Planning Panelist Tapped for 2nd Term

Robert L. Scott, a Sherman Oaks lawyer and president of the Valley Economic Alliance, has been nominated by Mayor Richard Riordan to serve a second five-year term on the Los Angeles Planning Commission.

The City Council today is expected to approve Scott’s appointment to the panel, which is the city’s policymaking body for the Planning Department.

Scott said he would continue his push to streamline the city’s permit process during his second term and to promote development that is driven by market forces rather than governmental initiative.

“I’m very concerned that we take the politics out of planning and that we have a sense of what each community wants,” Scott said. “I’d like to see the government get out of the way and let communities evolve according to their own idea of how their neighborhoods should be.

“What I am primarily interested in is that we develop a more livable city,” he said.

Scott, who completed a two-year term as the Planning Commission’s president earlier this year, currently serves as the body’s vice president.

In addition to his role with the Valley Economic Alliance, which he helped to establish, Scott was named by Wilson in March to the 51st District Agricultural Assn., which organizes the Valley Fair. He is a past president of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley.