Editorial: Oakley Should Not Fear Creation of a Planning Commission

During Tuesdays Oakley City Council Meeting, the City Council will discuss the concept of its “Planning Commission Advisors” in hopes of trying to create more input from Oakley residents.

The discussion item comes at the request of Councilwoman Vanessa Perry who is seeking ways to involve public input from residents on city projects and policy while improving transparency between city hall and the public.

Unfortunately for Oakley residents, rather than forming a true Planning Commission like every other city in the county, Oakley staff is poo-pooing the idea and creatively finding excuses of why the city should instead create a toothless “advisory committee”.

For example, city staff believes the cost of such a planning commission will be more than $125,000 per year. Staff claims they are near capacity and this commission would put them over the edge and would need to hire another full-time planner.

Ironically, in February of 2014, it was estimated the cost was just $40,000 to have this very planning commission up and running. For whatever reason, the city is claiming the cost has more than tripled.

Going a step further, staff cleverly compares the creation cost of this committee to that of a single police officer—implying the council must choose one or the other.

Meanwhile, the City will throw time and money into a citizens academy while also using staff time paired with a grant to promote the You, Me, We = Oakley program.

According to the staff report, here is the concept of the proposed “Citizen Planning Advisors:

• With more apparent interest in serving, the number of Advisors may better be placed at five, but no more than seven
• The scope of projects for the Advisors’ review would be similar to that of a separate Planning Commission (Conditional Use Permits, Design Reviews, Variances).
• Comments and suggestions should have the same time set forth in the initial routing of a project (typically 30 days or less). The input would be submitted by email.
• Staff wouldn’t necessarily respond to or include all suggestions in the Staff recommendations, but all can be listed for City Council’s information.
• The applicant(s) would have an opportunity to respond to the Advisors’ comments and suggestions.
• The comments would be provided to the City Council as part of the Staff Report. The comments would be grouped together to remove the names of the Advisors.

Apparently, city staff believes having an advanced agenda item and the opportunity to submit glorified public comments will have residents jumping in joy to participate.

Under this proposal, these “advisors” would get a fancy name for “resident” and receive agenda items 30-days in advance. In return for accepting this fancy name, a resident may now submit a public comment before the rest of the community. In reality, this is no different than the current public comment process already in place—the difference is instead of 30-days to issue a comment, the rest of the public has just 72-hours.

Oakley residents should be offended that city staff thinks so lowly of them that they are encouraging as little face time as possible and instead pushing for an “email committee” with no set meetings.

It brings up the question of just how productive an “advisor” may be if Oakley is willing and admitting to provide as little guidance and effort as possible to this concept. For example, through an email, is it really possible to understand the specifics of downtown train station project? An economic development and revitalization of downtown? A building development?

It’s highly unlikely.

Most recently, Oakley likely would have benefited from this type of advisory group discussing a medical marijuana ban or plant limit while formulating a policy that city council could have adjusted, accepted, or rejected.

Since the City would have done the discussion once before, it would have made for a more productive council meeting on the topic–same would hold true for most items brought before a planning commission, just as in Antioch and Brentwood.

It’s clear by the tone that City staff does not want a planning commission because its easier to control 5 city councilmembers than by adding another 5-to-7 eyeballs to keep an eye of what staff is trying to cram into a city council agenda. City Manager Bryan Montgomery knows that with a planning commission, it makes it much harder for him to control and push his personal agenda onto Oakley residents.

Quite frankly, staff and most of the City Council is afraid of the additional eyeballs because mistakes and oversights would be much more exposed to the public instead of embracing a planning commission who in theory would assist in making more thoughtful decisions in policy and approvals.

If the City Council has guts, it will not tolerate this belittling of its residents by staff and reject this concept outright of a “planning advisor”. Instead, the council should replace it with something much more meaningful.

The council should work to create a committee that will spark interest and stir ideas through discussion which develops concepts that creates better policy all while improving community pride with greater enthusiasm for creating a better Oakley.

City staff had the audacity to state within its staff report that their suggestions will improve the success and concept of this Planning Advisor role. The reality is it will ensure fewer people have an interest.

Oakley forgot the golden rule that you only get out of something what you are willing to put in. The community is not stupid. The community is not going to participate or waste their time in a phony “advisor” role under the fallacy that it actually means something.

It’s clear the concept of a planning commission and bringing the community into city hall is an idea of a single city councilwoman, yet its something staff is clearly against and is doing everything in their power to make this topic likely go away once and for all.

If Oakley does move forward, which they should in a much better form,  a planning commission should be created that the community is going to be satisfied with, not the city staff. The community deserves something real like every other city in the county.

A planning commission is something you do when you are a city. After all, if Rio Vista and Isleton of all places have a planning commission, it makes sense Oakley also has one as well.

Contra Costa County Planning Commissions

It should be noted, absent from the Staff Report on this item was Oakley failed to mention they were the only City in Contra Costa to not have a planning commission.