commerce.
Many of my associates are herer âs well as
long-time customers, and I thank you for supporting us
here tonight.
Vüe have two associates here that have been
with us since the store opened over 21, years ago. Vüe
actually have three associates here with us tonight.
I am proud of the htays hte have impacted the
community here in Rohnert Park from the Holiday Light
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events; handing out Christmas gifts to families in need;
the weekly donations from my store to local food banks;
weekly pet food donation to a local- animal shelter; to
the many community cleanup days we have participated
here with associates by my side, jumping at a chance to
t.ake a stand in the l-ocal- community.
Most recently we h¡ere able to provide a
drop-off location for the canned foods and cl-othes for
the families displaced by the apartment fire here in
Rohnert Park.
Many of my associates who work with me and
al-so have lived here in Rohnert Park are Iocal-
supporters . [lüe support l-ocal- school s , local parks, and
l-ocal- economy by shopping at [rüalmart and other locaI
stores in our communíty.
Although time has passed since \^re first
engaged in efforts to expand our store, I want to ensure
that the desire of customers they are still
interested in the grocery change.
I hear daily from our customers asking for our
store to expand. All the time they come in and ask us.
And what we're going to be able to provide
them is more variety of fresh fruits, organic
vegetables, and products that we are not able to supply
them, with the Iow-price h¡e guarantee.
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I do appreciate your guys ' ti-me, and thank you
for your consideration.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Katherine, thank you very
much.
Lillie Gomez.
Actually, Gêrard would like me to ask you to
say where you're from.
LILLIE GOMEZ: My name is Lillie Gomez. I am
a lifetime resident of the Rohnert Park, a 20-year-pIus
shopper of Vüalmart, and a very short-term employee of
Vüal-mart . And, i f you wi 1I, the f uture f ace of a Tiüalmart
bakery employee.
And that's all we ask is that you give what
the people have asked f or, f or years, is the t'üalmart
expansion which isnrt that much.
Safeway has changed over the years. RaIey's
changed over the years.
Everybody, Iike Katherine said, âfl of our
customers come in and sây, are you going to get an
expansion; are h/e going to get a bakery; are ure going to
get a deli.
And it's affordable. We all work hard for our
money, and Vüal-mart makes it af f ordable.
That's rnrhy Vüalmart is as big as it is. Our
customers have made l{almart al-1 over the United States
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what it is.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
Mr. McCormack, we'Il- hear f rom you, then we'IL
take a break of 15 minutes.
DENNIS McCORMACK: f'm Dennis McCormack. frve
been a Rohnert Park resident for over 30 years.
And I remember Rohnert Park from I mean,
ûüalmart f rom the beginning. And it'lI be a convenient
place for one-stop shopping, because there will- be more
choices for people to buy items of different types --
grocery and clothes and appliances whatever
gardening suppl-ies and sporting goods and auto
accessories. But anyr^ray, it will be more convenient.
And, al- so, with more hours, it wi 11 be better
for workers that have to work odd hours and odd times so
they could come to tValmart and do a lot of their
shopping.
And, al-so, another convenience wil-1 be some of
the good things that Rohnert Park I mean, that
I'üalmart has done lateIy.
One thing is going back to the emphasis of
made in the U.S.A. This is good for the country.
And also, hiring vets. The first store to
announce a massive vet-hiring program in recent days.
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So, I think these are set in the right
direction. I think Rohnert Park wil-1 make a step in the
right direction by approving this.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you, Mr. McCormack.
This meeting stands adjourned until 7:40.
([lühereupon a recess h¡as taken from
7:26 p.m. tiIl 7:42 p.m.)
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: Thank you for being in
your seats and ready to go here.
All right. Our next five speakers are Peter
Alexander, David Bhreth, Mary Vüal-l-ace, Tina Hansen-Keys,
and Jeanne Gal-1oway. For those of you in the foyer,
Peter Al-exander, David Ehreth, Mary Vüallace, Tina
Hansen-Keys, and Jeanne Gallohray.
Peter, what do you have for us here?
PETER ALEXANDER: Always something good.
Again, good evening.
As \^re continue to f ight amongst ourselves, it
keeps us from the greater task of fulfilling the promise
of America.
You know, af ter all, it hras Bill Rockef elIer
Cl-inton and he really is a Rockefell-er programs
that blew Ameri-ca's middle cl-ass out of the water. And
noh¡ people are complaining about [iüal-mart's wages f or
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your son or your daughter ¡ 01 an expansion.
I am that f am: [lüarrior poetr wârrior priest,
so too warrior servant unto the least.
So, many symptoms. So, pulling the plug at
the cord. The 4 0-day f reedom lockdown ceases al-I hIar.
And this I say in knowing that Vüalmartrs military
involvement, supplying many sides, like Henry Ford.
Now, that' s not to blame Wal-mart, because it' s
supply and demand. The problem is w j-th the people
allowing this to continue.
And shoul-d Rohnert Park cease penali zing
veterans with RVs, and reverse your decision to al-low
the Vüal-mart people to have veterans, tÍaveling or
otherwise, especially in these times, to have a pJ-ace to
stayr âs Sam Vüal-ton originally wanted, I'm sure you can
figure this out.
Vühat I find disconcerting woul-d be how such a
nonissue is given such time and attention while our vets
by the hundreds of thousands are verifiably being
terminated with prejudice by vaccines, such as in my
report, which I'd like to hand out to your if I may, in
the media. I was told not to do that, but I'm asking
you if I might.
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: I think after the meeting,
we'd like to have a copy.
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PBTER ALEXANDBR: Ilühen I l-eave, T 'd j ust li ke
to give some to her.
Lastly, I I l-1 j ust f inish with this thought,
s ince hre had thi s
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Actua1ly, Pêter, I've got
about 60 other people
PETER ALEXANDER: Again, my call- be to the
vets and the prisoners and felons to step up together
and shut down this nation once and for all, so that we
can open up these doors to a promised land.
I am Peter. I am the one. I've said it;
you've heard it. So be it.
And thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Peter, I thank you so much
for your time.
(Documents distributed to Commj-ssioners)
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: David Ehreth from 49BB
Irüest Soda Rock Lane in Healdsburg.
Is there a David Ehreth in the audience?
(Response from audience)
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: He's coming. I 'm sorry.
DAVID EHRETH: Sorry about. that. There's a
delay out there.
I'm here to speak against the expansion of
VüaImart.
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My name is David Ehreth, and I'm the owner of
Sonoma Brinery brand. We're a food manufacturer in
Healdsburg. We generate about a mill-ion dollars in
revenue, which we return to the community in the form of
salaries and other payabl-es in a year.
In my career in Sonoma County, which goes back
about 40 years, I've created a few thousand jobs in the
tech industry through DSB Communicati-ons, Vrlestwood
Communications, and other technology ventures.
The Wal-mart expansion in Rohnert Park will
have two negative consequences. First, it will reduce
the size of the l-oca1 market for Iocally produced
products whil-e increasing the sales of non-Iocally-made
products.
Second, it will- deeply impact the free market
economics in the broader community. Smal-l--volume locaI
producers depend on loca1 stores to enable their
products to reach the market.
The Vüal-mart business model is j ust the
opposite. And h¡hy does this matter?
It matters because local producers create
value in the community that stays in the community,
creating an upward economic spiral.
The lrlal-mart business model depends on removing
money from our local- economy t cteating a downward
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economic spiral.
And whil-e if I can depart for just a
moment whiLe I greatly appreciate the spirit in which
l{al-mart employees generously donate to the communityr âs
does Wal-mart itself, what this amounts to from the
corporate point of view of Walmart is Indian beads that
we're trading for almost nothing to give ar^Iay the
fundamental economics of this local- economy.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Mr. Ehreth, I thank you
very much for your time.
DAVID EHRBTH: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONBR GIUDICB: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Mary [tüal-Iace.
MARY VüALLACE: Good af ternoon. My name is
Mary Vüal-Iace. I'm a f ive-year Vüalmart employee.
I've been involved with Relay for Life through
V{almart. We have given $5r000, which is a VAP grant,
each year. And what that takes is hours from volunteers
within our store, as wel-1 as the money that r,^re raised
last year. The assocj-ates, themselves, earned ç2,100.
So, I just thínk it's a good thing.
Every single Vüal-mart has that opportunity to
do that with the American Cancer Society. And we work
hand in hand very wel-I with them. And without Vüalmart,
h¡e coul-dn't do it.
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Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Mary, thank you for your
comments.
Tina, would you please make sure you speak
right into that microphone, so all the people out in the
f oyer can hear you, and Gerard as well-.
TINA HANSEN-KEYS: Hi. I'm Tina Hansen-Keys.
My family has been in Rohnert Park since '11.
I'm a 2L-year associate at the Walmart. I am
actually one who does the donations there.
Every weekr wê donate over $1r500 to the
American food banks. Vüe donate $1r800 a week in
cl-othing that shelters homel-ess and stuf f like that.
And thenr \¡r€ also donate about $600 in canned foods for
pets.
So, throughout the time and that's just on
a weekJ.y basis . And we do ít, Ii ke, every week. They
come in and get the food and stuff like that. So, with
the expansion, it would actually give more food into the
community.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Tina, thank you very much.
Jeanne, before you come up, the next speakers
are BeverIy, Marty Bennett, David again.
I think hre already heard f rom your David.
[lflhere are you r David?
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It's the same gentl-eman who spoke earlier.
Then Eric Boehm. Is that how you say your
name ?
Claudia Robbins and Scot Stegeman.
So, ,Jeanne .
JEANNE GALLOVüAY: My name is Jeanne Gall-oÌ^tay.
I al-so am a 2I-year Vüal-mart associate.
And we 've tal ked about donatì-ons, and we've
tal-ked about the things that h¡e do for the community.
I also want to tal k about what Vüal-mart does
for the associates.
As a 2L-year associate, I get matching 401 ( k) ,
up to 6 percent of my salary. Itrs my choice, so they
match the funds every paycheck.
f get stock options. I get a co-pay with my
stock options. I can donate I put money off my
paycheck, and they contribute somer âs we11. So, they
encourage you to buy stock.
f get a 10-percent employee discount. And
during Christmast j-me, that applies to f ood as wel-1.
Paid vacation.
They do wonderfut things for the associates.
And I just want to say that f'm grateful to have a job
at WaImart. I'm grateful- that I'm treated so well.
AII these things that you hear about people
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complaining they don't get promoted, therers a reason
why. f've been asked to be promoted, and I don't want
to be, because I en j oy my j ob j ust the hlay f am.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: BeverlY.
BEVERLY MONTE: Hi. May name is Beverly
Monte, and I live in Santa Rosa.
Planning Commissioners, You are here for the
communit,y and to do right for all. If you let t'üalmart
Superstore fail, it would be a travesty.
The economy has t.anked, along with the
housing. Jobs are scarce, and people need some relief.
I shop at the tlüalmart Superstore when I'm in
the Fresno area, and I personally cannot believe the
savings.
