2007 06-21 Special
Meridian Plannina and Zonina Special Meetina
June 21, 2007
Special Meeting of the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission of Thursday, June
21,2007, was called to order at 5:30 p.m. by Chairman Michael Rohm.
Members Present: Michael Rohm, David Mae, Wendy Newton-Huckabay, Tom
O'Brien.
Members Absent: Steve Siddoway (arrived at 6:45 p.m.)
Others Present: Caleb Hood, Amanda Hess, Matt Ellsworth, Sonya Watters, Bill
Parsons, Ted Baird, Machelle Hill, Scott Steckline and Emily Kane.
Item 1:
Roll-Call Attendance:
Roll-call
X Wendy Newton-Huckabay X Tom O'Brien
X David Mae - Vice Chairman 0 Steve Siddoway
X Michael Rohm - Chairman
Item 2:
Adoption of the Agenda:
Item 3.
Discussion including but not limited to: The purpose of the Planning
& Zoning Commission, the Comprehensive Plan, and Zoning and
Subdivision Regulations; The role of the Planning & Zoning
Commission; Basis for making decisions; State Code related to the
Planning & Zoning Commission - land Use Planning Act (lUPA);
and, Ethics and Code of Conduct. The discussion will include a
presentation by Diane Kushlan:
Rohm: At this time I would like to turn the meeting over to Diane and you can present
your stuff for us and we are glad to have to you.
Kushlan: Thank you, Chairman Rohm and Members of the Commission. I am really
thrilled to be here tonight and I am always in awe of Planning and Zoning Commission
members that volunteer their time and especially to come to a special meeting on the
first day of summer for an hour and one half of what you probably have is a long agenda
tonight. So you have all my respect. I have had the privilege of meeting a couple of
you - one of my rules is to speak into the microphone. I think a couple of you were
around a couple of years ago when we did this before and so I hope it is not too
redundant. It is more of a refresher and I hope the rest of you will find this useful to you.
This is a generic presentation. I am going to cover a lot of material that is included in
this presentation. Caleb indicated a whole range of things that he thought we should
talk about. But, if there is some things - I know you probably have some very specific
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issues that you want to talk about or have some information about. So if we get into
some things that you think are not appropriate, you don't care about just kind of wave
your arms or something and we will just move through quickly on those and be sure to
ask me questions as we go along so we can keep this as informal as possible. I am a
planning consultant. I have my own firm, which I have had for four years, but part of
that I spent 30 years working in local government in medium and small sized cities in
California, Washington State and Idaho. About 20 of those years I spent as a Planning
Director. So I have seen a lot of Commission and boards and elected officials in
operation and have served to staff as many of those. Tonight what I am going to
present is a lot of sort of the literature that is out there in terms of commission and
commission workings, but there is a little bit of my own biases and opinions. A couple
of these issues, I know Anna and I disagree on. So keep that in mind as we go through
this that there is a little bit of personal reflection here as well as just some good
practices and stuff too.
Newton-Huckabay: Are you going to point out those sources of contention?
Kushlan: Absolutely. I will tell you where Anna disagrees with me on this. This is the
long laundry list of agenda items that we wanted to talk about. First of all, kind of why
we plan? What are your responsibilities and roles as a Planning Commission? How
you work with other people in the planning arena. There is whole other players that are
involved and how you relate and what your responsibilities are to them. Here it goes
into kind of my personal opinions about what makes a successful commissioner and
what makes a successful commission and how you make the decisions and how you
conduct good meetings. Then a little bit of some of the legal issues related to quasi,
judicial decision-making and then we will do a little bit of wrap up with some summary
comments. That is the agenda. Be sure to wave your arms when it is not appurtenant
and relevant to what you are doing. So thou shall plan and why shall thou shall plan? I
think there are a number of good reasons why communities should plan. One is that it
is a good way to talk about what your community is, what it wants to be and how to
address some of the issues that a community faces. Planning processes really support
community values. It brings people together to talk about your common vision for the
future. It is a very democratic process and planning is good government. Really
planning can set the stage for very orderly and efficient use of limited resources the
government have and it anticipates change in a way that allows government to respond
to those changes and respond to issues before they become too significant. Planning is
good business. I think that any good business has a business plan where they identify
their strengths and their weaknesses and how to overcome those weaknesses. So it is
a good business model for us to follow as good government. Finally I think it makes
good common sense. We all plan our families. We plan in our daily lives and I think it
is only useful in common sense that the community would do that as well. So also why
you need to plan is because the state says you have to and that is under the Land Use
Planning Act, which is Idaho Code Section 7665 and I didn't get a chance to make you
a copy of that to put in your notebooks, but I think you can go online to the Idaho State
website and go to the statutes and look up the statute and it is a fairly quick read. It was
originally drafted in 1976 and has been amended over times. So there are some add on
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items, but it is a good read and it's the foundation for everything you do and so I
encourage you if you get the time to look at it. It is also important, I think, to go back
and look at the purpose of planning in Idaho and that is what these bullets go over in
terms of why we plan. There are very fundamental things about providing good public
services, preventing over crowding, preserving our natural resources. So good things to
revisit from time to time is that Land Use Planning Act. So this is the hand of (inaudible)
coming down and saying on the eighth day is the planner. He has got the plan in his
hands. The responsibility to plan in Idaho is with local government and there is really no
direct state involvement other than there is the statute that local government go out and
do planning. Many states will have state planning offices that provide resources and
they kind of monitor local government planning efforts, but we don't have any of that.
We are one of the few states that don't. So there is really no sanctions if you don't plan.
There certainly could be some legal remedies that could be brought before the city if
they didn't plan correctly, but those have been few in terms of the case law in Idaho.
