Comprehensive Planning Committee Chairman Manny Choy says he wants to go on the record with the comprehensive plan as a concept, although he admits the plan itself is only 95 percent finished and cannot be completed before newly elected city officials take office.
When asked why the committee didn’t wait until it had a document that 100 percent complete, Choy said that remains an option for the committee to consider at its Dec. 5 meeting.
`There are some members who feel we should wait, but there are some members of the committee who feel strongly that we should go on the record before the next City Council convenes,` Choy said Tuesday, Dec. 4, a day before a scheduled meeting of the Comprehensive Planning Committee. `A lot of us feel that after a year plus of work we should move on something.`
Choy said committee staff will not have time to finish the fine tuning and do a State Environmental Quality Review that is required before the City Council can act on it. Therefore, it will have to go to the new council.
Committee member Gordon Boyd said he felt the proposition of voting on a concept was pointless.
`As a governmental action, it is meaningless,` he said. `I’m very concerned about the process`that we’re voting on an unfinished product.`
Boyd said he takes issue with the notion that Choy and others on the committee are treating the city’s comprehensive plan as something ethereal in its implications.
`The comprehensive plan is not a concept,` said Boyd. `It is a very specific set of zoning and planning standards that will affect people’s property value.`
Boyd also said that so many different drafts of the plan are circulating that, at this point, he wouldn’t know which one he was being asked to vote on. When asked how many different versions of the plan he’s seen, Boyd said, `I’ve lost track. Things were being edited and things were showing up in copies that weren’t there before. This is far from a finished product.`
Multiple drafts were a hot topic at two public hearings held by the committee in the past few months. Some residents inquired about language that was omitted from one of the drafts that recommended Saratoga Lake as an alternative city water source. It appeared in drafts prior to the July 31 public hearing, was omitted and has since been put back in.
Boyd said the language was taken out for political gain, specifically for that of Mayor Valerie Keehn. `These are friends of the mayor trying to pander to people who may not want to go to Saratoga Lake for water,` he said.
Boyd lost the Democratic primary election to Keehn by a considerable margin and has been on the opposite side of the mayor’s push for charter revision. He said this isn’t sour grapes on his part, pointing to the fact that he was appointed to the Comprehensive Planning Committee before the charter revision effort began and long before the mayoral race.
Keehn could not be reached before press time, but Choy said, as did committee vice-chair Nancy Goldberg at the July 31 meeting, that the omission was not deliberate.
`The omission of Saratoga Lake`we added that back,` Choy said. `That was clearly an editing, proofreading mistake. We’ve added it back and we haven’t changed it since.`
Choy reiterated the need to move on the plan, even in its unfinished state, noting that the City Council will have to hold at least one public hearing on the comprehensive plan before its adoption.
`I’m not sure how much more public comment we need before take action,` said Choy. `Just because something is unpopular to some doesn’t mean we can delay it indefinitely by hearing more public comment.`
Boyd said he will not vote on anything at the Dec. 5 meeting. He said he feels the committee has taken too long to do too little. `This plan is late and premature at the same time.`
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