City of RPV NCCP/HCP Nelson Public Comment Robert Nelson 6612 Channelview Court Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service eMailed: May 4, 2019 c/o Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office Mailed: May 4, 2019 2177 Salk Avenue Suite 250 Carlsbad, CA 90008 Attn: Karen Goebel, Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office Public Comment on: Recirculation of Draft of Rancho Palos Verdes (RPV) Natural Community Conservation Plan / Habitat Conservation Plan (NCCP/HCP) and Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) City of Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County, California, 90275 The view(s), opinion(s) and content expressed/contained in this email do not necessarily reflect the view(s), opinion(s), official positions or policies of the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council, the City of Rancho Palos Verdes or any of its employees, agents, contractors, Commissions or Committees (the “City”). It should be interpreted solely as the view(s), opinion(s) and/or work product of the individual author and should not be relied upon as the official position, direction or decision of the City. Requested Action: If asked now, my vote would be to do nothing, vote to stop our NCCP/HCP/EA effort. My reasoning: readers should know RPV was founded as a ‘low tax’ city. For our 42,000 residents and 14,000 parcels this million dollar expense will be on top of significant, on- coming multi-millions city expenses for underfunded pensions, new large civic center, stopping the landslide, building a new Ladera Linda facility including maybe buying soccer fields for parking and, very important, whatever new major items come up over project’s 40 - 50 year period. It is not enforceable since it covers the entire city (RPV has 2 Code Enforcement staff). Most citizens will never know when it is applicable and when it is not! Weekend projects will ignore it. Finally, as I’ve found out, RPVers do not like being told their city is forcing them to … and all are experts at work-arounds! . But – Thank you for this opportunity to respond to RPV’s actual draft NCCP/HCP/EA, now including changes RPV’s City Council made and staff technical and clarifying edits made but not included in the original circulated draft of last December. My understanding of this item: This NCCP is to provide RPV Incidental Taking Permits (ITP) covering Federally listed wildlife. The ‘Environmental Assessment’ (EA) lists: 2 species on the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA): **Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly (PVB - Glaucopsyche lygdamus palosverdesensis) El Segundo Blue Butterfly (ESBB - Euphilotes battoides allyni) and 1 Federal Threatened species: Coastal California Gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica californica) These 3 species are the only Federally listed wildlife applicable to ITPs. **Actually, it’s 2 species. page 1 City of RPV NCCP/HCP Nelson Public Comment ** Appendix H: pg. H-50: “Currently the PVB is known to occur only at the Naval Fuel Depot in El Segundo, south of Palos Verdes Drive North, Malaga Dunes and was recently reintroduced to the Chandler Preserve.” That is, Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly is not found the Preserve so staff, consultants and Agencies are doing all this for two species, a butterfly and a bird – whose ‘Threatened’ classification is being challenged I am told! Six additional plants and one bird are shown as ‘Unlisted,’ and no Federal concerns for these species are found. Simply put, US Fish and Wildlife is being asked to include 7 not listed species to accommodate the California Native Plant Society (CNPS). Why? Is any other Palos Verdes city recognizing the 7? Remove these, CNPS invited themselves to this effort and just complicate enforcement, cost, etc.. Doubt if these could be readily identified anyway. Again, only 3 species are Federally listed. We are adopting RPV’s NCCP at a cost of millions to protect two Federal species found in the Preserve! Kinda reminds some of the smelt fiasco up north! My review and comments apply to the re-circulated Implementing Agreement and Appendix. I did this since there is no question our current Council has decided RPV must have this NCCP (after long years of consultant / staff efforts) and implementation is our next major step. Realizing that, to understand what to expect, I concentrated on Implementation. Two areas of my public comments: 1. Format whoops, typos and potential corrections. 2. Brief philosophical comments. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My review and comments on NCCP’s Implementation Agreement: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment format: page numbers as found in our ‘Track Change Version,” chosen so I could see the changes Council and staff made after March 2108 version commented on last December). Binder: Cover page states the order is 1. NCCP/HCP; 2. Implementing Agreement. In my copy these were reversed; the Implementing Agreement was the 1st section and the NCCP/HCP was in the 2nd section. Should be reversed to correct to the Cover Sheet or change the Cover Sheet listing order. Title Sheet: Date shown is March 2018; s/b July 2019 (the date our Council will approve the documents is July 16, 2019, (per their scheduled meeting items) – giving you only probably 8 weeks to incorporate any changes you want / need to the +800 pages! Table of Contents: Pgs. iii, iv and v. Two lists of exhibits; one (pg. v) clearly states what each exhibit covers; the other (pgs. iii, iv) simply says Exhibit A through Exhibit E without any further detail. So we need to state 1. what are these unstated exhibits and 2. correct Exhibit d contents. Pg. iii and iv: Now: As follows: no explanation of what each overs. Exhibit A page 2 City of RPV NCCP/HCP Nelson Public Comment Exhibit B Exhibit C Exhibit D Exhibit E Each letter should add what it covers and pages numbers as below: Exhibit A: pg. 54: Model Certificate of Inclusion Exhibit B: pgs. 55-60: City Interim Resource Protection Ordinance Exhibit C: pg. 61: Species Covered Under the Plan Exhibit D: pgs. 62-82: Management Agreement between RPV and PVPLC Following Exhibit d the Table of Contents omits the following additional Exhibits found in the Implementation Agreement. Since there are duplicate letters, change the letter designation shown and add each to the Table of Contents. Letter shown is what is in the Agreement’s Exhibits. Exhibit A: pgs. 83-84: Map of Preserve Properties Managed by PVPLC Exhibit B-1: pgs. 85-86: PVPLC Obligations (updated 11/30/2011) Exhibit B-2: pgs. 87-89: City of RPV Obligations (updated 11/30/2011) Exhibit B-3: pgs. 90-92: PVPLC Permissive Activities (updated 11/30/2011) Exhibit C: pgs. 93-104: Oceanfront Estates Management Requirements Exhibit D: pgs. 105-108: Donor Recognition, Naming Criteria, Sites * Pgs. 109-116: Amendments to RPV-PVPLC Management Agreement *belongs after Exhibit d, pgs. 62-82: “Management Agreement between RPV and PVPLC,” not here. ** Pgs. 117-118: Preserve Maps **belongs after 2nd Exhibit A, pgs. 83-84: “Map of Preserve Properties Managed by PVPLC Exhibit E: pgs. 119-132: Conservation Easement (RPV to PVPLC) Pg. v: Again lists some Exhibits with explanations but manages to avoid many! Page v should simply be deleted as correcting as above will complete the Exhibit list correctly. What got my attention was the Table of Contents using just letters with no content info, then calling out 57 pages of Appendix d “ donor Recognition, Naming Criteria, Sites.” I know better! We don’t have anywhere near 57 pages of Donors! So when I got into those pages I found what should be and is listed above! Your call if you make those corrections. The Document: 1. Add Acronym list (to avoid reader bewilderment as to what NEPA, PAP, SSC, ESHA, PHMP, ACOE etc. are and their added complications. (In my former employment we had hundreds of acronyms but, if you used one, you first wrote it out then paren the acronym, for example, Rancho Palos Verdes (RPV). Should be mandatory here because many reading / implementing these requirements may not, in reality, have a clue what some acronyms mean. 2. NCCP covers all of RPV. Contrary to some Council members public statements, pg. 9 (4.42) clearly defines ‘Plan Area’ as “the boundaries of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes NCCP/HCP, consisting of approximately 8,616.5 acres within the CITY’S municipal boundaries , Los Angeles California , as depicted in Fig. 2-1 of the NCCP/HCP.” This diagram is of our entire city. page 3 City of RPV NCCP/HCP Nelson Public Comment Further clarification is in 2.17 on pg. 3: “The Plan developed by the CITY … encompasses the entire jurisdiction of the CITY (Plan Area) … approximately 8,616.5 acres … .” Council members need to be clear on this. They did away with our earlier ability to ‘opt out’ so we are all in. 3. Vague references: Throughout the Implementation doc the Plan (NCCP) is cited or referred to but without anything more than something like ‘Section 5.7 of the Plan.’ Normally you would expect a Plan title and page number to follow that reference as ‘”section 5.7: title, pgs. x-x”. I spent hours going back and forth from Implementation to the NCCP or Appendix double-checking and writing these details above these vague references! Specific pages: Pg. 15: 3rd sentence: ‘All of the lands to be dedicated to the Preserve are identified in Table 4-1 and figure 4-2 of the Plan … “ THESE REFERENCES ARE NOT IN THE IMPLEMENTATION DOC, THEY ARE IN THE NCCP DOC. Might want to make that clear. Readers could spend considerable time hunting for most references as they study the implementation requirements. But why don’t we show immediately in the Implementation doc what lands are covered? Why go to a 2nd doc to find that out? Pg.