Appeals topic of retreat

The City Council met Saturday in near seclusion to discuss, among other items, how to handle contentious appeals placed before the body.

No member of the public and only one reporter attended the annual council retreat, held at the South Coast Water District offices on West Street. The most heated discussion dealt with how the council handles appeal hearings and how agendas are organized.

Changes to the appeal system will be agendized for public discussion at a regular council meeting.

At issue for some was the fact that council members can file appeals at no charge and that their speaking time is unlimited, unlike members of the public.

“Every one who appeals should be treated equally,” said Councilman Kelly Boyd.

“If a council member appeals, it is already an unfair advantage,” Mayor Pro Tem Cheryl Kinsman said.

Appellants of an approved neighborhood project or their representatives are given five minutes to present their position, supporters each get three minutes at the rostrum. Property owners get five minutes; and their supporters, three minutes.

At present, council members have no time limit on their presentation of an appeal or their comments, nor do they pay a fee to file an appeal, as do members of the public.

Kinsman questioned the placement of appeals on the agendas. Under the present arrangement they are heard last, if at all.

Right now, members of the public and staff must wait for their turn, which could be after 10 p.m. or later.

“We had about 100 people sitting in the back of the room for an appeal on a roof deck bar,” Kinsman said. “Plus, city staff was in the back waiting for that one agenda item. That’s a problem we need to fix.”

Even worse, Kinsman said, is when the council issues a late-night decision to continue the hearing to another meeting.

One of the major goals of the council-appointed Design Review Task Force was to reduce the number of appeals heard by the council.

Major church projects heard on same night

Council members pointed to the Jan. 8 meeting as a case in point.

The agenda scheduled a review of a revised plan for St. Mary’s redevelopment and two appeals, one of them Councilwoman Toni Iseman’s appeal of the major redevelopment of the parochial school operated by St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, which was the last item on the agenda.

St. Mary’s project had been scheduled for that date for a goodly period of time, Frank said. St. Catherine’s officials requested their hearing be moved forward from its scheduled date, which is based on when an item is submitted to Frank’s office.

Noticed public hearings cannot be held before the published time of 7:30 p.m. All appeal hearings are noticed, but could be moved ahead of other public hearings.

“I am not sure that hearing appeals earlier would help big groups or staff,” Egly said. “Move them ahead, and more people will come.”

However, Iseman said the onus could be taken off individual council members if projects of a certain size and impact on the community were automatically heard by the council, as well as the appropriate advisory board.

“We are losing expertise when we give design review to the Planning Commission and not to the Design Review Board,” Iseman said. “We have to take advantage of the skill sets people have.”

The Planning Commission advises the council on the design and use for commercial projects throughout the city and on all projects in the Downtown Specific Plan area.

Iseman doesn’t want approved projects to come back to haunt the council.

“I want to make sure that no one comes to the council a year after a project is approved and says, ‘How did you let this happen?’” Iseman said.

Specifically addressing the St. Catherine’s project, which Iseman appealed, Boyd said the planning commission spent 50 hours on the project and some of the members were upset when it went to the council.

“All we did was confirm what the Planning Commission did, and it took us an hour or an hour and a half to do it,” Boyd said.

Schneider said any project that requires an amendment to the city’s coastal plan should come to the council.

Egly said exposure couldn’t hurt. Sometimes projects slip through the cracks, such as the contentious project in South Laguna that had the neighbors in an uproar over the noise and traffic during the grading.

The council also kicked around suggestions for streamlining the meetings for the public and themselves.

Boyd said it could be done by asking a large crowd if anyone was against the item — such as he did at the hearing on the proposal for a Sister City program — and then going straight to a motion and vote.

Frank asked if council and staff comments had to be at the beginning of the meeting.

“We are just aggrandizing ourselves,” Kinsman said.

But Iseman said the comments were valuable to the community and should be made when residents are awake.

The council agreed to leave the comments at the beginning of the meeting, but will limit them to two minutes each.

Frank said city items could be put at the end of the agenda.

The council also agreed to agendize committee, board and commission guidelines.

“They haven’t looked at that for about 15 years,” Frank said. “The role of the committees is to make recommendations to the council. They do not represent the city.”

Council members also agreed to research more comfortable chairs for the dais and approved proposals to increase fees for events held in public parks.