The Planning Commission was told several times it could take public testimony on medical marijuana zoning regulations after postponing the contentious issue two months earlier, but the panel ignored the advice, according to an e-mail obtained by The Gazette.
On Sept. 16, the commission took about three to four hours of public testimony on the proposed land-use regulations, which affect dozens of medical marijuana businesses.
At that meeting, the commission requested several changes from city planners and postponed a final decision until Nov. 18.
During last week’s meeting, the commission denied public testimony.
“I think it’s a better use of time for not only those of us up here but those in the audience,” commission Chairman Kevin Butcher said last week.
Vice Mayor Larry Small called the decision to deny public input “inappropriate.” Small wants to send the proposal back to the commission “for due process.”
When Mayor Lionel Rivera learned that the commission had prevented public testimony, he asked City Attorney Patricia Kelly to find out what happened.
Deputy City Attorney Wynetta Massey, who attended last week’s commission meeting, provided an e-mailed explanation to Kelly, who forwarded it to the City Council.
“Planning Commission was advised multiple times by this Office and Land Use Review staff that, when the matter went back at the November 18 meeting, though the Commission was technically “at the table,” they could reopen the public input portion of the hearing regarding the requested changes during the November meeting,” Massey wrote in the e-mail to Kelly.
“At the November hearing, from my recollection (confirmed by the video recording of the meeting), the Planning Commission chair opened the topic of public input to the rest of the Commission,” she wrote. “The Commission discussed the topic and voted against additional public input, reasoning that they had already received public input at the September meeting and the public comments had been incorporated into their requested changes to the ordinance.”
Here’s the full text of Massey’s e-mail to Kelly:
Pat –
The Planning Commission took roughly 3 to 4 hours of public input on the proposed ordinance during the September 16 meeting. Following the public input portion of the meeting, the Planning Commission brought the item to the table and offered suggestions (incorporating the public input) to Land Use Review staff for changes they wanted to see in the ordinance. They postponed a final decision on the ordinance until they could review the requested changes at the November 18 meeting.
At the time of the postponement in September, the Planning Commission was already at the table and beyond the public input portion of the hearing. Through postponement, I believe it was Planning Commission’s intent to give staff adequate time to draft the requested changes instead of merely redlining the document during the hearing and sending it directly to City Council.
Planning Commission was advised multiple times by this Office and Land Use Review staff that, when the matter went back at the November 18 meeting, though the Commission was technically “at the table”, they could reopen the public input portion of the hearing regarding the requested changes during the November meeting. At the November hearing, from my recollection (confirmed by the video recording of the meeting), the Planning Commission chair opened the topic of public input to the rest of the Commission. The Commission discussed the topic and voted against additional public input, reasoning that they had already received public input at the September meeting and the public comments had been incorporated into their requested changes to the ordinance. At least one Planning Commission member commented on the record that public input had been received and considered by the Commission (which, again, prompted the requested changes to the ordinance), and that there would be another opportunity for the public to comment at City Council.
Please let me know if you would like for me to put this in a memo format for further distribution.
Wynetta Massey
“There was no intentional dishonesty or malicious actions on the part of Ms. Young, and for the editorial staff of The Gazette to call for someone to be fired or to resign from their position because of a misinterpretation is nothing less than irresponsible. The council and the people of this community need to stop feeding into the bigotry and biases that come from The Gazette, the Independent and other media outlets.”
