Tomorrow the Plan Commission has an entire meeting dedicated to “options to shorten Plan Commission Meetings” i.e. how to cut off public voices and benefit the developer. Let’s hope they consider the questions that have been on the county board agendas for a year or two and just started showing up on city council agendas:
- Who benefits?
- Who is burdened?
- Who does not have a voice at the table?
- How can policymakers mitigate unintended consequences?
There is a memo with a dozen ideas of how to shorten the meetings. Here’s my concerns about each of them having served on Plan Commission for 3 years and having been an alder for 8 years. The first and last ideas are the worst when looking at the above questions. A couple in the middle may be feasible.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Problem: Some Plan Commission meetings extend late into the evening (or early morning). As noted by several Commissioners, after a full work day, Plan Commissioners do not do their best work late in the evening (or early in the morning). The decisions being made have long term impacts on people, neighborhoods and the city. We would like to make the best decisions possible.
Solution options: The following* are for consideration by Plan Commissioners with a goal of ending Plan Commission (PC) meetings at a reasonable hour. By vote of the PC, one or more or none of the options can be added to the Plan Commission Policies and Procedures Manual. Plan Commissioners can add an option not included below or modify those listed.
SEPARATE PUBLIC INPUT FROM DECISION MAKING
1. Adopt a more traditional legislative hearing approach and separate public input from decision making for items garnering lots of public interest. For example, the state legislature and federal government do not gather public input and make decisions on an item in the same day. Instead, they hold separate hearings on proposed legislation and/or gather input through other means. Then, in a separate session, they come together to make a decision. Within our structure, PC could create a rule that it will refer deliberation and decision of any item on which more than (20?) people register wishing to speak. There isn’t a magic number but such a rule would ensure that a 2-5 hour public input session is not followed by a 1-2 deliberation period, practically guaranteeing a decision being made after midnight. It would also give Commissioners time to process what they heard and do some critical thinking before hopping right into making a decision. If this approach were taken, the PC would close the public hearing once public input is over and refer it forward for deliberation and decision. Alternatively, to make things more predictable all public hearing items could be treated in this manner.
THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA!!! I have seen powerful public testimony sway decisions on more than one occasion. If they separate the testimoney from the decision making, that takes much of the power of that testimony away. Think about those questions on the top of the agenda.
Who benefits? The developer! As that powerful public testimony fades, it gives the developers more time to lobby the plan commission members before the decision. It gives them time to refute things that have been said and the public who doesn’t have a full time job working for the project doesn’t get a chance to respond. The developer could make major changes and the public won’t get an opportunity to comment on those changes or the staff response to the changes.
Who is burdened? The public, residents of the City of Madison. They are essentially removed from the last minute process between the developer and staff and won’t get to comment on changes that are made between when the public input was given and the next eeting.
Who does not have a voice at the table? Residents of the City of Madison
LIMIT THE NUMBER OF ITEMS ON AN AGENDA
2. Staff generally has a sense of items that will create a lot of public engagement. In consideration of that insight, limit the number of items on any given agenda if it is anticipated one will take a lot of time. While most applications must be acted on in a reasonable time, they do not have to go to the PC as soon as possible. Implementing this approach, would give the staff and the chair some extra leeway to manage the agenda to facilitate being done by a certain time.
This sounds great in theory, but at every meeting there are items that were expected to be discussed but that are referred at the request of the developer. How many times have people planned for Edgewood to be on an agenda, only to be pulled at that last minute? It’s unfair to delay discussing some items in anticipation of an item that takes more time, only to have it referred and end up on an agenda with the items that would take more time. I’ve watched this happen again and again as controversial issues get delayed to allow more time to work things out.
ONE INTAKE DEADLINE PER MONTH
3. Have only 1 intake deadline per month, rather than 2. When staff review the intake for the month, projects then could be assigned to one of two future PC dates (8-10 weeks later), providing staff a better opportunity to balance agendas. This would also preserve at least some predictability for applicants/interested parties, as there would be a determination on dates shortly after the internal intake meeting. (Note from staff: need to think through in greater detail how this idea would impact workflow for the many other agencies reviewing plans.)
This may be a better idea. I don’t know enough about the behind-the-scenes logistics to know if this would work, but I’d be comfortable trying it.