The responsibility to plan is with the elected officials and they can delegate a part of that
to you, part of that to staff and to a hearing examiner. We are one of few states that in
. our statute allows for some planning actions to be reviewed by hearing examiners and
many communities in this Valley use a hearing examiner for that purpose. So are you
contemplating a comprehensive plan update or anything soon?
Newton-Huckabay: Yeah, every six months.
Kushlan: An amendment? Well this is kind of the steps in the planning process in
terms of adopting a fairly major update to a comp plan, not maybe just for a piece of
property or a part of the community so I won't spend much time on it, but there is really
just a few fundamental steps. One is looking at the communities vision; doing data
inventory and assessment of what community characteristics there are within the
community; doing what I call a reality check where you look at what the community
would like the community to be and become verses what the realities are and how you
overcome some of the challenges and then finally preparing a plan that you are familiar
with, with Meridian's comp plan in terms of the content of that. The Idaho statute also
has some subject areas, topical areas that must be addressed in your comprehensive
plan and those are listed on this slide. Most communities will very rigorously go through
and have a chapter on property rights and a chapter on population and schools and I
encourage communities that are looking at your comp plan update to not maybe follow
that. I think you have to address all of these issues, but I don't think you have to be so
rigid about how you do that and if community design is your biggest issue that probably
should be the first chapter. It might be integrated with some of the other topics as well.
In addition to these mandated requirements, state law also allows you to add any topical
areas that are significant to your community and many communities have done that.
There are some communities that have a chapter, for example, on their downtown or a
chapter or related historic preservation. So something to think about in the future if you
go about doing another amendment to your comp plan. So responsibility to plan -
these are the areas of responsibility that come out of the Idaho statutes. First is the
preparation of the comprehensive plan, which we just talked about. One significant
point of that is that publiC involvement is required through all stages of the
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comprehensive plan development. There is formal public hearing is to be required, but
you are also encouraged to engage the public throughout that process. The
responsibility to plan is also in creating and maintaining zoning and subdivisions and
other development regulations as you have in your Unified Development Code that
implement that comprehensive plan. The third area of planning is related to the
administration of those codes and you administer them through the review of permits.
Your plats, your conditional use permits, your subdivisions. I think most people think
about planning as being the review of those kind of permits. When really it is the
administration of your plan. Unfortunately I think we have spent a lot of time focusing
on those permit pieces and not enough on the upfront planning. I think communities like
Meridian are now sort of on the cutting edge in Idaho in terms of doing more proactive
upfront planning, the example being your Ten Mile plan that you just completed. So
those are the areas of planning that you do. There is also - another way to look at this
and that is in terms of the types of actions that you take and there are two types of
actions you take. One is legislative actions and the other as I mentioned is
administrative actions. Legislative actions are ones that set up overall comprehensive
rules and standards and regulation, an adoption to the subdivision code or an
amendment to your rezoning text. They will affect a broad brush portion of the
community and so here is some examples, comprehensive plan adoption, text
amendment, zoning, subdivision regulations, functional plans like a park and recreation
plan or utility plan and a capital improvement plan. So there are legislative actions and
then the other type of actions are actions that are enforcing administration of the code
and they are on a case by case or specific basis and that is probably what your agenda
is filled with tonight is application review. Those are administrative actions. There is a
subset of administration action, which is very critical and those are quasi judicial actions
and the definition of quasi judicial action is that it's related to a very specific, site specific
piece of property and it is an action that requires a public hearing. The types of quasi
judicial actions that you see all the time are rezones on specific pieces of property,
conditional use permits, variances and plat approval. We will talk more later about the
significance of quasi judicial verses legislative action, but it is important that you kind of
organize in your mind those two different kinds of actions. So that was a quick run
through of roles and your responsibility under the Idaho Planning Land Use Planning
Act and planning in general. Are there any questions about any of that you want me to
go back and review?
Rohm: No I think you are doing a great job.
Kushlan: The next thing that I want to talk about is - oh, here under Idaho Law, again,
a little differentiation between legislative and quasi judicial actions. The last thing down
there is comprehensive plan amendments for specific properties. I think you can make
an argument either way, whether those are legislative or quasi judicial, I think probably
the attorney would say that you probably should just be on the safe side and treat those
as quasi judicial. Now in your Unified Development Code, there is a chart which
identifies your responsibility and the responsibility of staff and the City Council in looking
at all of these different kinds of applications and decisions that we were just talking
about. Have you seen this chart before? Is everybody familiar with this? So I think this
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is a good illustration for what we were just talking about. I kind of highlighted - the
darker as you go down the chart highlights the lines where you have a responsibility and
in some cases you are a recommending body and other cases you are a decision-
making body and most of or all of the legislative actions you are a recommending body.
The final decision was with the City Council. On the other actions it is kind of a mix.
Let's see on this one you have got annexations and rezones you recommend to Council
and same with comprehensive plan amendments and then conditional uses you are the
final decider and that is a quasi judicial action. Then planned unit development and all
kinds of plats you are a recommending body to the Council. That is a quasi judicial
matter and then Unified Development Code amendment, which is a legislative decision
you are a recommending body to the City Council. So that kind of shows you how all of
this works. I know the print is small, but I wanted to wind this section up with kind of the
planners tool box and I take this to other jurisdictions and they don't have nearly as
many of these tools as you do. I would say that Meridian is working with the power
tools. There is a lot of communities in this Treasure Valley that are working with hand
tools. But, this kind of organizes again for you. There is different kinds of plans and
you have engaged in all of these. I don't know if you have any neighborhood plans, but
certainly you have done comprehensive plans and sub area plans. Then the next
heading is public investment and infrastructure planning. To me these are the most
powerful and most under utilized planning tools that jurisdictions have. There are very
few communities in this state that have a comprehensive capital improvement program
that puts all of their improvement program plans together in one document. They will
have utility plans. They will have water plans, but they don't put them all together and it
is a really powerful way of seeing where your communities' investments are and where
that might lead development or development might be led by it. So a really good tool.
