| Economic development, highway widening, build the quarry? |
Pacifica Tribune/Jane Northrop, 6/4/13. "City Council interviews candidates for Planning Commission."
.... "City Council voted to ask all standing commissioners on the Planning Commission and on the Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission as well as the Economic Development Committee to reapply for their positions.
.... Of the current seven
commissioners, Leo Leon did not reapply. The others -- Mike Brown, Rich
Campbell, Tom Clifford, Chuck Evans, Josh Gordon and Celeste Langille
-- did reapply.
Those candidates were interviewed by City Council
Wednesday evening along with new candidates Mike Bell, Mary Brown,
Jeffrey Cooper, Allan Federman, William Keaney, Connie Menefee, John
Nibbelin, Victor Spano, Sue Vaterlaus and Lisa Villasenor." Read article.
Related - Fix Pacifica reprint articles. City Council Agenda, 6/10/13 article, Item 19. Appointment 7 of 16 candidates to the City Planning Commission (from City Council Agenda, 6/10/13 direct). And, Planning Commission (memory lane).
61 comments:
Leo Leon is the only person on Planning who talks just to hear his own voice.
Him not applying is a start in the right direction.
oh who can forget? thanks for the hi-lite reel Kathy. good times, good times.
I say appoint Spano and dump Campbell
make room for spano, villasenor, mary brown, nibbelin
Villasenor and Spano, please.
Any of the existing commissioners are disqualified by the simple fact that they embarrassed the city by walking into a Brown Act violation and getting admonished by the DA. Cambpell is not qualified for the simple reason that he is an EPA attorney.
Lisa Villasenor is the right choice. She is an attorney and very smart and an extremely hard worker.
I know her personally and she is always willing to listen to all sides of an argument.
The voters spoke when they rejected Campbell. Now he can go away like Vreeland.
849 You're never going to analyze election results for CNN if you don't get some new lines. Really, you could be good.
Big deal! She golfs at Sharp Park and that alone makes her the perfect choice.
"... existing commissioners are disqualified" Common Sense Carl, 7:59 AM.
Hum, its more complicated, Carl. By the "common sense" standard you've set in your own thinking, Tom Clifford stays. Tom Clifford objected to the highway 1 widening discussion which was not agendized, and he did not participate. Tom is a contractor, who offers good inquiry, and "common sense" to most any discussion, whether the planning commission, or comments on this blog.
I don't recall if Charles Evans, and Mike Brown were each planning commissioners when the Brown Act violation occurred, if so they were new (or newish).
Celeste Langille, Richard Campbell and Josh Gordon are all attorneys. Richard Campbell, planning commission Chair at that time, was not present at the meeting, but FMV his follow-up comments about the Brown Act violation were deflective ("lame"). (My recall, these environmental attorneys were added by then city council majority about the time Peebles Corporation considered developing the quarry).
The non-agenzide highway 1 widening discussion was promoted by planning commissioner Leo Leon, (through his stated prior conversation with city councilmember Sue Digre). Leo Leon is no longer a planning commissioner. That night, the audience highway 1 widening campaign was apparently forged by Hal Bohner, attorney. Diana Verby, attorney, also spoke.
FMV at least 5 attorneys (3 planning commissioners, and 2 audience participants) abetted a Brown Act violation. Richard Campbell's involvement occurred at least through his comments after the initial violation. (Also, wasn't Hal Bohner once our city attorney?). You'd think these attorneys would all know better, and do better. Leo Leon's comment to me was that 1) he was not aware that bringing the highway 1 widening conversation to the planning commission (agendizing) was a Brown Act violation, and that 2) the planning commission had no formal Brown Act training. The San Mateo County District Attorney follow-up remedy was formal Brown Act training, which was completed.
The end, except: 1) the city should provide such periodic Brown Act training to all commissions; and 2) the anti-highway 1 widening group, through councilmember Sue Digre, attempted to agendize a special "anti-highway widening" legal mediation. No second, the motion failed. (The meeting would have excluded CalTrans (the developer/property owner), and was outside the ordinary Caltrans FEIR process). And prior, FMV the anti-highway widening group may have understood the Brown Act violation they attempted.
