getting all civic dutiful
Jul. 20th, 2011 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaI spent last Thursday night at a county planning commission meeting, which started at 6pm and ended at about 10:45, and I was there for the whole thing, and...I wasn't bored. Not a bit. Which is weird, because in general, I hate meetings. But this one was interesting and infuriating, in turns.
I went because, at the monthly meeting of the county Democratic party (which I didn't attend, because I hate meetings, but Britt did, because he's on the executive committee) a couple people mentioned that the new county comprehensive plan (a policy document which outlines growth and resource management guidelines for the next twenty years) was being reviewed in several-chapter chunks by the planning commission, and the Tea Party types were showing up en masse and effectively drowning out the few liberal voices during the public comment period.
The comp plan has been in process for nearly two years, and I attended one of the public meetings and answered a survey on it; and anyway, when the draft plan was put up on the county website, I liked what I saw, so I figured I'd just go and give my "I like this plan!" opinion, to counter the anti-progressive types.
Before the part of the meeting that would deal with chapters 5-7 of the comprehensive plan, the planning commission had its regular business. Some people who knew this deliberately showed up late, and others were visibly bored (reading ebooks or texting), but I enjoyed it: at worst it seemed like democracy at work, and at best it was better than a movie made from a John Grisham novel.
The planning commission is a board of five county residents appointed by the county commissioners. Typically what happens is that the county staff presents a petition by someone, and their findings and recommendations; the petitioner speaks, the public is allowed to speak, and the board asks questions at each step. Finally they discuss the petition and vote on whether to allow or disallow it, and any conditions they will impose.
For the most part, this went quickly and smoothly...but then came the John Grisham novel. A construction company had made an injection well (where wastewater from the natural gas extraction process is pumped into the ground) and been granted a permit to run a diesel generator for six months as an interim solution until electric lines could be run. But their pump was far from the nearest power, the electric company had delayed, and prices had gone up such that the cost to electrify the pump would be huge. Their lawyer showed pictures of the attractive building they'd made to house the equipment, waved around sound studies results showing that the noise from the generator was within regulations, and said that gosh darn, they were trying to be good neighbors, honest, and they just hadn't expected this to happen, but could they please keep their generator?
Then the guy who owns the adjoining property came up and testified that the generator is so noisy he can't hear himself think, because their noise testing is bogus, and his house constantly shakes with the vibrations, and they got their permit based on their plan to electrify the well, so damn it, they should do what they promised. He reminded the commissioners, who agreed, that the eventual electrification had been a big point in their favor during the original hearing, and wondered whether they really hadn't intended this all along.
Then Construction Company Lawyer came up again and said that Adjoining Property Guy is just trying to get more money out of them, because he was happy to take $50,000 for access, and $3000/month for the 6 months the generator was supposed to run, plus they accidentally paid him for 3 extra months but didn't ask for it back.
The commissioners said, hmm, if we were evaluating this as a new application, we'd deny it.
Cnstruction Company Lawyer said, well, if you were evaluating this as a new application, you'd see that the sound level is within regulations, and you wouldn't have grounds to deny it.
I mean, I was getting whiplash, trying to figure out who was the good neighbor and who was the villain, and wondering whether Adjoining Property Guy was going to jump out of his chair and throttle Construction Company Lawyer, or if a hidden explosive would suddenly detonate, killing one of the commissioners, and causing everyone to rethink What Was REALLY Going On. And then the county attorney cleared his throat and said, well, you have to evaluate it as a new application, based on whether they meet conditions, which they do. But there is this clause here that says that you can consider compatible surroundings, and a 24-hour sound study might shed some light....
It was with great relief that the commissioners agreed that a 24-hour sound study ought to be conducted. So I guess there will be a sequel.
Finally, at nearly 8pm, the comp plan review began. And I was flabbergasted! I had thought that they would take citizen input first, and then, based on that, evaluate the plan. But instead the planning commissioners went through the assigned chapters and hacked the plan to bits. That is, they removed everything that a liberal, such as me, would approve of, and occasionally inserted language asserting the primacy of property rights, business owners, and farmers and ranchers, and constantly complained about how the government is overreaching and ought to be smacked down.