Fee and easement purchases - you probably do some of that. You just engaged in the
last couple of years in impact fees and then adequate public facilities requirement is
being developed right now under the Blue Print for Good Growth project. So you
probably will be seeing that as a tool before you in the next year. Then zoning there is
all sorts of different kinds of zoning. I guess this slide kind of shows you that there is
not just zoning, there is performance based zoning, which you have some of that in your
code. You also have overlay zones in your code. You have planned unit development
and then you have some pieces of what we call form based zoning where you are
looking more at the form of buildings, rather than the uses. So you have got all of those
tools going and then on the other side there is some other less frequently used tools;
growth management tools - you had through your area of city impact to a certain extent.
You have a whole bunch of these design tools, your sign ordinance and landscaping
and then resource protection, which we don't see as much in communities like in an
urban area like us, but more in the Sun Valley's and the Wood River Valley they have
dark sky ordinances and solar access issues and things like that. Then finally there is
kind of the other category, transferring development rights, economic development,
housing programs are kind of probably the least used of that list. So that is sort of the
whole range of different planning tools that are out there that are used by communities
and I would say Meridian is in a really good position because I think you are taking
advantage of more of those than most communities are.
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Newton-Huckabay: Diane?
Kushlan: Yes.
Newton-Huckabay: What is Euclidian zoning?
Kushlan: Euclidian zoning was the original - it is based on a case law that was in the
20's which was really the foundation for allowing zoning to be conducted in
communities. But, it basically says that if you are a single family district that's all that is
allowed in single family. If you are a multi-family district, you can have single family and
multi-family. If you are a commercial district you can have single family, multi-family
and commercial. So it is kind of building up sort of that way. Any other questions? So
we will move on and into the next section that is really kind of the category, the
characteristics of successful commissioners. This is kind of where I get a little bit into
some of my biases, but I want to speak just briefly on those first few points and then
spend a little bit more time on the last three bullets, knowledge ability and listen to
objectivity. Certainly if you are here you have got to have an interest in planning; just by
the virtue of the amount of time that you spend both preparing and at the meetings it
has got to be an area of interest to you and a commitment to the community and to
public service. Some of the worst commissioners I have ever seen and you know I am
sure there is none of you here, but we are only on the commission as a stepping stone
to an elected position. They really didn't have any interest in planning at all, they just
wanted to get the exposure out there for themselves and it is good to have a real
sincere interest in what you are doing. The other is you really need to have a lot of
time. This is - I know you are probably going to have a long meeting tonight and you
are going to have a long time preparing. So it does involve a real commitment. Few
conflicts are important in smaller communities and that becomes more of an issue
where somebody has a conflict they are either an architect that has projects coming
before the city and we will talk a little bit about that later. But, if you have to step down a
lot that does make it difficult for the commission to carry on their business. Then the
ability to speak clearly and concisely and I think this is for most of us a real learned trait.
Probably not all of us are born with the ability to sit up there and have all these people
looking at you and be able to speak on your feet right away. But, for those of you who
are new commissioners and this is kind of a new experience my advice is just keep
trying at it. Just keep working at it and it will become more natural and more
comfortable as time goes by. Do you think that is the case Wendy? Has it gotten
easier for you to -
Newton-Huckabay: Oh, I have never had a problem speaking.
Kushlan: My advice is just keep working at it and it will get easier as it goes on with
experience.
Newton-Huckabay: I just don't always make people happy with what I have to say.
Rohm: Amen.
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Kushlan: So let's spend a little more time on some of these other ones. Knowledge, I
have already touched on a little bit of this. You need to know the Idaho Land Use
Planning Act, look at your comprehensive plan and your zoning and subdivision code. If
you need a good (inaudible) for going to sleep at night, I am sure reading the zoning
code would be one of the first things that you would reach for, but I think it is useful to
use the code when you are actually looking at an application and staff has cited a code
section. That is the time to really read the code and read the context of that regulation
and you will get to know the code and the comprehensive plan better if you are using it
in a very practical sense in relationship to an application. The other thing is we have
this lingo in planning that I know is just filled with acronyms and these funny terms that
are not used in common day language and in the back of that three ringed notebook is a
list of some frequently used planning terms. But, if you hear something come up in the
hearing or staff uses a term, just ask what that means. I mean because if you don't
know probably people out in the public aren't going to know either and they will
appreciate the education. So learning the language of planning is something that you
need to do and there is lots of legal requirements and we will talk about those a little bit
later, some of the more important ones. I think these are kind of common sense, they
are basic constitutional rights that you learned in 8th grade civics class. You are just
seeing them in a very practical way, being applied through the process and the review
that you go through on applications. You have got great support here with your
attorney's office and so don't obsess about these things, but you know that there are
some legal parameters. You are working with a legal exercise of government and so
you need to be very mindful of some of these requirements. Then parliamentary
procedures - I don't think it is just the role of the Chair to know parliamentary
procedures. All of you should sort of have a basic idea of how that works. There is a
really clever little handout in the three ringed notebook that staff provided you that goes
over the fundamentals of parliamentary procedures and if you get stuck it might be a
good reference point to look at. Then finally, I think, this is a really underrated
knowledge piece, but I think an important one too is group dynamics. We are all used
to making decisions, but not - if you have never been in a board or on a commission or
in a group decision-making there are some dynamics involved in that that you should be
aware of. How best to reach consensus and how to be respectful of one another. Many
times I think we underestimate. We think we can join a board and it will just be great
and successful right away, but you don't. There is some real personal dynamics among
you that you need to be mindful of and think about from time to time. So listing is the
other factor that I think is important for a successful commissioner and you spend a lot
of time listening at that podium and I know for most of us it is not something that comes
naturally, it is something you have to learn to do successfully. It is important that you
learn to listen because you have got to take the information that you hear and distill it
and convert it into a decision at the end. So that is evidence that is before you and it is
evidence that you have got to consider and so you have got to listen. I know it is hard
sometimes. It is also important, I think, in listening to not make judgments before you
have heard all of information and when I was doing a lot of employee interviews,
somebody told me that you make a judgment about a person within the first minute of
them interviewing with you. That kind of stuck with me about a lot of things in life. I
think we kind of jumped to the - that sounds good and we kind of jump with it and say
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June 21, 2007
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yeah that sounds good and I am going to hang with that. Then we sort of filter
everything else through that initial judgment that we make. So be mindful of that and
make sure you keep your mind open throughout the proceedings of the public hearing.
