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Item 19 Staff Report Approve Response to Santa Clara County Grand Jury Request for Information on Conditional Use Permits ProcessMEETING DATE: 1I/20/00 ITEM NO: 19 COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT DATE: November 17, 2000 TO: MAYOR AND TOWN COUNCIL FROM: ORRY P. KORB, TOWN ATTORNEYIV SUBJECT: APPROVE RESPONSE TO SANTA CLARA COUNTY GRAND JURY REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT PROCESS Recommendation: Approve Response to Santa Clara County Grand Jury Request for Information on Conditional Use Permit Process Discussion: Prompted by the complaints of a neighbor of the Los Gatos Auto Mall concerning violations of hours of operation, the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury initiated an investigation of the Town's method of enforcing Conditional Use Permits. The Final Report issued by the Grand Jury on July 6, 2000, finds that the Town generally enforces land use conditions of approval, that these enforcement efforts should be aggressive, that police department records of its response to noise violations are difficult to access by the subject of the complaint, that the transfer of data between the Police and Community Development Departments should be improved, and that the Community Development Department should have a written policy concerning responses to citizen complaints regarding violations of Conditional Use Permits. The attached response acknowledges the report and generally agrees to undertake each of the recommended actions. The response to the recommendation concerning a study of improving Police record keeping and access are conditioned upon feasibility and cost. The response to the recommendation concerning aggressive code enforcement is limited to a confirmation of the Town's desire to enforce conditions of approval consistent with the Town's traditional complaint - only approach. Finally, the attached response is late, in that it was required to have been submitted to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court on or before October 5, 2000. Consequently, the Town must submit its response by no later than December 5, 2000. Environmental Analysis: Responding to the recommendations of the Grand Jury is not a project as defined by CEQA. Fiscal Analysis: Responding to the recommendations of the Grand Jury will require staff time and possibly some limited outside consultation to study the feasibility of modifying the Police Department record keeping system, some staff time to study improving interdepartmental data transfers and future record keeping needs, and some staff time to develop a policy to respond to citizen complaints. The response does not commit the Town to significant additional costs. PREPARED BY: ORRY P. KORB, TOWN ATTORNEY Reviewed by: Reformatted: 1 anager /23/95 Revised: 11/17/00 3:43 pm File# 301-05 PAGE 2 MAYOR AND TOWN COUNCIL SUBJECT: November 17, 2000 Attachments: 1. Grand Jury Report - An Inquiry into the Enforcement of Conditional Use Permits in the Town of Los Gatos 2. Response letter GRAND JCRT July 6, 2000 Honorable Steven Blanton Mayor Town of Los Gatos 110 East Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 Dear Mayor Blanton: The 1999-2000 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury is transmitting to you its Final Report, Inquiry into the Enforcement of Conditional Use Permits in the Town of Los Gatos, for your information and response. California Penal Code Section 933 (c) requires that the governing body of the particular public agency or department which has been the subject of a Grand Jury final report shall comment within 90 days to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court on the findings and or recommendations pertaining to matters under the control of the governing body. VCalifornia Penal Code Section 933.05 contains guidelines for responses to Grand Jury findings and recommendations and is attached to this letter. Your comments are due in the office of the Honorable Jack Komar, Presiding Judge, Santa Clara County Superior Court, 191 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95113, on or before October 5, 2000. Copies of all responses shall be placed on file with the clerk of the public agency and the Office of the County Clerk. Sincerely, I. Alne Foreperson 1999-2000 Civil Grand Jury TTACHMENT 1 ..♦ .i.i. C ,i it uI ��., v;l I; . (.IiSI 209-3M • 1',' 29c.11;.ti, 1999-2000 SANTA CLARA COUNTY CIVIL GRAND JURY AN INQUIRY INTO THE ENFORCEMENT OF CONDITIONAL USE PERMITS IN THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS INTRODUCTION One of the Grand Jury's duties is to receive complaints from citizens and to make in- quires and recommendations as to those matters pertinent to the Grand Jury. The 1999-2000 Grand Jury received such a let- ter with respect to the lack of enforcement of the Los Gatos Town Ordinances regard- ing conditional use permits, hours of op- eration, and noise abatement. DESCRIPTION The Grand Jury interviewed the complain- ant who stated that on many occasions in the early morning hours, he was awakened by noise of vehicle transporters unloading vehicles at a nearby auto mall. Addition- ally, on occasion there was loudspeaker music noise and loud voices. He stated he had notified the Los Gatos Town Police, the Community Development Department, and the Code Enforcement Officer, but the problem continued for at least a year. He contacted the District Attorney's Office, who referred him to the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury's initial interview was with the Director of Community Devel- opment and the Assistant Planning Direc- tor for the Town of Los Gatos. They re- ferred the Grand Jury to the Police De- partment as the primary responding agency for noise abatement and illegal hours of operation. They also stated the Code Enforcement Officer, who reports to the Planning Department, was the respon- sible official for enforcement of all Condi- tional Use Permits. A request was made to the Police Chief to retrieve the records of all complaints of 1 noise violations and violations of