Majority’s actions breed distrust

What began last spring as a fairly transparent political power play by the new City Council majority has produced predictably disastrous and costly results.

The majority’s decision to summarily fire Petaluma’s planning commissioners and members of the Site Plan and Architectural Review Committee and create a single new body charged with performing their combined duties was ostensibly done to “streamline, expedite and enhance” the processing of building and development applications.

In reality, the change was aimed at replacing several well-qualified, apolitical sitting planning commissioners with mostly inexperienced political cronies of the majority who lack their predecessors’ knowledge and expertise in properly applying land-use laws and design standards on proposed development applications.

The result: increased politicization of land-use decisions, further delays in approving development projects, loss of vital institutional knowledge, more protracted and less productive public hearings, a costly lawsuit and a hampered ability to achieve the city’s General Plan goals regarding job creation, housing and business development.

From a public planning standpoint, the abolishment of SPARC represents a 30-year step backward for Petaluma. Decades ago, most cities in California created design review boards so their planning commissions could focus more effectively on land-use issues while appointees knowledgeable about architecture, design and landscaping could thoroughly evaluate other aspects of a proposed development.

But not anymore. Under the new structure, Petaluma’s neophyte planning commissioners are expected to be instant experts on all of it.

Not since a similar anti-growth council majority voted 10 years ago to arbitrarily eliminate the Rainier interchange and crosstown connector from the city’s General Plan have Petaluma citizens been so justifiably outraged by such brazen and counterproductive power mongering.

Because existing city law requires five votes to remove a planning commissioner, the majority’s hasty decision to remove all planning commissioners was unethical and probably illegal. It was the legal concerns that prompted three of the fired planning commissioners to file a lawsuit challenging the council’s action.

In response, the city attorney recommended a costly and time-consuming process aimed at first reversing, then correcting some of the legal missteps. Ultimately, the council changed the law to fit their short-term political goals by requiring only four votes to “reconstitute” a planning commission. That was followed by a vote this week to re-install the new planning commission members who were handpicked by the majority and included one anti-development activist who the majority is positioning for election to the City Council next year.

This is old politics at its very worst, and has led to distrust, cynicism and further political divisiveness with a troubling message that talented and competent public service is subordinate to politics. Also, it feeds a growing public perception that the council majority is looking to stop certain allowable development projects, not on their merits and compatibility with General Plan and zoning laws, but by creating a totally dysfunctional development approval process.

It didn’t have to turn out this way. After two years of work, the Development Code Advisory Committee earlier this year presented the City Council with a set of intelligent and sensible recommendations on how to streamline the city’s development app-roval process. These volunteers worked long hours to research best practices in other municipalities to devise an improved process. Unfor-tunately, most of their critical recommendations were ignored by majority council members who were more interested in playing politics.

The new council majority, composed of Mayor Pam Torliatt, Teresa Barrett, David Glass and Tiffany Renée, apparently disagree with some aspects of the city’s General Plan, specifically parts allowing for certain developments to occur in properly designated parts of the city. Some of these developments are expected to provide desired goods and services, jobs, homes and desperately needed tax revenues to help bolster dwindling city services.

But judging by their most recent actions, it’s hard to conclude that the council majority is anything but opposed to the letter and spirit of the General Plan with respect to new development projects.