Acton Town Council Meeting Minutes, November 18, 2019, Approved

1. Call To Order, Flag Salute, and Roll Call –  The meeting was called to order at 7:01pm by President Jeremiah Owen.  Present at the meeting: Pam Wolter, Jacki Ayer, Jeremiah Owen, Tom Costan, Troy Pieper, and Kelly Teno.
2. Community Comments  – None
3. Minutes of the Last Meetings – Jacki had 4 additions to the November 4, 2019 meeting regarding SCE.  Tom Costan made a motion to accept the minutes from August 5, 2019, September 16, 2019, October 21, 2019, and November 4, 20119 with changes.  Jacki Ayer 2nd the motion.  The motion carried.
4. Announcements and Correspondences – The AADUSD Superintendent has requested to be put on our agenda once a month to give a brief state of the district.  He will be added to the 1st agenda of the month with the sheriff and the library. We filed a request with the CPUC process office to be added to the service list for the OLL Docket. SCE is required to file their comments by December 13, and anyone wishing to participate in the proceeding must file a response by January 10.  We will prepare our response after SCE has filed.  We have not heard back on our request to  the Board of Supervisors to advocate on behalf of County residents affected by PSPS, up to and including participating in the OLL.  They did participate as a party before the CPUC in the Porter Ranch OLL, so we are hoping they will do the same.  Senator Wilk was scheduled to participate in a Senate Energy Committee special oversight hearing regarding PSPS today.  He has launched an outreach campaign called: “Did you lose your power during on of Southern California Edison’s forced power outages?”  He is seeking input from affected residents, anyone with an experience to share can contact his office.  Jacki attended the first meeting of the Santa Clara River Watershed Steering Committee on November 7. There are 15 members, and every member is either a resident of, or represents an agency in, the City of Santa Clarita except for a handful of County employees. The County Code requires that the five (5) “Community Stakeholder” members on the committee be selected to achieve a geographically balanced representation to the greatest extent feasible [LA County Flood Control District Code 18.07(G)(1)(d)(1)], it seems this code was not implemented since every single “Community Stakeholder” lives in Santa Clarita.  At the meeting several votes were taken.  No one could agree on a Committee Chair, Vice Chair, or if they wanted to Co-Chair.  There seemed to be a schism between the business people, the city representatives, and the water agencies.  The next committee meeting is December 12,at 10AM in Santa Clarita.  Jacki attended the call for projects workshop for the Safe Clean Water program.  Applications for the first phase are due December 15 and the second phase July 31.  A recommendation was made by an attendee of the meeting that unincorporated residents could perhaps participate in the Santa Clara River Watershed Steering Committee by volunteering to be an alternate for some of the five “Community Stakeholder” members.  Resident Tracy Costan indicated an interest in doing this.  The ATC submitted a Public Records Request for the records pertaining to the 1000Trails CUP application. WE received an email indicating they need a 10 day extension to write a program to search for the records and gather them together.  We have been asked if the community would like to have a “Water Talks” presentation about the Santa Clara River water and water issues.  They would give a presentation about all things water, like water supply, groundwater, waste water, stormwater, flooding, habitat, river recreation, river access, and then the presenters are going to listen to local concerns about water. The ATC has never received a response to our many request to Metrolink to present to the community the proposed expansion of rail use through Acton.  Jacki finally got through to Mr Davis and he expressed an interest in coming back out to talk about the project but felt others should be included, such as LA Metro and North County Transportation Coalition.  He communicated that the project to expand the AV Line is not fully funded and he also did not know the status of the EIR.  Jacki explained that we would like to be on notice for the EIR so we will be able to make comments. We received a response from DPW regarding our Safe Clean Water outreach. It included some concerning comments about how Acton’s agricultural and equestrian uses are contributing to significant contamination in the Santa Clara River.  A response was prepared which pointed out that their comments were based on a study of water samples collected in Santa Clarita and Ventura County more than 30 miles away.  We asked DPW to provide more definitive data to support this.  We received communication from the Agua Dulce Town Council about our request to participate in a joint effort to address this situation.  They have agreed and they can be available after the first of the year.
5. Councilmember Comments –  Pam received two phone calls concerning dumping going on at the top of Crown Valley.  Tom commented about how nice Elizabeth Billets service was.  He also commented on going to the last school board meeting to speak about the high school being put on one SCE circuit instead of two and how SCE said it would be very costly to the school district.  Kelly announced the CSD Concept Draft meeting with the county is on Thursday November 21 at the library at 2PM.
6. ZOE International – Vicki McCoy, Residential Manager at Zoe and on site project manager described the project.  It is a 3500 sq ft home and a 300sq ft Recreation Center.  They hope to have a barn in the future.  They have had County approvals for the grading and asphalt fire road.  They are using local contractors.  Coming soon is concrete foundation and framing and they are still figuring out the security system.  They will have 6 12 to 18 year old girls whom are coming out of human trafficking in LA County.  They opened it up to questions which included concerns for safety if their captures came back to get them?  Their captures would find it easier to get new girls.  The girls will come from DCFS or Dept of Probation.  There was concern raised if their parents were their capture and what if they came to get them?  The security system will take care of this. How will you handle visitors or walk aways?  Staff will walk with them and call the police and visiting is handled offsite by DCFS.
7.  High Speed Rail Environment Impact Review – HSR announced that the DEIR for the Palmdale to Burbank section will be out in February 2020.  The EIR has to be completed by 2021 or they have to pay back Federal Funds.  We need to put together a committee to review and comment on the DEIR and we are asking the community to volunteer.  Anyone interested needs to email the Acton Town Council.
8. Interim Housing Ordinance –  DRP sent a response to The ATC comment letter on the Draft Interim Housing Ordinance.  They pointed out that homeless shelters are already permitted on M1, M1.5, and M-2 zones: the ordinance would limit it to just M-1 zones, which is all Acton has. DRP also stated that homeless shelters are a service use and not a residential use.  With this clarification it appears that the ordinance makes even less sense, because almost no service uses are permitted by County Code on Ag zoned lands.  The question is why does the draft ordinance expand service uses like homeless shelters on Ag zoned land (where service uses don’t belong) and at the same time prohibit these same service uses on most industrially zoned lands (where service uses do belong).  At the ARTC meeting on October 30, DRP announced they are considering changing the ordinance to allow homeless shelters on A1 and A2 lands as a primary use rather than just an accessory use.  Apparently, they are considering this change in response to homeless advocates not being able to open homeless shelters in rural areas.  DRP would like to know what we think of this.  We need to comment on how this is not appropriate to put them in areas with no services, such as medical, mental health, transportation etc…  Tom Costan made a motion to write a letter to Connie Chung regarding the County proposal to make A1 and A2 land a primary use for homeless shelters, ATC members will send ideas and Jacki will write the letter.  Jacki Ayer 2nd the motion. The motion carried.  
9. Water Hauler – The ATC received a response to our letter to DRP regarding the water haulers CUP processing delays and why a hydrology study is being imposed.   DRP stated that DPW is requiring the hydrology studies and they are in the process of finding out what is driving the hydrology study requirement
10. Unfinished/New Business – There is concern over emails written to Supervisor Barger and Senator Scott Wilk asking for help with the PSPS, there has been no response from either.  County declined to change the well yield for building a new home, it will remain at 2 gallons a minute even though they stated at an ADTC meeting that 1/2 gallon per minute would be adequate.
11. Items for the Next Agenda – Officer Elections, Angeles Forest equestrian position.
12.  Adjournment – 9:54PM