Then the last thing is kind of watching your non verbal cues and I put these up in terms
of things - this is my real personal biases coming out now. These are things that I have
seen through the years and I wish sometimes that somebody would come and video
tape you and play it back so you can see some of this in your own self. But these
communicate a lot to the people that are listening to you, whether you know it or not. If
you are kind of slouching back and you are not really listening. If you are chatting
among each other. The person who is speaking to you gets the impression that you
don't care what they say about it. You have a great podium there and you can pass
notes and try to avoid that sort of chattering between. Sometimes when you have got
difficult people or a situation you tend to kind of want to go like this - and again it is
saying hey I don't really want to listen to you or hear you. So try to look people in the
eyes as much as you can when they are giving testimony. Then in terms of really
powerful dues. I think one of them is in your decision-making phase of your hearings. If
you can refer to testimony or refer to somebody, I heard Mr. Jones say this and this and
that really supports I think (inaudible). I think that really sends a message to people that
you were listening and considering them, looking them in the eyes as I said before and
then kind of using that body language that I am listening to you, kind of moving your
body head a little bit I think really helps. Keep those things in mind. I know you get so
involved in what you are reading and listening and all of the things that are happening.
It is something that you might not think about, but you do communicate a lot, not just
what you say, but in how you use your body. Then finally and probably most
importantly is objectivity and I am probably going to come back to this theme several
times tonight. But, I am sure that you have been in meetings where you feel like this
guy right here. He is up on the podium and he is directing and everybody is going the
opposite direction. You have got to be administering that code. You have got to keep
faith with that code even when you have got a room full people here who don't like what
the code is saying or don't like the outcomes that are happening. So it is very important
that you not be persuade by that public pressure. You are not the elected officials. You
are to make your decisions only within the framework of that code. They can go off in
different tangents if they want, but that is not the way you should be behaving or acting.
All of us come to a hearing and you probably read the staff report and you develop
certain biases or certain preliminary decisions. Well that is good as long as you keep
your mind open to what you are going to hear through the rest of that testimony. Then
the last - that fourth bullet I think is probably what I see a lot of in commissions is
avoiding this slippery slope of irrelevant information and I think this happens sometimes
to new commissioners who don't have a good sense of the code yet. They try to - or
for communities, some of which I am working with right now don't have a good code and
so they try to grasp onto criteria and factors for decision that aren't within the
parameters of the code at all. The other thing is asking questions that really are not
pertinent to any code provision or criteria and I will give you the example that I have
heard over and over again, which is people in a plat review will say now what will be the
selling price of these houses? Now I bet you there is no place in their code that says
the selling price of the house is a criteria for decision on this plat. So it sends a
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message that they are going to make a decision based on a certain market segment,
which can really get a community in trouble with the fair housing act. So be very careful
about the questions that you asked and that they are questions that are seeking out
information that provide you the basis for evaluating that project against what the criteria
is in the code.
Newton-Huckabay: I would like to comment on that. I think there is a fine line between
also informing the public who is at a meeting, though because you may have a very
angry public at a public hearing because they think that oh my god they are going to
put, god forbid, Corey Barton homes next to me and if the builder is standing up and
stating the fact that these houses are going to sell at this price point a lot of times will
defuse an angry crowd and he get to what the relevant arguments are. Would you
agree that that would -
Kushlan: I think a good developer will respond to that. But, I don't think you should try
to make that argument for him by asking him a question.
Newton-Huckabay: But I would say that I wouldn't disallow that conversation to take
place during a public hearing, particularly if the tension was so high.
Kushlan: No, I wouldn't cut that off at all. I mean if he is willing to offer that information
and that helps to dispel the emotion, that is fine. But, I don't think you should be leading
that discussion. That is my point. Then the last point is just being fair and impartial with
the people that you deal with and I know that you deal with a lot of people over and over
again. Some of which you might like or might like more than others. I think you need to
be - when people come to the podium, you have to treat them all equally the same as if
you have never seen them before. I will give you the most extreme example as I
worked in a small community where everybody knew everybody and we had a chairman
of our Planning and Zoning Commission who was just the most friendly, outgoing,
warm-hearted person and a member of the community will come up and she would say
hi Joe, how have you been? How is your wife, blah, blah, blah you know to try and
keep the proceedings informal. But we were a very popular community and had a lot of
business people coming into town and a business person who she didn't know, she
would have to say well Mr. Jones because she didn't know his first name and didn't
know him. I finally had to take her aside and say you know Sandy when Mr. Jones
comes and sees you talking to Joe by first name and asking about his family it really
gives him the impression that he is not going to be treated the same because he is not
part of this community yet or whatever. So you really need to make sure that everybody
is kind of given the equal basis when they come before you on that podium. You want a
break? Caleb said that dinner is here if you want a break.
