FBCC will retain but restructure Planning Advisory Board

Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm

Reporter - News Analyst

September 1, 2016 6:00 a.m.

Fernandina Beach City Commissioners (FBCC) met in workshop session for an hour the afternoon of August 30, 2016, to air their concerns and chart a future course for the city’s Planning Advisory Board (PAB). Commission dissatisfaction with the PAB had previously surfaced at their August 16 Regular Meeting in the form of a proposed ordinance to abolish the board and designate the FBCC as the Local Planning Agency for matters of land use and planning. Following public input at that meeting commissioners agreed to table that action and discuss a broader range of options at a workshop.

Commissioners opted not to take public input during the workshop. Only Commissioner Len Kreger, who previously chaired the PAB before his election to the FBCC, appeared to express confidence in the status quo. “I think they’ve done a good job, and we should get back to where we were,” he said. Other commissioners expressed frustration with what several of them termed a “dysfunctional” board that had lost sight of its role and responsibilities.

City Attorney Tammi Bach walked commissioners through an explanation of the PAB’s current role and responsibilities under both city ordinance and state law. She framed the discussion by asking for commission input on several key options going forward as presented in the slide below:

Kreger reiterated his belief expressed at the previous meeting that failure of city staff to address items and timelines in the Comprehensive Plan identified as early as 2013 gave rise to the current situation in which the PAB has been pressed to meet deadlines to accommodate development requirements for the LignoTech project. Kreger expressed confidence that in recent meetings of the PAB subcommittee on hazardous materials in the flood plain, a compromise solution had been reached that would allow the project to move forward. He bristled at what he perceived as a requirement to meet LignoTech deadlines in bringing the item forward for FBCC consideration.

Commissioner Len Kreger

Kreger said that the current difficulties were not about LignoTech, but that the LignoTech project had been the catalyst pointing out the need to bring about change. He noted that Commissioner Roy Smith and Mayor John Miller had attended several recent PAB meetings, and that he had attended all of them because of his special interest in the board.

Commissioner Tim Poynter said, “I don’t think it’s working perfect when people are resigning, and previous board members are saying it’s dysfunctional now and it’s just gotten out of hand. I don’t find that ‘functioning well.’ So how do you remedy that?” Poynter recounted statements made by audience members at the previous meeting claiming that FBCC dissatisfaction with the PAB was a power grab. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “We were referred to as Nazis on Facebook. I mean, come on, guys. I find that distasteful, to say the least, and these are PAB members saying this.”

Poynter said he would like to model the PAB along the lines of the way the Nassau County Board of Commissioners (BOCC) staffs its Planning and Zoning Board, with each commissioner selecting a member to serve a term that coincides with the commissioner’s term. Poynter proceeded to express frustration over the PAB’s failure to observe deadlines set by the FBCC in providing their recommendations. He said that in the business world you don’t have all the time you want to complete a project. “If you are given a deadline,” he said, “you do the best you can in the time you’ve got, but you are working for the commission, at the pleasure of the commission, so the commission can do their job in moving projects forward. You don’t tell them, ‘Too bad, you’ll get it when you get it,’ or ‘You’re not giving us enough time.’ That’s not what I ever told my boss; and we are [the PAB’s] bosses. I’m not trying to be heavy handed on this, but I am trying to point out how this works.

“I appreciate all the work the people on the PAB do. And they have had some very tough decisions to work through. But we as the Commission said we wanted to move the LignoTech project forward. Now that does not mean that we kick it back to the PAB, who then try to find every reason why not to allow that and delay, delay, delay. Then they are trying to make policy, and they have not been elected [to do so]. They are supposed to be advising, helping us to, not being obstructionist for other, personal reasons."

Poynter suggested to the other commissioners that under his scenario, if the person he appointed to serve on the board was not doing a good job, he would have the authority to remove that person and appoint another without needing a vote of the full commission. He later clarified that he was not implying that he would remove a person who disagreed with him, but would look at matters such as conduct and attendance. After some additional discussion, commissioners clarified that the annual reorganization meeting would be the time for incoming commissioners to decide to reappoint sitting members or appoint new members.

“It would then be our responsibility,” Poynter concluded, “to go out and find the best possible persons to fill the board positions.”

Vice Mayor Robin Lentz

Vice Mayor Robin Lentz said, “I have been upset at some of our PAB members using their position on the board as their own personal platform. So—piggybacking on Commissioner Poynter’s concerns—it’s not supposed to be a personal platform but to decide what’s best for the overall community. So in that sense to me it has become dysfunctional. I thought long and hard about this, because I don’t want to do away with the PAB—they do such a good job.” She explained her thoughts about assigning a specialty to each board position, but then decided it might be difficult to find qualified individuals to fill those positions. She also expressed interest in following the county model for filling board positions. “I’m in favor of us reconfiguring how we populate the PAB. But I don’t want to go without a PAB.”

