Clerk you can do it. It makes sense to do so. President yee is there a motion to continue this item to a particular date . Clerk the date noted on the agenda is october 27th. President yee made by supervisor press ki peskin and d by supervisor mandelman. Lets have Public Comment. Clerk operations, do we have members of the public queue in the ready to speak on continuance to october 27th for items 5255, the 617 sanchez street appeal . No callers in the queue. Clerk mr. President i recommend we wait just about 20 seconds in case theres someone watching television and they are faced with the delay. Anyone in the queue . I have one caller. Clerk please put them through. That caller hung up. There are no other callers in the queue. Clerk thank you. President yee thank you very much. I will call Public Comment is closed now. Theres been a motion and seconded it. Madam clerk, lets go ahead and call the roll on the motion. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. President yee okay. Without objection, this appeal hearing will go to october 27, 2020. Please go to our next special order. Please call items 5659 together. Clerk comprised public hearing of associate motion for the appeal of determination of Community Plan evaluation for the proposed project 1088 howard street. President yee okay. This will be continued to a later date. Is there a motion to continue this item to october 6, 2020 . I want to make a motion to continue the items to next week october 6th. Ive in touch with the appellants and the project sponsors. They are amendable to the continuance. President yee is there a second . Supervisor mandelman second. President yee are there any Public Comments on the continuance of these items. Clerk operations do we have anyone in the queue . I have one caller in the queue. I didnt want to speak on this item. Im just queuing up for the next item. You can identify my call p. P. P. Clerk thank you. Anyone else in the queue . That completes the queue. President yee lets go and take roll on the motion to continue. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. President yee madam clerk, lets go to our next 3 00 p. M. Special orders. Please call items 6075 together. Clerk comprised four separate proposed projects. They share the same Party Interest project sponsor the municipal transportation agency. All items were noticed for september 22, 2020. Continued for public hearing until today. Items 6063 comprised public hearing for persons interested in determination of exemption under the California Environmental quality act ceqa issued exemption by the Planning Department on june 10, 2020. The proposed municipal transportation recovery plan, covid19 emergency temporary transit and bike lane project. Item 6467 associated motion for persons interested in the determination by the Planning Department on july 16, 2020 at the proposed m. T. A. Safety project. Item 6871 for persons in hearing of the Environmental Review under the California Environmental quality act by the Planning Department on july 15, 2020 for the m. T. A. Department Operation Center covid19 emergency temporary street changes program and item 7275, comprised public hearing and associated motion to persons interested in the determination of exemption from Environmental Review under the California Environmental quality act issued as a statutory and categorical exemption by the Planning Department on july 1, 2020 for proposed m. T. A. Phase 3 project. All four projects has associated motion reverses the Department Determination based upon finding and approved the preparation of finding. President yee thank you madam clerk. Colleagues we have before us today four appeals for m. T. A. Proposed projects including the recovery plan, covid19, emergency temporary transit lanes and bike ways project and panhandle social distancing and safety project, department of Operation Center, covid19 emergency temporary street changes program and slow streets phase three project. These appeals are related to the Planning Departments determination, statutory exemption from Environmental Review under the California Environmental quality act. Today i call items 4475 together. These items concern the ceqa appeals for the four separate projects undertaken by m. T. A. Since o on the on set of covid. The board regularly call items together where they contain similar issues and reduce for need of city departments, appellants and public to make or comment on the same points multiple times. In addition to covid19, board of supervisors has backlogged uses. Theres need for use and time sufficiently as possible. That said, these are separate appeals. The board will consider them as such. The public is also reminded that these projects as separate distinct. The public made comment on some or all of the projects and made comment in support of some and in opposition of others. Its a typical time that is given to parties it give additional time to the appellants, both to make their initial statements and for rebuttal. Here we go, up to 12 minutes for a presentation david fillpell who is an appellant. Up to 13 minutes for a presentation by mary miles who is an appellant for three of the appeals. We will also extends Public Comment to three minutes to allow for additional time. Three minutes per speaker in support of the appeal. Then up to 20 minutes for a presentation from the Planning Department and up to 20 minutes from project sponsor. Then three minutes per speaker in opposition to the appeal and support of the project. Finally up to five minutes for a rebuttal from david fillpal and six minutes rebuttal from mary myles. I want to acknowledge that the appellants have renewed the request they made last week and that the board continue these items until next week. Given last weeks motion to continue already gave the parties an extra week to prepare the cases. I do not plan to introduce a motion