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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-04-14 Historic Resources Board Summary MinutesHistoric Resources Board Staff Report (ID # 14346) Report Type: Approval of Minutes Meeting Date: 5/12/2022 City of Palo Alto Planning & Development Services 250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 (650) 329-2442 Summary Title: HRB Draft Minutes April 14, 2022 Title: Approval of Historic Resources Board Draft Minutes of April 14, 2022 From: Jonathan Lait Recommendation Staff recommends the Historic Resources Board (HRB) adopt the attached meeting minutes. Background Attached are minutes for the following meeting(s): • April 14, 2022 Attachments: • Attachment A: HRB Draft Minutes April 14, 2022 (DOCX) City of Palo Alto Page 1 Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Caroline Willis; Vice Chair Christian Pease; Board Members Michael Makinen, Margaret Wimmer, Gogo Heinrich, and David Bower Absent: Alisa Eagleston-Cieslewicz 1. Adoption of a Resolution Authorizing Use of Teleconferencing for Historic Resources Board during Covid-19 State of Emergency Oral Communications Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions City Official Reports 2. Historic Resources Board Schedule of Meetings and Assignments Ms. French shared upcoming HRB meeting dates and planned absences for those dates. No absences are shown for the April 28th meeting. There will be a project coming forward on April 28th, 525 University which is the very tall building on University. This is an exterior alterations project, subject to architectural review. Board Member Bower will be absent on May 26th which is a tentative date for a project on California Ave, also a California Register-Eligible property, subject to architectural review. The meeting of June 9th is on the same date as the California Preservation Foundation Conference, which board members have the opportunity to attend and earn credits for attendance , so the recommendation is to not meet on June 9th. Chair Willis said she is willing to cancel the June 9th meeting, as it would be a good thing for board members to try to attend. Preservation Month is coming up in May. A reminder of the date, time and cost of the event in San Jose was shared. Ms. French described it as an opportunity to mix with the broader Santa Clara County Preservation Boardmembers, staff, et cetera. The band, The Starg eezers, will play. Ms. French shared that her dad was a founding member of the group. The CPF Conference will be held on June 7-10. Registration is open for this online conference. There will be some actual tours on June 11 – 12. The Annual CLG report will be presented at the April 28th HRB meeting. This is filed each year with the State Office of Historic Preservation. Chair Willis mentioned Preservation Month and the Santa Clara County Preservation Alliance. She urged everyone to attend and to network with the different groups. She noted a suggestion by Ms. French to honor the PAST website for being an amazing community outreach effort, and to acknowledge the amount of work that has gone into the website. Board Member Wimmer supported this idea and noted that they are relied upon for information, photos and resources, and it would be a good opportunity to praise their efforts and thank them. Board Member Heinrich agreed. Ms. French will notify the organization of the HISTORIC RESOURCES BOARD MEETING DRAFT MINUTES: April 14, 2022 Virtual Teleconference Meeting 8:30 A.M. City of Palo Alto Page 2 Board’s decision. Chair Willis encouraged board members to visit the PAST website to see the Historic Building Inventory. Consent Calendar 2. Historic Resources Board Work Plan for 2022-2023 Updated to New Format Ms. French noted that she has transferred the items previously reviewed by the Board on the upcoming Work Plan to the new format. It still includes prior year accomplishments. A few minor changes were pointed out. For the upcoming year, there were five goals listed on the old format, which she reduced to four goals for the new format. The new format has five columns for each goal which lay out the beneficial impacts, the timeline, the resources needed, the measure of success and the relationship to law or Council- approved policies. Additionally, there are priority statements about the goals, which is the new area in the new format. Work Plan Goal 1 involves the main and ongoing work of the Board – review of alterations to historic resources and assisting the ARB with review of eligible commercial resources. Goal 1 also includes updating the Review Bulletin as discussed previously during the first quarter, which starts in July, 2022. Goal 2 is the Comprehensive Plan Policy L7.2 implementation. This involves outreach to the public regarding the process for owners to request an evaluation and pay the City for the evaluation. This may occur when someone goes to sell a property, or are seeking to demolish or have discretionary review of a two -story home. Because of the Council’s action on March 21st, Ms. French said implementation of Policy L7.1.1 will be proceeding with an estimated duration of around eight months for the project. The L7.1.1 task involves nominating properties already found eligible, with DPR forms prepared, to the City’s inventory. The scope of the implementation includes residential properties first. A consultant will take a look at these and find out if they still exist. Staff believes about 11 of them have already been demolished. A survey report would be completed including consideration of which inventory categories apply. There would then be an HRB study session to discuss the findings and approach. There would be two evening meetings with the HRB, plus two additional meetings, as well as four City Council hearings. There is an optional