Historic Preservation Commission Regular Meeting

Do a roll call.

No one online

Okay, I'm going to close public communications and we're gonna go to a museum rep report. Do we have one sure?

We do we have a new exhibit that's in place It's 100 years of Ojai women it has all different kinds of way of putting it forward The one I enjoy the most is kind of an old push Push phone and dialing someone that probably none of you know what I'm talking about, but what they've done is they've taken that and then they've embedded in that discussions that we did oral histories that we did starting in. I think it was 2012 and so we've interviewed them so you know I'll see somebody on it and I'll go talking with the dead again so and it's right there in the middle they have a lot Different groups of people that have been in the valley.

Nice touch this year is that it's in both English and Spanish, which I love. And so we've had a couple town talks that are still coming up. We just had a Big, I think, event yesterday with Louise Sandhouse was there. She's a graphics person and they had the Ojai Breezy or another graphics group that's within the Ojai Valley that was there yesterday. So again, highly recommended.

I would maybe cut it up in two days because there's just so much information to look at, to read and to enjoy. Thank

you. And now we have a consent calendar. I don't think we have anything on the consent calendar, so if we go onto the minutes. Does anybody want to have any corrections? I have a couple. Anybody have any comments on the minutes besides me? Brian?

I thought somewhere in the minutes maybe on the second or third page that it had a misspelling on Walker.

I did not catch that.

Kind of the K and the L were switched a bit, but it was crazy day to

day.

I could be off, but I thought I saw that.

And then on item number three, I might have brought up the paint discrepancies. But that was a vice chair Sims item to that she had brought up. So that wasn't me that was discussing that and then under the item number four at the very bottom of that item. It says council member Ming brought up the relevance of its preservation much month not prevention month.

And I think that was all I had. Anyone else? Anybody want to make a motion with corrections?

I move to accept the corrections and the minutes. Do we have a second?

I second.

Roll

call, please.

McKen? Yes. Sims? Yes. Niessen? Yes, Moore? Yes Walker? Yes Aikins? Yes Basascia?

Yes

Wonderful now we're going to item number two Which is can we have a staff report, please?

Yes. Thank you This is an item for the HPC to consider a revised plan for a minor work permit It's minor work from at WP 2500 nine this was referred by the director as requested by the Commission for installation of two generators each with propane tanks and To be installed on concrete pads for the property located at 700 San Antonio This is a city landmark number 25 and the name of it is West ways The applicant has proposed Landscaping as To screen the these two tanks and the trees are the sorry, the landscaping is dwarf olive and Tony on toy on tree. And they're shown on a landscape plan that's installed that's in your packet And at this time the Commission may discuss Staff's recommendation to approve the project as proposed. We do have an applicant here if you have questions for them Other than questions for me

Thank you So, um, do we have any questions for the applicant before we open it up for public comment? Yes

I was wondering if the plants that you're going to use are all native plants and

Actually so Sorry, so if you want to ask first, so if we don't have questions for staff then we can have the applicant come up and and Embellish what I've said or you know Or you know give more information if they would like to give more information other than what I

do. No are they native plants?

They are native plants yes yeah and however now if you don't have more questions of me it would be appropriate for the applicant to come up and Give their own presentation if they'd like

Does anybody else have questions for staff? No. Okay, can we have the applicant come up please So besides the question about The native plants do we have any questions that we would like to ask

I'm curious Is the olive native to Ojai?

The olive is not native to Ojai that I know for sure.

And I'm sorry if the applicants could both state their names, please. Sure.

My name is Stephan Allory. I'm Joel Horowitz. I am the State Manager over there.

And also Coffeeberry is one of the plants?

Yes.

That is a native to Ojai?

Yes, I believe it is.

It is. Thank you.

The olive is native, is it native to California at all? I thought I read that both proposed were native. No?

Maybe certain species but I don't believe that's the case. We do have quite a few olives on property already.

Okay well I apologize for that

error. We used Bill Mellet local arborist and we asked him to do you know native plants as much as possible

Thanks

for

clarifying.

