An Abuser Friendly Experiment in Government
I am really ready for my clipboard now.
Back early from the Wednesday Planning Commission Meeting, and I am astonished. When the agenda was altered at the beginning of the meeting, bumping the most important item from second to last, a measure which had obviously drawn the majority of attendees, I sensed aggravation might in time overwhelm my patience. And it did.
I left because I had realized that nothing might be achieved because in the previous meeting apparently nothing had been achieved, despite my firm recollection that nearly everyone except city staff leaned towards a formula retail ban city-wide. When I saw that city staff recommendations merely restated the former staff recommendation creating an Historic District that would be set aside from chain stores and formula retail, and not governing the entire city, I realized I was being schooled, not fooled. This is beginning to be as interesting as it is demeaning.
Instead of hearing about formula retail when we should have, we listened to the commission members discuss the seating arrangements at a new restaurant on Ojai Avenue. We talked about trees. We talked about doors. We admired the pottery a man would make at his new studio if it was approved. And when the next applicant, a gentleman who planned to remove three valley oaks for home construction, rose to tell us how green he wanted to be, I knew I had been had. Those oaks were going to consume a lot of wind, and it was wind I preferred to not hear blow so late in the evening at the end of a miserable, smokey day. After that last applicant had told us a number of times what a genius his archetect is, I almost believed him.
Discussion on the proposed ordinance restricting formula chain stores in the City of Ojai was delayed until the end. I was so disappointed I could not bear to stay and hear another word. I am beginning to wonder if the pleasantries city government offers to supporters of Kenley Neufeld's proposal are merely means to stall that effort, allowing us to believe that we might gain what we want without resorting to the ballot. And then at the 11th hour it might prove that such negotiation was false. not in good faith, and while distracted by the ruse, let slip the opportunity to let the people decide, instead of insiders, gamers, staffers.
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Comments (4)
Do you think that perhaps they were trying to clear the smaller and easier pieces of business and leave a large open-ended block of time at the end for the bigger issue?
If Widders & Co. were there, then they had to sit and wait it out, too, and one would think that if the Planning Commission were trying to stall or obfuscate the issue they'd have found some glib way to kill it or continue it and allow the expensive guys to make tracks earlier on.
Just a thought.
Comment #1 Posted by: phalarope | August 15, 2007 10:26 PM
Looks like maybe the meeting is still going on.
I'd like to think that the right thing happened after all. It would be a good thing if Steve were proved wrong in a pleasant fashion that he was happy to accept. That's what I'm going to hope for.
Comment #2 Posted by: phalarope | August 15, 2007 11:06 PM
Still waiting to hear what transpired. It seems to me that unless the planning commission forced their city staff to draft to something like the conditional use permit scheme for CITYWIDE protection of Ojai, we should simply support the already existing Citizen's Initiative and push for a special election that lets the people's voice be heard. I went to the meeting and found that the agenda item EVERYBODY was waiting for had been pushed to last place. Like Steve, I left. I meant to go back, but I really couldn't get up the gumption to return and hear a rehash of the exact same inadequate city draft as the last meeting two weeks ago. I'm not blaming the Planning Commission--on the contrary, I think they are doing a great job of raising questions and moving the process along. However, in the last meeting it seemed like the Planning Commission wanted to have the city staff draft something that was closer to what the Citizen's Initiative already had. It seemed like they wanted to have an ordinance with an expanded historical commercial district(HCD) and a conditional use permitting structure that included input from the public and mitigation of any impacts that might come up for any potential formula retail or restaurant business that wanted to open in Ojai. It really seemed like this representative democracy thing was working. Then the city staff simply said no, "just look at this draft". They returned the same ordinance as before. Why is the city staff ignoring the Planning Commission on this issue?
I really want to know what they did tonight. I hope they were more than a little miffed at being ignored in this fashion. I hope they bounced it right back and told them to match the Citizen's Initiative and protect the whole of Ojai. If they didn't, It seems clear that we just need to support the Citizen's Initiative and get the few remaining signatures to have a special election and allow out voices to be heard
Comment #3 Posted by: spk | August 15, 2007 11:39 PM
I spoke to one of the Planning Commission members earlier in the day, who told me she thought it would be wise to move the issue later on the agenda. The logic was that keeping all of the other people waiting, when they normally would have been in and out in a short time, was perhaps...disrespectful to them. I can see where all the folks who came out in support of the initiative would feel the move was disrespectful to them but I assure you that this Commission member was in no way intending to play politics with the agenda. In fact, the Planner wondered if the City would put up a stink because their lawyers were being paid to be there, but felt it would be worthwhile nonetheless to keep the meeting flowing smoothly and attend to the other business quickly and be able to devote undivided attention to the biggest issue.
Sorry for the ramble.
Comment #4 Posted by: heather | August 16, 2007 07:22 PM