Planning Commission Chair Tries to Clarify  Administration's Actions...

Excerpt from Planning Commission meeting March 21, 2005

Chair Phil Beach discusses his memo - please see ("Planning Commission Left out of Planning Decisions" below this transcript Chair Beach then asks if the mayor has anything to say…

Mayor Bruce Rath – I want to address your three things…The first one is when I brought the town administrator here, Gary Armstrong. I announced that he would be doing the public works and he’s more than qualified to do it and we have been doing it …

Beach – Is that your official notice to us that he is the director of public works?

Rath – Talking over Beach…No, I introduced him that way Phil…

Beach – But is he the director of public works?

Rath – He does our public works, he’s the town administrator and will do our public works …

Beach – But the code is pretty clear that it’s the director of public works that approves these - so is he the director of public works?

Rath – He is, you can call him the director of public works, town administrator, that’s what he is…

Beach – Okay…okay.

Rath – And that’s the way I introduced him to the planning commission and the council…

Rath – Number two. You’ll have to take up with the two council people that did that…

Rath - And Number three on parks. It’ll come to you if any action is taken by the council and an amendment to the comprehensive plan…it’s part of a deal the council’s working on and on the twenty eighth we’ll go one way or the other. Hopefully they’re going to take a vote and it will either come back to you guys to amend the comprehensive plan or (unintelligible…someone coughs)

Beach – I would draw your attention to my last paragraph since we’re talking about that. Now this is my view, this is not the commission’s view, the commission’s never voted on this. In my view when the comprehensive plan matters come to the commission after the council’s substantive involvement which is certainly the case here with that park…the commission should make it clear to all parties that the commission’s considerations and decisions will be de novo, from the beginning. And therefore the council’s prior actions will be immaterial to the commission’s considerations and decisions, the integrity of the commission requires that it not be viewed as a rubber stamp for the council…

Rath – We don’t want no rubber stamp…

Beach – Well, but if you approve it and send it here expecting it to be approved then you’re asking us to be a rubber stamp…

Rath – The amendment and the plan on the parks and the vision statement…there’s none of it rubber stamped. Number two I felt that that should have came to planning.

Beach – For others to know what it is…number two is the change in the urban growth boundary that the town council did enact without giving notice.

Rath - Right, and it sends a bad signal to the county, but they acted on it …

Rath - What had happened was the applicant had went to Pierce County and it seems that two of the council people were involved in it…

(Not mentioned in the Beach memo below is the fact that the planning commission, along with some council members, were not involved in the recent left hand turn lane painted on Center Street)

Planning Commission Left out of Planning Decisions...

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