Hood: Yeah, if you want we can go fill our plates up. I believe it is in the break room
back here. Maybe take a couple of minutes and eat, but maybe bring it back here too if
you are not finished and I don't know, whatever you guys want to do. I don't know how
much longer Diane has. So it is up to you guys and whatever you want to do, but there
is Mexican food in the break room.
Meridian Planning & Zoning Special Meeting
June 21, 2007
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Rohm: Okay let's take a 20 minute break, if need be.
(Break)
(Reconvene)
Rohm: At this time we will continue our Special Meeting of the Planning and Zoning
Commission.
Kushlan: Thank you Mr. Chairman. During the break Commissioner O'Brien and I were
discussing parliamentary procedures and we looked through your notebook and
realized I had left out an information sheet on parliamentary procedures and I will send
that to Caleb and he will get it to you, but I think you will find that useful. You won't
have to read the Robert's Rules Book; you can just look at that as a reference point. So
moving on I wanted to touch a little bit about the role and relationship that you have with
other players, what I call the universe of planning, probably the most important player
that you work with as an elected officials. You are their advisors - the responsibility of
planning is so great and elected officials have so many other things on their plate that
the legislature, I think and the wisdom said you can have these advisory boards to work
for you. So you really are kind of the work horse for the Council on planning matters.
Someone once described the role of the Commission and the Council as sort of a two
stomach cow. You are in the one stomach doing all the chewing and digesting and then
what you send on to the Council should be digestible, not indigestion. That means that
you really should work through most of the issues and send them just those key focused
public policy big issues for them to resolve. Again, you are not elected like the Council
and therefore you cannot deviate from established codes and procedures the way
sometimes elected officials do. I think communication with your Council is very critical
and you should have established some formal ways of communicating with the Council.
I know there are a lot of city attorneys that don't encourage Council, Planning and
Zoning Commission workshops, but I think they are important and that you should insist
on them on a fairly routine basis. You can't talk about specific project applications or
anything of a quasi judicial matter. But there is probably certainly some big policy
issues that you wanted to talk about. We were just talking with the Chairman about
Blue Print. Your Council and Mayor probably know a lot more about what is happening
with Blue Print than you do and maybe that is an opportunity to find out some things
about it. I particularly think that you need to talk to your Council if you are having what I
call these problem signs. If you are getting reversed in your decisions frequently; if the
elected officials are getting into all of that detail, they are getting something indigested
and they really are ripping into it or you are getting a lot of items going to them on
appeal. Those are kind of problem signs of lack of communication, lack of direction
from Council and that you really do need to sit down and chat with them. The other key
player is your colleagues, your fellow Commissioners and they deserve all your respect.
I think the best Commissions are those that are the most diverse that have a full
representation of the community and sometimes in diversity it is more of a challenge in
terms of respecting different points of view. But, I think that is a strength of a
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June 21, 2007
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Commission to have that diversity so keep your grievances with other Commissioners in
private. If you have got an issue try and go through the Chair or if you feel comfortable
confronting the person directly, but certainly don't air it in the public and don't surprise
the Commission with any big great idea. Maybe test the waters with the staff or Chair
before hand. Then finally, you know some of you are a little more of a boast than others
and I think those of you who are need to be respectful of the members that are a little
more (inaudible) and make sure that you don't dominate the conversation and that
everybody gets what I call their equal air time. So monitoring your air time is a good
practice with other Commissioners. The other key player with you in this planning world
is staff. I think one key point about staff is they work for you, they are supportive of you,
but they are also accountable to the Mayor and the elected officials. Sometimes if you
don't think that they are being responsive enough, it might be that there are other
priorities that the city has thrown on them to deal with. Staff is there to provide you a
technical assistance and expertise and they are there to provide you all of the
information that you need to make the best decision possible. I have a 12 - 1 theory of
staff and Commission relationships and that is that staff can do 12 great things and they
do one crummy bad thing and that erases all of the 12 that came before. So
Commissions because you are volunteers and you don't deal with this all of the time,
you expect the very best and you should get it, but sometimes those issues happen.
Again, no public criticism should happen of staff in the publiC forum. If you have got an
issue it should really go to the Chair or to the director of the department to discuss.
Here is a point where Anna and I diverge on an opinion, which is that you have a
special relationship to the community that I don't think a staff person really ever does
even if they live in that community. I think you are the community, you are a citizen
planner and I think you have got a level of sensitivity that is hard for a staff person that
is paid for doing what they do to have the same as you do. Staff needs to understand
that special relationship, I think that you have with the community. Certainly another
player in the planning universe or the public, they look to you to be the caretakers for
the vision of the community. They deserve the courteousness, politeness when they
come before you. I think it is important that you try to make your public forums as
meaningful as possible. Certainly you have got these requirements that you have got to
have public input, but in the ways that you can make that a meaningful process, I think,
is really better. You know if you had the time it would be great to have a couple of
public forums a year where you just invite the publiC to come and talk about whatever.