Even though gas is getting lower, people still
need the v,rre still need one-stop shoppi.g, so they can
get some relief. I have no problem spending my tax
dollars in Rohnert Park versus Santa Rosa, where I live.
People are opposed to the jobs that the
superstore may bring in, due to the l-ow wages, so they
say.
My feeling is, a job is better than no job.
And when your unemployment runs out, what do
you have then?
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We need Vüalmart. Pl-ease pass it.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Marty Bennett.
MARTY BENNETT: Good evening. I'm an
instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College and co-chair of
The Living Irüage Coalition, and I live in the City of
Sonoma.
trüe are part of a broad coalition in the County
that opposes the proposed tlüalmart Supercenter project.
I want to tal- k to you very brief ly about the
question of u¡ages at V{almart.
The supercenter wil-1 employ more than 400
workers. According to the compâny, the average hourly
hrage f or a f u11-time Wal-mart worker is L2.7 4 an hour in
2012.
This h/age is well- below a living htage or
self-sufficiency wage for Sonoma County of $19.11 an
hour in 20t0 r cãl-cul-ated by the Calif ornia budget
proj ect.
This ís a wage rate that enables two parents
working fulI-time to support two children and to pay for
housing, food, health care, transportation, and child
care.
fn addition, since more than 50 percent of
Vüalmart employees quit during the first year, half of
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al-l- t¡lalmart workers earn entry-level wages of less t.han
$10 an hour. At. least a third of all Vüalmart workers
are part-time and work less than 28 hours a week.
Most tüal-mart workers are part of the working
poor. The Census Bureau defines the "working poor" as
individual-s who are in families with at least one member
who reported employment income in the past year, and a
total family income for four Índividuals whj-ch is below
200 percent of the federal- poverty line orr in 2010,
that hras 44, L00 .
The income for a
the average hourly rate in
a year and 40 hours a week
26,500 .
full-time Vüalmart worker at
Cal-ifornia employed 52 weeks
and no vacation is only
In concf us ion, according to the l-atest census
data, 28 percent of Sonoma County resi-dents are members
of working poor f amil-ies. But tlüalmart Supercenter will
increase the number of working poor in the City of
Rohnert Park and in Sonoma County.
Two critical consequences. One, the majority
of workers at the Wal-mart Supercenter will not be able
to live in Rohnert Park or Cotati, or even Sonoma
County, and will drive to more affordabl-e housing
markets in other citi-es and counties.
Two, according to the Kaiser Family
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Foundation, in 20TL, 41 percent of Wal-mart workers
nationwide díd not receive employer-provided healthcare
benef its. And Walmart announced l-ast year that the neh¡
part-time employees woul-d not be eJ-igible to receive
healthcare coverage.
UnempJ-oyed Tlüal-mart employees wil-l- t,urn to our
hospítal emergency rooms and public clinics for their
heal-thcare and will access state and f ederal- programs '
such as Healthy Families, MêdiCaJ-, Medicaid.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Mr. Bennett, I thank you
for your remarks.
MARTY BENNETT: Thank you.
I strongly urge the Planning Commission to
deny the application for the supercenter.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you.
Eric.
I would just like to remind the audience to
keep your public display of excitement here to a
minimum. I guess we're not supposed to do that at al-l-.
I'm trying to very politely sâY, "Stop
clapping. "
ERIC BOEHM: Eric Boehm. I yield my time to
Mr. Scot Stegeman.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Al-1 right. CÌaudia
Robbins.
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CLAUDIA ROBBINS: I yield my time to Scot
Stegeman a1so.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Scot Stegeman, vou have
six minutes. Vüe can hear you.
SCOT STEGEMAN: More specific
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: It might be just a little
b j-t louder. That would be helpf u1.
SCOT STEGBMAN: All right.
Scot Stegeman speaking on behalf of the Living
ttüage Coalition.
They could be Walmart, or they coul-d be
leagues of angels. From my standpoint, they still have
to comply with California zoning 1aw, your General PIan,
and CEQA. And it doesn't matter who they are. Nobody
gets a pass.
fn 2009, when they started this process, they
did a base they determined the basel-ine for how the
EIR would analyze the project.
And when they do that, they sây, Okay. So,
from that date, we're going to look at aIl- the projects
that are in the pipeline and what the cumul-ative total
effect might be.
And they did that. They have a number of
pages of it. ILrs in the Draf t EIR. Vühich r¡ras f ine.
So, \^re go f lash f orward. Now, we've got the
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new an updated EIR.
The EIR, however, in the Staff Report says
that in that interval, in t.hose intervening years there
hrere only four new projects that show up on the radar
that have to be included.
Now, think about that. In three years, four
projects only have been added to the mix to make a
determination about cumulative impact. And thatfs not
just for Rohnert Park; that's the entirety of Cotati.
Thatrs southern Santa Rosa and PetaIuma.
In that entire geographic footprint, only four
additional- projects got included. And what's
particularly interesting about that is that two of the
pro j ects that werenf t incl-uded t.hey cIearJ-y should
have been is your Northeast Area PIan.
Your Northeast Area Plan wasn't in pfay in
2009, but it is nohr, and that.r s a biggy. So is the
Southeast Area Plan. That isn't acknowledged or
recognized in any of this environmental documentation.
And what happened is, they lagged. You know,
time went by, the worl-d continues, pro j ects move
forward, and you dontt get to ignore them.
The EIR is not going to be adequate. Tt wil-I
not pass muster until you at. Ieast use a consistent
methodology f or doing cumulative impact anal-ysis.
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And this ain't it. Leaving out two of your
major Specific Plan areas completely off the table is
utterly unacceptabl-e.
Other changes: Pacific Market is tanked, and
they've taken some of the smaller markets with them.
So, consider what that means. That means al-1
the traffic associated with that shopping center is
being redirected as it implodes.
That isn't in the EIR. No one looked at it.
In the Draf t EIR, they said, It's specul-at j-ve. They may
live. They may survive. Someone will rekindle it. Who
knows ?
Now we know. They died. And they're pulling
other ones down with them.
That means you've got redirected traffic,
you've got redirected problems. You've got General- PIan
consistency issues that are now real issues, not
hypothetical issues.
That ' s al- l- on the tab1e, but it ' s not in t.he
EIR. It' s not assessed. Itr s not discussed. Itr s not
evaluated.
The SMART train, that htas passed by. They
said, Wê don't know when it's going to be up and
running. Ilüe don't. know whether it's going to work, and
even if it is, some other agency regulates it.
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Itrs up. They're doing things. And t.hey're
aJ-ready having some amazing saf ety probl-ems.
In Santa Rosa, f or instance, there htas a Iot
of play with some people who hrere driving over, with the
green Iight, through crossing the tracks, when the
gate dropped down and began pounding the roof of their
car down to their shoulders.
So, that's not exactly a safe system. And,
apparently, ít's not safe enough to rely on the federal
or state agencies that regul-ate it.
There is a danger there, cl-earf y, that is not
resolved. That was kissed of f or bl-own of f in the EIR.
Ilüel-Ì, nor^r it.' s real . There is a probl-em. And until
that's analyzed and how that míght affect traffic f1ow,
that, a1so, is not in the mix, and it must be.
Let's taÌk about one other issue, and that is,
going back to the Pacific Market. ft's empty noh¡.
So, you've got a problem that with General
PIan consisteûcy, because you're supposed to be
targeting community services, 1ocal merchants into those
neighborhoods. They've l-ost their anchor Iocal provider
noh, in that area.
And contrary to what some references in the
Staff Report, it isn't sufficient to sây, Oh, well-, they
can drive over to the nehl !{aJ-mart, because' really, the
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drive time is about the same.
Vüe11, that kind of omits one basic building
block of your General- PLan and your neighborhood p1ans,
and that is, services are walkable.
So, it's one thlng to say you can drive back
across town and head down and go to the Vüalmart with the
supermarket. Wel-1r Do. But i-t' s a heck of a lot harder
to do that walking.
So, the premise it undercuts the premise
one of the central premises of your neighborhood
strategy and philosophy, and that is, people can get
what they need in their neighborhoods. And that doesn't
mean afar into town. A neighborhood is a neighborhood.
I think everybody, j-n their gut, has an idea
of what that is. And claiming that t.he tlüalmart.
supermarket will- serve t.he Pacific Market people as a
neighborhood shopping center, f don't think that's going
to f1y.
LastIy, because that site is now available, it
creates an odd problem, and that is, when they did the
EIR and you have unmitigated impacts, you have to look
at al-ternatives.
Vüell-, they said, WelI,,úre can do a restaurant,
but that won't wel-l-r \^/ê can cut down the s j-ze of the
building, and that wonft work so we11. Andr r€a11y, it
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hras j ust not very successf uI .
Vüel-Ì, the f unny thing no\^t is is that six?
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thatrs six.
Thank you so much for your remarks.
SCOT STEGEMAN: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Margaret Pennington.
After Margaret Pennington, Roger Carrillo,
Phillip Jeh1y, .Tessica Jones I am so sorry. I cannot
read this person's name Lisa Maldanado. And after
that, Alan ttüintermeyer.
Lisa, pfease forgive me.
MARGARET PENNINGTON: Good evening. My name
is Margaret Pennington.
I'm speaking on behalf of the local Sierra
Cl-ub and would like to thank you for this opportunity to
express our opposition to the Vüalmart grocery expansion.
Vüe'd like to al-so thank the Planning
Commissioners who voted unanimously to oppose this
pro j ect back in 20L0. Vüe think that h¡as the correct
decision then, and it remains the right choice today.
S j-erra CIub i s concerned about cl imate change
and recognizes the need to reduce greenhouse gases.
The City of Rohnert Park shares those
concerns, demonstrated by its support of the Sonoma
County Community Climate Action Pl-an. It cal-l-s for a
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substantial greenhouse gas reductions, including
17-percent reduct.ion in GHGs cominq from the
transportation sector.
Rohnert Park's General- Plan ref l-ects
strategies aimed at reducing automobil-e dependency and
greenhouse gas emissions. That includes Policy LU-7 1
whlch encourages locating supermarkets to
maximize accessibility to all residential areas. And,
importantfy, LU-1 goes on to state, as I'm sure you aIl
know (Reading):
The intent is to ensure that shopping
facilities, supermarkets are located
close to where people l-ive and
facilitate access to these on foot or
bicycl-es.
A1so, the policy encourages dispersion of
supermarkets. LU-7 recognizes the
environmental consequences of the loss
of neighborhood shopping options.
Vühen a community is served only by a
smal-1 number of large-scaLe food outlets
concentrated in one location, the
supercenter business modeI, essentially,
it foll-ows that more people wil-1 drive
longer distances more often to meet
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basic needs.
SSU economics professor Robert EyIer
quantified these consequences back in
2010 and estimated that the loss of the
Pacific Market wouLd result in about 1.5
million additional vehicle miles' travel
equating to 610 metric tons of
greenhouse gas
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: MargareL, thank you so
much for your time.
MARGARET PENNINGTON: -- moving in the hrrong
direction.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right. Thank you.
Roger.