I was looking in the landmarking agreement of the property and it listed all the character defining features. And in our administrative report, it says it wouldn't affect any of those but it only lists the brick and mortar parts. And there's also one of the character defining features is the setting which is pasture land with oak trees. And I was looking at the picture which is a picture that shows Outbuilding number four and it's looking in a view line right down there and it seemed to me that these were going to be put Right in front of that building the the actual generator and the The tank that has the propane in it, and I know you're putting some trees there. But Had you explored? Locating it anywhere else that maybe was a little more hidden from that view view line

Yeah, so they're actually they're positioned close to the building. However it's like you said the landscape is so open and that's kind of how you want to have it if it were in the middle of the field that would be an awkward placement we all thought even Bill Mallett agreed with that so by kind of tucking Thank you for having me. The pastures and everything else down there.

Initially it was going to be closer to the horse barn, but we decided it was best to kind of tuck it away and put over by the outbuilding number four just due to its proximity with the guest house you can see the horse barn pretty It's kind of hidden between some oak trees and everything else. You can really only see that certain portion of the building from one of the access roads. We explored a variety of areas, and it just seemed to be the most natural place.

Well I know for being such a large place there's not a lot of hiding

places. Trust me as someone who manages the place you see everything from everywhere so there's no storage whatsoever. Going through it's like you see it from every vantage point, which is challenging when people don't want to see a tractor

well I appreciate your coming back with this because it really helps to see how it's gonna be screened and hidden. Thank you

Anybody else have questions for the applicant No do anything want to add

The reason for the generators are, of course, for the firefighting water that is not available during blackouts. It's not going to be used that often. Last year I think it was four blackouts we had? It

was six. We had six instances where we lost power. Which powers our booster pumps, which powers our water. We have no water pressure essentially up there, which is the whole reason we have two different sets of booster pumps. It's really tough because our water main actually is closer to Creek Road so it goes uphill by a quarter mile at least or something. So this was a pretty high priority for the current owner to protect the structures and

Won't the won't this be used for all the structures to the houses, the guest house? All of that when the power does go out. Right. Not just for water.

Yeah, well it does. It does go obviously if we're going to do it you're gonna do it to everything so they're

all connected

They are, well the south generator is primarily just for the horse barn and the water booster that basically deals with the whole south side of the property. The north generator is for gate access, the garage so that opens the main house and then of course the extra water booster that we have to the north side. Thank you.

Anyone else? No? Thank you.

Thanks.

Anyone want to start a discussion or a motion if you feel like you're there? What would you like to do, anyone? Okay, does anyone have a motion then?

So we're making a motion on what we're putting forward that the motion would be to allow this project to go forward.

To allow the permit.

The permit to go forward. Yeah. Okay I'd like to make that motion then.

Okay do we have a

second?

I'll second the motion to move the permit forward thanks. Okay can we get a roll call?

McCann. Yes, Sims. Yes, Neeson. Yes more. Yes Walker. Yes Akins. Yes the Sasha

yes

Okay, thank you thank you both for coming Okay now we're on to item number three The city beautiful award discussion do we have a staff report?

Yes, at the December 11th 2025 HBC meeting commissioners requested that this item be placed on a future agenda to discuss the potential of creating a new award To be presented to an individual by the HPC and the award would be based on specific criteria and You have in your packets a write-up of this Criteria and the ideas and such from Commissioner Aikens So what you can do tonight is You're to discuss the opportunities to have this award and also the path forward which would include a blessing from the council to create this additional ward and including funding for additional plaque or plaques And so I will just open it up to you. And again, you have information in your packet that was provided by Commissioner Eakins

I'd like to start with asking Commissioner Aikens if he has anything he would like to talk about first.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you staff. One of the things I lost over the last few weeks is my voice. Not sure where that fits into everything. I've been thinking about this since back in November, you know when we're celebrating our 50th and kind of remote. And putting things together unfortunately then I get through a time frame and I ran into some significant health issues and they caused the side effects that come from the medicine, cause things that made it really hard for me to put together that thing like loss of short-term memory.

And so my thought was that, and things I wanted to talk about is why did Libby come here? What was the City Beautiful Award? We can see that in early photos of town. And I'm like why am I expending all of this to talk about Libby coming here when there's other members of the commission who can do a much better job and be less strain on me Plus, it gets us all involved.

And so I'm appreciative of Commissioner next to me sent me items that talked about the initial speech 1917, I think. And I looked through that and my comment was, you know we need to chop that down so we can read it on Libby Day every year as kind of a proclamation because it talked about turbulent times. So on the one thing on qualifications is smartest thing I did was laying in the bed talking to my daughter said, how can I help you? And I said, well, I need to come up with a report on something like this. And of course she had it for me in 12 minutes and sent it back to me. She's got four kids in school and a chat GPT expert.