You know what Dick the Butcher said about lawyers. A complete purge is unlikely, but at the very least council should put the legal teams in balance on the PC, adding and subtracting lawyers as needed.
http://psinstitute.com/CitizensvDanville.PDF
Please notice the attorney of record on this case. Pacifica's own Celeste!
Her job is to keep developers out of cities, not bring them in.
Shocking!
Don't wave bye bye to Ms. Celeste or her colleagues just yet.
Don't fool yourself. This council is just as pro hippie as the last councils for the past 30+ years.
Dump Celeste too!
The city council engages in illegal closed session meetings - why worry about the lowly planning commission?
And please rearrange the deck chairs before going down.
"..."illegal closed session meetings.." Not true. Or, what are you talking about, Anonymous, 9:38 PM? Reference: Calfornia Government Code 54937, legal closed session meetings.
"...why worry about the lowly planning commission?" Nothing lowly about the planning commission, which city council appoints. And in this city those appointments have been in their own NIMBY advantaged image. Not balanced. Right Anonymous, 9:38 PM?
@524 I think of them as Yippies, ie, hippies with a touch of Yuppie. We have 1 classic hippie, 2or 3 Yippies, and Stone.
Yeah 938! No icebergs spotted off Linda Mar yet, but we know which ship we're on.
938 you better not be talkin' about this here council. they ain't much but they're ours.
8:49pm “Voters spoke when they rejected Campbell.” With that logic did voters reject Spano too?
I hope council keeps a majority of the Planning Council members that have volunteered many personal hours to our city, and have significant expertise on local land use issues along with historical perspective. I am grateful every day when I look at the Pacifica hills and coastside for those that stood against “paving paradise and putting in a parking lot”.
"..did voters reject Spano.." 12:20 PM
No the voters did not reject Spano. There were too many pro-economy friendly candidates running for city council, and he was the least known.
NIMBIES seem to do a better job counting. Campbell got all the votes NIMIES could deliver.
You make an interesting point, that NIMBIES have sacrificed our city for empty hills, valleys and flat lands. I drive highway 1, view the blight, and think what a wasted opportunity for services, jobs, and city improvement.
There's some convoluted logic for you. The voters rejected Campbell but did not reject Spano, even though both of them lost. Yeah, right.
Feeling very sad for anyone that sees hillsides and nature as blight. No wonder reading FixPacifica can be such a downer.
May your glass someday become half full with the realization that what Pacifica has is rare, unique and beautiful. So much better than a glass half empty, hoping it will be filled with an vacuous outlet mall.
Apparently you need some help understanding the issue, NIMBY Anonymous, 2:32 PM.
2-year City Councilmember, voter choice of 1 candidate only. Results are shown by percentage, and actual number of votes:
1. Mike O'Neill (34.96%), 5,302.
2. Victor A. Spano (26.77%), 4.060.
3. Richard Campbell (26.62%), 4,037.
4. Gary J. Mondfrans (11.64%), 1,765.
Even with a split vote between Mike O'Neill and Victor Spano, Victor Spano still beat Richard Campbell. See that wasn't very "convoluted" after all! For this and more election results see Shape the Future, election 11/6/12.
Campbell has been on planning for some time. His name was out there for years.
Spano, Was on some committee,(can not remember which one?) did not.
I predict a Spano, win next election.
Ms Meeh, you are incorrect in stating that Clfford did not participate in the discussion. For clarity, Clfford did ask the planning director if they were getting close to violating the Brown Act and he responded that in his opinion they already had. On that, Clifford returned to the conversation at hand, participated, and voted to go forward. Check the minutes. This is only a correction and not a slight, Ms Meeh, so please do not take offense.
Apparently you need some help understanding math, Kathy. Campbell finished behind Spano by only 23 votes, an insignifcant difference of .15 percentage points. Not 15 points, .15. If one of them was "rejected" by the voters, both were. The "split vote" is between the one who is elected and all the other candidates.
The pro-growth vote was split between two candidates, yet they both still managed to finish ahead of the lone, serious no-growth candidate.
That says something, which is the voters of Pacifica have clearly given up on "Environment is our Economy." They've seen how little we've gotten from it.