task of looking at the roughly 35 National Register-eligible commercial buildings to confirm whether they should still be considered eligible. The final task for this goal is to support staff in project management, outreach and community meetings. Goal 3 is general outreach regarding the incentives for historic designation, Ordinance review – one of the Comprehensive Plan policies – which is designated for 2023. Goal 4, which has been on the work plan for a number of years, is the Mills Act Program. The program has been teased out with an Ad Hoc Committee. This is listed as a lower priority goal, but the idea would be to finalize an approach and prepare a report to Council, which is projected to be worked on in early 2023, and reporting out to Council in March or April of 2023. This is contingent upon finishing other, higher priority, goals. Ms. French reminded the Board of the updates proposed by the Ad Hoc Committee to the Mills Act which were published in the September 9, 2021 HRB packet. Board Memb er Bower pointed out that the changes presented by Ms. French represented in red on the document are the updated language changes subcommittee proposed since worked on the Mills Act four years ago. Ms. French suggested discussion with the Ad Hoc committee on the Mills Act with the Board take place later in the meeting under Subcommittee Items. The Board discussed Work Plan Goal 1 – the ongoing work of the HRB to review certain categories of buildings on the inventory. Ms. French said Goal 1 is a high priority because it is the primary work of the Board as stated in the Historic Preservation Ordinance. Chair Willis noted that the Council and City Manager’s Office are looking at the new work plan format it for how effective it is and how well it serves the boards. She felt it works quite well for the Historic Resources Board, but she invited any comments and said there will be an opportunity to talk to Council about it when they review it in May. Ms. French confirmed that May 16th is the date for Council consideration of work plans, and they have asked for representation at the meeting, so she plan s to attend, and it would be appropriate for the Chair and anyone else to come to the meeting, if possible. She will be forwarding any comments received on the new format to the City Clerk. Chair Willis said she would like the “project goal” City of Palo Alto Page 3 to jump off the page more than it does. Ms. French said the format was received from the City Clerk’s Office, and it was difficult to fit all the text in the appropriate areas. Vice Chair Pease asked about the function of the Bulletin which is listed as needing to be revised. Ms. French explained that the Review Bulletin was reviewed by the HRB in 2016, and it was intended to assist staff and the public in understanding the different resources and how they are reviewed. When someone wants to alter or demolish a resource, there is information that helps people understand that process. There are different categories of resources to help people understand the process. Chair Willis said she doesn’t find the Bulletin particularly clear, and thought their goal should be to make it clear to the public, especially as they add properties to the inventory, what the difference is between the categories. She thought what comes to the HRB needed to be better defined, and the goal of the Bulletin was to make it clear to the Board and to staff whether or not it should come to the HRB, and what the process is. Vice Chair Pease asked if it includes informing the general public. Ms. French said it was removed from the webpage because of the Comprehensive Plan adoption at the end of 2017 , which changed things somewhat for Historic Resources Board. One of the tweaks they have discussed related to projects was what constitutes minor exterior alterations. This could be better defined and put on the Bulletin to help the public and staff understand what the Board considers minor. Vice Chair Pease noted that the last two pages were an attempt to simplify things, including FAQs, et cetera. He wondered if the Bulletin would be considered public outreach. Ms. French said it would, as any time they take on a project that helps clarify how they do business and what the Code says, et cetera, and how the Board operates, would be called outreach. Board Member Bower said he found the language on the Work Plan somewhat confusing. For example, Project Goal 1 is to review alterations and support nominations, and also to update the Bulletin, which is obviously confusing, based on the comments. He wasn’t sure he understood the “Review of alterations to historic properties” as a goal because this is what the HRB has been doing since it was formed in 1998. Also, listed under “Resources Needed” are consultants , that cost money, and they don’t have any money. He thought it was an odd way of saying that the Historic Resources Board is going to do what it has been doing for 24 years. Chair Willis responded that Council will be reviewing the Work Plan and the HRB’s primary goal – not stated in the document – is to get the resources from Council that are needed to execute the Work Plan. Presumably, if Council is not going to support the HRB with resources, it is an unrealistic work plan. She said she and all of the various chairs of the boards met with the Mayor this week, and it was a topic of discussion. Work plans are happening right now. Some boards have very ambitious goals, and she thought there was a lot of concern about overreaching and what is realistic. She said she thought the one thing the Council has done this year is to have a separate meeting on work plans, so that it won’t just be on the Consent Calendar and briefly discussed, but will be discussion with back -and-forth, including some conversation and adjustments made with