And the other thing was that I was trying to stay unbiased in all of this. And so, that was an easy way to do it, was to relegate that. And then the other thing—by the way, I had a beautiful view out the window. The other thing was, what are the questions that are going to come up? And so I kind of proposed tomorrow that we would have this initial part and then have the time frame to be thinking about this in going forward. And have the time to get it tomorrow in a timely manner so it can be in the next package. But I just, I thought it'd be fun to have everybody involved because everybody has such great talents.

And in closing, I will tell you this is the fun part. So people are like Libby? What's Ojai got to do with Libby. Libby, Libby Libby. Oh here's Libby Libby Libby. Well, I was driving home. I live down in Oakview and I got a phone call from this guy right next to me and he said Hey, I was just at BART and there was a the Italian 1924 Libby High School yearbook.

And so I said where are the yearbooks? And the gal goes oh I think they're over there and so I went there and got this Beautiful 1924. I'll leave it here so some of you can see, it is perfect. Bought it took it over to the museum and said that it was a donation from Rick Basaccia. So you're in our records! Yes, so these are the kind of crazy things on how did this 1924 yearbook get to Bart's books?

Can I go next? Yes, so I'm the chair but I wasn't sure if you were done. I didn't want to step on you that this is your thing. So You know we have our two awards We have our annual and we have our lifetime and there's they're very specific for someone who's contributed to historic preservation in the city of Ojai But sometimes there are things that contribute in a different way, that may be not shoehorned into these two awards. And we were trying to figure out what happens when a property or a person or situation comes up like that and then Commissioner We were talking about what we can do, and I think he came up with a really beautiful idea of having it be the Edward Drummond Libby Ojai City Beautiful. When we were working on the local district together, we learned a lot about what the City Beautiful movement meant and going to Libby being there and learning about civic pride, town pride, bringing the community up.

And he came back and he applied those to our downtown. And then when it burned down, he applied it again. Amazing! There's so many things that Libby has done for the City of Ojai. But the city beautiful—it is that principle of this is our home. This is where we live. We're all stewards of this land and it's important that we have these Events like Ojai Day, we bring everybody together. We celebrate in the same way in the same location that they've been doing for a hundred years. We can look back and look at pictures of people celebrating in the same places that we celebrate now. And so having it be based on civics, based on what it means to be a part of a community and lift a community up And what you've done to do that, whether it's through architecture or whether it's through something cultural.

It seemed like we were missing this one spot where we would talk about our yearly awards and Well it's not really, maybe it doesn't really quite fit and this was a way to not shoehorn it into preservation but to the city of Ojai, the principles of the last 100 years with Libby and with City Beautiful. And I think it's a great idea.

I would just like to mention that in the 30s and 40s, Santa Barbara had a program called Santa Barbara Beautiful. And it was a group that would put out for nominations for people to nominate different like landscapes or buildings or houses that were particularly beautiful, and then they had a board that would select down the final ones. And it was so popular that people were literally fighting over the plaque because it was a big deal to get that plaque. People were really competing with each other when they knew the judges were going to go by, they would have their place all extra special so that they would see it.

So it really had a positive effect on the community, but I understand this could be different in the sense that it wouldn't just be buildings and landscape although it could be. But it could also be something like music or drama or anything that brings the community together working for a common purpose and inspiring people with their community spirits so I like the idea that was mentioned in Brian's paper of maybe having a board that would have two members of this commission, two members of the Planning Commission and two members of the Arts Commission. That would kind of be that hub for the thing in selecting them so I like that idea and anyway, I think it could be a very positive thing.

Anyone else?

Well it might be a good way to bring some of the newer people that have moved to Ojai in the last 50 years into beautifying, you know understanding the beauty of this valley because I don't think that a lot of people that live here that just come and go on a daily basis I think it's great. I'm happy.

Anyone else? Yes, Laurel. You know when you mentioned Craig the because I didn't read your thing or Brian but music or arts, I think that's. You know opening up like the awards and I think that's a fabulous brilliant idea because I was just originally thinking it was just going to be architecture or gardens, but it could be as you're talking about something Maybe it's only one time every five years. It could be every year, but it doesn't have to be. That's what we talked about before. It's just like when somebody does something that's extraordinary and that's how we felt I think as a group about the El Roblar was that it was an extraordinary effort but it wasn't...I mean I thought I wanted it to have the award You know, other people thought it wasn't quite right.

