A smart bit of planning
Costa Mesa officials avoided one of those nagging little black eyes
-- maybe it’s more like a paper cut -- by quickly and smartly
bolstering the ranks of the Planning Commission, so the group had
enough members to meet on Monday.
For those who missed this case of the stars aligning poorly for
City Hall, here’s how things settled: After the City Council wins by
commissioners Eric Bever and Katrina Foley; a change in the way the
council makes commission appointments that has delayed Bever and
Foley’s replacement; and the back surgery of one of the remaining
three commission members, the Costa Mesa Planning Commission was down
to just two, Bruce Garlich and Bill Perkins. And two members don’t
amount to the proscribed quorum needed for the commission to meet.
The lack of numbers likely would have amounted to just that
metaphoric paper cut -- a few speakers would have chided the city for
a bad bit of planning, perhaps a newspaper would have editorialized a
few times about the situation -- had a couple of items not been
looming on the commission’s agenda that, owing to state law that
mandates planning decisions be made in a timely manner, would have
been approved by default if no meeting took place.
And so the City Council had to act. And for Monday’s meeting, it
added as capable and knowledgeable a member of the community as there
is: former Mayor Sandy Genis, who once worked as a city planner in
neighboring Newport Beach. It was a great choice in two ways: It
allowed the commission to meet and it ensured that the third,
temporary member would understand the issues and have a deep
commitment to the community.
Now, as the council prepares to pick permanent members to the
commission -- which is expected to happen Feb. 7, when the new
appointment process becomes effective -- we hope city leaders are as
keen as they were when deciding Genis was the right person for the
one-time job. It was a promising precedent.
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