The Valencia County Commission last week considered reforming its decision appeal process to cut down on the number of people who speak for or against contentious issues.

Citizens have a right to appeal a decision made the the Valencia County Planning and Zoning Commission to the full county commission.

A part of the appeal process is a public hearing before the county commission, where citizens can voice their concerns about an issue, which often involves controversial planning and zoning changes, like a recent effort to downsize lot sizes in Eastland Hills.

Commissioner Pedro Rael thinks the process is burdensome because there are times when too many residents speak out about issues, prolonging meetings.

“When we do these things we have a great deal of public comment,” Rael said. “And that’s just fine except that we have a lot of persons commenting who are saying the same things over and over and over. We end up having meetings lasting several hours longer than they need to be.”

Rael wants citizens who have a similar position on an issue to provide a representative who can discuss it on behalf of the citizens, for example one person from a homeowners’ association instead of every member of the homeowners’ association.

He also wants to limit who can speak only to people who live or own property within 100 feet of the property in question. People who live or own property within 100 feet are the only ones who receive official notice from the county about the issue. Rael argues they’re the only ones with legal standing to speak.

“We can streamline our meetings, those presentations, and still not affect the rights of the individual parties that are entitled to speak. We still get all the due process rights and we still get all the evidence that bears on the issue,” he said.

Rael requested the county’s attorneys and staff look into ways to reform the process.

The rest of the commission was concerned with the length of some public hearings but were cautious about doing anything that inhibited people’s right to speak about issues during hearings.

“If we set a guideline, there’s always going to be an exception and there’s always going to be someone who’s offended,” said Commissioner Ron Gentry.

Gentry suggested recommending to citizens that they have a representative, instead of making it a “hard, fast rule.”

He also said barring people who don’t live or own property within 100 feet of the property in question could unfairly limit the right to speak of people who live further but could be affected.

“What if I’m the only one at 100 feet, but there are 580 people beyond that 100 feet who don’t have standing but it affects them equally as well?” Gentry said.

Commission Chairman Don Holliday said the county’s planning and zoning department should recommend to citizens that they come to a county commission public hearing with a representative who can present their case.

“It’s repetitious. It’s over and over. It just takes up time,” Holliday said. “The meetings get into 11 o’clock and I’ve noticed a couple of commissioners get cranky around nine. So that would help.”

Jacobo Martinez, the head of the planning and zoning department, said he’s seen other governments ask citizens to defer their right to speak if they have nothing new to add to the debate but not limit comments to a representative if one or more citizens still feels they need to speak.

“Our office wants to respect the process,” he said.

This page was published on February 22, 2010 at 12:29pm and is filed under Reform.