And this is the way we can do these extraordinary efforts.

Right, because even things like the Ojai Valley Trail when that was put in. I mean what a great enhancement to the valley and contributing to our affection for the valley by walking along the trail or you know that cemetery cleanup. I know we already gave that lady an award for keeping that landmark going but just things like that Thank you. Anyone else? Okay.

Does anybody want to? So in this motion, what do we want from it? We talked about bringing it to joint council and asking them or we could put ask to go on a future agenda. We can bring it to other commissions and see if they want to join with us. What do you think is the best effect? I think Brian

should form an ad hoc with a couple of other people, and just work on it and contact the people at the Arts Commission. You know what I mean? Just develop it a little more and get the focus of it.

How do you see it,

Brian? What Craig's saying is excellent. What I'd like to see is maybe if it's left open for this first month from here to the next month because then We don't have to go through an ad hoc committee. We can just send it straight tomorrow and get it fresh from them, and then take the ideas that we like as you were suggesting and concentrate in them, and look for places where people like art or different things, and then we can go up to the commissions and market it to them.

But I think part of it is to get, you know, the initial okay from the council because they're the ones that have to say, you know, yay or nay. How

does that work? Is that what you meant by getting it back to Mora? Is that what you meant?

No, what I meant is that if we have the okay that people rather than going through an ad hoc committee You know, hey, here's my idea. They could say here's my idea mark Can you include that in the package of ideas for the next

meeting? I'm sorry. I'm sorry Brian for for this meeting or for a City Council meeting

No, for this meeting.

For this meeting? For next—for

March. But I think you're saying that for a future meeting like maybe next meeting we would all send our ideas to Maura. She would put them together and then send them back out to us before the next meeting and then try to work with those?

Yeah, I just like to open it up as much as we can and then, as you said, get the ideas. You know, just like brainstorming. So

staff can certainly take all of your comments that you send in by date certain and get them all together and get them back to you in the next packet? And then what you would do is if you wanted to go forward with this, then one of you, most likely the chair, would present this to the City Council and asking for their

blessing.

That's how we would go as opposed to us getting it on their agenda. It would be you going to council and asking.

So I would like to make a motion to have this item come back in March with comments from our commissioners sent to you two weeks before next meeting. Is that standard?

It's the two Fridays prior, yeah.

OK.

And I can send out a reminder.

OK and then we'll come back because I think it's unanimous that we want to move forward with this.

So I'll send out a reminder with the date certain for having the comments to us. Okay, do

we have a second for that?

All

second Can we do a roll call

McCann

yes

Sims.

Yes,

Mason.

Yes

more. Yes Walker. Yes Akins. Yes. But Sasha,

yes

Thank you very much I know Brian you've you know with everything going on still got here and you were able to present it So thank you very much.

That was why I brought nurse Connie one to begin with

Thank you Okay, so now can we have a staff report on our training in Brown Act? Oh

Actually, I'm going to do something. I could have done at the beginning but we just went so quickly We're gonna introduce here our our city attorney for the evening and this is Lisa Lisa Torosian Yes, did I say that right? Yeah And if you would give a little presentation about yourself and then on then also she will then start the the training for the Brown Act

Hi everyone, my name is Lisa Tarosi and I'm a senior associate at LHI and Winder. And we're very excited to be your new city attorneys and I'm very excited to be here and share this very important information with you. I'm going to go ahead and get started and share my screen so that you guys can see the slides while I do the presentation.

Sorry. I'm a

little delayed. Okay, hello everyone. Like I said my name is Lisa Tarosian. I'm happy to be here with you all today to review your roles and responsibilities pertaining to your membership on a commission with the City of Ojai. In the interest of time I will skip over some of the information contained in these slides Don't worry you receive a copy of The slides as well as my personal speaking points and notes after this presentation if you need to review anything Any of the information that's contained in them at a later time If you have any questions, please feel free to say we save them till the end Your questions may even be answered the further we delve in So let's get started As you know, a city's boards, committees and commissions are vital support systems for any city.

And the better they function, the better a city can serve its residents. That is why it is very important for members of these groups to be well informed of their roles, responsibilities and applicable laws. Boards, commissions and committees are established by the OMC. The current ones are the Planning Commission, the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Arts Commission, the Building Appeals Board, and the Historic Preservation Commission.