It turns out that of the five people on the planning commission, one is a Democrat (who I know, and who was UTTERLY SILENT throughout the hacking process); one - the commission chair - is unaffiliated, and to his credit he was fairly evenhanded but acted mostly as a facilitator during the meeting; and then there are three Republicans: one conservative, one right-wing, and utterly fucking nuts. The commission also brought in the three alternates, giving them equal power to the "regular" members, and all of them were in between right-wing and UFN. Oog.
There were about 40 attendees to start with, but as the meeting drug on, more and more left. I'd say that the ratio of progressives (aka "people I know") to tea-brains (aka "the people wearing 9/11 - NEVER FORGET t-shirts") was about 1:2. At the end of the regular meeting, about 10:30, people were given 3 minutes each to speak if they so chose. And a lot of them did (including me). The tea-brains said, "Thank you for reflecting our concerns so well and keeping us from falling into the fiery pit of communism", and the progressives said, "Jesus H. Christ, is this ever a farce!"
Here is the letter to the editor I wrote the next day:
I'm going to miss the next meeting - next Thursday - because I'm going to be out of town. (I'm going to ECUADOR! Whee!) But I've been reviewing the draft plan chapters that will be covered then, and sending an email to the county planner, who hopefully will pass it on to the planning commission. (The planning commission chair said that they accept public comment by email, but there's no obvious place to send it, alas.) I've put the final two meetings on my calendar.
I always hated meetings. They're boring. Except somehow this one wasn't. And I imagine the next ones won't be, either.
At this rate, I'm gonna end up applying for a seat on one of the county citizen boards. Ulp.
I went because, at the monthly meeting of the county Democratic party (which I didn't attend, because I hate meetings, but Britt did, because he's on the executive committee) a couple people mentioned that the new county comprehensive plan (a policy document which outlines growth and resource management guidelines for the next twenty years) was being reviewed in several-chapter chunks by the planning commission, and the Tea Party types were showing up en masse and effectively drowning out the few liberal voices during the public comment period.
The comp plan has been in process for nearly two years, and I attended one of the public meetings and answered a survey on it; and anyway, when the draft plan was put up on the county website, I liked what I saw, so I figured I'd just go and give my "I like this plan!" opinion, to counter the anti-progressive types.
Before the part of the meeting that would deal with chapters 5-7 of the comprehensive plan, the planning commission had its regular business. Some people who knew this deliberately showed up late, and others were visibly bored (reading ebooks or texting), but I enjoyed it: at worst it seemed like democracy at work, and at best it was better than a movie made from a John Grisham novel.
The planning commission is a board of five county residents appointed by the county commissioners. Typically what happens is that the county staff presents a petition by someone, and their findings and recommendations; the petitioner speaks, the public is allowed to speak, and the board asks questions at each step. Finally they discuss the petition and vote on whether to allow or disallow it, and any conditions they will impose.
For the most part, this went quickly and smoothly...but then came the John Grisham novel. A construction company had made an injection well (where wastewater from the natural gas extraction process is pumped into the ground) and been granted a permit to run a diesel generator for six months as an interim solution until electric lines could be run. But their pump was far from the nearest power, the electric company had delayed, and prices had gone up such that the cost to electrify the pump would be huge. Their lawyer showed pictures of the attractive building they'd made to house the equipment, waved around sound studies results showing that the noise from the generator was within regulations, and said that gosh darn, they were trying to be good neighbors, honest, and they just hadn't expected this to happen, but could they please keep their generator?
Then the guy who owns the adjoining property came up and testified that the generator is so noisy he can't hear himself think, because their noise testing is bogus, and his house constantly shakes with the vibrations, and they got their permit based on their plan to electrify the well, so damn it, they should do what they promised. He reminded the commissioners, who agreed, that the eventual electrification had been a big point in their favor during the original hearing, and wondered whether they really hadn't intended this all along.
Then Construction Company Lawyer came up again and said that Adjoining Property Guy is just trying to get more money out of them, because he was happy to take $50,000 for access, and $3000/month for the 6 months the generator was supposed to run, plus they accidentally paid him for 3 extra months but didn't ask for it back.
The commissioners said, hmm, if we were evaluating this as a new application, we'd deny it.
Cnstruction Company Lawyer said, well, if you were evaluating this as a new application, you'd see that the sound level is within regulations, and you wouldn't have grounds to deny it.