ROGBR CARRILLO: Thank you.
I'm Roger Carril1o. I'm a resident of Rohnert
Park. I live in the L section. f've been back for
t.hree years.
Irm a graduate of Sonoma State, and I'm going
to pass out a written statement to yoü, and it gives
more detail of what I'm going to say.
(Document distributed to Commissioners)
Vühat you have here is, you have a decision to
make. Does the economics and social- benefits of this
project outweigh the negative i-mpacts of this project
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particularly traffic?
Obviously, it doesn't. 1.5 million extra
mil-es. There's enough there to vote it down, right
there.
The other negative impacts of this situation
is unknown consequences that will resu.l-t from the casino
and the addition of 2A-hour shopping.
I'm a retired poJ-ice commander. f n Tucson,
Arízona, where I came from, after being there for 30
years, üre had a Vüalmart down the road f rom a Native
American casino. Number-one call generator in the
division.
We had I20 police officers to deal- with that
division, and r^re still coul-dn't handle the call-s at
I'üalmart.
V[e had to give up going to shopl i f t,ings to
handle the carjackings, stolen vehicles, armed
robberies, strong-armed purse snatches that occurred in
the Walmart parking lot that t.he employees of ttüalmart
are incapable of dealing with.
You're going to have a bunch of desperate
people Ieaving that casino. There's a crime of
opportunity leaving that 24-hour Vüalmart.
You're going to have a perfect storm of
opportunity of victims potential victims of that
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[üalmart if you approve this. So, the economic and
social- impact of approving this are negatives; they're
not positives.
f trs already been a draj-n on t.his community
f or 20 years, economicalJ-y. The prof its the only
reason that Wal-mart woul-d want to increase the si ze of
t.his is t,o increase their prof its.
They had an option they took in Tucson.
Tucson voted down big boxes, said no supercenters.
What üüalmart did then r¡ras put in neighborhood
grocery stores. So, if Vüal-mart is reaIly interested in
providing groceries in the neighborhoods, low-cost
groceries in this community, then let them put a
neighborhood grocery store at the Pacific Market
l-ocation I i ke they did at Grant and Alvernon in Tucson.
You can see that, on your Google maps. They
did it. They've done it elsewhere. They have a
business model.
I wouldn't support
have an option to do if they
this community, which they're
interests are only concerned
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS:
it, but that's what they
really are concerned about
not. The corporate
about their bottom line.
Roger, thank you for your
comments.
VOTCB FROM AUDIENCE:Can I pass these out?
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Give them to Suzie, and
she'11 make sure hre get them. Thank your sir.
PhiIlip.
PHILLIP JEHLY: He11o. I'm Phillì-p Jehly,
Rohnert Park resident for over 50 years.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Phil-lip, do you have a
brother named David?
PHILLTP JEHLY: I do.
I've been a grocery cl-erk empJ-oyed at Raleyrs
f or over 30 years. So, there's a l-ot of great reasons
that r¡re've heard, pro and con, f or the [lüa1mart, but the
fact remains that there's no need for another grocery
s tore .
I am the receiving clerk at RaIey's. f know
the receiving clerk at another union store, Safewây, and
FoodMaxx, which is also a union, and the sal-es are not
there to support. it for the community.
For years, there hasn't been any growth,
housirg, sor in turn, we've seen the numbers for sales
stagnant be stagnant f or al-1 the stores.
And besides our stores, there's so many great
ethnic stores in the neighborhoods r so there's hasn't
been much increase in business.
WaJ-mart, itself , doesn't serve a neighborhood.
So, in turn, that's going to take ah/ay f rom al-l- the
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other stores that do serve neighborhoods -- I mean, the
closest neighborhoods by six l-anes of freeway. Because
of the thin customer base, it l-eads to the sl-ower
economics.
So, there' s j ust the economics of the Vüalmart
aren't there. The base of groceries and produce that
they're going to seIl is not going to generate tax
revenue for the City, because most of it is nontaxable.
So, what gains Wal-mart will make are going to be offset
by less hours and possibly Iayoffs from other stores in
the neighborhood areas.
So, in t.he end, I think it would be for the
community, the City, and the existing businesses are
going to suffer if this gets approved. So, I encourage
you to not approve the Vlalmart expans ion .
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: PhiI, thank you very much
for your comments.
Jessica. Make sure you speak right into the
that microphone.
JESSICA JONES: Okay. Good evening,
Commissioners. My name is ,Jessica Jones. Irm a student
and a Rohnert Park citizen for 22 years.
Tonight, I would just, like to encourage
to Irm against the expansion of Walmart.
As a young person and a citizen of Rohnert
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Park, I want to I promote the values of social
equity, social justi-ce, and environmental sustainability
are very important to me. And, to Í쀡 Vüalmart doesn't
stand f or these val-ues.
As a young person and a student, Vrlal-mart al-so
does not support a student's schedule and does not
provide students with liveable hrages such as Raley's
and Ol-iver's and other supermarkets here in Rohnert Park
are working to support the students on a stronger level-.
And sor with that, I would like to strongly
urge the Rohnert Park Commission to vote against the
expansion of ÍÍal-mart.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Jessica, thank you very
much for your comments.
Lisa.
LISA MALDANADO: Thank you. It' s Lisa
Mal-danado. I'm executive director of the North Bay
Labor Council, which represents over 60r000 workers and
their famil-ies in Sonoma, Mârin, Lake, and Mendocino
Counties.
I believe we al-l know how rich [tüalmart is, and
they have a lot of money invested in window dressing,
and thatrs a lot of what hre're hearing tonight.
I do want to speak to some of the issues
around employee rights, and, certainly, I want to
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address the issue about the veterans program.
The AFLCIO has had a Hel-mets to Hardhats
program that trains veterans from the hrar and gives them
good entry into middle-cIass careers. It's currently
going on over at the casino, where hre're employing
people in actual trades, with heal-thcare f or their
f amil-ies, themsel-ves, with retirement and pension.
So, to add window dressing at the last minute
li ke h/e see Vüalmart doing is distressing. Because when
you look at the schedule f'm just going to give a
couple of their employment issues.
In 2000, when Vüal-mart butchers in Jacksonvil-1e
voted to orga níze, [^trâlmart closed over 18 0 meat
counters.
In 2OOI, a cl-ass action lawsui-t, Wal-mart vs
Dukes, \^¡as f iled claiming gender discrimination by
Vüalmart management.
In 2003, Vüâlmart agreed to pay the government
$11 mil-lion due to lack of the oversight of contractors.
In 2004 r workers in Quebec voted to organize.
tlüalmart cl-osed its first unionized North American store
a year later.
In Colorado, a ti
union j- ze, but Wal-mart trans
a different department.
re shop in the store voted to
ferred all their workers i-nto
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Vüal-mart also altered a 15-year-plus policy
that allowed managers to l-ock overnight employees into
the buil-ding. Now managers with keys are required to be
present for safety.
fn 2005, ürIâlmart was ordered t.o pay 112
mil-l-ion in damages to 116,000 workers for failing to
provide meal breaks . [üa]-mart appealed that, and later
agreed to pay between 17 and L52 million.
In 2Q06, t{al-mart r^¡as ordered to pay 18 mil-l-ion
in damages to 187r000 workers for failing to pay for
of f -the-clock work. On appeaJ-, the award I^tas raised.
This goes on and on. So, pJ-ease, I urge you
to not support. this kind of business expansion. Thank
you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Lisa, thank you for
joining us this evening.
The next speaker is Alan Vüintermeyer followed
by Matthew Weinstei-n, Kay Trimberger, Eil-een Morris,
Myrna Spiegler, and Heidi Maríno.
Al-an.
ALAN t'ü INTERMEYER : Than k you .
My name is Alan Vüintermeyer. I've been a
resident of Cotati f or over 30 years. I'm al-so a
registered nurse and a family nurse practitioner.
tlfalmart recently began denying health
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insurance to newJ-y hired employees who work fewer than
30 hours a week.
Under the policy slated to take effect this
month, û{almart al-so reserves the right to eliminate
heaLthcare coverage for certain workers if their average
work week dips below 30 hours, something that happens
with regularity and at the direction of company
managers.
Vüalmart has declined to discl-ose how many of
its roughly L.4 million U. S. workers are vulnerable to
losing medical insurance under its nehl policy.
tlüalmart likeJ-y thought it didn't need to of f er
the part-time coverage anymore with Obamacare, says
NeIson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for Vüork,
Labor, and Democracy at the University of Cal-ifornia,
Santa Barbara. This is another example of a tremendous
government subsidy to Wal-mart via its workers.
Ful-l-time workers under the plan who l-ose
hours and slip to part-time at any point during the year
will see their spouse's coverage dropped immediately.
Those workers will al-so l-ose dental and life insurance
policies in the following pay period, according to the
plan.
Under the neh¡ policy, one major offering, the
so-ca11ed "heal-th reimbursement account p1an" costs
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nonsmoking workers $34.80 a month, a seemingly
affordable sum, yet it comes with an annual deduction of
ç2,150, a hef ty expense, given that Vüal-mart's hourJ-y
workforce earns no more than $10 an hour.
I think the Planning Commission should take
into consideration the \^rages being paid these workers,
the unjustifiable healthcare benefit reductions as
having an adverse impact on Wal-mart employees, their
heal-th, your community, and the envj-ronment.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
Matthew.
MATTHEIIÍ WEINSTEIN: Thank you very much,
Commissi-oners.
My name is Matthew Vüeinstein. I'm a student
at Santa Rosa Junior CoIJ-ege and a resident of Rohnert
Park.
I'd like to speak to the urban blight that
exists within Rohnert Park at the corner of the Gol-f
Course and Country Club, and as well- as the urban blight
that exists on Commerce on the west end of orr the
east end Commerce.
Both of these areas have been bJ-ighted for
quite some tíme. At the very Ieast, the corner of Golf
Course and Country Club has been blighted since the
1L
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since Pacific Market closed its doors.
There are several- businesses in that area that
left with the anchor store feavi.g, and it is a cl-ear
marker of the weakening of that area's economic
infrastructure.
That h¡as a strong marketplace during the time
that the market h/as open. And with its cl-osi.g, I^te See
increased traffic, a decrease in l-ocaI spendi.g, with
regional traffic going to Vüal-mart more likeIy than
anything el-se, and a complete lack of interest in urban
renehral due to a Iack of viability.
I have here Professor Eyler's Economic Impact
Report in which he states and I can quote that it
is "likeIy that the anchor l-ocation that Pacific Market
inhabited would be unviable for repurchasing until wel-1
after 20L6, íf at all-."
So, what hle see is a prolonged blight in the
northeastern portion of Rohnert Park that could be
preventable by introducíng some form of urban renewal
proj ect.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
KAY TRIMBERGER: My name is Kay Trimberger'
and I'm professor emeritus of women's and gender studies
at Sonoma State University. I headed the program there
for 20 years.
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I want to talk about another social cost that
V{almart brings into this community, and that is gender
discrimination in wages and promotion.