Council to make sure they understand what the Board is undertaking. Chair Willis said the fact that just because reviewing projects is a continuing goal doesn’t mean it isn’t a goal. It is their primary task, so it’s an ongoing goal, so she didn’t have a problem with it. Board Member Bower said that the high priority/low priority language seems somewhat confusing to him as well and not very informative to the public. Although he understands the importance of defining goals, talking about it is not the same as doing it, and he finds it somewhat frustrating because it seems like just more talk and not very much action on the things that are listed. Chair Willis said they all feel that way, but she is hopeful that will change. She said she and Vice Chair Pease are meeting with the Mayor and some Planning staff that evening and hoping to clarify that, so that they know they have support for what they are taking on and know it is a huge change for the HRB, but they are optimistic that the Cit y can manage this. She felt the high priority/low priority issue may be more of a formatting issue, and perhaps she and Board Member Bower could look at how it could be adjusted within the format and refine the work plan so it's clearer for the Board, and perhaps talk it over with the City Manager’s Office. Vice Chair Pease hoped that they could discuss the overlap between the goals as well, because it will be important when it comes to asking for funding and focusing their work. He said he finds a lot of overlap, and if they are going to ask for money to invest in something, they may be able to leverage more of the results of the investment if they take a moment to look at all four of them together. Chair Willis agreed City of Palo Alto Page 4 that they could look at this at the e nd of the discussion. She also thought that they should reassess identifying the Bulletin as a medium priority in terms of inventory update, because outreach is going to be a huge thing. She thought if they could clarify the Bulletin and have it available to the public it would help them understand what the reality is of being on the inventory, so they might want to move it up as a priority for outreach goals. Ms. French pointed out “Measure of Success” as a potential area to provide what the board members think is the success of the goal. She said the idea was to start this as the first quarter in July when the Work Plan starts, that the Bulletin would be updated and posted on the Preservation Program web pages, which is what she would consider success. If there is something else there that involves outreach, such as a mailer in the City’s utility bills, it might be conceived of as a successful outreach in regard to the Bulletin. She thought they would have an HRB meeting to tweak the versions of the Bullet in, and then there could be additional outreach. Ms. French initiated discussion of Goal 2, policy implementation of Comprehensive Plan 7.2, which is ongoing, and 7.1.1, for which Council, on March 21st, directed staff to “work with the HRB to review the approximately 165 properties deemed eligible previously and make recommendations for listing on the City's local inventory in accordance with the process set forth in PAMC 16.49 and collaborate with the HRB for community engagement.” She emphasized the imp ortance of this goal in terms of resources and measure of success. Chair Willis commented that she finds it somewhat confusing in distinguishing the ongoing process of studying properties that are potentially historic and actually putting properties on the inventory. She felt they were separate, and it would be more clear if they were separate goals . Although they are both responsive to the same policy, they are different activities that are handled differently. Ms. French suggested they could separate them, one being the 7.2 and the other would be the L 7.1.1, which identifies the Council action. Boardmember Heinrich asked where they stood on getting a consultant. Ms. French said they are working through refining the scope and moving towards hiring a consultant to help with the Council direction. She said they estimate about eight months for the project. Board Member Heinrich wondered how soon the consultant would be onboard. Ms. French said there is a process with Purchasing, and they are working diligently to make it happen. Chair Willis suggested talking about this during the reporting discussion. Board Member Bower suggested under “Beneficial Impacts,” where it states, “…allows the City to learn about historic status prior to proposed demolitions” that they it should state, “renovations/demolitions.” Ms. French said the statement in the Policy refers to the policy that, before demolition, they find out whether it is California Register-eligible. But for the work plan they could also add “for significant exterior changes,” because if someone comes through with an individual review to add a second floor, they would evaluate the character-defining features that they need to preserve in a remodel or addition. Chair Willis advocated for wording such as “major changes” and didn’t like having “demolition” in the wording at all. Ms. French said they could change this wording, and they don’t have to quote the policy in the Comprehensive Plan. Vice Chair Pease asked about “Resources Needed.” He asked if property owners will have to fund any of the consultant activities in confirming the potential for the properties to be added to the local inventory. Ms. French said the 7.2 issue is funded by property owners. Often, they want to sell their pr operty and want to find out if it is actually historic or not. This is a lot of what staff does on a regular basis to help property owners who are about to sell their property understand if they have a California Register -eligible property or not. There