Commissioner Roy Smith

Commissioner Roy Smith spoke next, indicating that he had met with a PAB member who wanted his opinion the previous day. “My opinion?” Smith began, “I told him exactly how I felt. I think the board has gotten dysfunctional.” Smith said that he had wanted the PAB recommendation on the LignoTech project in July, but had gone along with Poynter’s allowing them to delay to August 2. He said it is now the end of August and the commission has still not received their recommendation.

Smith said that in observing recent PAB meetings, “All I see is bickering up there. It’s just bickering, bickering, bickering.” At this point he asked to have the slide below put up:

“I feel at the meetings, that happened with so many things. They couldn’t make a decision [on setting up subcommittee meetings]. That discussion went on 25 minutes. When we are under timelines to do stuff, we can’t be beating a dead horse like that.” He recounted the August 10 PAB meeting in some detail. “You are committee-ing this thing to death, sub committee-ing it to death. We can’t operate like that. I think there is a big problem with the PAB. I told yesterday, we set a deadline; you work for us and serve at our pleasure. … You are just not listening to what the FBCC asks you to do. Yes, I think there is a problem, and I want to see something different also.”

Mayor John Miller asked Smith for his suggestions on moving forward. Smith said that he supports a 5-member board. Currently the PAB has 7 members and 2 alternate members.

The mayor recognized Poynter once more. “One of the things that I wanted to bring up,” Poynter said, “at the end of the day when the recommendation comes to us, it is not necessarily what was discussed at the meeting. We appreciate the input. But on many occasions, once five people show up at an FBCC meeting to speak against a recommendation from PAB and city staff, we vote against it. I’m just reiterating the fact that the PAB is an advisory board. They are giving what they believe to be their best recommendation for us to consider or not consider.”

Poynter offered additional suggestions for consideration: that each commissioner pick a PAB member, but the commission vote collectively on 2 alternate members, who would not automatically fill vacancies on the PAB, as is the current system. He also suggested that a City Commissioner chair the meetings as a non-voting member. “That way,” Poynter said, “that commissioner would be able to report back to the FBCC more succinctly on the PAB discussions.” He suggested that with his interest in the PAB, Commissioner Len Kreger might be the person to fulfill that role.

Kreger said, “Whatever the commission decides, I will do happily,” adding, “The PAB as the Local Planning Agency does not work for us. They work in compliance with state law and the Land Development Code.” He agreed with Poynter that members serve at the pleasure of the FBCC, but tried to clarify that PAB members’ deliberations were governed by existing laws and regulations, not political goals of any commission. Poynter agreed.

Kreger acknowledged that some PAB meetings have been dysfunctional, but cited compromise agreements reached during the PAB subcommittee meeting the previous evening on hazardous materials that reflected FEMA and Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) mandates and guidelines for local communities. These recommendations will come before the full PAB for action on September 14.

Both Kreger (l) and Smith volunteered to serve as FBCC liaison to the PAB.

Commissioners engaged in brief discussion over the idea of individual appointments to the PAB. Kreger said he could live with the idea; other commissioners seemed more inclined to go in this direction.

Mayor Johnny Miller listens to discussion.

Miller asked if in the past anyone had seen instances with appointed board members disagreeing so vehemently with commissioners. Kreger said he could recall one instance; Poynter said that in 9 years he had never seen a situation like the current one. Miller said that he was extremely concerned following events of the August 16 FBCC meeting. He said that as he tried to gavel the audience to silence he observed a PAB member “inciting the audience to get louder.”   “That’s a problem,” he said.

In response to Miller Poynter said, “That’s just not how a board is supposed to function. When I see something like that in businesses I’ve been involved with, I make a change. I don’t keep trying to fix something that I think is broken. And I do know that some of the PAB members who have resigned, did not want to resign, that they have worked diligently on the board, but they thought that it was not doable anymore in a civil type of way. To me that says we need a change.”

Miller also raised the amount of staff time needed to respond to all the issues PAB members want addressed. Kreger minimized the problem, but Miller retorted, “I’ve seen this, and I think staff needs direction on this issue.” Kreger suggested that if the PAB had had all the relevant information initially, their decision-making could have proceeded more quickly. “I don’t think this is as big a deal,” Kreger said. “I think it’s more of a political thing.”

Smith said, “It’s only in the last year that the PAB went committee and subcommittee crazy.”

