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questions that you may have regarding her report? I know there was a problem oncebefore where Ms. Song on another matter that she had objected to the Hearing Officer being there to respond to his report. So I just wanted to find out if you wanted me to have her, contact her to be present at the meeting. SPRINGER:In my time on the Planning Commission we have both had Hearings Officers present and not present. Mr. Yuen do you have any thoughts on the matter? YUEN:Id just like to state my recommendation on this. The role of the Hearing Officer is to hear evidence, digest the evidence, present an objective summary of the evidence, and to make a recommended decision based on that evidence. And then the Planning Commission should take that and make its own decision. The Hearing Officer is not an advocate for any side or even an advocate for the Hearing Officers decision. The report should be complete in itself. The Commission has access to the exhibits and has access to the transcript.AtthehearingwheretheCommissionmakesadecisionwhentheseareall contested matters where there are representatives of each side to the extent that the representatives of the sides differ with the Hearing Officer they can make those arguments. They can point to items in the record like exhibits or testimony that they believe contradict the Hearing Officer. And then the other side can also make those same kinds of arguments and citations to the record. And the Planning Department can do so as well. That being the case there is a problem potentially with-. The Commission naturally wants to, may want to have the Hearing Officer clarify issues that are in the report. But you dont want to have the Hearing Officer testify on anything that is actually not in the record. If it is I the record the Counsel for either side or the Planning Department can point out where its in the record. If its a matter of a-. And often times these things dont boil down to disputes about what the facts are. They really end up with a value judgement, a balancing test that is in the hands of the Commission. Typically it involves a degree of annoyance, a degree of impact to people in the surrounding neighborhood versus what the Applicant wants to do. The Hearing Officer has stated the Hearing Officers idea of that balance. The Commissioners are appointed to vote on your idea of that balance and so I dont see the Hearing Officers role as to come here and to argue where that, where that line should be drawn. So for these reasons its my recommendation that we not as a matter of course invite the Hearing Officer to come and present the report. The report has already been presented in writing. SPRINGER:Thank you Director Yuen. Commissioners having heard the Directors comments do you have any discussion on the matter? Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM:Im certainly willing to go along with the Planning Directors recommendation but I also just like think of a parallel like in a normal application not a contested case application we have before us. We get a background report which has all the material on the white paper and then we get the Planning Directors recommendation on the orange paper whatever and so I feel like the same situation kind of applies there. We could say well the Planning Director has only read the same material that you know and hes decided this that and the other thing is the recommendation. Notwithstanding that I find it very useful and I think most of the Commission does to query the Planning Department about why they said this or that in the recommendation so Im certain that those kinds of thoughts EXHIBIT A 9