Empty parks, planning posts draw full field

Alicia Robinson

The City Council will have to vet more than two dozen people who want

to serve on the city’s parks and recreation and planning commissions

-- many of them veterans of city service -- but no one yet knows how

that process will work.

Tuesday was the deadline to apply for spots on the commissions.

The council will likely choose on Jan. 3 how to weed through and vote

on candidates, and they will select the commissioners in February.

More than half of the 29 people who applied for 10 spots on the

commissions have served the city before.

Among the applicants are four who lost bids for council seats in

November: Planning Commissioner Bruce Garlich and resident Samuel

Clark -- both seeking Planning Commission seats -- and Parks

Commissioner Mirna Burciaga and resident Terry Shaw, who each asked

to be considered for either commission.

The council voted Dec. 13 to choose commissioners by a majority

vote of the full council, after using a system of direct appointments

by council members for nearly two years. The change in process means

each commission will get five new members, three of whom will serve

four-year terms and two of whom will serve for two years.

The staggered terms will ensure some continuity and experience

among commission members, Mayor Gary Monahan said. He was among the

majority who voted to nix direct appointments and return to voting on

commissioners.

“I just feel more comfortable with a majority vote on the planning

and parks commissions,” he said. “It’s the way that cities

traditionally have done it.... I’ve worked with both, and I just kind

of like that system better.”

The council has yet to decide how it will interview the candidates

and how the voting process will work.

After some frustration with the way the selection of commissioners

went last time, the council wanted a few options for a more orderly

process, City Manager Allan Roeder said.

It’s unclear whether all candidates will be interviewed publicly.

Monahan believes it’s part of his job as a councilman to do that

homework himself, but Councilwoman Katrina Foley wants the council as

a group to vet the candidates and try to come to a consensus.

“I just think that this is our very first big decision as a new

council,” Foley said.