I have a written statement that I ' I l- give Voü,
but I want t.o tal k particularÌy about the current
California gender discrimination cl-ass action lawsuit
cal1ed Dukes vs. [rIalmart, which h¡as the Court, in
September 2012, said there hras evidence to al-l-ow this to
go forth, and a judge, in February, will rul-e whether a
cl-ass action is j ustif ied f or 1-00, 000 Calif ornia hromen
[lüalmart workers.
There's three charges in this suit. The first
is denial of equal pay for hourly retail store
positions. The second is denial of equal pay for
sa.l-aried management positions. And there's evidence f or
that in this.
But, for ft€r the most interestíng charge is
the third charge, which is denial- of equal opportunities
for promotion to management-type posltion.
Managers within this often say that h¡omen
don't want these positions, or theyrre not aggressive
enough.
But really alarming to me hras the requirements
for management positions which would discourage anyone
f rom having a f amily lif e, but especialJ-y mot.hers.
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At the store 1eve1, assistant managers are
required to travel up to six weeks at a time, are
subject to varied and irregular schedules, including
requirements to work overti-me, w€ekends, and hoÌidays.
Days off are not consecutive, and they are rotated
weekly, and scheduled hours can be changed or increased
without notice.
Such conditions have excluded many interested
and quaJ-if ied women f rom management.
It's also the case and this, I was really
shocked to learn at Walmart, promotion opportunities
are not posted. There's no open application system, nor
are criteria for promotions stated, which is much
different than how h¡e do things in the University.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much. If
you woul-d leave your paper with Suzie, she ' l-l- make sure
b/e get a copy of them.
(Document distributed to Commissioners)
Ei 1l-en .
EILLEN MORRTS: My name is EiIeen Morris, and
I'm a member of the Living Vüage Coal-ition.
f Iive in Petal-uma, and I want to say I don't
think therers any overriding social benefit to doing
business at this time with Vüal-mart. I think that their
business practices make them an unhlorthy partner for the
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City.
And my colleagues have been talking a lot
about their domestic practices, and I just wanted to
give you a little information about their practices in
Mexico and the way that their concern for profit
overrode their concern for the rul-e of Iaw and even for
the antique treasures of an ancient civii-i,zation.
You're probabJ-y f amiliar the New York Times
did a couple of articles about their practices in
Mexico, and I highly recommend them.
I think the most telling quote from the whole
thing h¡as that tlüalmart was an "aggressive and creative
corruptorr" and their practices ensured that their 19
projects were fast-tracked, often without a process
that's equival-ent to this one here.
And, most tragicalJ-y, they fast-tracked a
Walmart one mil-e away f rom the Pyramid of the Kings, on
Iand that the Mexican government had
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: I'l-l extend you a little
extra time. Go ahead.
EILLEN MORRIS: l-and that the Mexican
government had protected. They went in after having
"miraculously, " as the authors sây, rid themsel-ves of
zoning requirements that prohibited a store there, and
of any archaeologicaJ- or environmentai- review they
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hrent in wíth backhoes, where archaeologísts dreamed of
going in with t.oothbrushes. And an archaeologist who
fol-lowed a dump truck sahr them saw pottery fragments
and remains.
So, i f you' 11 read the articl-es, you' l1 see
that the fol-ks in Bentonvil-Ie knew about these
practices, that they were alerted to them via protests
in 2004, and by one of their own att.orneys who was in
charge of getting those permi-ts, and incriminated
himself and told the truth.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Eillen, thank you for your
time.
EILLEN MORRIS: Okay.
Final thought: If you can't trust them with
one of the Vüonders of the WorJ-d, do you want to trust
them with your city?
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you.
Myrna.
MYRNA SPIEGLER: Hi. My name is Myrna
Spiegler. I'm a member of the Living Vüage Coalition,
and f live in Santa Rosa.
I j ust want to say that Vüalmart has terrible
probl-ems with morals and ethics.
And Irm sure all of you heard about the
terrible f ire they had in Bangl-adesh where 111 people
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hrere kiJ-1ed, many more in j ured, and where if it hadn't
been a f ter the work shi f t, there probably woul-d have
been many more deaths.
There \^rere no exits on the first floor and
second f l-oor. They hrere blocked by boxes and materials
and yarns and everything Ii ke that . So, peopJ-e couldn' t
get out on the upper floors. There h¡ere no fire
escapes. Not a fire escape. ft's a nine-floor
building.
It's a nine-f loor building and the top f l-oor
was being worked orr, so there r^rere bamboo ladders up to
those top floors which enabled people on the fifth floor
to climb out on the bamboo ladders and escape injury in
most cases.
So, I urge you to understand that Vüalmart
is that hre that Vüalmart contracts with over 48
countries, and that they have millions of factory
workers in those countries, and they are a sweat shop, a
shop or factory in which employees work long hours at
l-ow hrages under poor conditions.
The fact is that workers' rights are
completeJ-y disregarded, as are types of Walmart here.
Usually, they're contracted wit.h cheap hrages, because
[trlalmart demands to have low-cost products, and sor they
squeeze the workers, the last person in the line.
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The family of Walmart the six members of
the family of Vüal-mart make more money than the than
the bottom third of people in this country. Total, they
or^rn that much money, and they don't need it.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Myrna' I thank you for
your comments, and I appreciate you joining us this
evening.
All right. So, we'Il- hear 30 through 37 , and
then we'I1 take another 15-minute break.
Does that work f or al- I of you?
VOICB FROM AUDIENCE: YES.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Are you Heidi?
HEIDI MARINO: Good evening. Heidi Marino.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Don't start yet.
After Heidi is Robert, Phil, Brady, Greg, Ron,
Phil Tucker, and Carl-os Peña.
Is there anyone else who woul-d like to speak
to this issue tonight from the pubJ-ic?
(No response )
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right. Okay.
HBIDI MARINO: Good eveni^9, everyone.
In spite of overwhelming evidence of the
destruction of existing communities, the destruction of
existing businesses, the destruction of existing
employment, the path of destruction that Vüal-mart has
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hraged all over the United States and beyond is Iegendary
and continues.
It constitutes a race to t.he bottom for al-1
Amerícans in terms of income and quality of l-ife except
for the super-rich, like the Walton family, the oh/ners
of Vüalmart, who own more wealth than the bottom 40
percent of Americans combined. Is that. al-Ìowed in a
democracy?
Tonight's decision, shoul-d you agree f or the
expansion of Walmart, will have very destructive
consequences f or the ma j ority of al-1 of us .
You will decide whether our existing
communities are of greater importance to you or whether
IlüaImart, a sJ-ng1e, giant corporate entity, will have
priority.
I encourage the Planning Commission to vote
against this project.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Heidi, thank you for your
comments.
Robe rt .
ROBERT NUESE: Good evening.
Wal-mart has distributed stickers here that say
ttJobs. tt
The jobs Walmart provides come at a very high
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price. Walmart has become the largest retailer in
America by selling cheaper than most of their
competitors. They've brought their prices down while
still- making huge profits by buying merchandise that is
made by exploited workers.
The large ma j ority of Ïlüalmart' s products are
made in China and other countries with the world's
lowest tvages, worst working conditions, and with
essentially no benefits.
Even in those countries, the f actories flüal-mart
contracts with tend to be the among the worst. Most
of these workers are prevented from protesting against
for abuse and exploitation. In essence, they are
s l- aves .
The ma j ority of t.he j obs Wal-mart provides
across the world are abysmally bad, much worse than the
generally l-ow-pay, l-ow-benef it j obs of tlüalmart workers
in the U. S.
The manuf acturing j obs that I'üalmartrs success
is based on are not j obs f or [tüalmart employees. Vüalmart
signs contracts at cutthroat prices with foreign
factories that. cannot possibly meet those prices except
by exploiting the workers.
Then, when people notice how bad the
conditions are, as has happened in the recent deadly
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garment f actory f ire, ItIâl-mart says, Theyrre not our
empJ-oyees. trüe're not responsibl-e.
Walmart gets the cheap labor but doesn't take
care of the workers.
Expansion of l{almart is expansion of ,
essentially, slave labor.
Some here may not be old enough to remember
what America was like when hle had strong manufacturing.
I rememJoer wel-1. America made usef u1, good-quality
things. Most of what hle had \^/aS made here. The economy
r^/aS inherently much stronger than it can ever be based
on selling what others make.
The decimation of America's manufacturing was
not by random chance or an inevitable historical
deveJ-opment. Walmart very actively sought out and
cuLtivated sources of cheap, eXPloitive labor.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Robert, thank you very
much for your comments.
Phil.
PHIL HARLIN: I've never spoken here before;
therefore, I don't know where the podium is.
My name is Phill-ip HarIin. I'm from
Healdsburg, Cal-ifornia, although I lived in Rohnert
Park. I had the first Press Democrat paper route with
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my brother back in the l-ate '50s. Vüe moved there when
there hrere 3 0 homes . That ' s not my point .
What you've heard here is a lot of testimony
from so-cal-l-ed I think they're call-ed "associates"
noht.
Vühen I was in business, they h¡ere employees.
And they were fairly easy to coerce into saying whatever
you wanted them to. They wanted to keep their job.
Surprised that Wal-mart didn't manage to get
more of them here tonight.
I'm here because I think j-t's important that
the public stand up for what's right, and I do this at
my own expense.
And I am you know, I came a long way to do
this, and there's nothing in it personally for me. I
don't live in Rohnert Park anymore.
I want to say that all the stuff I hear about
the v\¡ay WaLmart treats their employees, I remember when
Sears Roebuck htas the number one retailer in the free
wor1d, and I didn't hear it about them.
I suspect it's not because people are
pre j udiced against the Vüal-tons ' but because Sears didn't
practice business the way Vüal-mart does.
Vühat happens i f you al low the expans ion of
VrIaImart to the community of Rohnert Park is, they stiIl
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h¡on ' t sell- any more groceries here. They won't seÌI any
more anything here probably, because most of the
business that Vüal-mart gets from this community they
you know, it comes from this community.
So, we're going to spend the same amount of
doll-ars here, and we're going to take it f rom employers
and that pay their employees.
So, we're going to take it from employees that
get a good \^rage, and we ' re going to give it to employees
that get a J-ousy r^rage. This doesn't build community.
This tears 1t down.
Thank you so much for your time.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Phi1lip, thank you for
joining us this evening.
Brady Osborne. Make sure you speak right into
the microphone.
BRADY OSBORNE: Good evening. My name is
Brady Osborne. I'm a sociology maj or at Sonoma State
University and I'm president of the Sociology Club. Irm
here on behalf of myself and the CIub.
I can't speak f or al-l students, but I have
spoken to many who oppose the expansion of the current
Rohnert Park Vüalmart into that of a supercenter.
üüalmart claims to benefit the community by
providing jobs for residents, and many of Rohnert Park's
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residents are students. However, Vüalmart's practices
are detrimental to the community and students struggling
to j uggl e wor k and s chool- .
Vüit,h the price of tuition continually
increasing, more and more students are forced to work,
and many end up at retail- outlets I i ke Vùalmart . But
[lüal-mart of f ers extremely l-ow hrages.