condi- tional use permits in the Town limits for the past six months for comparison pur- poses. The request was for the name of the complainant, time of complaint, respond- ing officer and disposition of the com- plaint. The Town Attorney, the Chief of Police, the Planning Director, his assistant, and the Records and Communications Manager all stated this information could not be retrieved from the computer system as it is now set up. They further stated the town ordinances are being impartially en- forced and that the conditional use permits are being complied with. After a lengthy discussion, the Planning Department produced several Council Agenda Reports dealing with code com- pliance. It revealed that as of 7/19/99, there were 252 code violations reported year to date, 119 violations abated, and 133 pending normal processing. There were none referred to the Town Attorney and only two citations issued. For a six- month period, there were ten complaints regarding noise and hours of operations in the vicinity of the complainant's address with no appreciable resolution. They stated that they had issued three final no- tices to abate the noise. Los Gatos presently has no written policy or procedure for a citizen to file a violation of a Conditional Use Permit, br other type, complaint. The unwritten policy is that "the citizen comes in and talks to the Community Development staff about their problem.," t tay JUL 3 BREW) Saw: - A 4 t FINDINGS From the above data, the Grand Jury ob- tained the following findings: • The Los Gatos Police properly re- sponded to the noise violations reported by the complainant and records relating to each report were maintained in the police logs. • Information concerning the com- plaints of Conditional Use Permit viola- tions in the Los Gatos Police logs was transferred to the Los Gatos Community Development Department. All Town pro- cedures were followed in transferring this data. • The Community Development De-. partment responded to the Conditional Use Permit violations and tried to resolve the situation without taking legal action. They sent three final notices to the violator. • The Los Gatos Police Department's computer system is not capable of retriev- ing general information concerning Condi- tional Use Permit code violations. This information is retrievable only on a spe- cific address -by -address basis. • The complainant was interviewed af- ter completing the investigation. At that time he reported that within the previous three months, the situation had dramati- cally improved and he was pleased with the results finally achieved by the Town of Los Gatos. • The Town of Los Gatos Community Development Department has no written complaint policy. 2 CONCLUSIONS The Grand Jury reached the following conclusions: • Attempts to resolve violations of Conditional Use Permits without legal ac- tion is admirable and in this case, after a year of complaining, resulted in a satisfied citizen. However, for a full year, the citi- zen received no satisfaction until after he complained to authorities outside the boundary of the Town. In addition, this approach potentially disregards the imme- diate needs of the Town citizens. Further, it adds the appearance that the Town may favor businesses' needs over those of the citizens. • It is impossible to gather sufficient demographic or statistical data from the present Los Gatos Town Police computer system as it is now configured. • Better record keeping, aggressive en- forcement, acid prompt response to com- plaints, should be the goal of all the en- forcement and service departments. There should be attempts to resolve violations without legal actions, but in the process, the citizen and his complaint should be addressed with understanding and aware- ness of his need. • The sending of three Final Notices is illogical and makes no sense. RECOMMENDATIONS The Grand Jury recommends that the: Town of Los Gatos, and the Town Chief of Police: 1. Direct a study be made to upgrade the computer system and the Police Depart- ment's record keeping process. 2. Evaluate the procedures for transfer- ring data from police records to the Community Development Depart rif and determine if these procedures satisfy future needs to gather demo- graphic or statistical data. Director of Los Gatos Community Development Department: 3. Be more aggressive in enforcing Conditional Use Permit violations with regards to hours of operation and noise violations. 4. Take action to ensure that a Final Notice has the effect of being a final no- tice. 5. Develop a written citizen complaint procedure. 3 PASSED and ADOPTED by the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury, this 13th day of April , 2000. I. Alne Foreperson Michael(V. Guerra Foreperson Pro Tem Mary (4 key) Benson Secret TOWN OF Los GATOS CIVIC CENTER 110 E. MAIN STREET P.O. Box 949 Los GATos, CA 95031 November 20, 2000 Honorable Jack Komar, Presiding Judge Santa Clara County Superior Court 161 North First Street San Jose, CA 95113 RE: RESPONSE TO GRAND JURY REPORT - AN INQUIRY INTO THE ENFORCEMENT OF CONDITIONAL USE PERMITS IN THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS Dear Judge Komar: Please accept the following as the response of the Town of Los Gatos to the above Grand Jury Report. This response was approved the Town Council during its regular meeting held on November 20, 2000. Also, please accept the Town's apology for failing to submit this response by October 5, 2000, as dictated by California Penal Code section 933(c). The Town's failure to submit a timely response resulted from inadvertence, rather than any intent to ignore the findings and recommendations of the Grand Jury. The Town has no comment in response to the Introduction, Description, or Findings of the Report, each of which the Town considers a fair and accurate. Regarding the Conclusions of the Report, the Town has the following comments: 1. The first conclusion erroneously implies that Town staff did not respond to an individual citizen's noise complaints in a timely fashion and did not resolve the issue until and because of the Grand Jury inquiry. The Final Report