is no linkage between that and the 165 properties. Chair Willis said this is her primary reason for wanting to separate the two goals out. Ms. French said that the 7.1.1 issue will be the area where those properties for which they already have DPR forms for both the National Register and the California Register. They are the ones they will take as nominations, and those properties will be the subject of the big process they are about to get into. Vice Chair Pease thought that was helpful, but also that Goal 2 is interesting because they have discussed aspirations around public outreach and education and awareness, but it has always been a resource problem, both with staff and budget, but since this particular goal was vetted in the City Council meeting and was voted on unanimously, it is probably the most likely one to get funding, so he felt it was important for them to work on what the costs are for that particular goal. He suggested in going through all of these City of Palo Alto Page 5 goals, a lot of the work on the content of outreach can be applied to the other tasks, and it would be wise, given the scarcity of funds, that they try to approach them in ways that they can reuse the outcome of that process, whether it’s the Bulletin or any other public outreach associated with t he other three goals. Chair Willis wondered about moving updating the inventory up to goal number one. She presented a proposal to make Goal 1 the inventory update, Policy 7.1.1, and updating the Bulletin in conjunction with that. Goal 2 would be their ongoing work; Goal 3 would be Policy 7.2, learning about the historic status, which is not so much the Board as it is staff. Ms. French agreed that it has been a staff -plus-consultant effort in which the list of all properties found eligible and ineligible is presented yearly to the HRB in the annual CLG report. Chair Willis invited comments regarding re-shuffling the goals. Ms. French said she was happy to meet with the Chair and Vice Chair to finalize the Work Plan, but it would have to be soon to get it into the Council report. Vice Chair Pease noted that they don’t always have properties submitted for consideration , and that is why, over the period he has been on the Board , there have been more meetings cancelled than held. He felt it remains their primary responsibility, but if they continue to meet at least once a month , if not more, then they could address the other three-and-a-half goals. Board Member Bower’s perspective was that , despite the fact that they have four goals, moving any one of them forward at any particular time is a success for the Board. He thought if the order made a difference to the Council, then should talk about it, but he thought just getting the goals in any order in front of the Council is probably the highest priority. Vice Chair Pease said he had just been thinking about the likelihood of actually having resources to work with. Board Member Bower understood and appreciated that consideration. Chair Willis said they will plan to meet with Ms. French early the next week to finalize the Work Plan. Ms. French asked that they all focus on the “Measures of Success” and whether the wording is good , and it would be helpful for her if they would weigh in on this. Chair Willis supported the wording for project/goal 2 as long as they were separated into two projects/goals, as previously discussed. Board Member Wimmer agreed on separating that goal into two, because in Project/Goal 2, working with the HRB to “review the approximately 165 properties deemed eligible previously and make recommendations for listing on the City’s local inventory” was beyond their timeframe/abilities and definitely would require an outside consultant. She felt it was an unachievable goal currently , and possibly anytime soon. She wondered in what timeframe reviewing of the 165 properties would take place. She noted that they have the safety net of when people want to alter their p roperties, they are required to do a review and she thought that was a positive. However, reviewing the 165 properties is a long-term goal, not something they can tackle and accomplish in a short amount of time. Board Member Wimmer also agreed with taking out the word “demolition” because they want to remove any suggestion of that, and the word should be changed to “alteration.” Chair Willis thought within a couple of months the inventory project would feel much less daunting. Ms. French clarified, regarding Board Member Wimmer’s comment about finding out if the 165properties are eligible or ineligible, that the work was done in 2005. They are already on file with the State as eligible properties, and the DPRs are already prepared. Board Member Wimmer sa id her comment was in regard to reviewing them. Chair Willis reiterated she didn’t think it would be that bad. Ms. French said their estimate was about eight months’ time to do that work. Vice Chair Pease thought this sounded like the most promising goal they were considering, in terms of real results and also a huge opportunity to work with staff in a more comprehensive way to help shape what the outreach is, which is everything to their overall goals. He felt this goal was the most doable he has seen since being on the Board. Board Member Bower asked what the next step would be for the 165 properties if they have already been deemed eligible for listing, and what the HRB would have to do to get them listed. Chair Willis redirected the conversation in order to finish making adjustments to the Work Plan. Specifically, on improving outreach, she wondered if they wante d to move this wording in with their inventory update section L7 1.1. She felt that outreach was going have to be part of the inventory update, but could be separated from review of the Ordinance. Ms. French thought that