You know not necessarily something that is happening in their neighborhood. But, to
the extent that you engage the community and meaningful dialogue, I think is much
more positive than - and maybe helps you a little bit more because you see so much of
people coming in to express their dislike for something that is before you. If you can
create a forum where there is more positive dialogue, I think is helpful. Then you have
the media, you probably have some media in the audience tonight and my experience
with them is if you kind of keep these simple rules in mind in terms of what their
commitments are and what their needs are, they will be fairer to you as well. Then
applicants, developers and lawyers - I don't know if you can read this or not, but he is
bringing his preliminary plans and there are still changes to be made and now he has
got any deviations from what you approved last week and is going to create delay and
cost me lots of money. I don't think you probably have ever heard that story come
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June 21, 2007
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before you. But, applicants, developers and lawyers, I think they should be looked as a
partner. They are a player and they are helping to implement your plan. They are not
the enemy. I see some developers sometimes getting categorized as either bad or
good and sometimes commissions aren't fair in terms of the level of treatment they give
the bad or the good developers. I think you need to make sure you treat them all the
same. I have spent hours in counseling with developers the morning after the night of
the Commission meeting because the Commission took an action and if it wasn't too
fully approve a project or deny it, sometimes if there is not good explanation, just a little
bit of explanation - I know you are going to adopt written findings and your decision will
be written, but just a little bit of an explanation to the developer I think helps a little bit
and avoids all of that counseling the next day with staff. Then finally I think you need to
not be as accepting as last minute information. This might either come from citizens or
developers. One of the things that are included in your packet that I gave you is the
Title 2 of the City Code, which is your enabling legislation gives you authorities and talks
about what the makeup the Commission is in terms and meetings and all of that. It also
suggests that you adopt bylaws and in a little while I will talk about the best practices,
but I think bylaws are important because there are some little details of how you operate
that would be useful to have printed and public and something that you review all of the
time. One of those would be how you treat last minute information. I am sure you
probably have some informal guidelines that you use, but to kind of write that down so
everybody is clear about that I think would be helpful, but I think - my position on the
last minute information is if it is important for the decision then you should be allowed
time to review it and if you don't have that time during the meeting then the action
should be postponed. You also interact with other jurisdictions and I think staff does
that in terms of sending applications to them to review and comment. So, any
comments or questions about these relationships that you have with other jurisdictions?
Okay let's move into successful meetings and some key components for successful
meetings. First of all preparation - that means having time to prepare and one of the
things that you can outline in these bylaws is the commitment that you and staff have
made in terms of when application materials and agenda packets are going to be before
you and that should be a time that gives you sufficient time to review and be prepared
for the meeting. Review the materials before hand. If you have questions ask staff. I
can't tell you how many hours of meeting time has been saved by someone on the
Commission asking staff before the meeting about questions or clarifying something.
Jot down notes and then the staff support is very important for successful meetings.
Again they need to be very timely. Their information should be as accurate, objective
as possible. It should be in a format that you can use easily to prepare for the meeting.
The third successful component of a successful meeting is your agenda. I see you
have got your agenda out there. I hope you follow it and don't - there is always
problems when the agenda changes. I don't know if you go in order and that might be
another area where Anna and I diverge, but I just think that the first person in - just
because their application date is a certain time should be the first person heard. If you
have got 50 people here to hear the last item on the agenda, I think somehow you need
to anticipate that before hand and put that needy item first when you are fresher and so
you don't have a lot of people waiting around for it. But whatever you decide on the
agenda, I think you should stick to it and try to avoid making amendments or changing
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June 21, 2007
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the order of things when you get to the meeting. Summary action minutes only. I hope
you don't waste a lot of time in approving the minutes and the role of the Chair is really
the most critical role in the Commission. The Chair is responsible for kind of setting the
tone, keeping order. He should kind of be the big picture person that kind of stays
hovering a little bit above everyone else and he should be kind of the morale builder and
cheerleader for the Commission too. A big responsibility on your shoulder. Be sure to
understand parliamentary procedures. Public hearings I notice you have got your rules
out for the public hearing. That is great and you have got a format that is out there and
the Chair should probably I am sure goes through that every meeting so everybody is
clear on that. I think the tone you want to keep is somewhat formal, but comfortable to
everyone. It shouldn't feel like a court of law, but it shouldn't be kind of a free for all
either. You really need to keep decorum and everyone should be admonished if they
don't speak through the Chair. That is the only way that you can keep a good record
and keep order within the meeting. Then my last little bug a boo and I don't know if you
do it or not is not to ask staff questions during the public. Sometimes you will get a
citizen up there that asks a question and then it comes to the staff and before you know
it you have got a three way conversation going between the Commission and the
person at the podium and the staff and it is very difficult to follow that on the record and
it ends up sometimes in sort of debates between people. I recommend that if you have
got questions that come up during the public hearing, a lot of times there will be a
similar question; staff can collect their thoughts and respond to all of that at the end in a
much more formalized kind of more logical manner.
Newton-Huckabay: Diane can I just make a comment? I think she has a critical point
there that is the Achilles heel of this group of five people.
Rohm: I would tend to agree with you.
Kushlan: Yeah, staff can jot down the questions and then they can collect them and
organize them and answer them all at one time and you can tell the public we will be
happy to answer that question after the public hearing is over.
Newton-Huckabay: So they just take the questions down just like the developer and
then you have applicant response and then staff response or -- ?
Rohm: The difficulty to that is capturing 100 percent of what that particular person is
giving testimony intent is if you do not go there at the time that they -
(Tape turned over)
Rohm: -- if you think that you know what they are asking and you jot down that to
review with staff after testimony is completed, you may not capture everything that was
the point.
Newton-Huckabay: But, you can validate that you understand the question without
answering it.
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June 21, 2007
Page 14 of 18
Baird: Mr. Chair perhaps as a compromise you can answer the questions after the
individual has completed their testimony and then just get their acknowledgement that
their questions were understood and answered rather than having - I think what Diane
is talking about is that circular where you get these little debates going -
Rohm: Well and don't get me wrong I don't disagree with what you are saying one bit.
Just sometimes it is easier said than done.
Kushlan: Right. I understand that and sometimes there will be a fundamental
misunderstanding that maybe 15 people have and you go through a whole hearing of
everybody with that same misunderstanding. That is kind of - you don't want to wait
until the very end to clarify something. So I think you as a Chair have to kind of look at
the nature of the question and I think Mr. Baird suggestion is great or maybe - I think if
you can avoid the person standing it is better. If they can sit down you can maybe
answer the question and I think that is fine.
Rohm: Thank you.