to continue any of these items unless you have any questions or concern about the approach, we will proceed. Colleagues, are there any objections to proceeding this way . Seeing no objection, the public hearing will proceed as indicated and is now open. After the hearings the board will vote on whether to affirm or reverse the exemption from Environmental Review under ceqa for each project. Seeing no names on the roster from my colleagues, i will ask the appellant to come forward and present their case. You have up to 12 minutes. Are you there . Can you hear me now . President yee yes. Ive been at this a long time. Im pretty exhausted and somewhat upset. Let me just start. I submitted a brief this afternoon about 2 30. I believe that was circulated. It is posted to the public in registrar under board file 200 200903 and attachment 22. The public has an opportunity they may want to read it if those of you on the board havent read it or dont have the time to read it, then i would ask you to continue this hearing today. Im going walk through that and im going to expand on some of the comments that i made in that written submission. In terms of tone, im going to try to keep my tone future or neutral or positive. Im pretty upset and pretty exhausted, this is certainly draining away my life and not in a way i signed up for. I talked about yom kippur and reminded of some things yesterday. Again, i hope you all had a chance to read this document. Second, i renewed my continuance request that i previously filed on september 11th and september 18th as i previously statemented. I asked for continuance for at least one week to october 6th. I was told last week that m. T. A. Can live with one week continuance. M. T. A. Would not make such request but they would not oppose it if they were asked by the board. I urge you to grant the continuance request so in the. Can speak to them unde so tht m. T. A. Can speak to this under their time. In the section under applicable law guidelines, rules and procedures, i summarized what i believe are the principle law guidelines rules and procedures at issue here. I also briefly discussed two process requirements some of which i learned about from the City Attorney government guide. I i have a section on procedural objections that i filed here. I want to say very clearly on the record, i have not filed any appeals regarding the panhandle project, shared spaces, slow streets or anything other than the two appeals that i filed myself. I want no association with those appeals that i have not filed. I object specifically to merging these appeals or consolidating them for purpose of hearing for any other reason. I talked in the brief about the language and admin code 3116 about consolidating appeals so they are heard simultaneously. That section only applies in my opinion to board file 200903. I seen nothing in the record that the board exercised the power containing that section. It includes that language. I dont think theres any other power to consolidate other appeals as youre now doing here for which chapter 31 could have provided. Im fairly sure that courts have interpreted similar statutes and concluded that authority is conferred. That is the only authority granted and the absence of other provisions is presumed intentional. I feel that im denied basic due process here, denying reasonable continuance request and providing treatment of appellants. I talk about that further. I related the discussion that occurred last week with supervisor peskin, which i believe violated board rules. I suggested a remedy to that today and talked about the importance of avoiding bias or the appearance there of basic tenant due process. I have a section in here for anyone who are not familiar with me about my history involvement with the city and my intention with regard to the appeals that i have filed. The ceqa appeals that i filed are brought in good faith, about controversial project with language and statutes and guidelines cant be interpreted differently. I have not appealed every action taken by the m. T. A. Nor do i intend to. I have a section about the m. T. A. , the covid19 context there. Some description of the two projects that ive appealed and some discussion of the status of implementation of those projects. Both of the projects i described here are pretty complicated. I tried to slow it down. I assume m. T. A. Will describe them further. I have asked at the end here for a more clear and complete description of these projects, where theyve been approved and the status of all of those elements. There could be thousands of locations across town. I have no way to tell where theyve been implemented, where they are on hold and where they are contemplated for implementation and what the status is. As for the Planning Department, its offices closed to the public and most of the staff is working from home. The public has no access to case files and trying to navigate through the Public Portal or whatever the new permit tracking system is called, its very difficult. Ii go on to discuss plans reviw and approval of ceqa exemption pursuant to memorandum of understanding between the two departments and its unclear whether i other city departments to review the aspects of the project of the Environmental Review process. I want to spend most of my time here on the central argument against the exemptions. Thats the Public Health emergency under other statutes is not necessarily an emergency under ceqa. I discussed statutory construction rules and i will leave that for you to read. I reported directly, verbatim language from the ceqa guidelines and from the law itself. In the last paragraph, said ceqa contemplate emergencies. I want to take a moment to cite from couple of cases if i have time here. Western municipal Water District versus superior court, its the leading case. One moment. Its a leading case on an emergency under