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March 05, 2007
Planning a Course Correction
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| With all the emphasis on making City
government more efficient and reducing the cost to city staff in "time served" on
various projects, you have to wonder what some of our Planning Commissioners
were thinking. I posted about Susan Minasian's idea to revamp the Nexus study fee process back in February. And at the same time commented on John Merz's uneccessary pronouncement of the "good ole boy network being dead in Chico". It seemed like some of the Planning Commissioners, while new to the job, were ready to clean house. Of course the house wasn't that dirty, unless you consider the redundant and expensive replay of the same issues to be a dust bunny. More problematic was that the Planning Commission, neighbors of new developments, and City Council all disagreed on what was desirable. This made life hard on the wretched souls who make their living planning Chico's roads and houses. In Saturday's E-R Jenn Klein reported that Mayor Holcombe emailed in an executive order to the Planning Commission via Jon Luvass. It was reported that Luvaas said... "the mayor had requested it (Planning Commission) diligently work on its two-year work plan and in the meantime not discuss policy changes or ask staff to spend time on policy issues" You could blame the liberal council for appointing people to this commission that were known as no-growth community activists. But after winning an election that was their option. I have to give credit to Andy Holcombe for stepping in and making this course correction before the Planning Commission threw heaps of unwanted work on City staff. After the last few meetings there were rumours of more city workers wanting to leave Chico's gainful employment. With the Planning Commission starting to sound like a shadow City Council, Holcombe showed strong leadership in directing the Planning Commission to concentrate on it's core job. These points are reiterated in additional statements as reported in Klein's story. "But Holcombe, who previously expressed interest in how other cities fund development impacts, said a discussion of mitigating impacts is a policy and financial issue, not a planning one. While boards and commissions definitely have a role to advise the council about policy, he said Friday the commission should do that through its work plan or through upcoming community meetings on the city's General Plan update. Holcombe said he sent an e-mail to Luvaas, the commission's chairman, that the panel shouldn't address policy issues on day-to-day matters. He said the commission should call him if it had policy questions." Note: That's not a mug shot of Holcombe. It's a photo from a link describing an award he received for providing free legal service to the homeless. |
Posted by Lon at March 5, 2007 09:48 AM