Kushlan: Any other questions about components of successful meeting? Then we will
move real quickly in the decision-making and we covered a little bit of these before, but I
think your point of decision-making starts at the time you start getting materials and
again you know thinking about not trying to make some decisions until you have gone
through the whole public hearing. Sometimes I will hear during the staff questioning a
position being stated by the Commissioners or they start to discuss the merits of the
project. I think you really want to try to avoid doing that. At that very beginning before
the public hearing is open you are asking staff questions, just make sure it is purely
questions, not a position because that communicates to the public that you have
already made up your mind. So maybe you have gotten some preliminary thoughts
together, but try not to express those until you have heard all of the testimony. During
the public Commission discussion, I think it is important that all of you try to participate,
even if you say I agree with Commissioner Moe or my positions have already been
stated. I think everybody should say something. If you disagree I think you should you
say that you disagree. If you don't, everybody is going to assume that you agree with
the prevailing thought and it is okay to disagree. I think you should try to work toward
consensus, but it doesn't have to be a unanimous decision on every item. Again during
that Commission discussion, the Chair can monitor but each personal person I think
needs to take responsibility for making sure they don't dominate the conversation.
Remember the record, all of the record that you heard and you know it is easy to be
selective and just kind of base your thoughts on just one piece of evidence, but you
have got to keep all of the evidence in mind. Again, it is the Commission's time to talk.
It is really not an opening for discussion with staff and the public. So really avoid, if you
have closed that public hearing, really try to avoid opening it up again and if you do you
really need to open it up to anyone else who wants to speak. So it is really your time
and I know you will see the applicants and people sitting there trying to get your
attention, but I think you need to keep it closed and make sure that you are ready to
keep it closed when you do. Any questions on that? Commission discussion? Yes?
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June 21, 2007
Page 15 of 18
O'Brien: I find it difficult sometimes to really gather all of the information I need or think I
need. Then during the discussion other questions may come up and it seems like it
always does about trying to get clarification from staff or maybe even the applicant and I
find it difficult not to get involved in that you talk about what you shouldn't have.
Kushlan: Well, I think a little bit of that is experience. As you get through a few more
meetings, you will start to understand what you need to know upfront and you will
probably get better at asking the right questions. I have got some example questions
that you can think about asking earlier too. So you get all of that information that you
need so you are ready to make a decision when you close that public hearing.
Hood: Just real quick I wanted to add, too, that even though the public hearing may be
closed, you can still ask questions of staff. So you still, while you are deliberating and
discussing if something comes up and the Commission has a question you still can ask
staff that question. You open up the public hearing then you are opening it up for other
testimony.
Kushlan: So in making motions I assume you have got prepared motions from the staff
that you can start to use. They become the basis. They can be modified based on
what you have heard and additional information and in the motions you should really
follow parliamentary procedures; one motion at a time and keep the motions really clear
and concise, you know - I move that we do blah, blah, blah. It is not complicated. It
really should be real simple and try to avoid motions that have lots of clauses and
(inaudible). Here are some traps I see in decision-making. One is what I call scatter
braining storming and this is where one idea is followed by another without any
resolution of the idea and you see this a lot in motions where you will say I move option
one and then there will be another motion immediately - I move option one with
conditions 2 and 5 and then oh I like that one, but can you modify 5? All of sudden you
have got three motions on the table. You really need to have a motion, a second; if
there is no second then you can introduce a new motion. You have a motion and
second and somebody has got a better idea, they come up with a substitute motion and
a second so keep it very clean in those motions or you will get down and (inaudible) real
quickly. The other thing that sometimes happens is there is one very dominant
personality on the Commission that everybody will turn to to kind of lead the discussion.
I think you need to start - or you look to the Chair or if you have got a really critical one,
you look to the attorney to make the motion for you, but I think you need to keep it within
yourselves and try to spread the responsibility out for motion making among you.
Sometimes there will be a dominant person that tries to push things through quickly. I
worked with one Commission where there is a Commissioner that wants to be out of
there in a half an hour and so he is making a motion before everybody has really even
thought about it. So you kind of want to avoid that. Some people need a little more
time to think about stuff. Then probably the last one paralysis is probably the most
frequent trap that Commissions will get into is they just can't make a decision and I think
there is really good reasons sometimes not to make a decision, but I think you have to
be really honest about it and not want to make a decision because you have got a
crowd here and you know the next meeting they won't be here and it will be easier to
Meridian Planning & Zoning Special Meeting
June 21, 2007
Page 16 of 18
make a decision they don't like. So be really honest about delays because delays
really, you know, they muck up the whole agenda and create bigger meetings later and
make it difficult for staff work to comply. This is all in your packets so I won't spend a lot
of time on it, but maybe this will help you, Commissioner O'Brien. Here are some
different questions that you could ask staff about applications and things in their staff
report. I think that one that I tried to bold, what are we trying to accomplish with this
code or this amendment or this plan? I think that is a really powerful question to probe
and that is also a good question to ask the applicant. You know, what are your
objectives for this project? A good applicant will answer these questions already for
you. They will tell you what they are trying to do. They will tell you how they have
responded to the issues that have come up. They will tell you whether they support or
not support the recommendations and the conditions. But, if they don't you should ask
them those questions. It is important information for you to know. Then when you get
into the public, the same kind of questions you probably already hear most of these
questions, but the last one is kind of important to ask them. If they are against
something, you know what would make it better? What conditions do you want? This is
our code. What conditions would you recommend? Sometimes that is an interesting
dialogue or discussion to have with the public. Then questions for your colleagues
during the Commission phase. Sometimes you don't quite understand what they are
saying and it is just fine to ask them for clarification. Now there is a really good piece
that I gave you in your packet and this is just a summary of it. It was done by the
Washington State Association of City Attorneys a couple of years ago and I have used it
a lot. But, this is when you are making quasi judicial decisions - site specific, requires a
public hearing kinds of applications. Here are 10 commandments for making a good
decision on those quasi judicial matters. First of all, have you heard this before? Follow
the code. Know your code and know the standards that are applicable to that
application and use only those standards. Avoid politics. You are not elected officials
and it doesn't belong in a quasi judicial matter. Then be dignified and correct. You are
on the record. You never know when one of these items might go to court and you
would hate for a court transcript to have some very inappropriate comments made on
your behalf. You are representing the city so you should be very dignified. Consider all
of the evidence. Don't pick and choose and don't be selective. Insure that you have
reviewed all of the evidence and know what it is before you make a decision. Keep a
good record. You do through your electronic transcriptions and you also do that in your
written findings and conclusions of law. Make written findings and conclusions - these
are the specific reasons or basis for the decision. It kind of shows whoever is reading
this decision what your thought process was in coming to that decision. The findings
should be real clear and concise, organized and they certainly should be based on the
criteria that you have in the Unified Development Code. Support the decision with real
evidence; not speculation or hearsay or anecdotal stuff. As much as you can support it
with real analytical data that is very factual. You know that is a critical piece that
sometimes we don't have sufficient evidence and so not making stuff up to fill in the
blanks is not really a good way to go. You really need to make sure you have got all of
the evidence that you need to make a decision. Then impose only lawful conditions.