There is also the Finance and Budget Committee. This committee is advisory to the City Council and does not possess independent decision making. Members are appointed by a committee composed of I'm sorry members are appointed to a committee composed of by the Members are appointed by a committee composed of a mayor, or rotating city council member and the chair or vice-chair. The nominating committee must reach a unanimous decision for each nominee to be confirmed by the city council.

If a majority of the full city council declines to accept nominees proposed by unanimous vote of the nominating committee, the nominating committee begins the process again and interviews candidates from the existing applicant pool to select a new nominee until the city council confirms the nominating committee's choice. Vacancies created midterm are filled in the same manner.

Qualifications for members are described in the respective agency's ordinances. To join a board commission or committee, you must take an oath and sometimes be required to submit a statement of economic interests. You will also be expected to participate in ethics training within the years of appointment and every two years. You may know this as the AB 1234 and AB 1825 trainings. However recent legislation has changed the timelines for ethics trainings which we'll discuss later in the slides.

You will also be expected to complete a sexual harassment prevention training within six months of appointment and every two years as well. Members serve four-year terms, and there are no exceptions except the Youth Commissioner of the Parks and Recreation Commission who is limited to one two-year term. All committee members must also serve until their successor is appointed and qualified.

Members serve at will and may be removed for any reason. Some of the examples of these reasons are excessive absences, verbal or physically abusive behavior, violations of ethics policies, violations of city policies and conflicts of interest. Commediappointments are non-political appointments There is also a process and procedure for the removal of members.

This happens when first, the first step in this process is first two city council members must advise the City Manager of their intent to place an item on the upcoming agenda to consider the removal of the committee member. Then the City Manager contacts the committee member to advise them of the request and to provide them with at least seven days notice of the agendized city council discussion regarding the removal.

The committee member can then choose to resign or object to that proposed action. If they choose to resign, 60 days notice is suggested to enable the identification and replacement of the member without causing a gap in the committee's membership. If that member chooses to object, they will be given an opportunity to speak to the full city council at the agendized public meeting before consideration of their removal.

After completing this process, any committee member may be removed by a majority city council vote at a regular City Council meeting. Each board commission and committee must elect a chair, vice-chair and secretary to serve a one year term. Committee members may nominate themselves or any other member to these positions no second is required. Once nominations are complete, a vote on the nominees in the order of nominations is taken. The nominee receiving votes from a majority of the members in attendance will be appointed.

If no member receives a majority, the process is then repeated except in a tie between the top two vote getters, in which case a runoff is held. Some boards, commissions and committees function in a purely advisory role while others also have decision making responsibilities functioning in a quasi-judicial or quasi-legislative role. Those two words are interchangeable.

All committees serve in an advisory role to city council. An advisory role for example includes recommending changes to the OMC if that change is within the committee's jurisdiction. Both informal and formal means of communication may be used to fulfill this advisory role. Formally, committee recommendations related to city actions may be presented at City Council meetings as individual agenda items or as action minutes.

Other boards, commissions and committees may also have decision-making responsibilities and function in a hearing mode from time to time which is a quadrijudicial role. These responsibilities include the granting of permits and the hearing of appeals. The HPC as you know is a quadrijudicial committee. The other ones are the Planning Commission and the Buildings and Appeals Board Recommendations to City Council are made through formal action, meaning by a motion and vote. And sometimes the approval of a resolution.

Committees may also perform additional duties that are assigned to it by city council. Ad hoc committees may also be formed by committee vote to accomplish a special goal within a given time frame. Ad hoc committee membership must be less than the quorum of the committee. Ad hoc committees are also expected to give regular reports on the progress of their specific goal.

Members are expected to review agenda materials, attend meetings, participate in discussion and vote on agenda items. If a member is unable to attend a meeting they should notify the committee chair as soon as practical. Members of a committee shall attend in person unless arrangements are made in advance for attendance by teleconference. The chairperson presiding over meetings as well has the other responsibilities that are listed in this slide.

As a chair appears on behalf of the committee when appearing before city council, the chair may only speak on behalf of the committee on a topic where an action was approved by a vote of the committee. Each committee also has a city council liaison who facilitates the committee's work and communication information to City Council. The council liaison does not participate in committee discussions.

There are two types of meetings, regular and special. Regular meetings may be rescheduled with the posting of a cancellation notice and notification of a special meeting. Meetings may be cancelled by either the chair or staff liaison. The reasons for cancellation should be sent to the council liaison, mayor, and city manager. Lack of a quorum of the majority of appointed members at a meeting requires meeting cancellation.

