Sierra Club Granted Extra Week To Comment on Adequacy of Facebook Report

People interested in giving official feedback on the Facebook Environmental Impact Report now have an extra week to do so.

Menlo Park’s City Council unanimously approved extending the deadline by an extra week, after the Loma Prieta Sierra Club requested that they get more time to review the weighty document. 

“When it came out, pretty much everyone went on vacation for 21 days,” said  Gita Dev, Loma Prieta Sustainable Land Use Committee Member.  “Staff wasn’t available.”

Rachel Grossman, city planner on the FB EIR project, said that was not the case. She said staff was only unavailable for two days, weekends aside, since the EIR was released on Dec 8.

 “I was checking emails remotely while I was out of the office,” Grossman said.

Grossman said the city received five requests for an extention from various organizations and the city of East Palo Alto. 

Not all of the eight people who spoke at Tuesday night’s Planning Commission meeting were in favor of extending the deadline.

Matt Henry, President of the Belle Haven Homeowners association, said, “If we all agree that this is important, all of the parties involved should have put forth a little extra effort and time to study the report.”

The new deadline for submitting comments to Facebook project planners is January 30, 2011.  

Comments made on the document ought to be on the adequacy of the environmental impacts outlined within it, according to City Attorney Bill McClure, otherwise there is no legal requirement to address them.