Re: B&C

? · B&C

Boards and Commissions? What does that mean to you? You want to put up a privacy fence. Where do you go? You want to expand your home to accommodate the latest style in large furniture. Where do you go? You just want to upgrade your bathroom, kitchen. plumbing or electric needs. Where do you go? You want to take this Old House and make it into your Dream Castle. Where do you go? You have a grievance with the way you are handled by your local government. Where do you go? You have just lost your job and can't find another but you have a great idea that just may put food on the table if you could just work from home. Where do you go? You have a piece of Edgewater history you want preserved. Where do you go?
More than likely you will find yourself before a consortium of folks not unlike yourself. They are called the Boards and Commissions of our fine City. They, for the most part, are like you. They often deal with opposing viewpoints. In many situations they called upon to resolve conflicts. It is a difficult job that does not come with the fiscal compensation afforded to such people as the Mayor and Council.
Our Charter states that EACH and every Board or Commission will be advisory to to either the City Council or the City Manager. Think about that. In the past they were all advisory to the Mayor. A lot of politics were involved if you wanted that privacy fence and you had best be on the Mayors good side. But we have a new Charter with new rules.....Right? Not yet. You see, the City Council has just not yet seen fit to implement the Charter Mandated Ordinances assigning the advisory responsibility of each Board or Commission to itself or the City Manager. That in a big way can direct the Rules of Procedure for each of those Boards and Commissions. The Charter further says that each Board and Commission will have a Department Head as a liaison. What is the purpose behind that? Well if you wish to file an appeal to the Board of Adjustment decision, you have a standard form by which to do that and a standard appeal process, free of predetermination.
Your Council and your City Manager have decided to put a low priority on those Articles of our Charter. This is and will lead to dissention between neighbors and fuel the rumor mill with accusations of nepotism and corruption. In essence they have cut the Boards an Commissions to fend for themselves. Is this what we wanted when we passed the new Charter? Let the candidates for office know how you feel because, it affects you in ways you can't even imagine.

Guest · Re: B&C

?

As I understand, the applicant turned down by the BOA has ten days to appeal the decision to Council. This applicant was allowed thirty days. Why? Because the appeal form had to be written, it did not exist. Why did it not exist? Could it be that the BOA does not have Rules of Procedure approved by Council as per Charter?
There was a protester at the BOA hearing that was not allowed to testify at the Council appeal. Why not? Yeah, the system is working just fine. Believe that and I have some property for sale at 20th & Depew at a good price.
If your running for Council you had best promise to finish up implementing the Charter or you won't get my and whole slew of others votes.

?????

? sure asks a lot of questions and gives no answers. And people wonder what feeds our rumor mill.

Let’s throw in a few more ?????

Did the applicant approach the city within the 10 days? Did the city comply with the deadline for hearing the case? Do ‘rules of procedure’ address forms and applications and other legally binding documents? Has the city, ever in its history, had a BOA appeal go before council? Has the BOA ever, in its history had the attorneys establish a set of criteria for approving variances? Did council pass these criteria? Was there a ‘department head’ working with the board/applicant the whole time? Doesn’t the ‘protester’ protest everything around here? Is this the only part of the charter that you all can talk about?????

An active imagination makes for good entertainment. I love this town.

?

All very good questions. And not unlike myself you seem to have no answers. Who is the Department Head that acts as a liaison to the BOA? Babette Marrow? Is she a Department Head? Again we have another question to ask. If so, what Department does she head? Has the City ever had a BOA decision appealed to Council? Of course they have. Has a set of criteria been laid down for approving variances and approved by Council. Just this year. Question again. Is that actually a set of Rules of Procedure? And finally, nowhere in Article 10 does it state to whom the BOA advises (only two options here Council or Manager). That is strange indeed considering Council visited the BOA issue just this year. As far as the protester goes, who cares if she protests, she can protest the color of the Mayors underwear for all I care. It doesn't matter. She filed a protest to the variance and is party to the action. She should have been allowed to testify at the CC Appeal Hearing. Anything less is arbitrary and prejudicial. Remember the Sloans liquor hearing? Everybody was allowed to testify, didn't matter whether it affected them directly or not.
You ask....