Special meetings may be held at any time upon the call of a chair, a majority of committee members or city council followed by the appropriate notice. Special meetings may be called to meet deadlines, conduct study sessions or workshops, or when a quorum was not held at a regular meeting. Serial meetings and discussion of official business outside of a notice public meeting is not allowed.

Serial meetings are a violation of the Brown Act. A copy of the most recent version should have been sent to you already by the city clerk, but it was also attached to this agenda. Committee members are subject to FPPC investigation in the event complaints are filed regarding Brown Act violations. The combined effect of serial meetings may inappropriately be a meeting of a quorum of committee members. For example, if a member of a seven-member committee speaks to more than two other members it may constitute a serial meeting.

Inadvertent use of email like the careless use of the reply all function can also result in a serial meeting. Engaging in a discussion of city business on social media can also lead to a serial meeting. A quorum is a majority of members. There can be no meeting of the committee unless a quorum is present. If less than a quorum attends, any discussion by the group is characterized as a committee of the whole.

But no record is made of this occurrence and no decisions can be made. All right, Brown Act compliance. All board commission and committee meetings are subject to the Ralph M. Brown Act. colloquially the Brown Act, which is found in the California Government Code. Under the act all meetings must be open and public. However, the Brown Act does not limit an official acting in his or her own capacity meaning you have the right to confer with constituents advocates consultants news reporters or to talk to staff or a colleague but you must make sure to avoid discussing official committee business so that you don't have a serial meeting The use of direct communication, intermediaries or technology to develop a collective concurrence outside of a meeting is also considered a serial meeting and therefore prohibited.

The seriousness of a serial meeting cannot be stressed enough and the internet makes it much easier for members of a legislative body to communicate with each other and their constituents in ways that make it easier to have a serial meeting. To avoid this, a good social media rule is not to react, share or comment on a post or comment by another member of the body.

So what is not a meeting? I know I just gave you a lot of instructions on what not to do to avoid having a serial meeting but that should not discourage you from having individual communications or contacts with other members about non-committee matters. There is no prohibition on the attending public conferences or other local agencies meetings, community meetings or social gatherings.

Informational meetings with staff are also not a violation of the Brown Act. This slide is just some additional information about social media communications I already discussed in that previous slide but you can review it if you need some additional guidance. The agenda constitutes the roadmap of a meeting. The format and sequence of the committee's agenda is discussed in detail in the handbook. I refer you there if you need additional details about that, and committees are governed by the Rosenberg Rules of Order.

Rosenberg's Rules of Order contains specific rules of conduct. Every member desiring to speak shall address the chair and upon recognition by the chair, confine contributions to the matter at hand avoiding all indecorous language and personal attacks as well as tangential discussions of non-agendized items. A member may not interrupt the speaker except for the following reasons. The first reason is privilege, the proper interruption would be point of privilege. The chair would then ask the interrupted to state your points.

Appropriate points of privilege relate to anything that would interfere with a normal comfort or amplification of the meeting. For example, the room maybe too hot or too cold. The second is order. The proper interruption would be point of order. Again, the chair would ask the interrupter to state your points. Appropriate points of order relate to anything that would not be considered appropriate conduct of the meeting. For example, if a chair moved on the vote on a motion that permits debate without allowing that debate.

The third is appeal. If the chair makes a ruling that a member of the body disagrees with, that member may appeal the ruling of the chair. Their proper interruption is I appeal the ruling of the chair. If a motion is seconded and if the motion is seconded and after debate, if it passes by a simple majority of the vote then the ruling of the chair is deemed reversed.

The fourth is withdraw a motion. During debate and discussion of a motion, the maker of motion on the floor at any time may interrupt a speaker to withdraw his or her motion from the floor. The motion is immediately deemed withdrawn and any other member may make the motion once recognized. Other rules of testimony to keep in mind are that all comments should be addressed to the committee as a whole and not to individual members of the committee, members of the public or to staff. It is also helpful but not required for speakers who state their name in order for the secretary to identify them in the minutes of the meeting. The chair may limit public speakers to three minutes or less depending on the number of speakers and the length of the agenda.

The process of consideration and action on an item is handled with the following four steps. The first is presenting the item, the chair should announce the agenda item number and subject. The chair should then announce any special procedures to be followed. Let's say if the item is a quasi public hearing This is also when members would announce if they have a conflict of interest, if any and recuse themselves from the vote and leave the room.