Mike O'Neill won because he had far greater name recognition. People had voted for him before for school board and that makes them very likely to vote for him again. It's very difficult to beat that. Spano and Campbell finished in a statistical dead heat because they both had roughly equal lack of name recognition. Mondfrans was much further back in the pack because he barely ran a campaign and missed some key forums, apparently because of illness.
Well, "do not take offense" Correcting Clayton, 3:22 PM, but how about you produce the descriptive text, and a link to those old Planning Commission minutes from a few years back. My comment was recall of a related sequence of events, and in response to a prior anonymous comment. True, I could be slightly wrong.
The prior comment I refer to was from Common Sense Carl, 6/6, 7:59 AM, who said: "Any of the existing commissioners are disqualified by the simple fact that they embarrassed the city by walking into a Brown Act violation and getting admonished by the DA. Cambpell is not qualified for the simple reason that he is an EPA attorney."
That was you, wasn't it Correcting Clayton? So, you want to toss ALL existing Planning Commissioners, when the Brown Act violation was allowed to continue, and the DA simply required follow-up training. And you're insisting that ANY EPA attorney is not qualified to be a Planning Commissioner in a city where there are existing land issues? Your stated opinion is kind of severe, don't you think?
Kathy, Correcting Clayton is correct to say that I spoke after asking director White about the Brown Act. I asked my fellow Commissioner if they wished to agendize the item for our next meeting. What fallowed was a discussion about what form that agendized item would take. Two thing happened that put us into a grey area as far as the Brown Act is concerned
1. Instead of simple asking the planning director if he understood what we wanted him to do about agendizing the item, one of the Planning Commissioners asked him if we should vote on what we wanted on our next agenda.Mr. White said he thought we should. Now voting on agendizing an item by it's self was not a Brown Act violation but when we voted to ask Caltrans to extend the comment period so that our hearing could take place before it closed comment on the project, we exceeded our authority.
I am still not sure that we violated the Brown Act but we came close enough to make everyone much more careful in the future.
One good thing to come out of this experience was that the City Council put into place Brown Act training. (something no Planning Commissioner had received in the past.)
Another thing I would like to see reinstated is having the City Attorney at all Planning Commission meetings. There are often legal question that come up and I have seen hearings continued so that we can get the answer.
The City of Pacifica handbook for commission members states "The City Attorney attends City Council and Planning Commission meeting to provide legal advice."
Anonymous said...
"Mike O'Neill won because he had far greater name recognition."
==================
Mike O'Neill won as a result of a definite repulsion to the NIMBY hippie radical enviro council of Vreeland, Dejarnette and Digre. Period.
Thanks for your clarification, Tom. That's pretty much what I recall, except for the vote to ask Caltrans to extend the comment period so a Planning Commission hearing could take place. (Don't recall you making that motion though, probably Leo did).
Guess city budget short-falls may have caused removal of Brown Act training, and a city attorney or assistant sitting-in.
Mike O'Neill won by over 1300 votes. Period. Spano and Campbell and Mondfrans lost. Period. Only 23 votes separated Spano and Campbell. To interpret this result as some divine sign of voter rejection of the enviro idealogy is the height of wishful thinking. Cling to it for all you're worth. BTW which two do you think the 4037 Campbell voters picked in the other race? I'm guessing Ervin and Nihart. Maybe a few even went for Vellone. I guess that was more of that rejection of the hippies, right? Sure.
Tom, it sure seems like the whole farce could have been avoided if Director White had more forcefully put the brakes on. Left to their own devices the commission carried on.
I do not believe that Director White had anymore training in the Brown Act then the Planning Commission. That is one of the reasons I think that The City Attorney should be at Planning Commission meetings.The other reason is that I think it can be a hardship for the applicant to have to wait four to six weeks for a new hearing because we are waiting for a legal opinion. At the very least the applicant should be given the option of paying for the City Attorney to be present so as to insure that his project is not delayed for lack of timely information.