Conditions must strictly follow the law that authorizes them and I think here are some
six guidelines for conditions based on case law. They need to be reasonable. They
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June 21, 2007
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need to be clear and specific so that anybody can read the condition and come up with
the same understanding of what the condition is. The condition has to have an
essential nexus to public health, safety and welfare and it has to be reasonably related
to the condition to the impact that you are trying to mitigate as well as the imposition the
condition has to be proportional to the impact that you are mitigating. Finally and more
importantly it has to be - you know as important it has to be able to be accomplished. I
recently reviewed at ACHD staff report in which they imposed a condition that made the
project incapable of being carried forward. So be sure that your conditions can be
accomplished without really denying the project. Then don't do staffs work. Your job is
not to do independent investigation or analysis or to meet with the applicant or other
interested parties and your job is not to design the project or revise it or fine tune it and
finally you are really acting like a judge and so you should have all of the characteristics
of a judge in reviewing these items. Quickly I wanted - this is the part that I wanted
your City Attorney to help with is three legal parameters that you work within that are
very simple, but they are important to keep in mind. First is ex-parte contact and that
means communications that are regarding the project, the merits of the project that
happen outside of the public hearing process. Those should be avoided if at all
possible. Now it is very difficult when you live in a community; people know you're
Commissioner and they will come before you. Now ex-parte contacts are not a problem
in legislative matters. Those are matters that affect a whole community and you can
talk to people about that, but when it is on a quasi judiCial matter and somebody
approaches you, the best thing to say is I really can't talk to you about this at this point.
But if they do then you need to disclose that in the public session at the beginning of the
session. There is a recent court case in Boise where Council indicated at the beginning
of the session that they had had phone calls, but they didn't say who called them and
they didn't say what the substance of the calls were about. So the court said no you
have got to be very specific about what you heard. Because if that information was
important to you, it should be important to all of the Commissioners. So be sure that
you have that exercise - you know explain yourself if you have had ex-parte contacts.
The other is conflict of interest and in Idaho that means you have no economic interest
in the decision and again, if you do, then at the very beginning when the Chairman
opens the item, you should disclose your economic interest. You probably should tell
the staff or the city attorney before the meeting and then step down from the podium
and not participate in the decision on that item. Then bias, again, only applies in quasi
judicial matters and it is really - there are two things there; it is both actual biases where
you really are bias and you are not impartial about an item or you appear to be and that
is a more difficult standard. I think our - I don't know Mr. Baird if you wanted to
comment on that, but I don't think Idaho law is quite as stringent on appearance of
biases as some other states are.
Baird: Mr. Chair just to follow up. On the bias verses the conflict of interest, we have
very few actual conflict of interest where the decision you are making has an economic
impact on your household or a family member. But, if you think you have got some
potential bias or a conflict of interest gives us a call on Thursday afternoon or when you
think about it and call my office so we can discuss it ahead of time and talk it through
and likely we will help you decide whether you truly have bias or whether you are just
Meridian Planning & Zoning Special Meeting
June 21, 2007
Page 18 of 18
uncomfortable in making a decision. I wanted to add if you are stepping down from a
matter, we suggest that you actually leave the room entirely. There has been case law
in other states where body language has been alleged to affect the remaining members
on the board so it is better when you do step down to go out in the hall and we will come
get you when we are done. The final thing to add is that a form of ex-parte contact that
we suggest that you avoid is an individual specific site visit where you say I drove out
there to take a look at this and here is what I saw. That is under the same theory that if
the information is important enough for you to know, it is important enough for
everybody and it is the job of the staff and the applicant to present that to you all at the
same time on the record. So that is really alii had to add to those items.
Kushlan: Thank you. I think the last few slides are just some kind of summary. This is
from the California Commission for Local Government, some steps to a better
Commission and we have talked a lot about these. One of them is the bylaws and
procedures and then there is (inaudible), my recipe for a successful planning program,
what the ingredients are and then some resources, I understand some of you are
subscribing to this Commissioner magazine, which is a really good magazine. A lot of
the articles are written by Commissioners. So it is really a practical hands on kind of
document, so I hope if you are subscribing you will share that with your other fellow
Commissioners and thank you very much. It was my privilege to spend time with you
and I will see some of you again. J will be sure to get that other thing to you, those
parliamentary procedures.
Rohm: Good. Thank you.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:00 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS.)
ATTESTE