What's Happening in There? Planning Commission Wants to Know

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

June 19 -- In an effort to determine what happens inside the “black box” of City Hall that has resulted in years of complaints from building applicants, the Planning Commission took the first step Wednesday night towards getting an external agency to subject the Planning Department to a “management audit.”

Spearheaded by Commissioner Kelly Olsen, whose term on the dais will soon expire, the request to audit the department was unanimously supported by the commission. The board agreed to authorize Olsen and Commissioners Geraldine Moyle and Julie Lopez Dad, the item’s co-sponsors, to draft an official letter by July 9 that will be sent to the City Council.

The council will then have to make the “political decision,” Olsen said, of whether to fund the audit, which the commission left vaguely defined, but which will apparently be very costly and time-consuming.

The co-sponsors all said they were prompted by years of complaints from applicants about the unpredictability and inefficiency of the department, which is charged with processing the paperwork for all matters relating to land use in the City.

The audit is “an effort to respond in a constructive way to a catalogue of miscommunications, misunderstandings -- you can pick almost any word you like and put m-i-s in front of it -- that have accrued in the three years I’ve been on the Planning Commission,” Moyle said.

Commissioner Arlene Hopkins thought an audit was a great idea. “I think there is the perception that City Hall is a black box from the public’s point of view. They see City Hall, and they know things occur within it, but the question is, 'What occurs?'”

Olsen agreed. “Instead of constantly having rumors and unknowns and speculations about why certain things happen,” Olsen said, the audit will “have those things found out.”

“My personal motive is we’ve had applicants in front of us who were told outside at the counter that they can do x, y and z, and they come back next week and told they can only do a, b and c,” Olsen said.

The former council member added that he has seen projects get administrative approval -- which does not require a hearing -- when codes demand a conditional use permit, and vise-versa, without explanation.

“I don’t know why that is,” Olsen said. “I don’t suspect that there is anybody intentionally telling anybody something wrong, but we need to find out why that happens. Maybe it’s perfectly legitimate, or maybe people need to be trained differently.”

Asked by the only public speaker if there was a “hidden agenda” behind the audit, Olsen responded that the only “agenda here is to serve the public.”

Olsen stressed that the audit must be done by an external organization.

“I don’t think we can objectively look at ourselves,” Olsen said. “I want to avoid that specter of having one hand analyze the other hand and having people suspicious that” there is behind-the-scenes political back scratching. “I think that would be an exercise in futility and a waste of time.”

While in support of the move, Commissioner Jay P. Johnson said the mission of the audit should be defined clearly, because just the word “audit” by itself is politically charged, especially given recent financial scandals, and sends a vague, and therefore potentially alarming, message.

“It absolutely triggers an immediate sense of fear on staff: ‘How are they (the outside auditors) going to find fault with us,’” he said.

Johnson reminded the commission that outside of the City Council, the Planning Department “is one the largest gray areas in the City.

“There are so many competing interests -- financial, personal, political -- that if anyone one of us had a plate in front with that kind of workload, and someone asked why you did what… that would drive me crazy,” he said.

As an example of the amount of work that gets “dumped” on the department’s plate, Johnson said, the council gives staff an average of four ordinances a week to draft, on top of the mounds of paperwork processed for the endless applicants appearing before the commission.

Hopkins alone specified what she wanted from the audit: transparency and accountability. For transparency she wanted a step-by-step explanation of the process each applicant can expect to go through with the use of a simple and professional flowchart on the department’s Web site, “so no one finds surprises,” which is an oft-heard complaint.

For accountability she wants an “assessment of cost-benefit performance -- are we really getting a good bang for our buck,” and a guaranteed “integrity of the filing system” in which applicants’ legal documents are known to mysteriously disappear and then miraculously resurface.

Commissioner Dad said the she wants a public “town hall” meeting to precede the audit. The public’s comments, she said, will steer the inquiry’s direction.

Olsen agreed. “This is going to sound funny coming from me, but I’m concerned about micromanaging this,” by over specifying the audit’s mission, said Olsen. “I don’t want to presume I know everything. I don’t want to exclude other people’s experiences and concerns.”

“We’re not creating a new wheel here, it’s a wheel that’s already been invented,” Olsen said. “We’re asking the council to look into finding out who makes those wheels, and what wheel is going to best fit on our automobile.”

After listening to the discussion, Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown, one of the council liaisons, said he was confused about what exactly the commission wanted.