Council splits over planning seats

<p>Wrapping up a process that opponents derided as a “power grab,” a split City Council on Monday appointed members of a new Planning Commission, voting mostly along political lines in filling the six seats.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>After a controversial vote to combine the duties of the Planning Commission and Site Plan and Architectural Review Committee last month, the council chose members of the new board from a field of 17 applicants that included seven incumbents of the previous boards.</p><p>Five of those incumbents were in the middle of their terms when the council dissolved SPARC and the Planning Commission, but the council chose only one, attorney Christopher Arras, to continue on the new commission.</p><p>Arras received a unanimous vote from the council, but the rest of the selections were the result of split votes. SPARC member Dennis Elias, whose term ended in June, applied for the new board and was appointed by the council’s four-member majority, along with parks commissioner Melissa Abercrombie and developer Curtis Johansen.</p><p>No other candidates re-ceived four votes in the first round of voting, so the council decided the final two slots from the five candidates who had received three votes each. </p><p>On the second vote, the council majority — Vice Mayor Teresa Barrett, David Glass, Tiffany Renée and Mayor Pamela Torliatt — chose architectural historian Marianne Hurley, a member of the Historic and Cultural Preservation Committee, and environmental consultant Jennifer Pierre.</p><p>Members of the council minority — Mike Harris, Mike Healy and David Rabbitt — voted for current planning commissioners.</p><p>Saying the results “confirmed my worst fears about what was going on here,” Healy again charged that the council majority was engaging in a “power grab” to populate the new commission with its political supporters.</p><p>In past elections, Abercrombie, Elias, Hurley and Johansen’s company, Triad Communities, have donated to the campaigns of majority members. But other applicants who gave money to those members got no votes Monday, and the council majority did not vote in lockstep during the first round.</p><p>While Barrett, Glass and Torliatt supported Abercrombie, Arras, Elias, Hurley, Johansen and Pierre in the first round, Renée cast votes for two others instead of Hurley and Pierre.</p><p>Members of the council majority said the breadth of experience among the 17 applicants gave them a chance to appoint a well-rounded commission.</p><p>“What I was looking for was a mix of the old, a blend of the new and a cross-section of skills,” Glass said.</p><p>Referring to Healy’s comment, Glass said, “I’m sorry for Mr. Healy and whatever his constituency is that they can’t see the efforts that we’re making to deal with the issues in this community and move on.”</p><p>The council majority has said merging the Planning Commission and SPARC will streamline development reviews in the city and help mend a “broken” planning process that has been widely criticized.</p><p>After naming the six members, the council 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 council also unanimously affirmed that Barrett would continue as its 2009 liaison to the commission. The new commission will hold its first meeting on Aug. 11.</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>