Council to discuss commission cuts

THE ISSUE
There are currently 14 appointees to the Planning Commission - two for each of our Council members. BUT, we have a newly-elected mayor who will be an 8th position on Council. The mayor simply cannot appoint two new members because of Virginia's law that LIMITS THE NUMBER OF Planning Commission members to 15.

COUNCIL ACTION NEEDED
Council members will need to determine how it handles the appointees to the Planning Commission knowing there will be one additional Council member as of January 1, 2009.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
As reported by the Suffolk News Herald, in a move at the November 19, 2008 City Council meeting, Councilman Parr (Suffolk Borough) made a motion to cut the number of Planning Commission members in half.

But, this motion does not appear on the city's marked agenda. If a motion was made, should it appear on the marked agenda as a matter of record?

Suffolk does have a code (Sec. 18.01) that establishes the number of Planning Commission members to consist of between 5 and15 members. We have seven Council members and one newly-elected mayor. If each person is member is allowed to appoint two members, we'd have 16 commissioners total - one more than the city code allows. The code related to the number of allowed Planning Commissioners is presented below.

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From Suffolk's Municipal Code

CHAPTER 18. CITY PLANNING

Sec. 18.01. Planning commission--Generally.
There shall be a city planning commission, which shall consist of not less than five (5) nor more than fifteen (15) members and shall be appointed and organized as provided by general law.

State law references: Planning commission, Code of Virginia, § 15.2-2210 et seq.

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Additionally, the Code of Virginia establishes the appointments of Planning Commission members.

§ 15.2-2212. Qualifications, appointment, removal, terms and compensation of members of local planning commissions.

A local planning commission shall consist of not less than five nor more than fifteen members, appointed by the governing body, all of whom shall be residents of the locality, qualified by knowledge and experience to make decisions on questions of community growth and development; provided, that at least one-half of the members so appointed shall be owners of real property. The local governing body may require each member of the commission to take an oath of office.

One member of the commission may be a member of the governing body of the locality, and one member may be a member of the administrative branch of government of the locality. The term of each of these two members shall be coextensive with the term of office to which he has been elected or appointed, unless the governing body, at the first regular meeting each year, appoints others to serve as their representatives. The remaining members of the commission first appointed shall serve respectively for terms of one year, two years, three years, and four years, divided equally or as nearly equal as possible between the membership. Subsequent appointments shall be for terms of four years each. The local governing bodies may establish different terms of office for initial and subsequent appointments including terms of office that are concurrent with those of the appointing governing body. Vacancies shall be filled by appointment for the unexpired term only.

Members may be removed for malfeasance in office. Notwithstanding the foregoing provision, a member of a local planning commission may be removed from office by the local governing body without limitation in the event that the commission member is absent from any three consecutive meetings of the commission, or is absent from any four meetings of the commission within any 12-month period. In either such event, a successor shall be appointed by the governing body for the unexpired portion of the term of the member who has been removed.
The local governing body may provide for compensation to commission members for their services, reimbursement for actual expenses incurred, or both.
(Code 1950, §§ 15-901, 15-916, 15-963; 1956, cc. 282, 497; 1960, c. 309; 1962, c. 407, § 15.1-437; 1973, c. 160; 1974, c. 521; 1986, c. 208; 1988, c. 256; 1997, c. 587; 2006, c. 687.)
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Citizen Questions

1. Our Council has known about this issue since the 2007 when our legislators approved the direct election of the mayor in Suffolk. Why wasn't this issue discussed at that time? Why hasn't this been taken care of before now?



2. What are Councilman's Parr's thoughts about why the size should be reduced? Since this is not available in the marked agenda, this would be a good piece of information for us to understand.



3. One option is to reduce the size of the Planning Commission to 8, which does fall in line with the city's code. What is the impact of reducing the size to 8?



4. One option is to allow the newly-elected mayor to appoint a member when another member's term expires - perhaps on a rotating basis. Is this workable?



5. The newly-elected mayor has actually already appointed the two commissioners in her role as a Council member. Would it be fair to allow the new Council person for the Sleepy Hole borough to have an opportunity to appoint someone?



6. Should the newly-elected mayor have the same number of appointees available as other Council members? If so, why? If not, why not? What would be the impact if the number appointed by the mayor is more or less than other Council members? (It really cannot be more since Virginia code limits the number to 15.)



7. What might be the implication of appointing Planning Commissioners by the size of the borough they represent?



8. What are the thoughts of the Planning Commissioners about how a large-size group is working? What are the thoughts of the Department of Planning and Community Development? What have been the pluses and minuses of the 14-member Commission? Do we have adequate input to help with the decision-making process?



9. If Council determines, at some point, to decrease the size of the Planning Commission, what strategy will be taken to fairly reduce this?
   

Of course we'll want to monitor this to observe the solutions that Council comes up with to resolve this issue. This issue is important because the Planning Commission regulary makes decisions that impact the lives of Suffolk citizens - its decisions impacts our quality of lives and our wallets.

What other questions do you have? What do you recommend?

UPDATE - DECEMBER 4, 2009 11:00 p.m. (or there abouts)

The Suffolk City Council met this evening and the issue of reducing the size of the Planning Commission was discussed. Check the link below to see Dave Forster's piece on what went on at Council this evening.

Article by Dave Forster, Suffolk council leans toward shrinking advisory council, December 4, 2008

The article suggests that the idea to reduce the number of planning commissioners already has the votes of the majority of the Council.

Tracy Agnew (Suffolk News Herald) also weighed in with the article, No Planning Commission cuts - yet. The link is posted below in case you'd like to read the article.

At least one member of the community has weighed in publicly in a Letter to the Editor (Suffolk News Herald). In this letter, Richard M. Whalen presents an idea that perhaps the suggestion to reduce the number of Planning Commission members is related to their delay on moving the CenterPoint project through.

Additionally, citizens discuss the issue in Inside Suffolk, in the blog post entitled, To the Suffolk City Council.

UPDATE - JANUARY 11, 2009

Council members discussed options for reducing the size of the Planning Commission at Day 1 of their retreat (June 8, 2009). Tracy Agnew wrote about this in today's Suffolk News Herald.