More Yelling At Planning Commission – Technical Quality Of Zoom Meeting Lacking
Written by 991KBU on July 30, 2020
Once again … tempers flared and shouting erupted at the Planning Commission meeting.
It was the second meeting in a row with verbal outbursts and talking over each other.
Blame it on being cooped up … blame it on the technology … or election season.
Or blame it on the personalities … whatever.
Witness this exchange between commission chair Jeff Jennings and commissioner Steve Uhring.
Uhring was unhappy with what city staff was saying ….
NEWSCART 75755 PLANNING FIGHT
UHRING: “… 45-minute meeting with you and (muffled) this afternoon was an entitrely different …
JENNINGS INTERRUPTING: “Let’s talk about some things that actually have some control.
UHTING INTERRUPTING: “But that is … NO!”
JENNINGS: “No. No. .”
UHRING INTERRUPTING: “Jeff if we are going to get honest answers we should get honest answers. Let’s … and that’s all I want.”
JENNINGS INTERRUPTING: “… things that we can’t control. We’re not the city council.
[UHRING INTERRUPTS]
JENNINGS SHOUTS: “I KNOW YOU THINK YOU ARE BUT YOU’RE NOT.
UHRING: “THAT’S YOUR OPINION.”
The five men on the commission argued a lot … and some of their fine tuning of the ordinance was done on a 3-2 vote.
In the end … it was a unanimous 5-0 decision … and it went out with a sense of urgency.
The planning commissioners agreed that the short-term rental ordinance should -NOT- be brought back to them for approval on the changes … but should be instead rushed up to the city council for action as soon as possible.
Last night’s meeting on Zoom suffered the usual clicks and missing persons.
The city government is relying for public meetings on cheap built-in computer microphones.
And at least two speakers whose name were called were not present on the Zoom software to speak.
One of the voices missing from the meeting was Michael Lustig … the Malibu Road resident who has lead the campaign for enacting rules on overnight rentals.
Lustig has founded a group called Citizens For The Regulation of Short Term Rentals.
Lustig tells KBUU News in an email that he had technical failures at his home with the internet and his cellphone.
He repeated to us that he was pleased with the draft ordinance.
He praised planning director Bonnie Blue … and assistant city attorney Trevor Russin … for working hard on the ordinance …. in the spirit of city council’s instruction.
