Avila Valley Advisory Council

Minutes of March 14, 2005 Meeting

Call to Order

Karla Bittner called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m

Members Present: L. Newton, K. Argano, J. Salisbury, J. Scott, J. Taylor, K. Bittner, S. Gooding, D. Palaia, L. Walter, M. Gooden, N.Matlin

Members Absent: Bob Pusanik, Bill Tickell, Anne Brown, Russ Kiessig

Approval of minutes: Motion by Lisa Newton to approve minutes of March 14, 2005 meeting,

2nd by John Salisbury passed with two changes from last minutes: John Salisbury was absent.

No date set for CC hearing set in old business 3.1 per K. Bittner.

1.0 TREASURER’S REPORT L. Newton

$1004.58 no changes since last month

2.0 COUNTY REPORTS

2.1 Sheriff’s Department Deputy Mike Norris

New team of deputies, Dale Strohbridge and Mike Norris, will come to meetings with summary of events. Since the last meeting nothing major happened except for the homicide last month. Law enforcement is implementing a project lifesaver for Alzheimer’s patients, they wear a wrist band which works like a GPS. So, if they wander off they can track them, monthly fee for service.

County Supervisor, District 3 Jerry Lenthall

Jerry answered questions from last meeting pertaining to the pictures and info he passed out on the Avila bridge project, about the rise, poles about 5-6 feet above the ground, gradual slope. He didn’t get very far with the engineering report. Bob Jones bike trail is a high priority on his agenda. SLO Stewards newsletter was brought to the board, article about Neil Havlik giving a grant to fund a portion of the bike trail, which he again referred to as one of his top 5 priorities

The CCC has committed to do 600 hours of maintenance on the bike trail. When you walk or ride, let’s task the CCC to get this done. Terry Eberhard is going to be in a new position with the Parks Commission. Use Rosemary as a resource for engineering questions in this area. Questions were asked about the few areas like Mallard Green and the county not accepting some of the easements, Jerry will research for next time. He introduced Mary Froggatt as his admin asst, can be Jerry’s contact, phone 805-781-4336, email: mfroggatt@co.slo.ca.us.

2.2 County Planning Staff John Euphrat

Subbing for James Caruso; the dept is sponsoring a training session, county wide, geared for advisory committees. Saturday May 14th from 9-3pm at the city/county library in SLO, corner of Osos and Palm. Ryan Hosteeter, a planner on the team, will be taking over for Avila as James will be in Santa Margarita. Staff updates from James: New projects include the School District property where the old school house is just got submitted and is in the review stage. The Gardner project submitted a revised design, please email James if you have any specific questions on that project. Draft EIR was sent in on the steam generator replacement project at Diablo Canyon and AVAC is on the list to get a copy of the EIR. The Port master plan is going to the planning commission on March 24th and any specific questions go to James Caruso or John Euphrat. John Salisbury asked about status of advisory councils: This was recently tested at one of the Board of Supervisors meetings. This is a budgeting issue for the county as there is a lot of time spent at advisory council meetings. Approx 8-10 hours of time is what is actually budgeted per month, but it really does take more time than that. The county is very supportive of advisory councils.

3.0 OLD BUSINESS

3.1 Draft Regional Transportation Plan (Vision 2025)

Check out SLOCOG website for more information www.slocog.org. Jan Taylor is our chair on the Circulation committee. Jerry Lenthall is also on the transportation committee. This is a 20 year blueprint for transportation which will develop goals, policies and objectives. In the next 4 years, improvements to the onramp may be able to relieve some of our summertime transportation issues, along with expansion of the Avila trolley.

3.2 Boyd Horne/Introduce personnel from SCAT

As of January 1st responsibility of Avila valley foundation to sponsor the trolley shifted to SCAT. Board members include: Jerry Lenthall, David Lillley, Jason Gillespie of Scat, and Bruce Scott who is responsible for the marketing of the trolley. He will be surveying the area in order to market the trolley. Coleen Kubel, Operations Supervisor of SCAT gave us an update on trolley.

Her contact info is: Phone-805-481-7801, email-ckubel@scattransit.org. Smooth transition so far, there is an updated trolley schedule. All of the Route 10 busses out of SLO now connect with the Avila trolley in some form. Check the new trolley website www.avilabeachtrolley.com which contains several links that not only have the schedule but take you to businesses and other things in the Avila valley. SCAT is conducting an ongoing on/off survey for trolley passengers so we can better provide service for the area. Trying to submit a proposal for some changes, like being able to transfer from one service to another and they are getting ready to submit this at the next bus advisory meeting. The trolley only takes off one day off per year, Christmas day. Is the trolley ever available for charity functions? Working with Boyd to try and make that available. Will you be able to augment for July 4th and other heavy traffic times into Avila Valley? Per Coleen there are backup buses available and SCAT is continuing to formulate ideas on how they can best provide service to our  area.

