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contested case to happen for just the applicant, it would, it would create a weird situation where
<br />they would be against the Department. But the Director is just recommending; he is just making
<br />a recommendation. So there is no decision being made, there is no action being made, so to then
<br />appeal that to the court would be improper, you know, until action is taken. Then, you know,
<br />then action can actually be appealed, but until then a contested case would be improper at that
<br />time.
<br />
<br />CLARKSON: Okay, I’d like to support Commissioner Ikeda’s concern. When I, and I think I
<br />said this before, when I saw that, I thought, well, how can anybody know they are going to want
<br />to be an intervenor before they see anything happen except a notice in the paper and they get a
<br />chance to go down to the Planning Department and get the application and read it. I personally
<br />would prefer that a person would be able to apply to be an intervenor, go through this 200-dollar
<br />fee, any time before the Commission takes final action on the matter; so they would actually be
<br />able to sit through the initial hearing, hear public testimony, see how things were going, see
<br />whether their concerns were going to be addressed by the Commission or by other people in
<br />County government, and then if they are still unhappy, they say, no, I want to intervene, and then
<br />the Commission would have to adjourn and go through the contested case process.
<br />
<br />HO: I hear what you are saying, but what that does is, if you don’t create a time limit for people
<br />to state their interest, then that creates, basically they can just delay the process for the applicant
<br />as many times as they want; they can just, or one intervenor can come in at this time and say, no,
<br />I don’t want it, and then, you know, then another intervenor can wait and stuff, and it just, it kind
<br />of just delays the whole process. You are trying to make it fair for both parties, for the applicant
<br />and the intervenor. So just like in everything in life, you’ve been in court cases, right, there is a,
<br />you have 30 days to appeal to the court, and if you don’t appeal within that time, you know, you
<br />have to have a, just sort of to keep order. And so I hear what you are saying, but like we said
<br />before, the majority of these cases happen to be surrounding landowners that have an interest and
<br />they get notified way before the actual hearing. But if you want to, let’s say, put notification out
<br />further in that way to give people more time, we can possibly do that. But I think that taking it
<br />away all together would basically just increase contested cases for one, and kind of just stall the
<br />whole system in place, because people can just continually file and intervene without an end.
<br />
<br />CLARKSON: No, I don’t think people should be able to sequentially intervene, but I just think
<br />that, I mean this procedure has it so that you have to intervene before the first hearing, seven
<br />days before the first hearing, and then that it says that intervention, then they will, they will
<br />reschedule the hearing to the next subsequent rescheduled hearing date. I just think that before
<br />the Commission takes, or I don’t know maybe you could say before the end of the first hearing.
<br />Even that would be a good deadline, you know, but not seven days before anybody’s heard any
<br />testimony.
<br />
<br />UNGER: To clarify, this is not a change, right? This is the way it has been.
<br />
<br />HO: Yes.
<br />
<br />UNGER: Okay.
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<br />EXHIBIT A
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