states that "[t]he Community Development Department responded to the Conditional Use Permit violations and tried to resolve the situation without taking legal action." This confirms that the Town did respond to the complaints, and there is no evidence that the Town's response was not timely. Also, the Grand Jury investigators were informed that the citizen made numerous individual complaints about several different activities that occurred beyond the approved hours of operation for the subject business. In each case the Town responded by contacting the business in question and working to obtain compliance. A reasonable approach to code compliance requires some tolerance for the time necessary to address the concerns of all interested parties, without showing favoritism for any individual concern. Finally, the ultimate resolution of the complaints had no more to do with the Grand Jury investigation than did the abatement of the other 119 violations referred to in the Final Report. .iTACHMENT 2 INCORPORATED AUGUST 10, 1887 CI Honorable Jack Komar, presiding Judge Santa Clara County Superior Court November 20, 2000 Page 2 2. The second conclusion is too general in its statement that it is "impossible to gather sufficient demographic or statistical data from the present Los Gatos town Police computer system as it is now configured." There is no dispute that the system is incapable of providing data on responses to all code violation complaints of a specific type throughout the Town over a given period of time. Nevertheless, the system can search by address. Therefore it is possible to identify complaints made to the Police by citizens located within any identified radius of any business or group of businesses. The Town believes that such methods of sampling can provide sufficient information to study the enforcement of Conditional Use Permits. Regarding the Recommendations, the Town responds as follows: 1. Direct a study to be made to upgrade the computer system and the Police Department's record keeping process. Response. The Town accepts this recommendation and shall initiate a study to determine the feasibility and cost of modifying the Police Department's record keeping system to increase the type and number of fields of information that can be searched and obtained. 2. Evaluate the procedures for transferring data from police records to the Community Development Department and determine if these procedures also satisfy future needs to gather demographic or statistical data. Response. The Town accepts this recommendation. 3. Be more aggressive in enforcing Conditional Use Permit violations with regards to hours of operation and noise violations. Response. The Town conducts code enforcement on a complaint -only basis, reflecting its traditionally small staff and comparatively low incidents of code violations. The Town confirms that it shall continue to enforce Conditional Use Permit violations. 4. Take action to ensure that a Final Notice has the effect of being a final notice. Response. The Town accepts this recommendation. 5. Develop a written citizen complaint procedure. Response. The Town accepts this recommendation. Honorable Jack Komar, presiding Judge Santa Clara County Superior Court November 20, 2000 Page 3 We trust that this response satisfies the requirements of the Penal Code as well as the concerns and recommendations of the Grand Jury. Sincerely, Joe Pirzynski, Mayor cc: Edward C. Copeland, Foreman, 2000-2001 Civil Grand Jury Town Council Minutes November 20, 2000 Redevelopment Agency Los Gatos, California AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS AND TOWN ATTORNEY AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AMENDMENT ON BEHALF OF THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS. Carried unanimously. EDELEN AVENUE 209/RESIDENTIAL REMODEL/RESOLUTION 2000-138 (13.15) Mr. Peebles, 209 Edelen Ave., asked for reconsideration of his proposal since he had missed one of the planning meetings. Council comments were that they believed their decisions from the prior meeting were appropriate, and that Mr. Peebles should have asked for a continuance at the planning level if he was to be absent. Motion by Mr. Blanton, seconded by Mrs. Lubeck, that Council adopt Resolution 2000-138 entitled, RESOLUTION OF THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS DENYING APPEAL OF A PLANNING COMMISSION DECISION DENYING A REQUEST TO DEMOLISH AN EXISTING SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE AND TO CONSTRUCT A NEW RESIDENCE WHICH EXCEEDS THE FAR AND TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF REQUIRED PARKING SPACES FOR PROPERTY LOCATED IN THE R-1D:LHP ZONE. Carried unanimously. ROBERTS ROAD 17017/RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION/RESOLUTION 2000-139 (14.15) Mr. Davis, resident, questioned the wording in the report and title of the resolution. Town Attorney explained the reasons behind the wording and actions that Council may take. Motion by Mr. Attaway, seconded by Mrs. Lubeck, that Council adopt Resolution 2000- 1 39 entitled, RESOLUTION OF THE TOWN OF LOS GATOS GRANTING AND REMANDING AN APPEAL OF A PLANNING COMMISSION DECISION DENYING A REQUEST TO SUBDIVIDE A PARCEL INTO FOUR LOTS AND TO DEMOLISH A SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE AND CONSTRUCT FOUR RESIDENTIAL TOWN HOMES ON PROPERTY ZONED RM:5-12. Carried unanimously. GRAND JURY REPORT/CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT ENFORCEMENT PROCESS (19.38) Town Attorney, Orry Korb, explained the history of this report, its outcome, and methods of addressing specified issues. Ray Davis, resident, spoke to the need to enforce town use permits. Motion by Mr. Attaway, seconded by Mrs. Lubeck, to approve the Town's response to the Santa Clara County Grand Jury Request for Information on Conditional Use Permit Process. Carried unanimously. CONFLICT OF INTEREST CODE/DESIGNATING POSITIONS/ORDINANCE AMEND (20.01) Ray Davis, resident, spoke to this issue, and asked that consultants to the Town, hired on a regular basis, be included by name in the conflict of interest code. TC:D11:MM112000 6