The averâ9ê, according to Huffington Post,
being $ 8 . B 1 an hour, not even close to a living urage.
Vüalmart does not work with students to
accommodate their schedul-es. Erratic schedul-es and the
increased need for hours in order to survive financially
leads to difficul-ties in time management and often ends
in decreased academic achievement.
We all know where continued poor academic
achievement 1eads, and a college dropout,'s future
doesnrt Iook too bright considering the current economic
climate.
And fu11-time employment with a corporation
like V{al-mart wil-1 likeJ-y lead one into a lifetime of
poverty, as 1.5 million U.S. retail- workers and their
f amilies l-ive in poverty.
One may retort that if such is the case, then
students shoul-d seek other employment, but that is much
easier said than doner sêeing as when [lüal-mart moves in,
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85
other business move out, because they can't afford to
compete with the world's largest retailer.
With the supercenter, Vüalmart attempts to be
all things to all people. And if this is al-Iowed to
happen in our community, the resu.l-ts will inevitably be
greater devastation to a larger number of l-oca11y-owned
small businesses, and the chance to obtain another,
better job will disappear.
Wal-mart has the means to pay its workers a
better, more Ìivable h¡age, offer health insurance, and
support the needs and goals of students.
Many student.s work because, 1i ke everybody
else, our livel-ihood depends on it. They may be on
financial aid or come from disenfranchised backgrounds.
Either wây, they're suffering in the current economic
cl-imate.
But Vüalmart isn't suf f ering. They paid six of
their top executives $59 miLlion l-ast year, yet they
refuse to value their retail workers.
So, we ask you to stop the proposed expansion.
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: Thank you for your
comments tonight.
Greg. Are you Greg?
RON LOPEZ: Irm Ron.
(Pause in proceedings)
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS : Ron, r^¡hy don' t you go
ahead? Thank you.
RON LOPBZ: My name is Ron Lopez. I'm a
resident of Santa Rosa, âfthough I was previously a
resident of Rohnert Park. Moved here in the year 2005
to take a job at Sonoma State University where Irm
currently employed as an associate professor.
f would Iike to st.and with my col-Ieague, Marty
Bennett, and also Scot I'm sorry, I didn't get his
l-ast name who gave the brilliant comment on the BIR,
about how it doesnrt account for other projects that
will affect the City of Rohnert Park.
I also want to say that I am old enough to
remember things when they h¡ere a little bit different in
this country. And I remember even moving here in 2005
and seeing these smaII ma11s, these 1itt1e shopping
centers, like the one on Snyder, and how, you know, even
though there hras some of the stores, I was li ke, you
know, How can they possibly stay open?
But they were staying open. There was a lot
of rich commerce here. Every little shopping center,
even the ones that turned over a 1ot, they stayed there,
you know, f or a while. And then h¡e hit the bust.
And whatrs going to happen here , if the
supercenter opens, is what has happened in Michi-gan,
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hrhere my wif e's f amily is f rom. And you go there, and
they have supercenters, and they have another chain
cal-1ed "Meyer'sr " and Target, and everything eIse.
And íf you are an independent entrepreneur and
you want to start a smal-l- business that's capitalism,
with a small- C, like citizen you cannot do it,
because it is impossible to start a small- business.
Yourve got to compete against these J-arge centers, and
it ' s very di fficult .
Now, I agree with the student that was right
ahead of me. I agree with a lot of other people who
oppose the expansion of the supercenter for al-1 the
reasons, but, although I think most of my friends regard
me as a radical Iefti-st, I do bel-ieve in small
enterprise and sma1l business, the type of capitalism
that. all of us can engage in and bel-ieve in on a
day-to-day basis.
Pl-ease say no to the expansion of [lüalmart.
Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Ron, thank you very much.
Phil Tucker.
PHIL TUCKER: Yes. My name is PhiI Tucker. I
have an office in Martinez. I'm project director for
California Healthy Communities Network.
Irm here pretty much to cal-l- attention to Mark
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Wolfe's communication with you. Mark works with us very
closefy, and especially on projects big-box projects
and several- other items that h¡e've been active in f or
the past ten years.
I would like to caÌl attention to one a
couple of things in his letter. First of all, that the
Court order didn't certify the original DEIR, because it
hras def icient.
And hre actualJ-y provided some testimony at
that initial hearing, pointì-ng out many of the things
that are in the l-awsuit that, basíca11y, was favored
the opponents to t'üalmart.
However, there's been substantial procedural
deficiencies identified, and (Inaudible) the neh/
information for public review and comment by both the
letter and spirit of this Court's rulíng. And it's
improper. In fact, I thínk that itrs going to protract
this whole process.
Another thing that's in here, the new analysis
adopts an entirely different methodology to measure
noise levels and (Inaudible) significance, not usage'
to measure noise levels. The changês, in themselves,
trigger a duty under CEQA, to research this the
revised draft.
Thank you very much.
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CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much,
Mr. Tucker.
Carl-os Pena.
CARLOS PENA: Hi . My name j- s Carlos Pena .
Irm a resident. I 1ive, work, PlâY, and I'm an active
ci-ti zen here in Rohnert Park.
The reason I^Ihy f rm here is, I come here f or
support of the ïüalmart expansion, and these are the
reaSOnS I^Ihy.
I'm a family man, a family man on a budget.
I've broken down my budget, my wife and 1t every given
month.
Vüe l-ive according to our means. Vüe have
I'm not saying ûrlal-mart gets the top is the f irst of
my picks, but I have three stores where I spend my
money: Costco, number one, hre al1 know f or the bulk
sal-es. Spend about $200 there. I spend money at
Grocery Outlet. And I spend money at ttüalmart.
So, again, in terms of what I see as far as
Vüalmart, I support Vùal-mart because it f i11s the grocery
and the home essential needs.
V{hy f support it is because of the growth for
jobs, the revenue for City City revenues. Much more
for the community partnership than LittIe Leagues.
But one thing I think werre forgetting and
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\^rerre missirg, and that is, every time when I'm at
Ílüalmart, f interact with the members there that work
there, the associates.
There's a huge Hispanic population that work
there. More than 50 percent are Hispanic workers at
IlüaImart. 20 percent of the population of Rohnert Park
is Hispanic.
And when f ask them, Hey, listen, I want to
ask you a personal question, Are you mistreated? Is it
unf air here to work at Vüalmart? I j ust need to know.
Carlos, No. They tell Íìêr No, no. hle need
j obs . Ilüe need to f eed our f amilies . [lüe need to provide
food on the table.
And they te11 Írêr of course, in Spanish.
That's exactly what it is. Thatrs what I'm
there for.
Vdhen it comes to feeding your family and
putting food on the table and it is your job, it's not.
much different than any other place, whether it be
Target, Grocery Outlet, or anywhere el-se. It I s al-l- the
same, to a certain degree.
If you look at the budget l-et's speak to
all the other given employees. That's why I support
Íüalmart.. Theyrre active in the community, they promote
jobs, and they have fantastic people working there.
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Thank you.
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: Carlos, thank you very
much.
Kimberly. Last speaker, Kimberly.
Now, before you come up or t before you
speak, KimberIy, is there anyone el-se?
This is your l-ast chance. You have two
minutes to make up your mind here.
(No response )
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Okay. Go ahead.
KIMBERLY: Good evening. I am a district HR
manager for Walmart.
I'm very thankful to be here this evening.
And I have heard so many heartwarming stories, and I've
heard a lot of concerns. And I'd like to address a
couple of those, and I will be speaking from facts,
being a hiring manager and being a female at Walmart.
So, a little hístory on myself. I came from
Sears bef ore I came to VüaÌmart. And prior to Sears, T
came from production manufacturing as a hiring manager.
So, I will say my time with llüalmart, the three
years that I have been here, I am so proud to say what a
wonderful job hle do of promoting diversity in the
workplace, a wonderf ul- j ob hIe do of promoting h¡omen.
We have a female store manager in Rohnert Park
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hrho \^¡as promoted t,hrough the ranks as a cashier. I
think that says a lot about us.
Vüe have four female managers salary members
and managers in our Walmart Rohnert Park store that have
been promoted up through the ranks.
So, I just wanted to speak to the equal
opportunities that h/e have as \^tomen at Vüalmart.
Our regional- was a f emal-e. Our divisional
general manager is a female. Our vice president of
operations is a female. So, I did want to speak to
those truths.
I think there's a l-ot of rumors. I donrt know
how rumors get out there. It happens everywhere h¡e go,
and I did want to dispel those.
Vüalmart promotes h¡omen. [rTe're proud to be
women members of management in TlüaImart.
And that's the wonderf ul- thing about Vüal-mart:
15 percent of our managers have been promoted within. A
1ot of opportunity, a lot of equal opportuníty.
And hre woul-d like to hear your concerns, and
we woul-d l-i ke to work with each one of the citi zens '
concerns.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
Ten minutes. This meeting stands adjourned
till 8:55.
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([lühereupon a recess was taken from
8:45 p.m. til-] 9:00 p.m.)
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: I 'd Ii ke to cal-1 this
meeting back to order.
So, i s t.here anyone el- se f rom the publ ic
wishing t,o speak to this application, because this is
where the guy performing the wedding says, Speak noh¡ or
forever hold your peace.
Because once h,e close the public hearing, you
can't stand up and sây, I have one more thing to say.
(No response )
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: Seeing none, this public
hearing is closed.
([lühereupon the Publ-ic Hearing r^ras cl-osed. )
CONSULTANT COMMENTS, COMMISSION DISCUSSION, AND
CONS]DBRATION OF RESOLUTIONS
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Okay.
So, Marilyn, hrhy don't you give us a little
path forward here.
t{e're going to hear f rom the Applicants;
right ?
PLANNING AND BUILDTNG MANAGER PONTON: That's
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correct, Chair.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: And theyrre going to have
an opportunity to make comment on things that were said?
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: ThAtIS
correct.
CHATRPERSON ADAMS: And then this these
fol-ks over here? (Indicating)
PLANNTNG AND BUTLDING MANAGER PONTON: These
are the City's staf f members and our consul-tants who
will address and provide clarification to the Planning
Commission on some of the comments that h¡ere made.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: AII right.
So, Amelia, are you going to no. You have
a neh¡ person there.
v,rhy don't you come on up and tel-1 us your name
and where you're from and your position.
MIRIAM MONTESINOS: Good evenirg, Chair,
Members of the Commission. Miriam Montesinos with
Sheppard Mullin, here on behal-f of Vüal-mart. ûüe are the
law firm representing Walmart.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: And your namet ãgain, is?
MIRIAM MONTESINOS: Miriam Montesinos. That's
a long one. I can give you the card.
I know everybody loves to hear from attorneys
at the end of a long night, so I figured I would get up
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here and
Iong night
ways to go
that hrere
the pubJ- ic
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: This isn'
. Vüe have a long \^¡ays to go.
MIRIAM MONTBS f NOS : I know hle
. Hopefully not too long.
