Sutter Creek – The Sutter Creek City Council closed its public hearing on the Gold Rush Ranch & Golf Resort specific plan and related documents Tuesday night and continued their meeting to last night, with a “debate” to begin at 6 p.m. The council took public comment and anther brief presentation from project principal Bill Bunce, then more comments, and finally closed the public hearing, which began last Tuesday and was continued twice. Mayor Gary Wooten said the meeting today “will basically be the beginning of council deliberations and discussion.” He said “mainly you’ll be hearing the council members saying what they want in the project” – “a debate, if you want to call it that.” Wooten said there likely would be no action tonight, due to the amount information the council received. Planning Commission Chairman Robin Peters gave a presentation on a “decision points matrix” for the project, based on last-minute suggestions and recommendations submitted by Gold Rush developers before the planning commission approved its recommendation of the project. The suggestions handle key issues in the specific plan that the planning commission and developers could not come to agreements on, and therefore need to be settled by the city council. Peters made suggestions but said they were only from his point of view and not meant to represent the Planning Commission’s opinion, “and there may be dissenting opinions.” Peters for the most part kept with the recommendations made by the commission, and rejected most of Gold Rush’s recommendations, with the exception of a requirement for the number of homes to be finished before the building of the golf course. The commission recommended having it built by the time the 300th home is built. Gold Rush’s Bunce has said it was always intended to be finished in the first phase, and be built by the time the 500th home is built. Peters recommended the 500 figure as the mark for having the golf course built. Commissioner Cort Strandberg said he would go along with most of Peters’ suggestions, “with the exception” of the 300 to 500 switch, which if it went back to the planning commission “would probably be talked about for a long time.” Commissioner Mike Kirkley said he may agree with all of those recommendations, but he was concerned that the late suggestions by Gold Rush never underwent commission consideration. Kirkley said: “I think the 11th hour recommendations that they gave us were a pretty good example of their arrogance.” Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.