More time to challenge developers

John Sisker

A proposal will soon be submitted to the Planning Commission to “help

level the playing field” so the general public has at least a

fighting chance in reference to time given to developers when

submitting proposals.

I was one of the committee members who worked eight months on this

proposal. The committee consisted of Bob Dingwall, Steve Ray and Ron

Davis, representing the Planning Commission; Dean Albright, Ron

Statterfield and me, representing the residents; and Mike Adams, John

Erskine and Dick Harlow representing the developers’ interests. Other

than a city staff member occasionally sitting on these meetings now

and then, it consisted of nine voting members. All in all, and indeed

after months of hard work and research, we came up with a unified

consensus and were all in agreement on this proposal.

Again, to me, timing has a lot to do with our final presentation,

for around this same time, Councilwomen Pam Julien Houchen came up

with the so-called “streamlining” proposal, which -- again to me --

was simply meant to undermine our attempts, which may have migrated

up to the council level in time anyway.

* JOHN SISKER is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to

“Sounding Off” e-mail us at hbindy@latimes.com or fax us at (714)

966-4667.