LIMIT NON-ACTION ITEMS
4. Limit informational non-action items to 30 minutes or less and limit the number of such items on each agenda.
These items could also be held for special meetings where they heard information on projects that are not development and consider ordinance decisions.
LIMIT HOW MANY TIMES AND LENGTH OF COMMISSIONERS SPEAKING
5. Limit the number of times (and length) commissioners can speak on a single item. Currently, there is an ordinance limiting council members to speaking twice on any item for 10 minutes each.
Sounds good in theory, but I bet this isn’t what makes the meetings long. And I don’t think its ever good for democracy to limit debate. Plus in practice, people usually lose track of how many times someone spoke because this doesn’t include the time people ask questions. If you watch the meetings closely, you’ll find a lot of time is taken up in the questions, and not so much the politicians and committee members talking. Plus, if someone wants to say something, all they have to do is ask if they can speak a third time and our Wisconsin-nice takes over and they are allowed to speak again anyways, despite the rules.
END MEETING AT A CERTAIN TIME
6. Implement a rule to end the meeting at a certain time. Any items that have not been reviewed or are under discussion at that time would be referred until the next Plan Commission meeting.
a. Or establish a bit more flexible but similar rule something like: “after 10:00, the Plan Commission Chair may ask for a motion to adjourn, and refer any additional items to a future meeting”. This policy would give the PC the opportunity to adjourn or to decide to continue to deliberate and work through items where the “end is in sight”, or where action is very time-sensitive (affordable housing proposals seeking WHEDA credits, for instance).
Again, nice idea, but in practice if asked, what developer isn’t going to come up with a reason why it is urgent to get the item voted on that evening? The council has tried this and they inevitably decide to keep going for one reason or another.
AUTOMATICALLY REFER AN ITEM
7. Rule to automatically refer an item that has taken up a lot (TBD) of time during a meeting.
I don’t think this helps in any way. It just means that all the people that showed up have to come back for another meeting. Seems like it would be best to vote on the item and resolve it after it has taken so much time, unless there is more information required.
EXTRA MEETING
8. Schedule an extra meeting when staff is aware that there may be several controversial items that are likely to take an extended time to address.
This one makes sense. I”m sure developers will lobby staff not to be the ones pushed to the additional meeting date, but it seems like it would have a better result.
START MEETINGS EARLIER
9. Start Plan Commission meetings earlier. While this would not shorten meeting length it could mean an early end time.
Would a half hour or hour really make a difference? And, could it mean that members of the public can’t get done from work on time to get the things done that they need to do and get to the meeting on time to testify? I guess that depends upon your work schedule.
3 MINUTE SPEAKING RULE
10. Provide better clarifications regarding the “3 Minute” speaking rule. For example, add a note to all agendas that this time limit will be enforced for all speakers on each item and discuss with IT if there is a way to have some sort of “shot clock” so that speakers are aware of their time.
I have a better idea. Limit the answers to questions to 2 minutes. The developers who are asked to answer questions can often go on and on and on and on and on and aren’t even answering the question that is asked. I agree the 3 minute rule should be enforced, but then I also like my idea of limiting the length of the answers to committee member questions.
QUESTIONS AT THE END OF ALL SPEAKERS
11. Always take questions from Commissioners to registrants at the end of the speakers for each item (rather than after each individual speaker) perhaps working through all speakers quicker. Some questions might be answered by later registrants, and commissioners could otherwise take notes during the public hearing and raise questions at the end.
Yes. A modification to this could be that you take questions after every 10 speakers if there is a really long list of speakers.
LIMIT THE NUMBER/TYPE OF PROPOSALS THAT REQUIRE PLAN COMMISSION REVIEW
12. Reduce the number/type of proposals that require Plan Commission review. (Note: This is part of a larger discussion, some of which will happen at the late July PC Big Picture Work Session related to housing. In preparation for that meeting, staff is reviewing the frequency and project types that have been approved on recent consent agendas. A possibility may be converting some conditional uses to permitted uses, perhaps in combination with an alternative administrative review process for items determined not to be appropriate as “by-right” permitted uses).
Another terrible idea that benefits the developer!!! They significantly did this during the Zoning Code Rewrite.
Who benefits? The developer
Who is burdened? The public, residents of the City of Madison
Who does not have a voice at the table? The public, residents of the City of Madison