I don't think an applicant should have to "pay" for the city attorney to be at their planning commission hearing. That cost should be born by the city. We want to make it easier to go through this process not increase costs. Besides what the attorney is really there for is to keep an eye on commissioners. Why should an applicant have to pay for that?
eakiiod MFGThe City Attorney would be at the Planning Commission meeting to provide legal advice just like they are at the City Council meetings to provide legal advice. they would be no more keeping an eye on the Commissioners then they are keeping an eye on Council members.
The cost of avoidable delays could be far greater then the cost of having the Attorney present.
The City can wave or reduces fees if they so choose but when they do that the real cost to the city does not go away. Other services must be cut or revenues raise [higher fees or taxes]
Are you willing to pay more so that an applicant will not have to bear the full cost of processing his project? What services would you give up to make this happen?
"To interpret this result as some divine sign of voter rejection of the enviro idealogy is the height of wishful thinking." Anonymous 12:08 AM.
Even after all the "our environment is our economy" economic damage has permanently crippled this city, and can never be fixed, some wishes still do come true. Let's revisit those voting numbers for the 2-year City Council position.
Richard Campbell 4,037 (NIMBY vote); everyone else 11,127. The NIMBY vote was not even close.
And although you did not bother to open the Race Tracker. 11/6/12 link I posted 6/8, 3:12 PM, you said of the 4-year city council race: "Maybe a few even went for Vellone". Susan Vellone received 6,779 votes (pro-growth), and that's 2,742 more votes than Richard Campbell (NIMBY).
However late, the "divine sign of voter rejection of the enviro idealogy" (your words) is in process. Concern and care of the environment is important, but making "our environment" your cult while at the same time rejecting "our economy" has sacrificed our city. Beyond the "our environment is our economy" brain-washing, we hope for some measure of "our economy" recovery.
The NIMBY vote was focused on a single candidate, while the sensible vote was diluted and spread across many, but Campbell was still trounced.
This is a great sign for the future of this city if the trend continues.
"At the very least the applicant should be given the option of paying for the City Attorney to be present so as to insure that his project is not delayed for lack of timely information."
Tom, this is exactly the attitude that makes me think the whole planning commission needs to be replaced. Too many on the planning commission think applicants have unlimited amounts of money and time. Why should the applicant bear the burden of making sure the planning commission does its job?
The planning commission is a city agency, and it's up to the city to make sure its commissions and agencies perform competently.
The city already throws up too many obstacles to development. That's why people have given up on building here, and why so many planning commission meetings end up cancelled for lack of anything to discuss.
So when they voted for Campbell the 4037 voters were Nimbys and when they cast their other 2 votes for Ervin, Nihart or even Vellone they were "sensible". Does that transformation happen at a cellular level? Reversible? Seriously, IMHO what it really says about voters is that rarely are they single-minded idealogues. They pick and choose from candidates for a wide variety of reasons, sometimes conflicting reasons. Particularly true in local elections. Drawing longterm conclusions and predicting behavior from these results may not be very meaningful. It's exhilarating, but not meaningful. The next couple of elections will tell a more complete story. I'll believe we're in true recovery if "sensible" keeps winning and if those we elect deliver change.
City attorneys are there to keep an eye on council and keep them out of trouble, or try to. Issues are complicated and have long-reaching consequences. Planning Commission and applicants deserve the same city funded consideration and it would be helpful to the process. It also seems that with several attorneys on the commission, the people/applicants deserve a reasonable chance at an even playing field.
Tom you say "The City can wave or reduces fees if they so choose but when they do that the real cost to the city does not go away."
Tom you do understand that tax generating projects bring much more money into this town than any small amount tax payers would have to pay for the city attorney?
This attitude is not what we need on the PC.
What don't you understand, anon @ 2:53? Let me try and make it very simple for you:
- There was one NIMBY candidate: Campbell.
- Presumably all of the NIMBYs would at least cast a vote for that person (completely disregarding their other vote, which they didn't need to use if they so desired).
- Even with all the NIMBYs focused on one candidate, Campbell could not win.
- Even though the presence of numerous non-NIMBY candidates would have presumably diluted the sensible vote, Campbell could not win.
- This is very good for Pacifica.
Very well put anon @ 6:54
So with all the environmental radicals, anti progress and NIMBY's all concentrating on their one and only candidate they lost by a landslide even though there were to pro growthers O'Neill & Spano splitting the vote.