I mean, I was getting whiplash, trying to figure out who was the good neighbor and who was the villain, and wondering whether Adjoining Property Guy was going to jump out of his chair and throttle Construction Company Lawyer, or if a hidden explosive would suddenly detonate, killing one of the commissioners, and causing everyone to rethink What Was REALLY Going On. And then the county attorney cleared his throat and said, well, you have to evaluate it as a new application, based on whether they meet conditions, which they do. But there is this clause here that says that you can consider compatible surroundings, and a 24-hour sound study might shed some light....
It was with great relief that the commissioners agreed that a 24-hour sound study ought to be conducted. So I guess there will be a sequel.
Finally, at nearly 8pm, the comp plan review began. And I was flabbergasted! I had thought that they would take citizen input first, and then, based on that, evaluate the plan. But instead the planning commissioners went through the assigned chapters and hacked the plan to bits. That is, they removed everything that a liberal, such as me, would approve of, and occasionally inserted language asserting the primacy of property rights, business owners, and farmers and ranchers, and constantly complained about how the government is overreaching and ought to be smacked down.
It turns out that of the five people on the planning commission, one is a Democrat (who I know, and who was UTTERLY SILENT throughout the hacking process); one - the commission chair - is unaffiliated, and to his credit he was fairly evenhanded but acted mostly as a facilitator during the meeting; and then there are three Republicans: one conservative, one right-wing, and utterly fucking nuts. The commission also brought in the three alternates, giving them equal power to the "regular" members, and all of them were in between right-wing and UFN. Oog.
There were about 40 attendees to start with, but as the meeting drug on, more and more left. I'd say that the ratio of progressives (aka "people I know") to tea-brains (aka "the people wearing 9/11 - NEVER FORGET t-shirts") was about 1:2. At the end of the regular meeting, about 10:30, people were given 3 minutes each to speak if they so chose. And a lot of them did (including me). The tea-brains said, "Thank you for reflecting our concerns so well and keeping us from falling into the fiery pit of communism", and the progressives said, "Jesus H. Christ, is this ever a farce!"
Here is the letter to the editor I wrote the next day:
The La Plata County Comprehensive Plan has been a long time in the making by a whole lot of people. Dozens of public meetings and workshops (I attended one) and several surveys (I answered one), a 20-member citizen working group, outside consultants, and county staff all contributed to the draft document which is now available on the county website. I read it, and was delighted to see a visionary blueprint for the future that recognized the inevitability of growth and aimed to encourage its positive aspects (such as new business and jobs), while mitigating its negative aspects (such as traffic and pollution). I felt proud to live in such a forward-thinking county.
Then I went to the Planning Commission meeting on July 14th, on sections 5-7 of the plan, and listened with dismay as the commissioners summarily removed everything remotely progressive. The bullet point to preserve and enhance our cultural landscape, scenic resources, and recreational opportunities? Deleted. The bullet point to encourage efficient, low-emission transportation options? Struck out. Section 6, on sustainable development? Excised in its entirety.
Before the hearing on the Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Commission heard its regular business. This was good government at work; petitioners brought their requests, county staff made their recommendations and outlined the legal issues, and then the Planning Commission, as the voice of the citizens, approved or denied the requests. But I believe this system is applied inappropriately to the Comprehensive Plan. County citizens have participated throughout the entire process. Giving the Planning Commission the power to unilaterally edit the plan makes a mockery of the consensus process and devalues the work of volunteers and staff.
I find this especially problematic because from their remarks, it's clear that the Planning Commission has an anti-government, anti-environmental, anti-progressive bias. This is magnified by the equal inclusion of the three alternate members. But even if the Planning Commission were entirely composed of people who think as I do, I would still object to this process. The people have already spoken; the Plan already reflects this. The Planning Commission should have no right to change it.
I'm going to miss the next meeting - next Thursday - because I'm going to be out of town. (I'm going to ECUADOR! Whee!) But I've been reviewing the draft plan chapters that will be covered then, and sending an email to the county planner, who hopefully will pass it on to the planning commission. (The planning commission chair said that they accept public comment by email, but there's no obvious place to send it, alas.) I've put the final two meetings on my calendar.
I always hated meetings. They're boring. Except somehow this one wasn't. And I imagine the next ones won't be, either.
At this rate, I'm gonna end up applying for a seat on one of the county citizen boards. Ulp.