Miller asked the city attorney about Sunshine Law issues. PAB members have been accused of inappropriately sharing emails and discussing issues outside of meetings. Bach replied that she is addressing those issues through increased training for members. She said, “Board members need to understand first and foremost that although it is technically legal to send a memo or an email out to all of your fellow board members, while copying citizens and all that, it is discouraged because a recipient can hit ‘Reply All’ so easily. Then both the sender and the receiver are in violation of the law in a civil sense, that it’s unintentional. We can’t have that happening.”

Poynter suggested that city staff research how the county’s Planning and Zoning Board operates and how time limits and deadlines are handled. He said that the Board’s request for additional time should be handled by the City Manager. He said that there are two ways to approach the time/staff work issue: the first is looking to identifying reasonable time needed to satisfy the commission’s timetable; the other is to take all the time required to “shoot holes” in what the commission wants to do. “You might not agree with everything the commission wants to do,” Poynter said, “and I certainly understand because I don’t always agree with everything other commissioners want to do. But once we make a decision, we move on. … But once a board makes a decision, I don’t expect members of that board to come before the FBCC to argue against their board’s decision ‘as private individuals.’ I get all that, but it’s counterproductive.”

Poynter added that he believes it is up to the city manager to determine when enough staff time has been spent investigating an issue because staff is working on multiple priorities. “The city has to run, and it’s not just about downtown, it’s about the rest of the island. I’ve heard that a thousand times,” he said, “’The only thing the PAB cares about is downtown.’ That’s not all we care about. Kreger was elected because he said that all the previous commission cared about was downtown.”

Kreger continued to express concern that commissioners seemed inclined to appoint members to do their own bidding, and that if they didn’t, they could keep being replaced. Poynter attempted to clarify, “I’m certainly not suggesting that you are putting someone on specifically to approve what you want to do. That’s not what I’m suggesting. What I’m suggesting is that if something becomes difficult and I feel responsible because I put that person on the board, I don’t need to ask permission to remove that person. I’m just going to remedy the mistake. It’s more accountability to me and through me to the citizens. If I appoint someone who is terribly disruptive, I’d better do something about it and fix it.”

Commissioner Smith said that he would really like to serve as the commission liaison and non-voting chair of the PAB. He voiced respect for Kreger’s experience, but said he would bring a new set of eyes and he is currently the commissioner with the fewest committee assignments. Kreger and other commissioners expressed support for Smith’s proposal.

Lentz asked the city attorney to clarify the requirement for the School District to provide a non-voting representative on the PAB. Bach said that the School District has recently appointed a new representative, but that the School District chooses not to attend PAB meetings.

Bach summarized commission direction to staff:

• Research other cities and the county to see how such matters are handled;
• Reconstitute PAB as a 5-member board with two alternates and a non-voting city commissioner chairing meetings;
• Each commissioner will appoint one member with term to run concurrent with commissioner’s term; alternates, who sit in during absence of board members, to be appointed by joint decision.

The remaining ten minutes of the meeting was devoted to scheduling follow up meetings on both the changes proposed for the PAB and the schedule of meetings for considering matters relating to the LignoTech project. As of this writing the schedule appears to be:

• LignoTech Development Agreement (Resolution):  First hearing Sept. 6^th (FBCC regular meeting 6:00PM) and if approved, Second hearing Oct. 4^th (FBCC Regular Meeting 6:00PM);
• PAB regular meeting, Sept. 14^th (5:00PM) to consider PAB subcommittee recommendations on LDC provisions covering hazardous materials in flood plain;
• LDC Amendments Hazardous Materials Floodplain (Ordinance):  First reading Sept. 14^th following PAB vote (FBCC Special Meeting); and if approved, Second reading Oct. 4^th (FBCC regular meeting 6:00PM);
• LDC amendments to the PAB membership, terms of office and adding a Commissioner as an ex-officio member (Ordinance): First Reading Sept. 20^th (FBCC Regular Meeting 6:00PM);
• The City Commission special meeting at 5:05PM on Sept. 20^th is for approval of the new Fiscal Year 2016-17 budget;
• Comp Plan Amendment Hazardous Materials in Floodplain (Ordinance):  First reading Aug. 2^nd and Second reading Oct. 4^th (FBCC regular meeting 6:00PM).

Vice Mayor Robin Lentz announced that she would be out of town on September 20^th; Commissioner Len Kreger announced that he would change his vacation plans so that he will be able to attend the September 14^th meeting.

Editor's Note: Suanne Z. Thamm is a native of Chautauqua County, NY, who moved to Fernandina Beach from Alexandria,VA, in 1994. As a long time city resident and city watcher, she provides interesting insight into the many issues that impact our city. We are grateful for Suanne's many contributions to the Fernandina Observer.