ceqa. The portions that are relevant here still hold. Im not going to have time to read them now. I can if you have questions. If they are like our water agency is also still good. It has more on the concept of actions being necessary to prevent or mitigate an emergency. Cal Beach Associates can be distinguished. It was without a retaining wall and in imminent danger. This was not about that. This is not about retaining wall, house or bluff. I believe it can be distinguished. Finally the marshall case versus one of the School Districts. To summarize, im asking for at least continuance to allow me at least to continue to meet and confer with m. T. A. I think we have talked a few times. Thats been positive and productive. There are other steps that i outlined at the end of my brief. This is not a popularity contest. Its about the law and public may not had time to read my brief file today. Would ask you that you post the m. T. A. And planning presentations that i expect they will be making shortly so i can review them briefly in preparation for my rebuttal time. Thank you. President yee thank you. Supervisors, colleagues, do you have any questions . I dont see anyone on the roster right now. Supervisor peskin i see no reason to grant a continuance but will be happy to adjudicate these matters this evening as the president ial debate is going on right now. I see no reason to continue this matter. President yee why dont we move forward. I will ask the appellant, mary miles to come forward and present your case. You have up to 13 minutes. Clerk operations, do we have a line which caller she is . Can you hear me . Im mary miles . President yee we can hear you. Okay. I had to call on the other line because i wasnt given operational phone number to call. I strongly object, filed objections to the way you are conducting this meeting. The merger of five different appeals into one essentially is what you are doing. These are separate appeals. They were filed in response to the separate actions of m. T. A. , entirely different in terms of the issues. I agree with mr. Pilpel that a continuance is needed. We have sum summarized objections which you have not acknowledged. I did raise my hand and wasnt allowed to object. This is usual here. You need to continue this because due process has been denied. You have published a misleading agenda to the public. Nobody knows whats youre talking about, what items being talked about, things have to be individually considered here. Yet, youre saying we only get 12 or 13 minutes to consider free appeals. Thats the administrative code and your rules provide for 10 minutes per appeal. Those are my objections. I hope im not being docked time to talk about substance. We have filed continuance motion on each of the appeals. You have not acknowledged them. We have filed three different ones. No acknowledgement, no consideration at any meeting, even though you lavishly confer continuances on the proceeding appellants without even asking. Pretty amazing. Ill move on because i guess my inability to be called on to make objections is being countyd against me for talking about the appeals or not . [captioners transitioning] an emergency. They are they are the crazies we have congestion, we have to make it worse. Lets make it worse. So thats what its about. And we have we have pretty well delineated the facts here in our brief which we filed yesterday. Weve had no time to brief most of these things or to submit the kind of information that would allow for an objective or meaningful review of the deal. So we know that its a done deal. You have curtailed our time. You have curtailed our ability to speak individually to these appeals. So, yeah, im just waiting for the 110, monkeyseemonkeydo thing, and surprise me and dont do it better yet, consider the continuouses that we have asked for and that have not been considered at all. Okay, lets go to what an emergency is under ceqa. If it is a sudden unexpected, with a clear and imminent danger demanding immediate action to prevent or to mitigate the loss over damage to health, property or essential public services. That is public resources, code 206. 13 where its defined. It gives examples, such as fires, floods, earthquakes. The and he did a good job of summarizing the case law. We have municipal which states that the that the construction of this definition is extremely narrow. That is, it cannot yo you hae to interpret it to give meaning to each word of the statute. And that case also says, in other words, is it sudden, is it unexpected occurrence . Is there imminent danger . And dont look to covid19. We do not have an emergency. Theres no doubt that we dont dispute that theres a Health Hazard on the ground. Thats not what this is about, however. This is about whether a renegade agency, m. T. A. , with its 7,000 employees and 2 billion budget can do whatever it wants without public input, or ceqa review or any review. And it cant that cant pass muster under ceqa. Its not that is not an emergency. It does not address an emergency. This project under 903, the temporary socalled transit lanes, we know from m. T. A. s own information that its not temporary, its permanent and it infers Unlimited Power on the m. T. A. s traffic engineer to change any of the streets. And in ways that are just totally impactful to travel. The next thing of course the question of necessity must also be and everything about an emergency exemption, the burden, is on the Planning Department to support that exemption with essential evidence of every that every word of that definition applies. And we learned that from western municipal, and we also have the water agency, the city clerk, santa wha claarita, and the cout ruled that it was not an emergency. That it just happened. A Development Plan was the project the project reDevelopment Plan. And the court deemed that not an emergency. It didnt becau