Future makeup of planning board hazy

<p>Who is on the Petaluma Planning Commission? It's not such a simple question.</p><p>With the City Council delaying the seating of a reconfigured Planning Commission until legal questions about its formation are resolved, previous commissioners will take up planning issues beginning next week.</p><p>Those previous commissioners include one who was named to the new body, three who are plaintiffs in a suit against the city concerning the planned changes and two whose terms expired over a month ago.</p><p>It's unknown if both of the commissioners whose terms have ended, Will Dargie and Tanya Sullivan, will indeed continue in their roles.</p><p>Sullivan said Wednesday she had already informed the city that she had taken on other commitments after her term ended and would not be able to continue on the commission.</p><p>Dargie said Monday he has not been contacted by anyone from City Hall and wasn't planning to continue on the commission because he's served the maximum two consecutive terms.</p><p>However, if asked, “I would consider it,” he said. “I'm not against it.”</p><p>The makeup of the commission as of June included Dargie, Sullivan, Chris Arras, Spence F. Burton, Jack Rittenhouse and Chair Kathleen Miller. Vice Mayor Teresa Barrett is the council liaison and will continue in that role.</p><p>Arras, whose term was to expire next year, was named to a new version of the commission formed by the council this summer. Burton, Miller and Rittenhouse, also in the middle of their terms, were not.</p><p>They subsequently filed a lawsuit in Sonoma County Superior Court, claiming the City Council did not follow its municipal and zoning codes in making the change.</p><p>The council last week called a special meeting in which it directed that the old commission review some of the proposed changes first in order to “cure” legal questions about the issue.</p><p>But the changes to be reviewed by the old commission — concerning amendments to zoning codes that would allow the new planning body to take on the design-review duties previously conducted by another board, SPARC — address only part of the lawsuit filed by Burton, Miller and Rittenhouse.</p><p>The three also claim that the council did not follow its municipal code, which states that commissioners cannot be “removed” without five votes of the council. Only one of the new appointees, Arras, received more than four votes.</p><p>The city contends that the old commission was dissolved entirely, not that its members were “removed,” and the city attorney has suggested the council may want to consider additional changes to its code to make that distinction clear.</p><p>Mayor Pamela Torliatt said those additional changes could be considered at the council's Sept. 14 meeting.</p><p>“The changes are just going to clarify” the council's intent, she said.</p><p>If the city amends its municipal code in an attempt to stave off the lawsuit, it is unknown if the council will have to take another vote to seat its choices for the new commission.</p><p>On July 6, the council named Arras and five other applicants to staggered terms on the new commission. The body was to meet Aug. 11, but the city canceled the meeting after learning of the lawsuit.</p><p>Now, the old commission will meet Tuesday, Aug. 25 to consider the draft environmental impact report for a planned shopping center, and again on Sept. 8 to review a downtown mixed-use project and the zoning changes referred to it by the council.</p><p>Once those zoning changes are forwarded to the council, it will take six weeks for them to become law — meaning if the council follows through on naming its appointees to the commission, the new members likely won't be seated before November.</p><p>Councilmember David Rabbitt, who opposed the merger of the two boards and argued that the sitting members of each should continue on the new commission, said the changes were rushed.</p><p>“The council should hold itself to a higher standard and shouldn't be relying on loopholes or legal finesse to adjust something,” he said. “A little patience would have gone a long way — the city could have vetted this carefully.”</p><p>But Councilmember Tiffany Renée, who along with Torliatt, Barrett and Councilmember David Glass voted for the new appointees, said changing the municipal code and consolidating committees are within the council's purview.</p><p>“I am committed to reviewing our options to legislatively ‘cure' this unfortunate lawsuit in the most efficient way,” Renée said. “My goal is to keep the city on track, vetting projects on behalf of the community in a timely manner.”</p><p>Meanwhile, the attorney for the three commissioners in their case against the city said he would consider a settlement allowing them to serve on the commission.</p><p>James V. Sansone said he hopes to have a “meaningful dialogue” with the city soon and said a settlement putting his clients on the commission and allowing the council to name others would be a “win-win for each side.”</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>