Planning & Zoning Recommendation on Candlewick Lane Gate is Dead – “Nothing More Than Suggestion,” City Attorney Says 

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Pauline Masson – 

The decision to kill a planning and zoning commission recommendation to the board of aldermen last week, which prevented action on the issue, illustrates the challenges the current board of aldermen faces. 

On April 25, during its regular meeting, P&Z voted 6-0 to recommend that a gate be installed at the end of Candlewick Lane allowing only emergency and farm vehicles to travel between the subdivision and the industrial park.

P&Z Chair Linda Bruns sent a memo to the mayor and board of aldermen saying that during consideration of the prelimary plat for Pacific Logistics Park at the April 25 meeting the commission unanimously recommended that a gate be installed. 

“Please place this issue on the agenda for consideration at the next meeting of the board of aldermen,” Chairman Bruns’ memo said.

That recommendation never made it to the board of aldermen. It was omitted from the May 2 board meeting agenda.

Regardless of how one feels about the controversial gate, the purposeful act of taking the decision on the gate out of the hands of the board of aldermen exposes a troubling circumstance in city government.

Citizens were troubled that the P&Z recommendation had gone missing. 

One citizen in particular wanted the board to act because he wanted aldermen to put an end to the discussion by voting “no” on the recommended gate. He does not want a gate, and more importantly he wants the matter settled.

“Is there a way to find out why it was not added and the motion to add it to the agenda was denied,” Roger Wiersma, with Husky Corporation, asked. “The citizens of Pacific deserve “transparency.”

Alderman Anna Meadows attempted to add the item to the May 2 meeting agenda, but Alderman Rick Presly refused to amend his motion to aprove the agenda to allow Canclewick to be added to the agenda.

When I contacted my alderman, James Cleeve about the missing agenda item, he said he had kept quiet during the exchange because much more discussion is needed before the board acts on the gate. If it had been on the agenda, he had planned to table it. But in retrospect, he said, that is what should have been allowed to happen.

“It should have been on the agenda,” he said.

When he was pressed to explain the justification for killing an official planning and zonning recommendation Cleeve contacted City Attorney Bob Jones, who replied that in his opinion no board action was required.

“I consider P&Z’s recommendation to be nothing more than a suggestion about a potential public improvement. It does not require any action on the part of staff, other than to report it to the board. This was done when the minutes were provided in the board packet.”

Mayor Heather Filley said she had made the decision to omit the recommendation from the agenda because she alone decides what goes on the agenda.

“I control the agenda,” she said. “I checked with our attorney and he advised that action (on the P&Z recommendation) was not required so I omitted it.”

Who decides what the board of aldermen can consider is far more complicated than it should be – at least with this young board as members strive to exercise their rightful authority to do the city’s business while respecting the boundaries of city codes and state statues.

Cleeve said he had accepted the city attorney’s legal opinion that the board of aldermen had no obligation to entertain a recommendation from the P&Z commission on an item that (in Jones’ opinion) the commission is not authorized to consider.

When P&Z separated the two issues, that did seem to lend credence to the attorney’s opinion, Cleeve said.

But as Roger Wiersma pointed out, the discussion on the gate was part of the larger discussion on the preliminary plan for the proposed new industrial development, which requires P&Z approval.

“Is there a way to find out why it was not added and the motion to add it to the agenda was denied?” Wiersma asked. “The citizens of Pacific deserve “transparency” 

The P&Z commissioners introduced their discussion on the preliminary plan saying, “Now is the time to do something about the Candlewick Lane, Industrial Drive traffic”

In addition, Site Development Standards in the municipal code say in considering any application for approval of a preliminary development plan, the following factors shall be considered, . . .the provision of proper means of access to and from public roads, particularly with respect to automotive and pedestrian safety.

But Mayor Filley held her ground saying it was her decision alone to determine what goes before the board of aldermen for action. She acknowledged that P&Z had discussed the gate and the zoning matter at the same time. She recognized that the code calls for P&Z to include traffic during its preliminary plan approval. But because P&Z separated the gate recommendation from preliminary plan recommendation she had determined that the gate was not within the scope of P&Z authority.

Aldermen Cleeve said the questions on the issue had been a learning experience for him and in future would be more thorough in reviewing all the material in the board meeting packet, which is provided before the meeting.

He said after digging into the issue he had come to the conclusion that when any city commission or committee votes to recommend something to the board of aldermen it should be sent to the board. 

“If it is ‘voted on’ recommndation, it deserves a response,” he said.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that in raising questions about this incident, I believe that the recommendation should have been added to the Board of Aldermen meeting agenda, as Chairman Bruns requested. The vote was taken during a P&Z meeting, while considering a zoning matter in which the city municipal code requires P&Z to consider the traffic to and from a proposed development.

Nothing I found in city codes or state statutes authorizes the mayor to stop board of aldermen action on current city business by omitting it from the agenda. 

And, I should add, the aldermen do not get off Scott free on this issue. They voted to approve a faulty agenda. It is up to them to decide what city business they need to act on.

The Candlwick Lane gate (traffic issue) is not going away. The planning and zoning recommendation does not die because the mayor doesn’t like it, or the city attorney thinks is nothing more than a suggestion.

It seems evident that the board of aldermen will eventually have to settle this issue one way or the other. The residents of Candlewick Lane and the business owners and workers in the industrial park probably hope it is sooner, rather than later.