would be fine, and they could add more goals to the work plan, with each distinct from one another, instead of condensed into just four. Ms. French said regarding reviewing the Ordinance, it was envisioned to be done in the second half of the year , assuming they have accomplished the eight months’ worth of L7 1.1. and other activities, such as the City of Palo Alto Page 6 Bulletin update. This would make the ordinance work Goal 4, and the outreach would be combined with Goal 2. Goal 2 would be separated into 2 and 3. The new goal 2 would be updating the inventory. Goal 3 would be the L71.2., the ongoing review that is mostly staff rather than HRB. Number 4 w ould be the ordinance review. Number 5 would be the Mills Act project. Chair Willis asked if there were any comments on the goal statement for the Mills Act. Hearing none, she asked Vice Chair Pease regarding his comment about parts of the goals needing to be consolidated, if they had accomplished that with their reconstruction of the work plan. Vice Chair Pease thought they were opening up the possibility to do that going forward. Chair Willis invited further conversation about the entirety of the goals. Board Member Heinrich asked if t hey could get a revised copy of the plan soon, so that they could comment before it goes to Council. Ms. French said it will have to be a quick turnaround to convert to incorporate the changes. She had hoped this would be the last meeting they would be discussing the work plan. She said she will be happy to provide the modified version, but whether there will be time to have a Board discussion was uncertain. Chair Willis suggested sending out a draft next week for the Board to review and comment on in a timely manner if there were any strong objections. Also, Ms. French said when they present it to the Council on May 16th they can convey any remaining concerns with the format, so that next year the format could be improved. She noted that the new format was only recently changed and received. Chair Willis asked if Ms. French could possibly make the goals appear more prominent in the document, with perhaps a larger font. Ms. French replied that she would try, but it is difficult because there is a finite amou nt of space to work in. Board Member Bower noted this was actually on their agenda as a consent calendar item, which are typically not discussed and not modified, at least on a Council level. He wondered about making all these changes as they related to a public visibility issue. He said the Council pulls something off the consent calendar if they discuss it. Otherwise, they just say yes or no. Ms. French confirmed this and said this was not advertised as a public hearing item, so technically it probably would have been good to ask members if they wanted to pull it off Consent and discuss it. She felt that because they have discussed everything involved during multiple meetings that it is not a new topic. But if there were members of the public in attendance, they could ask them, which there were not. She added that this will go to Council in a public meeting, and they can speak to it at that time as well. Board Member Bower said the changes discussed are all valid and they should be made, but he was just concerned about getting caugh t in a procedural error, but if Ms. French was comfortable with it, he was fine with it. Ms. French said it was basically just supposed to be a presentation of the format from her, and if there were problems to discuss them. It did what they needed to do, to suggest using more boxes and separating some of the goals into more boxes without changing content, but she affirmed Board Member Bower bringing it up and said it was important to acknowledge that they followed the Brown Act and posted items on agenda, and did what they need to do to be transparent to the public. Approval of Minutes 3. Approval of Historic Resources Board Draft Minutes of March 10, 2022 MOTION Motion by Board Member Bower to approve the minutes of the March 10, 2022, Historic Resources Board meeting, as corrected. Seconded by Vice Chair Pease. The motion passed (5-0-1) by roll call vote. Subcommittee Items Board Member Bower spoke regarding the Mills Act, and thought they needed to get the additional materials that they had sent to Ms. French into the document that was originally created in 2018. He suggested that the Board should look at it and discuss any additions or deletions, and then move it forward. He felt the board should discuss creation of a pilot program and that it was a discussion they should have as a Board as opposed to a subcommittee. He commented that they have to have a Mills Act before deciding as a Board what to recommend to the Council, which he suspected would be a single project. City of Palo Alto Page 7 Chair Willis said while walking around town she has noticed that there are a couple Category 2’s that have some obvious façade damage, and she wondered if they could go to Council and propose a Mills Act specifically for public buildings. She noted that on the Cardinal Hotel, tiles desperately need some repair work on the upper cartouches and things, and she thought it would be a good way to approach the Mills Act and make clear to Council why it is a good thing for the community. Board Member Bower agreed it would be great for the community but added that the Mills Act is a state-defined program, and he did not feel they should go to the Council and just ask for a commercial program. He thought they need to have an overall definition of what the Mills Act Program in Palo Alto will be . Then the Council can decide how to apply it. He thought it was possible to have just a commercial version, but felt they should have a single version for all rather than a specific version for each type of building. Ms. French cautioned that Mills Act