That is very meaningful and it says the enviro nimby's have lost any power they once had. It says people are sick of them and their stagnant agenda.
654/836 sure. awesome analysis.
Steve It is not a case of the Planning Commission not doing it's job but a case of does the Planning Commission have the tools to do the job efficiently. As for who should bear the burden of paying for any services the applicant may use in the coarse of getting his project approved that is up to the City Council. What I said before and will restate now is that the City Council by law must have a balance budget it can reduce or wave fees but it has to find other ways of paying for the services provided. That can be by cutting other expenses or raising revenue(taxes). Any decision to wave or reduces planning fees could include expected future tax revenues. This is all up to the City Council.
Anonymous 6:00 P.M. Yes I do understand that TAX GENERATING PROJECT could bring in more money then the cost of having a City Attorney at a Planning Commission meeting. I also understand that those revenues will happen some time in the future while the attorneys services must be paid for now.
I take from your comment that you would be willing to ether Pay more taxes or receive fewer services to make this happen. You after all are the city.
O'Neill probably beat Campbell on name recognition alone. That's what counts. Most voters are not on Fix or Riptide. They're in the vast uninformed, disinterested majority. Name recognition counts with them. So he's elected but wish as hard as you want, O'Neill isn't in lock-step with Stone and Nihart. Not at all. Where it's going to get interesting is tonight with the PC reshuffle. Mumbles Ervin could actually be the key. If Nihart and Stone have the balls to lead the revolution, they've got an almost certain 3rd vote in Ervin. Could we see realtors on the PC? Oh my! I hope it's Villasenor, Spano, M. Brown, and maybe Nibbelin. Let's develop some candidates for council in 2014 and 2016.
Tom, you are talking about adding a new fee.
A balanced budget is very important. This city has been in serious trouble for a long time partly due to very little new development. The city finds plenty of money for studies and reports. I'm sure they can pay the city attorney for an hour here and there without cutting some other service.
As someone else pointed out, do you understand that new development increases our tax revenue, employs people, draws in visitors? I think we need commissioners that understand this and don't try to make it even more difficult to build here by adding new fees.
Hutch as a General contractor in my day job I understand very well both the benefits of new Development and the impact of planning fees, that is why I proposed that the applicant have the OPTION of having the City attorney present to advise the Planning Commission on legal issues. this could save a Developer both time and money and get us to a finished project that much sooner. I personally don't care who pays for the time I just know that it will have to be paid for.
As far as this being something new, for the longest time the City Attorney was required to be at Planning Commission meetings.
City of Pacifica Handbook for Commission Members.
Under the heading City Attorney.
"The City Attorney attends City Council and Planning Commission meetings to provided legal advice and provides legal advice to other City commissions,committees and advisory groups as needed."
Yup, way back in the day you'd see the city attorney there. Then for a long time the only attorneys present were the EPA attorneys appointed to the commission or other attorney-appointees with similar ideologies also on the commish. Go figure. The thing changed quietly, appointment by appointment. Now the excuse for meeting without the city attorney is no money. That works, too.
Did the city ever charge extra in the past for the city attorney to be at the meetings? Then it's a new fee. We don't need that.
Good suggestion though Tom. But you're right, it shouldn't matter to you who pays for it. So why suggest the applicant pay? Nobody is asked to pay at council meetings.
Honoring their stated commitment to create a Planning Commission with balance, the preservation of institutional knowledge and an accurate reflection of this community, the city council in one balloting re-appointed Brown, Campbell, Evans and Gordon and added newbies Cooper, Nibbelin, and Vaterlaus.
Zombie apocalypse?
council added 1 realtor, 1 contractor and 1 attorney to the planning commission hohum
Anonymous 10:41 P.M. When the applicant has a hearing before the City Council they pay for all staff time City Attorney included. That even applies to when someone appeals a Planning Commission decision. The appellant pays $100.00 dollars and the applicant pays for everything else. That why I have been asking for the fee to appeal a P.C. decision to be raised to account for inflation over the last 20 + years since the fee was put in place.
3 lawyers, 1 contractor/lawyer, 1 realtor, 1 start-up CFO and what the hell does Evans do?
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