I did want to address just a
raised by some of the peopJ-e
t,estimony.
t the end of a
do have a long
couple of points
tonight during
There h¡as some discussion about some issues
like traffic and urban decay. And one of the things we
need to keep in mind, which the Staff Report does point
out, is that the EIR and those j-ssues hrere legally
challenged before, and the trial court did not uphold
those issues.
So, the trial court came back and said, Your
traf f ic anal-ysis is f ine. Your list of cumulative
projects is fine. Your urban decay analysis is fine.
The only thing the trial- court said that the
City needed to go back and Look at again were nine
transit demand measures that the opposition had raised
that hrere responded to, but g1oba11y, not individually.
So, the court said, Can you please go back and
respond to each and every one of them individualJ-y? And
then, the roadway cumulatlve roadway noise ana.l-ysis.
So, not the entire roadway noise anal-ysis, just the
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cumul-ative. Not the entire, j ust the cumulative roadway
noise anal-ysis.
So, with that direct.ion from the Court, which
hras very cl-ear Don't loother looking at anything el-se
again. Just look at those two things the City sat
down and decided, Vühat do hte do now?
And they had two options, as the Staff Report
lays out. They could either do those anal-yses, and
depending on the result, recircul-ate an EIR, or they
could do those analyses, and if the results didn't
trigger recirculation, put them into a Revised Final
EIR.
And the CEQA guidelines lay out very specific
tests f or when recircul-ation is hrarranted. And you can
go on t.heir the City Attorney, I 'm sure, can wal k you
through them one by one but there's four instances
under which information is deemed neh¡ information that
warrants recirculation.
Your City staff went through the analysis of
those four instances and determined that neither orr
none of them were met, and so a recirculation bras not
h¡arranted.
Now, Mr. Vùol f e, as Mr. Tucker pointed out, has
alle9ed, Wel-l-, there is inf ormation out there, and you
l-ooked at methodol-ogy, so you need to recirculate.
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It's not an automatic that just because you
look at things again, and because you have neh¡
information, you have to recirculate.
Again, the test is, Is it nerr, significant
information?
If you had to recirculate every time you put
together the information, you would just have an endless
run of recirculation over and over again. And the
Iegislature has made it very, very clear that
recirculation is the exception. It's the exception, not
the rule.
And sor with all that in mind, your City staff
Iooked at the two i s sues that hlere be f ore them, and
determined that doing a Revised Final- EIR was the
tegally appropriate way to go about it.
And I think they did a very thorough job,
AmeIia said during her openlng presentation, of
addressing those issues.
I know there's still a lot that people want to
tal k about, but r think hre 've got to come back and keep
f ocused on what the j udge said \de needed to look ât,
which is those nine measures and the cumulative roadway
noise analysis.
And that's all I have to say. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
91
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Ts there anyone else from VÍalmart wishing to
speak to the Commissioner?
(No response )
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: No.
Does do any members of the Commission have
questions for Vüalmart representatives before h¡e move on
to these gent l-emen over here?
(No response )
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right, then. Vüe'll-
turn a moment over here to f want to go to Marilyn,
or I want Marilyn?
PLANNING AND BUILD]NG MANAGER PONTON: Yes.
Thank your Chair. I'd like to introduce, as
hre mentioned at the begínning of the presentatj-on,
Mr. Grant Gruber of Michael- Brandman; his assoc j-ate,
Mr. Tonkovich; Mr. Zack Matley of I'ü-Trans; and our
Assistant City Managêrr Darrin Jenkins.
Grant, f ' 11 turn it over to you t,o begin.
GRANT GRUBER: Good evening, Chair, Members of
the Pl-anning Commission.
My name is Grant Gruber from the firm of
Michael- Brandman & Associates. I would like to address
some comments made by Mr. Stegeman regarding what were
some alJ-eged changes to the basel-ine in the Revised
Final- EIR.
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And, first off, as stated in your Staff
Report, the Court had directed the City to look at two
very specific issues: The transportation demand
management and the roadway the cumulative roadway
analysis. So, hre're only looking at two j-ssues.
So, on pages 1-2 and 1-3 of the Revised Final-
EIR, we note that there h¡ere some changes to the
basel-ine conditions that occurred bet,ween the Draft EIR
that hras released ín August of 2009 and t.oday, which is
2013.
And so¡ I'11 just wal-k you through those f our
changes here
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Vühat page are you on?
GRANT GRUBER: Page 1-2 of the Revised Final-
EÏR.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Hol-d on j ust a moment, i f
you woul-d.
(Pause in proceedings)
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Okay. Go ahead.
GRANT GRUBER: First is the completion of
US-l-01 Vüilfred Avenue Golf Course Drive west.
interchange.
And as probably everyone knows, that
interchange is nor^r f ulJ-y complete. You can drive
through Ilüi1f red. It connects to Gol-f Course.
99
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And what the Draf t. BTR had said h¡as, This is
currently under construction. ït's anticipat.ed for
completion.
All we're simply saying is, It's nohl compl-ete.
So, really, that's not new information.
Second one is the planned widening of Vüilfred
Avenue as part of the development of the casino. Last
September, the City, the County, and the Federated
Indians of the Rancheria entered into a Joint Exercise
Powers of Agreement to implement this improvement.
Again, our traffic study had accounted for the
planned widening. Vüe simply acknowledged that there's
now a concrete deal in place to actually happen. Again,
not new information.
Third one, two planned deveJ-opment two
planned land development projects h¡ere approved or have
commenced construction, incl-uding the casj-no and the
Oxford Suites, McDonald' s.
Again, the Draft EIRf s traffic analysis
accounted for both the casino and the Oxford Suites and
McDonald's.
So, again, ure' re not disclosing neh¡
inf ormati-on. l¡tre're simply updating the reader as to the
status of those planned projects.
The final one is the rel-ocation of the Rohnert
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Park SMART station. So, what happened \^Ias, obviously,
in 2009, it hras contemplated at Roberts Lake Road. Now
it's about a mile-and-a-hal-f south, at the Expresshray.
So, r^re discussed, How did that change affect
any conclusj-ons from the Draft EIR to the Revised Final
EIR?
It reaJ-1y did not materially affect any
conclusions. So, al-t hre did hras simpì-y provide an
informational- service here, and, ãgain, the conclusions
are unchanged.
So, I'm going to ask Zack Matley no\^t to
address Mr. Stegeman's comments about the Northeast Area
PIan and the Southeast Area Pl-an.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Northeast or Northwest?
7,ACH MATLEY: He mentioned Northeast, but I
can talk to Northwest as wel-l.
So, again, Zack Matley with W-Trans.
So, one of the questions hras whether these
projects, Southeast Area Plan, Northeast. Area Plan, and,
for that matter, Northwest Area Plan h¡ere included as a
basel-ine condition. And they h¡ere not.
We went through the list of impending and
baseline pro j ects, what Ì^re think, essentiaf f y, would be
built as of 20L2, with staff at that time, and those
projects were they're included in the General PIan,
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but it wasn't envisioned that they would be generating
traffic and occupied by the baseline condition, which is
essentiaJ-1y no\^r and next year.
And that \^/as correct, as it turns out. Those
projects are not under construction or compl-ete. Those
projects are, however, al-1 included in the cumulative
Traffic Anal-ysis which is t.he General PÌan Build-Out
2035 Anal-ysis, which, again hre did a f ull analysis of
impacts and mitigation measures for traffic circulation.
The traffic generated by those projects has
been and the land use envisioned in those Specific
Plans has been included in the General- Plan since 2000,
and the modeJ-ing has included the traffic generated by
those developments as wel-l-.
So, in the cumulative analysis, aIl of the
traffic associated with those projects has been
cons idered.
CHAïRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
GREG TONKOVICH: Hi. f'm Greg Tonkovich. f'm
the noise analyst for Michael Brandman & Associates, and
I prepared the noise sect.ion of the EIR.
And there hras questions about not using the
same methodology ürrìr we11, f i-rst I wanted to explain
one thing.
The project impact on this I found the
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model ing f ound h¡as zero. The max j-mum increase that the
roads -- the project increase on the roadway was 0.7
decibel-s.
If I -- if you guys were in a lab with no
other noise in the room, just perfectly quiet, and I had
a microphone, turned on I hit a button, and then I
hit another button, the Iowest l-eveI you would be abl-e
to telI the difference in noise is 3 decibels.
This is rn/ay below that what actually
anybody coul-d ever notice, just to clarify that ure're
talking decimal points. I mean, it's really Iow leve1s
of proj ect noises.
But anyhray, I was questioned about the
methodol-ogy. So, aft.er hIe got the court order, hre had
several- meetings with City staff, and hre went through
aIl- the different EIRs that the City has done and how
they've analyzed the methodol-ogy.
The City is cl-ear on their standards. If
you're going to build nehr residential, they tel-I you
it's 60 decibel-s. That's how loud your impacts are.
But the City General Plan doesn't clarify what
the threshol-d is if your pro j ect increases the noise,
how much you can, so Ì^¡e had to rely on Caltrans
thresholds instead.
The original- EIR went into aIl- that. lüe j ust
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re-laid it out in a very concise hray so that you could
really see the two-step process of the what defines a
cumulative impact.
Wel-1, going through al-l- these steps, hre wanted
to make it as precise as possible. And so¡ hre went on
to Google Earth and measured the distance to each home
for each roadway segment.
The in the original- E f R, I^¡e j ust used a
standard hundred feet, which has been used it's an
industry standard, but hre wanted to provide more
information, so hre more precise information, so
that's h¡hy we did that.
And h¡e al-so used a general residential
standard in the first EIR of 60 decibels for every
street, and h/e went back to be more precise.
And for the commercial the streets that
only had commercial- uses on themr wê analyzed it with
the commercial standard of '70 decibels, because that's
the more precise standard for that street.
Those are the only changes. So, there hras no
different I used the same model- the noise model is
exactì-y the same as the original- one. So, there hras no
different methodology used in analyzing this the
Revised Noise Anal-ysis.
GRANT GRUBER: And just to confirm, the same
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concl-usions r^rere f ound, that the pro j ect would not have
a significant cumul-ative contribution to ambient roadway
noise Ievels.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
Any questions?
Let's start with John.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Umr ûo, not right now.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Okay.
David.
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: NO.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: GeTaTd.
COMMI SS TONER GIUDICE : No . But I woul-d I i ke
to hear from Darrin at one point to talk about the
strategy with regards to the traffic impacts by Stony
Point and the signal, and how that's all going to fit
and with a cl-ear understanding
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Tal-k into your microphone.
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: Irm sorry with just
a cl-ear clarif ication as to how that's going to happen
and how that's going to be paid for and what exactly is
happening there.
DARRIN JENKINS: Thank your Madam Chair and
Commissioners.
Since as h¡as mentioned by Mr. Gruber, the
City has entered into an agreement with the County and
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r^rith the Triloe that fu11y funds construction of the
widening of Wilfred Avenue and al-so the construction of
the traffic signal that h¡as mentioned earlier at tltilfred
and Stony Point Road.
