Summary of April 16 Council Meeting
Editorial staff

The April 16 council meeting included a moral victory for one neighborhood, but the overall meeting was a setback for residents.

The first resident making public comments objected to Oso Viejo Park being on the short list for a dog park. He said the site, which is near his house, doesn’t meet the stated criteria because it is too close to a neighborhood. After mentioning nuisances of noise, lights and traffic the neighborhood endures from the nearby school, sports fields and community center events, he said the dog park committee was concerned that the noise might disturb the dogs.

Another public speaker asked how the proposal to prevent the public from pulling items for discussion was put on the agenda, implying a Brown Act violation had occurred. When the agenda item was later discussed, the speaker’s concerns appeared to be justified.

The meeting included a public hearing, with seven residents joining together to appeal a Feb. 26 Planning Commission decision (4-1 vote, Commissioner Rich Atkison dissenting) to approve an addition to a home at 23732 Calle Hogar. Information presented by those filing the appeal said the staff report was misleading. Neighbors opposing the project spoke articulately and passionately in defense their property values and quality of life. They indicated the proposed home addition (including four bedrooms, one full bath, an office, four half-baths and an expanded living room) would more than double the size of the home. The project would also consume the usable yard and likely cut into the slope, endangering the stability of homes above the site. Most noteworthy was a discussion about the initial plan having an outside entrance for each of the five or six bedrooms. Those opposing the project appeared to believe it was a commercial venture – assisted living, boardinghouse or another type of business – in the neighborhood zoned for residential use, RPD-6.5.

Surprisingly, even Councilwoman Kelley didn’t support the staff recommendation and said it would change the character of an established neighborhood. The council voted 3-2 (Kelley, Ledesma, Reavis for; MacLean and Ury against) to overturn the Planning Commission’s Feb. 26 approval. Councilmen MacLean and Ury argued in favor of the addition on the basis of property rights after searching for reasons to discount the neighbors’ objections. MacLean said the council couldn’t speculate about the future use, but he immediately speculated that a family might buy such a million-dollar home with no yard and a separate entrance for each family member. Ury indicated non-owners can’t tell property owners what to do with their property.

Residents who don’t want their neighborhoods overrun with nursing homes, boardinghouses, affordable apartments or in-home businesses should note Ury is up for reelection in 2008.

The item preventing members of the public from pulling agenda items was presented by the city attorney, Bill Curley. When Ledesma asked the intent for bringing it to the council, Curley stated it was the “fruits of the council’s evaluation process,” which emerged during the leadership workshop. The “fruits” in this instance were MacLean, Ury and Kelley, who voted to approve while Ledesma and Reavis opposed the item.

No one was in the audience during the council’s workshop last month when an alleged discussion took place about stopping the public from pulling items. The problem is, Ledesma attended the workshop and didn’t appear to know the council had concurred that only council members should pull items. The discussion at the April 16 meeting revealed Kelley, MacLean and Ury supported the proposal – not so much as the city attorney claimed for efficiency but because specific members of the public were “hijacking the agenda.” As the public speaker asked, when did the public discussion among these three council members take place?

As a stunning remark, Kelley stated, “This is how business was done before I was elected.” Kelley has forgotten, or perhaps she never realized, that the sole reason she was recruited to run in 2002 was to dump two council queens who had become bullies, preventing public debate and illegally conducting city business behind closed doors.