Late Night Meeting Backfires On Planning Commission – ‘Nonjackaroundable’ Decision Jacks Them After All
Written by 991KBU on February 4, 2020
Malibu’s Planning Commissioners have found out the hard way it does not pay to make decisions in the middle of the night.
At Monday night’s Planning Commission meeting … members acknowledged that they voted on a big project in a way that they understood … but no one else.
It was a very late night meeting two weeks ago… when they decided on the La Paz shopping mall.
You might recall that the planning commissioners were supposed to meet at 4 o’clock that Monday afternoon … because the city staff knew that the matter would take a long time to decide.
But the Planning Commission rebelled … and said they would not start until 6.
That meant the vote happened late at night.
And a mistake was made.
Planning Commissioner John Mazza says their long discussion … about how much new restaurant dining space would be allowed at La Paz … was not reflected in the decision that they made.
NEWSCART 75422 MAZZA FLABBERGASTED
“I remember that conversation … and I went back and looked at it and when I saw that language and when I saw that language that allowed 10 thousand square feet of internal service area … and I was flabbergasted.”
The problem was that the decision made during the late night discussion … was not reflected in the final language that the commissioners voted on … late that night.
Commissioner Kraig Hill says he looked at the tape.
NEWSCART 75421 HILL JACKAROUNDABLE
“John said first … that we want to make sure that that 10 thousand square foot restaurant area is not ‘jackaroundable.’
“Commissioner Jennings said yeah … OK … that’s that.
“And the client agreed to that … yeah that’s that … we’re not … and he made a joke that it was not jackaroundable and it was kind of funny and agreed … and so everybody said that was OK and so that sort of fed into the legislative intent.”
What may have been the legislative intent …was not in the language of the resolution that was voted on.
It was a sloppy vote late at night.
The commissioners said last night that they can’t fix the mistake … made by their imprecise language during discussion … in the middle of the night.
But all is not lost.
The matter will come up again when the restaurant at La Paz seeks its coastal use permit … about one or two years down the road.
If nothing else … credit the Malibu Planning Commission with coming up with a new word.
We cannot find “nonjackaroundable” in any dictionary.
