Council names new planning commissioners

<p>Four new members and two returnees will make up a new Planning Commission at City Hall after the City Council made appointments Monday night, wrapping up a controversial merger of two development-review boards.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>The combination of the Planning Commission and Site Plan and Architectural Review Committee will include one existing member from each of those boards, as well as four new faces approved on a series of split council votes Monday.</p><p>Planning Commissioner Christopher Arras, an attorney, will be joining the new board, along with SPARC member Dennis Elias, an appraiser.</p><p>Also named were Melissa Abercrombie, a parks commissioner who has been a critic of planned big-box developments in town; Marianne Hurley, an architectural historian who previously served on a expanded version of SPARC called the Historic and Cultural Preservation Committee; Curtis Johansen, a development executive and Jennifer Pierre, an environmental consultant.</p><p>Arras, whose term on the Planning Commission was to last until next summer, was the only one of the candidates to receive a unanimous vote from the council.</p><p>The four members of the council’s environmental majority, who supported the merger of the two boards, all voted for Abercrombie, Elias and Johansen in the first round of voting.</p><p>Members of the three-person council minority, who opposed the change, cast slightly different votes, but mostly supported incumbent members of the boards whose terms haven’t expired.</p><p>In the second round of voting, the council decided the final two seats among five candidates who received three votes each: Hurley, Pierre, current SPARC member Ray Johnson and existing planning commissioners Kathleen Miller and Jack Rittenhouse.</p><p>The council majority — Teresa Barrett, David Glass, Tiffany Renée and Mayor Pamela Torliatt — cast their votes for Hurley and Pierre.</p><p>Council members Mike Harris and David Rabbitt supported Johnson and Rittenhouse, while Councilmember Mike Healy supported Miller and Rittenhouse.</p><p>The council then decided that Abercrombie, Elias and Johansen would serve four-terms, while the other appointees would serve shorter terms.</p><p>Healy asked that the shorter terms be staggered, so at least one Planning Commission seat would become open in each of the next four years.</p><p>Arras had indicated he only wanted to serve another year — the remainder of his original term — and Hurley, who was in the audience, said she would be fine with a two-year term. Pierre received a three-year term.</p><p>The new commission will hold its first meeting on Aug. 11.</p>