discussion was not on the agenda today. Reporting on activity is acceptable but not having a discussion. Board Member Bower said the subcommittee has not had any further discussion beca use they feel they have done as much as they can do as a subcommittee, and the Board needs to pick it up from here. Chair Willis wanted to agendize the discussion because she felt it would be a very long-term item to get put into place. She suggested perhaps the first meeting in May they could have discussion of what the legalities are, what the realities are, and how they could approach it to make it palatable to the community. Board Member Wimmer thought there was something in the email for this meeting h aving to do with the Mills Act. Chair Willis did not recall seeing it. Board Member Heinrich confirmed that a reporter requested it and said it was an attachment to the email with the agenda for the meeting. Chair Willis asked that it be sent again so they could be aware of it when they discuss the Mills Act. Ms. French did not know if the first meeting of May was possible for that discussion due to current staff vacancies and work on preparing reports for the projects that will be coming to the Board for review. She preferred to push the Mills Act discussion to July, perhaps. The email referenced by Board Member Wimmer was located at presented. It was from a member of the press. Chair Willis thought she should call the sender and advise that they have no i mminent plans. She noted that when emails like this are received, they need to be forwarded to Board members. She felt that with the inventory update, it will be very important for them to be responsive to community comments and questions. Chair Willis reported on the inventory update subcommittee work. She said she drafted a letter and started a list of questions and answers which she thought would be a very important part of their outreach. She assumed that most people that have properties deemed to be National Register-eligible are not aware of it, as there is no notice that she is aware of. She thought people would be delighted to know that someone has done research on their very special houses, and would be receptive to being on the inventory. Being on the inventory has relatively low demands and the process is almost all positive. Although people would have to go through the HRB, she thought that people would be open to talking to them. She wanted to start working on a letter which is positive about the inventory and includes copies of the research that was done on each particular property and which asks if the owner knows of anything else about it not on the inventory. She wanted to make it a positive thing for people to do as part of participating in their community and for them to know that the HRB sees the value in their properties and is not there to punish anyone. She hoped most people would be responsive and want to sign up. She wanted to figure out a way for people to avoid having to go to public meetings. She said she would like to have at least half of the properties signed up on the inventory with as little fuss as possible. Chair Willis said she was also working on questions and answers regarding the properties on the historic inventory. This came up with Vice Mayor Kou, who was saying that people felt anybody can point at their house and say it’s historic, so she felt it important to understand who decided that the house was historic. They need to address the fact that although you can’t subdivide under SB 9, you can subdivide under their existing ordinance and you can modernize, because the Historic Resources Board isn’t reviewing the inside of their house from a historical perspective. They need to know they can actually tear it down - even though that doesn’t make her happy. The City won’t tell them what color they can paint their house. Chair Willis said she will send out her list of questions. She said one that is not asked very often is why does the City want to preserve these old houses? She felt that was important to answer. City of Palo Alto Page 8 Board Member Bower thought that Ms. French would have to send the list out, because if Chair Willis sent it out, it would violate the Brown Act. Chair Willis responded that she would not be sending anything out and when a letter goes out it will be voted on and will come from the HRB as part of their ou treach, with possibly City staff signing off on it as well. She wanted the message to be that they are here to support them. The Historic Resources Board is not a thorn in the City’s side, but it is a “village green preservation society” and that they want to preserve their community and keep the parts that are important intact. She did think the letter is something they should start refining and would also like the questions and answers to be on their website. Ms. French understood Board Member Bower to be saying that Chair Willis should not send an email with her list of questions out to the Board. Typically, Ms. French would send something out, and would send it with “bcc,” so that there is not a conversation happening related Board. Board Member Bower c onfirmed that this was his comment, not that he didn’t support the idea. Due to the Brown Act, they can’t have more than three people on the Board talking about any item that’s not in this public venue. Chair Willis asked about blind copying an email. Board Member Bower thought it was just safer to not send things to Board members directly, but to let Ms. French do it, so there is no question about it. He reiterated that he agreed with the content Chair Willis spoke of. Board Member Questions, Comments or Announcements Adjournment Board Member Commissioner Heinrich moved to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by Vice Chair Pease, the motion carried unanimously by voice vote.