So, conservatively you heard Mr. Matley
sây, conservativeJ-y, they said that it's significant and
unavoidable because the City can't make that signal
happen; the County has to make it happen.
And funding alone wonrt make it happen. The
County has to make it. happen.
The County has entered into an agreement. with
the City and the Tribe that that signal is designed and
will be under construction this year. So, it will be
done prior t.o this remodel.
And then on the other signal at Millbrae and
Stony Point Road, the County entered into an agreement
with the Tribe separate from the City that ful1y funds
the construction of that signal. And my understanding
is that signal is in design right now and will be
constructed shortly.
So, both of those two that were asked real
early in the meeting tonight there was a question
from a Commissioner, just asking for cl-arification h¡e
now know that both of those signals wilÌ be constructed
prior t.o t.his pro j ect loeing constructed.
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COMMISSIONBR GIUDICB: Thank You.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right. Thank you very
much.
Marilyn, you're going to speak to the Iand use
issues or the l-and use comments.
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: ThANK
Vou, Madam Chair.
This evening I^¡e heard from some of the
speakers regarding tand use issues, consistency with the
General- Pl-an policies, and some comments about blight.
So, f 'd like to address the Staf f 's review and anal-ysis
of General Plan consistency.
We found the project to be consistent with the
General Pl-an. We looked at several of the policies.
The speakers reference LU-7, and that policy
relates to encouraging new neighborhood commercial
facilities and supermarkets to be l-ocated to maximize
accessibility to alI residential areas.
CurrentJ-y, there are no grocery facilities in
that neighborhood. They are clust.ered along Commerce,
to the souLh, and Rohnert Park Bxpressv\tay area.
The as you heard earl-ier, traffic and our
EIR consul-tants assessed all the pro j ects that are
coming. Those projects have been identified in our
General- Pl-an since 2000. It was noted the Southeast
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Specific Pl-an, Northeast Specific Plan all- those
projects have been identified. And their capacity of
what's coming since 2000, those were assessed.
Additionally, ín that General Pl-an, there are
a number of other proj ects that surround the general
vicinity of Vüalmart.
As you heard earl-ier, the Oxf ord Suites and
McDonaId's are part of the Ilüilfred-Dowdell Specific
P1an, and the Northwest Specific Pl-an, which is
currently in process for entitlements, application, and
annexation.
That area is being considered for mixed-use,
high-density commercial- uses. It specifically adjoins
Dowdell- Avenue, which is on the western border of
Walmart's proposed expansion area. So, that area h¡as
identified in our General Plan many, many years ago, and
it does include residential- uses.
Additionally, I'd like to make note and,
Commission, you will be seeing this soon the Stadium
Lands Master Plan that adjoins for a point of
reference adjoins the Costco area to the west, and it
is very close to that area that we are speaking of now,
the Vüalmart r^¡e wilI be bringing to the Commission a
proj ect of 244 residential units, attached housing.
Staff is processing that now.
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It is an approved, permitted use in the
Stadium Lands Master Plan. So, h¡e will be providing the
Commission with that application very soon, for your
consideration. And that equates to 244 residential
living units.
They need somewhere to shop. There's nothing
around them currently except to the south, so it.rs
probably about equal distance up t.o the area h¡e're
taI king about noh/.
Additionally, I'd like to address there
were some comments about access. T bel-ieve Mr. Stegeman
made comments about access and pedestrian access.
As we l-ooked at two of the slides, there are
plans for improvements to pedestrian access from Redwood
into the proj ect area from the south and the north.
AdditionalJ-y, the inter-connectivity on the
ad j oining shopping centers between [lüal-mart and Home
Depot is already in pIace. Those pedestrj-an access-ways
are there. They're being planned for. And that is
consistent with our General Plan.
I'd also like to address there were some
comments about blight, and it was referenced at the
corner of Country Cl-ub and Gol f Course. I believe the
gentl-eman hras ref erring to the Mountain Shadows P1aza.
If you've driven by or gone into the Mountain
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Shadows Pl-aza nor^¡, you'11 see how well- it is being
maintained. llüe do have a vacancy there, the f ormer
Paci f ic Market, and itr s been well--known f or its
ivy-covered colonnades. People identify that
ivy-covered area with that grocery store in that space.
Itrs been very wel-l maintained.
I'üe are working with the owners for repainting
and reroofing that facility noh¡. That's in for our
consideration.
So, it is being maintained. f woul-d not
consider or classify that a blighted property under the
HUD criteria for blight. So, I did want to bring that
forward.
I'm not sure where the gentleman r^ras ref erring
to on the east end of Commerce, but hre have many infill
properties there, and just this evening you sar^¡ a
success story about BeerCraft.
Vüe went into a space that had been vacant on
Commerce on that more southerly end. And it's a growing
business.
So, f woul-d like to offer the Commission that
those areas do not meet the definition of "bl-ighted
areas. tt
Staff found the proposal- consistent with the
General- Plan for neighborhood facil-ities to service the
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residential areas and pedestrian connectivity.
So, with that, I'11 conclude my remarks on the
land use questions that hrere brought up by some of the
spea kers .
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
Mr. City Attorney.
CITY ATTORNEY VISICK: I wanted to make sure
that hre address this f u1ty.
As to the recirculation issue, which a few
folks have mentioned tonight and it's mentioned in a
letter that \^/as submitted yesterday by M. R. tlüolf e, which
was read partial-ly into the record at the podium the
issue that woul-d trigger recirculation or a need for
recircuLation woul-d be if there hras significant neh,
information in the EIR. That is the criteria that you
apply.
And, here r âs the consul-tants have described
to you, there are reaIly there are two things.
Therets the measurement of noise emissions at several
measuring points, and there is the application of
standards to that to determine whether or not those
emissions are cumulatively considerabl-e.
Those are the two things with respect to noise
anal-ysis that the Court directed the City to take a look
at.
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As to the neh/ information, I think the thing
that the Commission might want to think about here is
that if h¡e applied these cumulative, considerabl-e
standards to the ol-d noise datar wê al-so woul-dn't show a
cumulatively considerabl-e noise impact. The in many
respects, the ner"rr measurements f or no j-se are more
conservative than what \^/as measured bef ore.
V{ith respect to t.he addition of those
cumulative, considerable threshol-ds, those don't show
any significant impact either.
They al-so donf t. trigger neh¡ mitigation
measures to be j-ncorporated. And that's rnrhy those are
not signi f icant ner^r inf ormat j-on.
So, because that criteria of significant ne'^I
information is not met, there is no need to recirculate
the Revised Final BIR.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: I guess I direct it to
the City Attorney.
The recircul-ation still causes me some
concern. As I 've said bef ore, one hray or another, I 'd
like t.his pro j ect to either get done or be done.
And f am concerned by Mr. Vüol- f e I s Ietter and
his legal analysis that differs from both the Sheppard
Mul-l-in att.orney representing [lüaImart, and yours.
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But you've personally researched this issue,
and you feel- that the opinion you're expressing tonight
represents the current case Iaw on the issue?
CITY ATTORNEY VISICK: I have.
The CEQA is not designed to create endl-ess
rounds of revising an EIR and then getting additional
public comment and so on.
That is \^rhy the significant neh¡ information is
the trigger. And here, there's no significant ne\^r
information, because it doesnrt there's no
signif icant impact that's discl-osed or mitigation
measure that requires incorporation.
T woul-d also point out that there's been a
quite broad opportunity for the public to comment on aIÌ
the ner^r information, and there is no real substantive
comment as to the
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Thatrs slightly different
than recircul-ating it for comments that are then
considered and added to the Final- EIR then, though;
isn't that true?
CITY ATTORNEY VISICK: We11, it's slightly
different, procedurally, but for purposes of the
publ j-c's opportunity to comment, if it hras to be
recircul-ated, they would have 45 days to comment. Here,
I believe, they've had 48 days to comment.
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And I would point you to the comment l-etters
in the packet. I donrt think that there are any
substantive criticisms of the information that's been
added.
There is an aIl-egation that recirculation is
required, but, again, we would urge that there's no
significant new informati-on, and, therefore, it really
is not
COMMISSIONER BORBA: And to approve the EIR,
r^¡e also have to approve the Statement of Overriding
Considerations thatrs attached as Exhibit A.
CITY ATTORNEY VISTCK: You wou1d.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: John, I'd like to ask you
a question.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: SuTe.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Are you satisfied with his
answer, because the reason f ask is because
COMMISSIONER BORBA: I'üeJ-J-, we aIl know Iawyers
tend to disagree.
The last. time we you know, the Planning
Commissi-on voted against the BIR, City Council-
overturned us.
They were told by alI attorneys that the EIR
was sufficient, but. yet Judge Tansil, you know,
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determined that it \^ras insuffícient in a couple of
regards, and we're back here again.
UÍì, you know, there's no question that, you
know, [iüal-mart is j ust like any other business in this
town. Vüe welcome alI businesses.
The onJ-y question is, you know, I woul-d like
to make sure everything is final- and done and buttoned
up and you know, and take every opportunity.
f expressed that at the December meetirg, my
concern about the recircul-ation. Because I did receive
Mr. VüoIf e's letter, and I had done some independent
research on that, and I was concerned about that.
So, I 'm j ust making sure t,hat our City
Attorney agrees with the Vüal-mart attorney on the
recirculation issue.
So, no. Ifm satisfied that he has clarified
the City's legaf position.
CHAïRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: So, thank you, Chair.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: You know, before we went
onr I just think thatrs a major question here.
Tt is despite the people who came before us
and brought who1ly legitimate comments about things that
concern them, the thing that brings us here together
tonight to vote on this is very, very specific and
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narroh¡.
you know,
you know,
you know,
And sor I
satisfies
Iooked at
expert
count e ra ct
t.his time.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: It is, but I would say
my concern about the 4 5 -day ru.l- e i s becaus e,
I'm a resident of this town since 1968, and,
I woul-d 1i ke us to go f orward, not backwards .
just wanted to make sure on that.
hle're being told by our City Attorney that it
that 4 5-day rul-e. So, you know, whether I
it independently and I'm not a land use
ott anyone else did, Irm not going to
his lega1 opinion that it's sufficient at
But f do for the record, f raised concern
the last time about the transportation and the noise
component, and it came back I think hre all did
well, David. . .
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Right.
And then that brings me to my second question.
The transportatj-on and the noise issue has again been
addressed here this evening.
And so, my question to you gentlemen is, Do
you have specific questions nor^r about that revised part
of the Environmental Impact Report?
I mean, we're going to let you go at your
questions at your l-eisure, but, here I rm specif icaJ-l-y
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asking about that question now.
Are there concerns about those two issues, the
noise and the transportation that hras placed in the
Revised Environmental- Impact Report?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: Not for me.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: I don't have any
additional questions, no.
And f do believe Ms. Ponton and our City
Attorney have addressed some of those issues as well-.
So, I 'm comf ortabl-e with that point, in terms of the
discussion from my side being over.
CHATRPERSON ADAMS: GeTaTd?
COMMISSIONER GIUDTCE: To the best of my
ability to understand it in its ent j-rety, I've been
provided with good ansr^rers.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: And I just want to go back
a little bit, David and Gerard, because I skipped over
you as John and I were speaking.
Do you have any comments specifically about
that issue, the issue that John dj-scussed with our City
Attorney?
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: T asKed mine.
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: Mine were at the
December meetirg, simllar to ,John's concerns.
And I def er t.o the attorneys. I mean, I'm not
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an attorney. And so ¡ it r^rould appear that that would be
part and parcel to the is likeJ-y to come before us
again in some type of suit, but it sounds to me l- i ke
that's an issue that's going to be raised.
And that will be determined, and that will be
figured out by the people who are experts in that field.
So, I'm reaIJ-y not in a posit.ion to counter any other
opinion.
CITY ATTORNEY VISICK: The only thing I woul-d
bring up is, this is reaJ-ly f undamentally, the issue
as to recirculation is, Has the public had a full-
opportunity to participate in the process?
That is J-argely what CEQA is designed to
facilitate.
And, here, the publ i c ha s had a f ul l-
opportunj-ty to participate in this process. They've had
an opportunity to submit comment letters. Werve had an
opportunity to respond to those tonight.
I don't know that folks wouLd have any more of
an opportunity i f recircul-ation hras done.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right.
So, at this point, John, do you want t.o make
any comments or ask any questions?
COMMISSIONER BORBA: More questions? No.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Do you have any comments
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you want t,o ma ke ?
COMMISSIONER BORBA: No.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: David?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: In generaÌ, or just
wit.h regard to the EIR recirc-
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: hle11, if you don't have
lots of questions, werre going to voter so...
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Do r^re need a motion
first?
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: No, no.
We need a motion. I'm just saying, if you
don't have any questions --
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: I just wanted to make
a comment as it rel-ates to the dialogue that took pJ-ace
here.
So, there h¡ere a lot of opín j_ons, and there
htas a lot of information, and this ís not our first
go-around. So, this is not something h/e take lightfy,
and certainly hasn't been.
I think there's been a process. There's a l-ot
of information before us.
But with regard to some of the socioeconomic
issues that. are reaIly at the heart of, I think, the
Coal-ition, those are really not. legal- format for us to
consider as it relates to this project. So, it's not
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for me to comment on Walmart's practices, Target's
practices.
Really there h¡as really a lot of
inf ormation as it rel-ates t.o business practices. I 'm a
businessman. Mr. Borba is a businessman. Mr. Giudice
is a businessman. So, I don't feel- that it's adequate
for us to make under the circumstances to make
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: MotheT
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: Itrs not at the
Chairrs expense, but knowing business and being involved
in it and practicing here in Rohnert Parkr âs T do,
that's not my prerogative, and that's not my posit j-on
here. So, I just wanted to make that cl-ear.
But I thank everyone for their comments.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: Vüe1l-, it's not my
prerogative either, but I'm going to go ahead and make
some comments.
I was talking to a gentleman in the hallway
just a little bit ago at the break, and I was indicating
to him that this is my first experience at an extensive
public hearing on this slde of the bench here.
And it I s aJ-ways been where I 've gone up, and
I've stated my opinions and my feelings, whether it be
to the City Council- or to whatever group.
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And one of things that f was al-ways frustrated
with and T'm sure most people have had frustration
with is not necessarily the lack of response, but
just the lack of the communication between the people
sit.ting here and the peopl-e sitting there that hre
actually heard what it hras that \^¡as spoken and that we
care about that.
In parti-cu1ar, I was grimacing coming here
tonight and having to deal- with that., because I didn' t
know what that would bring.
Having said that, ât the end of this, noh/, or
toward the end of the public comments, et cetera, it was
a very enjoyable experience, actual1y. I enjoyed
hearing everyonets comments.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: You need to get out more.
COMMISS]ONER GIUDICE: Yeah.
And I'm going t.o talk about some of the
comments that I have heard.
In particular, I enjoyed hearing the comments
f rom those individual-s that l-ive in Rohnert Park.
As Planning Commissioners, i-t's a little
dif f erent than being on the City Council. trüe're not
elected of f icial-s; vure're appointed by the City Council.
And so¡ as David explained, our purview is a litt1e bit
narrower.
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Many peopJ-e who know me and those out there
who know n€ r know that I 've spent the l-ast ten years of
my life trying to Iead a very sustainabl-e and local-
existence.
Certainly, many of the comments that f've
heard here tonight. are a l-ittle bit disturbing and don't
exactly fit my model of what I would like to see.
That doesn't necessarily mean that I disagree
with what tlüalmart is proposing here. I'm just saying
that there has been an interna.l- confl-ict not a legal
conflict, but an internal conflict coming from a guy
whose business is a hundred-percent sol-ar poh¡ered, who
puts sol-ar on his own house, and who has business
practices that seem to be, especially with the comments
tonight, at 180 degrees from corporate America, not
necessarily with Ilüalmart in particul-ar.
So, I just wanted to express that, because I
think that it's important.
And that is the summation of my comment except
that f have heard a few things and this is kind of a
silJ-y comment and etr a statement and a question, is,
f really would like to know about the camping thing.
And I'd like to know about the camping thing in terms
of f don't know if this is a City question or a
[lüalmart question or
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COMMISSIONER BORBA: City.
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: ft's a City question.
And I haven't researched this, but this is something
that I heard tonight and that. I 'm, of course, probabJ-y
not very knowledgeabl-e and would like to ask the City:
There won't be camping going on at the [lüaJ-mart, f 'm
assuming?
And that concl-udes my comments.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank yoü, Gerard.
PLANNING AND BUILDTNG MANAGER PONTON: ThanK
you.
To cl-arLfy, I'm assuming you're referencing
recreational- vehicl-e camping.
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: I Googled it online,
"üüalmart campirg, " and it comes up all- over the place.
PLANNING AND BU]LDING MANAGER PONTON: And
I'11- make comment, camping is not aIl-owed on those
sites, as far as our zoning code.
I can defer to ['ùal-mart to respond to what
their corporate poJ-icies are on that, and it may clarify
a little bit more about your questions.
COMMïSSIONER GIUDICE: Sure.
PLANNING AND BUILDTNG MANAGER PONTON: Amelia.
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: Because it seems to be
an unspoken thing.
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AMELIA McLEAR: Our policy on overnight RV
parking i s that h¡e f oll-ow the local city codes and
ordinances for every jurisdiction.
So, for example, here in Rohnert Park, it's
not allowed. So, hre actually have signs posted on the
poJ-es in our parking Iot, saying, "No Camping Al-Iowed. "
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: Thank you.
I just wanted the audience at home to hear
that, and people in the audience to hear that.
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: Thank you.
COMMTSSIONBR BORBA: If I might make a late
comment.
I have some concern about the 45-day
recircul-ation, but I'Il- def er to the City Attorney on
that r âs I 've sa j-d.
The EIR is thorough in many hrays.
The Statement of Overriding Considerations
that we're required to adopt ís something that I took
issue with the last time as we11.
And I think that's a policy question that's
best suited for the counsel-. But, you know, because of
that, you know, I that's the issue I have. And I
j ust wanted to share that with everyloody.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Thank you very much.
Wou Id one o f you gent l- emen I i ke to ma ke a
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motion?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: I'd like to make a
motion approving the resol-ution City of Rohnert Park
Planning Commission Resolution No. 20L3-02, Certifying
the Revised Final EIR Report of Wal-mart Expansion
located at 4625 Redwood Drive, Rohnert Park, Cãlifornia,
as amended.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: I'll second it.
CHAIRPBRSON ADAMS: Does this need to be a
roll cal-1 vote?
COMMISSIONER GTUDTCE: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Then who will take that
roll- cal-I vote?
PLANNING AND BUTLDTNG MANAGER PONTON: I can,
or our
CHATRPERSON ADAMS: Go ahead, Marilyn.
PLANNTNG AND BUTLDING MANAGER PONTON: OKay.
Thank yoü, Chair.
Commissíoner Borba?
COMMISSIONER BORBA: No.
PLANN]NG AND BUILDTNG MANAGER PONTON:
Commissioner Armstrong?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: Yes.
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON:
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Commissioner Giudice?
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: Yes.
PLANNING AND BUILDING MANAGER PONTON: And , of
course, Commissioner Hayden is excused tonight.
And Chairman Isic] Adams?
CHATRPERSON ADAMS: Yes.
Thank you very much.
(Motion carries. )
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All right.
Item B, t,hat is, the Resol-ution of the
Planning Commission for the City of Rohnert Park
approving the Site Pl-an and Architectural Review for
[lüal-mart.
Questions, comments about this particular
item?
Mr. Borba?
COMMISSïONER BORBA: No.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Mr. ciudice?
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: No.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Ird like to make a motion
that h/e approve Resol-ution of the Planning Commission of
the City of Rohnert Park, Cal-ifornia, approving the Site
Plan and Architectural- Review for the Vüalmart Expansion
located at 4525 [sic] Redwood Drive, Rohnert Park,
California.
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DoThaveasecond?
COMMISSIONER G]UDICE: Second.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: All in favor?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: Aye.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: Aye.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER BORBA: I vote âyê, having the
EIR passed already by you
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BORBA: -- in terms of the Site
Plan and the build-out.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Yes. Thank you very much.
So, that is a 4-0 for that particular item.
(Motion carries. )
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Any discussion about
Resolution No. 20I3-04?
COMMISSIONER BORBA: ft's the sign program?
COMMISSIONER GIUDICE: Right.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: This is the sign.
Are there any questions?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: No.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Trd like to make a motion
that hre approve Resolution of the Planning Commission of
the City of Rohnert Park, California, approving the sign
program f or the ütal-mart expans ion located at 4 625
LEONARD REPORTING SERVICES, TNC.(4i-s) 312-904o
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Redwood Drive, Rohnert Part, California.
Dolhaveasecond?
COMMISSIONER ARMSTRONG: I'11 second that.
Resol-ution No. 20L3-04.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: Any questions or comments?
All in favor?
COMMïSSIONER GIUDfCE: Aye.
COMMïSSïONER BORBA: Aye.
CHAIRPERSON ADAMS: 4-0. Thank you very much.
(Vühereupon, at 9:4I p. m. , the Meeting of the
City of Rohnert Park Planning Commission,
Item No. B .4, was concluded. )
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LBONARD REPORTING SBRVICES, ]NC (4 r_5 ) 312-9040
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CERT]FICATE OF REPORTER
Tt KATY LEONARD, a Certified Shorthand
Reporter, hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings
hrere taken in shorthand by me at the time and place
therein stated, and that the said proceedings hrere
thereafter reduced to typewriting, by computer, under my
direction and supervision;
And I further certify that I am not of
counsel- or attorney for either or any of the parties to
said matter nor in any hray interested in the outcome of
the cause named herein.
DATED: February 20, 20I3
KATY LEONARD
CSR No. l-1599
LEONARD REPORTING SERVTCES, TNC (41s) 312-9040
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