The usually agreeable City Council was less than friendly Monday night when Mayor Jeff Jennings accused three of his colleagues of not being forthcoming on why they were opposed to a project being presented to them, and suggested they could be voting based on who their friends are.
Jennings was the lone supporter of a proposal from Norm Haynie for a 9,000-square-foot Ramirez Canyon home. The Planning Commission approved Haynie’s project, supporting a positive recommendation by the planning staff. But when it went before the City Council on appeal in June by a group of Ramirez Canyon homeowners, it was rejected. Haynie made a request on Monday for another hearing, after making some slight adjustments to the proposal. But the three council members other than Jennings (Mayor Pro Tem Pamela Conley Ulich recused herself from the vote) were not interested.
“I have a hard time figuring out what is going on with this case,” Jennings said. “Because to me, the law is so clear … the Planning Commission has told us this project complies [with the law]. Staff has told us the project complies.”
Jennings then spoke about the city’s history and recalled a time in its infancy when, he said, projects were approved and disapproved based on friendships. Kearsley took offense to the story.
“To imply that we are doing this as a favor to friends is beneath content… That is absolutely not the truth,” Kearsley said.
When asked in an interview on Tuesday to specify what he meant by his comments, Jennings said, “When I can’t come up with a rational explanation, or I can’t understand the thinking behind the result, then I think there must be something else. If it’s not an analysis of the law, then it’s got to be something else that’s tipping the balance. In the old days it was somebody had a friend, and you could kind of figure out what was going on.”
Jennings added that Haynie is “not a popular guy,” but he said he did not know for sure if it was a dislike for Haynie that was the reason for their vote.
The three council members in opposition to the project said in June they could not approve the project because it appeared unpermitted grading had been done on the property, altering the topography of the site and changing how the home would look. They stopped short of saying the grading was illegal, an allegation made by some of the Ramirez Canyon homeowners. When asked by Jennings in June what could be done to alter the design of the home to satisfy them, they declined to give a response, stating it was not their position to create the house. They also refused the idea of an after-the-fact permit for the grading.
The council members were silent on their reasoning for opposing the project on Monday, but Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said this was because she was limited since the only issue before them was whether to give Haynie a new hearing, not the details of his project.
Haynie pleaded with the council not to make its rejection from June final, because that would mean he would have to start the whole process over again. Barovsky said it wasn’t possible because when the council rejects projects it is final, and a person must repeat the planning process from the beginning if he or she still wants to get something built.
“If we start messing with the process, then we are opening a can of worms that will come back to haunt not only us, but every council that serves,” Barovsky said.
Jennings said this was a bad idea because when Haynie begins the process again, he will be presenting it first to a planning staff that already says it supports the project, and later return to the City Council that rejected it.
In an interview on Tuesday, Haynie said it would be difficult for him to start the process over again because he had not received a clear indication on what was wrong with his project. He said he will have to contemplate his options, which he said could be a lawsuit against the city.