Cronyism undermines good government

<p>In June of 2009, the new City Council majority decided to fire Petaluma's planning commissioners and members of the Site Plan and Architectural Review Committee and create a single new body.</p><p>Their stated justification was that the new combined planning and design-review board would “streamline, expedite and enhance” the processing of building and development applications.</p><p>In reality, they wound up replacing several well-qualified, apolitical sitting planning commissioners with mostly inexperienced political cronies of the majority who lacked their predecessors' knowledge and expertise in properly applying land-use laws and design standards on proposed development applications.</p><p>It was a transparent political power play that produced predictably disastrous and costly results. The cost to change the municipal codes was $28,560 and litigation arising from a successful lawsuit filed by three fired planning commissioners cost the city another $20,725 — a total of nearly $50,000. There is also increasing evidence that the new Planning Commission is providing insufficient review of building designs due to time constraints and lack of expertise. </p><p>If there was any remaining doubt about the intentions of the council majority to appoint like-minded people with inferior credentials to the Planning Commission, it was dispelled with their recent vote to appoint Alicia Kae Herries to replace retiring commissioner Chris Arras. Herries' knowledge, experience and skills relating to municipal planning are drastically inferior to those of the other two candidates, Jack Rittenhouse and Rob Hranac.</p><p>Rittenhouse had served on SPARC for five and a half years and the Planning Commission for 15 months. With over 20 years of professional design experience, he is senior project manager for an architectural firm, has a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and planning and a master's degree in architecture. He was roundly praised by council members when he was unanimously reappointed to SPARC in 2005.</p><p>Rob Hranac has master's degrees in city planning and transportation engineering, bachelor's degrees in systems planning and economics and is vice president of a Berkeley transportation system company. Yet despite his impressive credentials, he was passed over without a single vote.</p><p>Herries, on the other hand, has a certification in floristry from SRJC. An employee of a pharmaceutical company in Marin, she listed as her reason for seeking the appointment her involvement in the El Rose/Hayes Lane Coalition, which sued the city after its approval of a dentist's office on El Rose Drive. The suit was found later found to be without merit, but the six-figure legal costs have, to date, prevented the dentist from moving forward with the project. </p><p>What Herries failed to mention in her application, but what earned her the approval of the council majority, was her intense opposition to big-box retail stores locating in Petaluma. In signing an electronic petition that would prevent businesses such as Target, Friedman's, Lowe's and a home electronics store from ever opening in Petaluma, she wrote, “Leave big box stores where they belong ... out of Petaluma.” While Herries is certainly entitled to her opinion, a statement in her application that she would “fully adhere to the guiding principles” in the city's General Plan, which specifically calls for development of such large-format retail stores, leaves us to wonder how she could render an objective and unbiased vote on such projects.</p><p>The reality is she may not be able to vote on them at all. Like another new planning commissioner, Melissa Abercrombie, whose prior stated opposition to the Target shopping center prevented her from voting on that project, Herries will likely have to recuse herself from pending votes on the Lowe's shopping center. </p><p>Notwithstanding the obvious cronyism being practiced by the council majority, 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. </p><p>But not in Petaluma. Under the current structure, Petaluma's neophyte planning commissioners are expected to be instant experts on all of it. Petaluma is one of the few cities in California going down this road, and one year later the council majority has failed to demonstrate that eliminating SPARC has made the review process any more efficient. </p><p> If anything, the appointment of people with inferior credentials will have a long-term negative impact on Petaluma, and sends the 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 an approval process overseen by anti-development activists.</p><p>What's worse, the development approval process itself is an impediment to business growth that hurts job development and reduces tax revenues. After two years of work, the Development Code Advisory Committee last year presented the City Council with a set of intelligent and sensible recommendations on how to streamline the city's development approval process. Unfortunately, most of their critical recommendations were ignored by majority council members who were more interested in playing politics. </p><p>We admire the volunteerism of all of the members of the Planning Commission. They have committed themselves to working many hours reading reports and attending meetings for no pay.</p><p>But we are troubled by the actions of a council majority that continues to stack the Planning Commission with people whose primary attributes are an anti-development ideology that is squarely at odds with the General Plan's economic development goals and the city's desperate need to grow jobs and sales tax revenues.</p>