If last night’s meeting is any indication, the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission is rapidly disintegrating into a Constitutional bashing, free-speech denying advisory body without so much as a clue of what constitutes proper legislative procedure and processes and one that could lead the city into a cesspool of legal quicksand.
To put it simply and bluntly, last night’s meeting was a travesty.
Where to begin? Probably it’s best to start close to the beginning of the meeting when acting chair Timothy Kay prohibited speakers from addressing the commission during the citizens comment section. Under Kay’s dictum, any speaker who wanted to address an agenda item to which a public hearing was attached, was ordered to wait until that particular agenda item was on the table for discussion. Now it might be more effective for a citizen to speak on a subject when that subject is actually being addressed, but to actually prohibit, to order someone not to speak during the citizen comments period, denies those persons wishing to speak their First Amendment free speech protections. You simply can’t do that. A federal nuisance lawsuit has already been filed against the city by someone claiming the city denied him his freedom of speech. The last thing the city needs to worry about is a legitimate lawsuit on these same grounds that actually could be won by the plaintiffs on its merits.
But wait! It gets worse! The commission members knew, coming into the meeting, that the two items the citizens wished to speak on were going to be postponed for a later meeting, meaning those public hearings would be postponed as well. When those items came up for discussion, Planning Director Howard Koontz repeated the reasons for postponing the items, but when he broke the news to the uninformed Kay that the public hearings would have to be postponed as well, Kay whined "But I promised these people they would get a chance to talk now." Koontz, in a marvelous display of diplomacy, did not remind Kay he had been the person who already deprived them of their "chance to talk," and instead, albeit somewhat timidly, decided to, unlike Kay, come down on the side of free speech and allow those public hearings to commence.
But wait! It still gets even worse. Not a single one of the individuals who came to speak actually addressed the subject of the agenda item. Not a single one. (Frankly, I'm convinced they were manipulated into speaking on the subjects they chose, but I address that concern later in this article.) And Kay let it go on, I think, one, because he was absolutely clueless to the fact that no one was speaking on the subject of the agenda item and, two he actually believed the lies they were telling. He repeated the same mistake he and fellow commissioner Dex Ellison made that almost forced the city into having to accept an unwanted giant truck stop south of town, by illegally discussing land use during a zoning item.
But wait! It still gets even worse than that. Kay permitted two individuals, one of whom just stood up from his chair, to speak and it took staff liaison Debbie Guerrera to remind Kay, after thje fact, that these individuals are required to state their names for the record.
But wait! It even careens further downhill after that. Kay begins to announce he is closing the public hearing, obviously oblivious to the fact that once a public hearing is closed, it can’t be reopened. Fortunately, Ellison interrupted him in mid-sentence and saved the commission’s bacon.
But wait! Did Kay learn from that near disaster? Obviously not. On the very next item that was also going to be postponed, he almost closed the public hearing again until he was stopped just shot of driving the Commission over the cliff.
But wait! There’s even more. After all this, Kay tries to move on to the next agenda item and Koontz has to stop him and ever-so-gently remind him that these items don’t get postponed by themselves; that someone actually needs to make a motion, that motion has to be seconded, and then a vote on that motion is required.
But wait! I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but there’s more. The commission voted to postpone consideration of a proposed zoning ordinance change after Kay had already closed the public hearing on the item, meaning it would be illegal to attach another public hearing to this item the next time it appears on the agenda. Of course, that legality doesn’t seem to bother any legislative body in Kyle — I’ve witnessed at least a half-dozen illegal public hearings in my little over two years covering Kyle City Hall. What’s so distressing about it is that is a problem that is so easily and painlessly fixable: Simply address the dispensation of a public hearing in the same motion that is made on the agenda item to which that hearing is attached. Problem solved.
But the Planning and Zoning Commission is suffering from a leadership vacuum that’s going to make such decisions impossible to even consider. Since Mike Rubsam was term-limited off the Commission, it has been without a chair. Both Kay and Ellison are vying for the position, along with Brad Growt. What makes me fear for the future of the Commission is that both Kay and Ellison display absolutely no knowledge of proper parliamentary procedure (Ellison, to cite just one example. Is clueless as to the distinction between discussion and debate and the proper place for each in the parliamentary process) and, while I am impressed with Growt’s intelligence and grasp of the issues, I have yet to be convinced he has a personality strong enough to exert the needed influence over his colleagues.
Another problem with Kay’s performance last night was his obvious bias in favor of developers over citizens. Although he never actually came close to enforcing the three-minute time limit on speakers, he did try to cut off one citizen when he spoke a little longer than four minutes and then actually did stop him after the speaker talked for four minutes and 47 seconds. However, later in the meeting, he told a homebuilder who asked about time limits "There’s supposed to be a three-minute limit, but I’m not going to hold you to it" and then proceeded to let him speak for more than six and a half minutes without interruption. Not only that, Kay refuses to answer questions after a meeting, possibly afraid his answers would make him appear even more clueless than his meeting performance suggests. Instead, he answers all queries with the words "No comment," which, as anyone remotely involved in media relations knows, is tantamount in the public’s eye to hanging a "Guilty as charged" sign around your neck.
