Planning Board Smackdown
Unfortunately, the city’s webcast of the planning board is still down, so I missed the early parts of the Measure A forum dicussion. It sounded like it got pretty nasty early on. Good for the planning board members who stuck up for their staff and apologized on behalf of the large number of speaker insinuating nefarious intentions on a simple issue of “hey, let’s talk about this major issue.” One by one, 4 of the members suggested that since the majority of the speakers had no idea what they were talking about (accusations flew easily and were non-factual) and recommended some deep breaths and perhaps paying a little more attention to what “is” happening, rather than what “might possibly” be happening that could possibly be evil and backroom.
Boardmember Ashcraft is exactly right, if everyone on the island really does agree that measure a shouldn’t change a drop (like Pat Bail and Gina Mariani said tonight). Then a forum should be an absolute love-in. No conflict and no worries. The Board moved forward strongly and decisively, choosing to increase public participation and discussion on this key issue, rather than bowing to outrageous cries of the “don’t talk about change” crowd.
I couldn’t believe my ears as one board member lectured the rest of the board to essentially listen to the people who were on the council in the past. Saying that she’d support some education on why measure A exists so that the newbies in town could understand the issue (and essentially shut their pie holes I guess).
The forum will probably be one big bumpy ride, but kudos to 6 of the 7 planning board members for not being cowed by the same old voices.
John Piziali
March 28th, 2007 at 6:31 am
Having served on the planning board for 8 1/2 years I can tell you that I never had one staff person ever say that they wanted to discuss measure A , in fact the only thing they would ever say was that measure A was the law that guided them period. So for the folks who spoke at the planning board meeting on monday I would have to say they were just plain wrong to try to blame staff for the proposed forum. We on the planning board however have wanted to have a discussion about measure A for as long as I can remember. What I do not understand is why are the people who want to keep measure A without change so affraid to have an open discussion about this issue. At this moment I would not vote to change measure A because I still have questions about density, design and most of all transportation however the only way I can ever get those answers is to dicuss the issue, and that is going to happen., So I commend the planning board for finally taking on this issue and I will support them whenever they want to have open disussions on any issue. John P