COUNCIL SHOULD SHARE POWER WITH PLANNING AND ZONING

We Gulfporters expect an awful lot from our Mayor, (salary, $900 per month), and our four City Council Members, (salaries, $600 per month).  Obviously, the folks who run for a City Council seat aren’t doing it for the money.  When one considers the number of meetings they attend and the hours involved, they are probably underpaid especially when you deduct the considerable cost of getting elected from their meager income.

Wait, you say.  They only have two meetings per month.  If you only count Regular Meetings of the Council, that’s true.  But, you’ve got to add in City Council Workshops, (usually two per month), individual meetings with the Manager between Meetings, individual or group meetings with constituents, meetings with various outside committees or boards to which they are assigned, association and training sessions and various “must attend” functions around town.  I’m sure I don’t have them all, but you get the picture.

My guesstimate is that a conscientious Council Member spends at least 40-50 hours per month “on the job” one way or another.  Our Mayor, who also represents the City at many more functions and regional meetings serves several more hours per month than a Council Member. 

In addition to time spent, we require our Council Members to have or to gain expertise in all areas of governance.  As our representatives, we expect them to have, in addition to common sense, a basic knowledge of accounting and fiscal matters when reviewing a budget, municipal law, personnel management, legislative affairs, public relations, planning and zoning, urban renewal, environmental issues, transportation, elder affairs, etc.  Of course, we have a City Clerk, City Attorney who work directly for the Council and a large and competent staff who work for the Manager to provide a tremendous amount of knowledge and advice to the Council.  Even so, a basic knowledge in all areas is essential if the Council Member is to represent his/her constituents well.

The Council also has several appointed, citizen Advisory Boards to assist them in doing their job.  These  “advisory” committees or boards are only as good as the Council lets them be.  They can play a major role in decision-making or none at all, depending on the Council Members’ attitude toward them.  Many local government insiders say that if the word “advisory” appears in the name, the board or committee is almost useless.  In Gulfport, unfortunately, the insiders’ cynical assessment of advisory boards appears to be true.  (See November 24, 2009 Watchdog Article-“City Volunteers Get Slap in Face….Again!”) 

Perhaps other than The Charter Review Advisory Committee, the Planning and Zoning Advisory Committee, (P & Z), is the most important among the various advisory groups.  Other than single family residences that meet all regulations, almost nothing can be built in Gulfport without going through a P & Z Hearing.  Recently, the P & Z Advisory Board held hearings on the new mixed use overlay zones in our Waterfront Redevelopment District and our 49th Street Renewal Area.  Several Controversial issues have come before the Board.  Tremendous amounts of staff time, homework by the P & Z members and time and money of applicants goes into each of these hearings.

The P & Z  renders a decision at the end of each hearing.  That decision is forwarded to the City Council where the hearings process starts all over again.  There is then a quasi-judicial hearing before the City Council where the P & Z decision may or may not be considered.  Often, the minutes of the P & Z Board are not even available to the Council Members at the second hearing.  A recent case  in which the School Department was asking the city to vacate a portion of 7th Ave. between Boca Ciega High School and the former Little League regional headquarters, it was discovered that the P & Z Board had been presented one data package at their hearing and the City Council got another.  Once a hearing requiring an ordinance is held, (such as a zone change), a first reading vote is taken.  At the next meeting, a second reading vote is taken, hopefully with the same result.

The present system has a lot of redundancy in it, is very time consuming for our staff and for an applicant where time may be crucial as to whether an investment in Gulfport can be made or not.  Of equal importance is that expertise is wasted and a final decision is often made by the group that has the least knowledge and experience in a very complicated field.  The process is a prime example of dysfunctional governent.

To make matters worse, the P & Z Advisory Board meets once a month on the first Wednesday   So if an applicant started the process of building a commercial or multifamily building in Gulfport on the first Thursday, he/she, if everything went as smoothly as possible, is looking at, at least, a 10-11 week process.  If one or more notification deadlines are missed as is most often the case, it could go to 14-16 weeks…..4 months.

Because the City Council is, at times, stretched pretty thin and because the Council can’t possibly gain the necessary expertise given all their other responsibilities, it would probably solve a lot of problems if Gulfport did what other communities have done and that is go to an elected Planning and Zoning Board with full authority to actually deal with all planning and zoning issues.

If the P & Z Board were elected for fairly long terms, (4-6 years, remember the expertise required), and held their meetings, “on demand,” when an issue or applicant was ready, the time frame to process a case could be cut in less than half, the Council would be freed up to do things for which they are better suited and our staff would save a lot of time and effort having to deal with only one board.

Under the proposed system, an issue or application other than zone changes could be introduced with a hearing scheduled within 2-3 weeks.  A decision could be made, a suitable appeal period, (say 14 days), expired and the case closed in as little as 5 weeks if all went well.  When there was an appeal to the decision, the City Council could act as the board of appeals with the P & Z Board free to appear and defend their decision as elected officials.  Zone changes would still require an ordinance by the city Council, but the P & Z Board would be an active participant in the discussion.

This highly functional, sensible system could be accomplished by a Charter change. Sounds simple doesn’t it?  Almost sounds like a no-brainer.

Yet, it is my opinion that some of the Council might be very resistant to just such an idea since it may strike at the core of  why Council Members go through the costly and rigorous election process, work hard for nearly nothing and take a lot of abuse from citizens for the decisions they make.

There seems to be three reasons why anyone might want to serve on City Council.  First, there are those who love the City and who are dedicated to serving others.  Second, there are those who are on a power trip and get their kicks from political clout and power over others.  Third, there are those who when they ran had no idea what they were getting into.

Since the elected Planning and Zoning Board idea results in an unprecedented, (for the  Gulfport City Council), sharing of power, I guess it depends on the motivations of a majority of Council Members as to how much consideration would be given to an idea such as this one.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 4:19 pm and is filed under 06-10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.