The commission was supposed to elect a new chair at last night’s meeting, but postponed the decision because commissioner Irene Melendez was not present. Kay was the only commissioner to vote against Ellison’s motion to delay the election until the Commission’s Dec. 13 meeting, possibly because Kay was afraid his fellow commissioners would judge him on how he handled this one, which, in fact, is exactly what they should do. What they should really do is to postpone the election of a new chair until early next year and allow Ellison an opportunity to chair a meeting and then extend the same courtesy to Growt so the members could see for themselves who might make the best chair and thus make a more informed decision. But I fear the fix is in.
It got so bad last night that, after another public hearing, a dazed Kay admitted "I’m not sure how to proceed." Koontz suggested "You should close the public hearing."
A couple of months ago, after one Planning & Zoning Commission meeting which Council Member David Wilson attended, I spoke with him outside City Hall about my serious concerns that no one on the commission had the necessary gravitas to assume a leadership position on the second-most important legislative body in the city in the wake of Rubsam’s departure. He obviously shared my fears. Yet here we are.
On the plus side, although this was only his first meeting, I must admit I had a favorable first impression of newly appointed commissioner Mike Torres, who definitely illustrated "the necessary gravitas," but lacks only the experience. I was so impressed I even forgave him for constantly repeating himself during the one time he spoke at length during the meeting, chalking that up to first-time jitters.
Interestingly, there was one person who attended last night’s meeting, albeit only for a few minutes, who actually had something positive to say about the commission. Lila Knight, in her own particular fashion, actually congratulated the commissioners for not following the City Council’s instructions on updating the Comprehensive Plan. What Knight failed to admit (quite obviously) was her motivation — that she is, in fact, largely responsible for the no-growth sections of the Comprehensive Plan the city’s staff and elected leaders sought to change through this update. Knight is one of many former king makers and ruling families of Kyle that once held significant political influence in the city. But as the city’s population exploded, the total membership of their sphere of influence remained constant and therefore it now comprises a much smaller percentage of the total population. Hence her influence has waned and she is fighting tooth and nail to protect what remaining influence she has. The last political year, however, has proved especially unkind to Knight. Both the candidates she endorsed for City Council (one of whom she actually recruited and convinced to run) lost their election bids. All except one of the amendments to the City Charter she railed against were approved by the voters. The no-growth Comprehensive Plan is the last branch she has left to hang onto.
I also found the language she used to endorse the commission’s non-action was typical of most demagogues: When you can’t find a way to attack the message on its merits, attack the messenger instead. In her case, she railed against me specifically for having the temerity to hold the Commission accountable for refusing to carry out the instructions given to it by the City Council. It was also funny in a way because this criticism came from someone who lacked the basic intelligence required to pronounce my last name properly. Later last evening, I had to suppress a few chuckles wondering if Knight also knows how to properly pronounce that same "op" sound in such words as cop, drop, mop, stop, flop, bop, hop and, well, you get the picture. I wondered if she even ever heard of that deservedly lauded television newscaster Ted Koppel and, if perhaps she had ran across it somewhere, she knew how to pronounce it correctly. But there you have it.
At the same time, Knight is someone who, when I mentioned the concept of "smart growth" to her before one City Council meeting, replied "That’s so last century," completely oblivious to the fact that the bible of this movement, The Smart Growth Manual, wasn’t even published until 2010. But then she is always going to be completely dismissive of anything that hints at the concept of "growth."
Knight also tried to convince the commissioners the Comprehensive Plan is not the guidance manual it actually is but, instead, is contained on two tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. And to make matters worse, Kay buys into this misinterpretation hook, line and sinker. On many occasions he has stated during Commission hearings words to the effect of "If the Comprehensive Plan recommends against it, then I must vote against it," obviously not having a clue to the meaning of the word "recommends." And this, dear friends, is someone who wants to lead the Planning & Zoning Commission.
I also have a sneaking suspicion Knight attended last night’s meeting for more reasons than just to attack me and to commend the Commission for continuing to waste not only the time and energies of the commission members themselves, but also the time and energies of the City Council. I would not be surprised if she was the person who instigated that revolt that prompted all those residents from Old Town to come out and speak off subject on those agenda items that were ultimately postponed, misinforming these residents that the proposed development planned for the land in question would promote flooding when the truth is it would have exactly the opposite result. Which brings me back to Kay who seemed to believe all these untruths spouted by this misinformed and manipulated citizenry without doing any independent research on what is actually going to happen in this area.
Like I said, this is a real mess and I’m depressed by the realization it appears it’s going to get a lot worse before it even begins to get any better.
I addressed most of the issues involved in the proposed zoning ordinance, consideration of which was postponed for two weeks to give commissioner more time to study it, in the story I wrote leading up to this meeting, including the fact that it creates a new R-1-3 residential district and makes single family detached residential units in R–1-A a conditional use. The one thing I forgot to mention is that is also modifies the design guideline that requires garages located in the front of a home to be set back at least five feet from the front wall of the rest of home. The change would only require garages to be set back five feet from part of the front of the home. In other words, a house would pass muster if, say, only one room had its outer wall five feet beyond the garage while the rest of the front wall was flush or even if the front entrance was set back from the garage. It also reduces the current minimum requirement that a garage be 480 square feet by allowing the square footage of an external storage shed to compensate for a smaller garage, the argument promoted by Koontz being that many homeowners use their garages for storage anyway and not as a place to keep their motor vehicles.
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