Planners fed up with city

Jenny Marder

Frustrated planning commissioners’ list of grievances with the

city continues to grow.

Commissioners, hoping to reverse the City Council’s decision to

cut their meetings to once a month, asked for a detailed accounting

of what the board spent last year, but were told it would take at

least two weeks to get them the information.

At its Jan. 6 meeting, the City Council voted 4-3 to reduce the

number of Planning Commission meetings each month from two to one to

cut costs. But when the ordinance hit their desks, planning

commissioners said it was different from what the council had voted

on.

Commissioners charge that the version they saw would violate the

Brown Act by restricting the ability of the commission chair to call

a special meeting.

The Brown Act states, “A special meeting may be called at any time

by the presiding officer of the legislative body of a local agency,

or by a majority of the members of the legislative body.”

The ordinance drawn up gives that power to the Planning Commission

secretary or a majority of the board, but fails to mention that the

chairman holds that power.

City Atty. Jennifer McGrath said the ordinance would not take that

power to call special meetings from the chair, but simply extends the

power to include the secretary and the commission majority.

“It actually gave more people the ability to call meetings,” she

said. “It gave more authority.”

Mayor Connie Boardman agreed that the version presented to the

commission was different than that discussed at the meeting. The

change was the result of a misunderstanding between staff and council

members, she said.

The ordinance will return to City Council on Monday. If approved,

the council will vote to adopt it at a later meeting.

But for planning commissioners, there is more to the issue than

who can call meetings. Planning Commission Chairman Randy Kokal

requested an exact accounting of what the commission spent last year

to determine where else cuts might be made.

When asked for the numbers, Principal Planner Herb Faulland told

him that it would take about two weeks to provide the commission with

a complete breakdown of expenditures for all meetings held last year.

But Kokal and his fellow commissioners see it as a stalling

tactic, as the council may have already voted on the ordinance by

then.

When Howard Zelefsky, head of the planning department, presented

the idea of cutting back the number of meetings, he said it would

trim about $25,000 to $30,000 off the commission’s annual budget,

which he estimated at $58,320 a year. According to the numbers

presented, the approximate cost of a Planning Commission meeting is

$2,430.

The estimates include planning commissioner stipends, food,

supplies, the HBTV-3 crew and overtime pay for salaried staff such as

the city attorney, and employees from Public Works or the Fire

Department.

“I felt uncomfortable with the process,” Kokal said. “No budgetary

line item was attributed, just an estimate.”

Kokal also said that several members of the public are suspicious

of the numbers and believe that they are “pure fiction.”

Zelefsky said that it’s very difficult to assess the exact amount

spent each meeting.

“The amount fluctuates depending on the length of the meeting and

the numbers that attend,” he said. “Our department doesn’t keep track

of how many hours employees spend overtime.”

Boardman said she was not opposed to reducing Planning Commission

meetings, but said she was “disturbed by the way the whole issue was

handled.”

“I want the issue dealt with at the Planning Commission first,”

she said. “They could have come to their own decision. At least they

should have had input.”

Kokal agreed. He also said he thought the Planning Commission

could come up with more efficient ways to cut annual costs and that

they often cancel meetings when there are no agenda items that need

to be discussed. Two meetings were canceled in 2002 and 2001 each,

and five in 2000, he said.

“We don’t meet and play pinochle,” Kokal said.