4.0 NEW BUSINESS

4.1 Tank Farm Project/Bill Almas

Bill Almas did a status update on the Avila Tank Farm cleaning project which was completed in December of 2004 and also gave us the Unocal Request for Qualifications for the Tank Farm Development & Disposition Project. Contact phone: 805- Lisa expressed concerns about the entry access for the Tank Farm, nice row of trees that gives privacy and is a natural barrier.  Traffic is also a concern, horrendous already. Per Bill, they will be doing a complete evaluation of all the access issues with the two accesses to the tank farm, (pirates cove and the one going through town) as they partner with a developer, and will have remediation for issues like access and traffic. Sherri also expressed concerns about circulation, traffic constraints are a big issue along with water for the project. Karla asked about the number of Developers who have submitted RFQ’s; 25 applicants, 9 responses back per Bill. Nisan asked if Unocal has established a value for that land, and Bill said no. The audience asked if the cleanup will be carried out before any development goes forward. The review process will move on parallel tracks so it spells out land use, where and if development takes place, which in turn will direct the cleanup/excavation. The majority of earth work and excavation will take place before development, but some things aren’t going to be phased beforehand. There are groundwater experts looking both at the Avila tank farm and the SLO tank farm. The Water Regional Quality Control Board is checking out about 7 areas in town. The Tank Farm will have its own EIR, largest aspect of the cleanup. Bill was asked about what zoning changes; there may be several zones including open space, residential, commercial, really anything is possible. Anything with a zoning change has to have a full traffic analysis. Per Bill, best guess, about 3-4 years before anything gets started on this project. Karla asks the audience: Are you comfortable with this process, the way Unocal is moving forward with this project? John is supportive of Unocal based on the cleanup operation, Lisa concerned about future developers, open spaces aren’t always left open. There is potential of a large impact on Avila with this project. Karla also noted that there are issues about affordable housing, and there will possibly be more discussion about that as this all develops. AVAC will wait for contact from Unocal when they are ready to come to the community with more information on this project which will be, per Bill about 6 months from now.

5.0 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE/COMMUNICATIONS

Communications and AVAC Calendar

6.0 STANDING & AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORTS

6.1 Land Use Committee:

Karla Bittner (chair) reported that Ralph Gorton from Squire Canyon has agreed to join this committee. Karla also put a recruitment plea in the local paper. Permit applications have been filed for the steam generator project at Diablo. One is in the coastal zone and one inland, so there are two diff applications. Comments on the draft EIR will be coming out in the next few days. This will be the next project the committee will work on in the next couple of months.

6.2 Avila Beach Committee (Lisa Newton/John Salisbury)

John reported that the subcommittee met this morning, gave their okay to the Gardner project, after some corrections on heights. Archie will finish the report for our next meeting. School district project will also be evaluated.

6.3 Avila Valley Committee (Jan Taylor) no report

6.4 San Luis Bay Estates (Sheri Gooding)

The Bob Jones bike path between San Luis Bay Drive and Avila Beach Drive still has no management. The Avila Village store is to open tomorrow, and the Avila Inn is open and functioning.

6.5 See Canyon (Bill Tickell) no report

6.6 Squire Canyon (Karin Argano) no report

6.7 Traffic Circulation (Jan Taylor/Sherri Gooding ) See Vision 2025 study.

6.8Community Liaisons

Port San Luis (Karla Bittner)

Karla sent the board notice about a Public hearing on March 8th, an EIR has been filed for the Master Plan and the Port is going for local plan amendment. The county identified a mapping error, a change from agricultural lands to public facilities. County recommended approval of project, errors have been corrected.

Flood Zone 9 – no representative, Dusty may have found a possible representative.

6.8 Diablo Report (Dusty Palaia) no report

7.0 PUBLIC COMMENT

John Euphrat was asked about special events in Avila, is the county grandfathering this in for non-profit events? The county will have something for us in this calendar year, but not for our summer season. Lynn asks if there is a danger of this summer setting precedents and hindering what we had in place. Per John, there is no gain or loss, really a status quo perspective …possibly a general plan amendment in the future as the golf course wants to expand? The Board of Supervisors has attempted to reach an interim agreement to grant non-profits a waiver to hold events at the golf tournament. Questions about Tank Farm: Why not just clean it up and leave it as is? Are they going to sell it? Is a public parking facility for Avila beach in our specific plan? There are only 365 parking spots in the paid parking lot. Karla asks that Jerry Lenthall keeps this on his agenda; parking is an ongoing issue. Announcement from Julie Scott: The Avila Fish and Farmers market is starting again on April 8th…more farmers, wines, olive oil bread, volleyball tournament and they are offering free parking from 4-8 pm.

8.0 ADJOURNMENT

Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 PM. Motion by Julie Scott to adjourn, 2nd by Sherri Gooding.

Respectfully submitted,

Karin Argano, AVAC Secretary