Carm Holm and a Tale of Two Counties

The County Commissioners named avoiding litigation as one of the main reasons for the Land Use Code for Delta County. Our county hired Carl Holm as a director of the Planning and Community Development Department and he began his official duties on Jan. 27, 2021. He was tasked with updating the 2021 Land Use Code which was adopted on January 5, 2021. Before that, Carl Holm was working for Monterey County, California at the Resource Management Agency (RMA). I am not a reporter and I'm just quoting a list of published articles because I was interested in how Monterey County is stacking up to the goal of reducing legal actions through governmental land use regulations. Draw conclusions on your own.

For reference, "Monterey County sits 90 miles south of San Francisco. It has roughly 422,000 residents and spans more than two million acres of incredibly scenic central coastal lands. Nearly 185,000 acres of the County is designated military lands and nearly 470,000 is the Los Padres National Forest and Ventana Wilderness Area. The economy of Monterey County is dominated by agriculture and tourism. The County is divided into five districts, each represented by its own County Supervisor. The Supervisors are tasked with moving county business forward and are often times the deciding factor for many proposed development projects. As has been true since LandWatch’s inception agricultural conversion into housing developments is one of the biggest threats we face. The Supervisors have the ability to approve or deny proposed development projects. It is imperative that LandWatch remain a watchdog over poorly planned and sprawling developments that impact our water supply, traffic, and quality of life throughout the County." https://landwatch.org/issues-actions/monterey-county/

And to clarify, "Carl Holm has retired in 2021 after more than 19 years with the Monterey county and 32 years in public service. He was hired at the county as a senior planner in late 2001, has seen county planning go through a series of changes over the past two decades while participating in and overseeing some of the high-profile initiatives during that time as he moved up the ranks to planning manager, assistant director of planning, deputy RMA director and ultimately director of the agency."

'During that time he has helped oversee the county’s response to a series of major fires and floods, the pandemic, and manage the agency under what he called a “highly litigious environment” that included the involvement of attorneys for even basic permits with no legal issue, as well as “distrust” as a result of past practices such as the planning documents “ghostwriting scandal.”' https://www.montereyherald.com/.../top-leadership.../

"The Monterey County RMA has been a problem child for a couple of decades, often bowing to outside pressure. Two decades ago, litigation by land-use activists demonstrated that land-use lawyer Tony Lombardo’s firm held unusual sway within the department and was even writing official planning documents. They called it the Ghostwriting Scandal. A few heads rolled.

Twenty years later, Lombardo still enjoys the reputation as an RMA favorite. Planners have complained to Voices and elsewhere about being overruled by department brass who had been lobbied by Lombardo. Some key departures over the past year have been blamed on that factor." https://voicesofmontereybay.org/.../skimming-over.../

"Hennessy [the new planning director for Monterey County] inherits a department rife with more basic problems. On Jan. 2 [2001], he'll enter an office still reeling in the wake of two lost lawsuits--one over the September Ranch project and one alleging that county planners were passing off developer-written documents as their own work. The loss of those legal battles are rooted in the perpetually chronic understaffing, poor-to-nil employee training, and antiquated technology that plagues the Planning Department." https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/.../article_9c74d4d3...

In 2015, "The supervisors [of Monterey County] are set to consider six amendments to the county’s 2010 general plan, including policies governing long-term sustainable water supply, an agricultural winery corridor, wildlife corridors and more. The changes grew out of a legal settlement with Landwatch and The Open Monterey Project."

'“We’re back in court (if the supervisors don’t adopt the amendments),” [Chief assistant county counsel Les] Girard said. “It’s that simple.”'

"Planning commissioner Martha Diehl said she voted against the amendments not because she opposed them but because she believed land use policy shouldn’t be made through litigation, and the board is responsible for political decisions.

“At this point, this is a political decision and not a policy decision,” Diehl said. “The difficulty is you can’t have a general plan without knowing what’s in it. We need to find a stable platform so everyone can go on with their lives. This (litigation) has to end some time.”'

”This is the third settlement agreement with general plan litigants"

"All of the lawsuits were filed shortly after the general plan was adopted in 2010." https://www.montereyherald.com/.../contentious-general.../

In January 2020, "[The Monterey County Board of Supervisors] approved a $199,000 contract with a large consulting firm, Citygate of Folsom, to study the functions of the county’s Resource Management Agency, also known informally as the planning department." https://voicesofmontereybay.org/.../skimming-over.../

"In a 208-page report released July 23 [2021], a team of consultants [Citygate Associates] dissected the “historically stubborn conditions” plaguing Monterey County’s Resource Management Agency and offered 76 recommendations for reform, including the splitting of RMA into two separate departments."

'The 76 recommendations deal with a wide variety of issues, including communication, policies, priorities, procedures. But, the report reads, “the recommendations most important to the longterm success of the RMA are along the themes of establishing trust, calibrating the workforce with workload, managing performance, and realigning the organization.”'

"In one of its first suggestions, Citygate said RMA employees should receive ethics training. “While Citygate does not suggest any breaches in planning ethics currently exist, Citygate nonetheless understands that establishing transparent, fair, and ethical decision-making processes in local land-use planning requires constant vigilance,” the consultants wrote."

"The report also calls out RMA for its inadequate communication with the public: "Over time, this has created confusion and caused mistrust among stakeholders." In another indictment of RMA, the consultants said the agency is top-heavy and should eliminate some management positions and replace them with more rank-and-file staff.” https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/.../article_36abd4e6...

"While consultant City Gate found the RMA engaged in a “decades-long struggle” with customer service and stakeholder satisfaction, as well as employee turnover, difficulty in filling key vacant positions, inadequate staff training, insufficient coordination of workflows, and work backlogs dating back to its formation, Holm said the study merely highlighted a number of issues that were known but which the agency couldn’t make headway on. He said the recommended and ultimately completed reorganization followed the format he created.” https://www.montereyherald.com/.../top-leadership.../

"It’s somewhat ironic that Holm [the director] and Swanson [acting chief of planning] are leaving, considering that the splitting of Monterey County Resource Management Agency came on the heels of a report by Citygate, a hired consultant that identified staffing shortages and employee turnover as two of the factors leading to “declining levels of customer service, increasing levels of employee apathy, and eroding stakeholder trust” in the department. https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/.../article_77fc217c...

Photo Credit: DCI