Guest

It is my understanding that the BOA does not even have by-laws or rules of proceedure at this time. They do have a set of eight criteria that must be meet in order to approve a variance. If those eight criteria were not meet by an applicant then they must turn down the application.
Was the appeal to Council strictly to question the BOAs procedure or was it a whole new hearing. As I understand a Councilman stated that he thought the variance should be granted because we want people to improve their property. That sounds like a whole new hearing with a different set of criteria. So the question has to be asked, why even have a BOA? Has Council even informed the BOA where they went wrong? Approved Rules of Proceedure would go a long way in resolving these issues for everyone. If the Charter says they have to have them then there is no excuse and the whole process is flawed.
Just my 2¢ worth.

guest at 8:40

By the way, guest "?", if you had been at the Council meeting last week you would have heard the Mayor advise Council and the public that the purpose of the hearing was to determine if the BOA make a correct decision. It was very clearly stated more than once that NO NEW TESTIMONY WOULD BE TAKEN. The protestor had his/her chance at the BOA public hearing when public testimony was taken. No-one from the audience was allowed to speak, only the applicant who had filed the appeal in the first place. This is not something that the Mayor made up, it is the legal process established by law!

Guest

Are you speaking to me or to "?". If what you say is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, what part of the BOAs decision was flawed and why?

Guest

Council was advised to consider all ‘evidence’ from the BOA's original PUBLIC HEARING, to determine if the BOA had reason to determine if specific criteria were met, or not met. Part of the evidence included transcripts, which in turn included all comments from the ‘protestor’. The protestor’s thoughts and comments were very much a part of council’s APPEAL HEARING. Council did not hold a PUBLIC HEARING.

And BOA bylaws would have done nothing to define the proper process for an appellate hearing. The fact that people can appeal BOA decisions to city council is very new. It has never been that way in the past. That prevision was approved by council less than one year ago. That’s why the City of Edgewater had no process in place. This was the first time Edgewater City Council has heard an appeal from the BOA.

As for any flaws on the part of the BOA, there wasn’t any. It wasn’t a unanimous vote on council to overturn the BOA’s decision. This is just one of those situation when two people, given the same information, might come to different conclusions.

DUH?

That seems to be a exercise in futility. Again, why even have a BOA?

DUH? again

If the BOA held a hearing and stuck to the eight criteria that the City Attorney laid down then given the same information, how can Council come to a different conclusion, if they are using the same eight criteria as the BOA? This just doesn't make any sense unless the BOA's findings were flawed. In that case the Council needs to give direction to the BOA for future hearings.

Guest

Apparently.... the engineers and the attorney seemed to interpret the word ‘property’ to be the land and ‘improvements’ to be the man-made structures on the land. The criteria required the property to be unique in such a way that you could not develop the site and still follow the code. Things like flood planes, cliff, waterfalls and other acts of nature could cause this. That is how it was explained to the BOA and to council.

For some people ‘property’ meant ‘real property’ and included buildings. Even though the code could of said ‘property’ AND ‘improvements’ it did not. The attorney explained this was probably NOT an oversight. Most zoning codes intend it to be ‘acts of nature’ and not man-made structures that restrict the use of land.

BOA found no ‘extraordinary’ conditions existed on the property and denied the request.
A majority of council felt that existing conditions of the house were ‘extraordinary’ and overturned the BOA’s decision.

Guest

Left Hand meet Right Hand. Right Hand meet Left Hand. Duh.

?

Edgewater City Charter 11.1 (6) Each board and commission established by, or pursuant to, this Charter shall: (b) adopt and operate in accordance with its own rules of procedure. Such rules shall not conflict with this Charter or the ordinances of the City, and shall not take effect until reviewed and approved by the City Council.
Do you think if anyone had been paying attention to the Charter, the BOA and the Council could have been on the same page? But what do I know? I'm just a Charter Freak.

Guest

Guest