Glover questions planners’ acts

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Who’s really in charge here?

That’s what Councilwoman Norma Glover wanted to find out Tuesday after

hearing about a few recent discussions by the city’s Planning

Commissioners.

A commission proposal to let it review new homes on Corona del Mar’s

bluffs was one thing she disagreed with. An idea by commissioners to add

reviews for any project that requests use permits or variances also

rubbed her the wrong way.

“Isn’t this an example where the Planning Commission is trying to

create policy,” Glover asked City Atty. Bob Burnham at Tuesday’s council

meeting. “I thought the City Council should establish policy.”

She added that she’d like a report on the authority vested in the two

bodies.

“I see more and more the Planning Commission taking on a policy role,

which traditionally has been done by the City Council,” said Glover, who

served as planning commissioner for five years before her election to the

council in 1994.

Yes, the city’s elected leaders are the sole policy making body in

Newport Beach, Burnham informed her. But while the planning

commissioners’ role was fairly limited to advising council members, they

had been given authority to initiate changes in the past.

The commission’s chairman responded Wednesday that he felt that the

city’s hierarchy hadn’t been violated.

“I thought we were . . . acting within the policy that the City

Council has set,” said Ed Selich, adding that he had not watched Glover’s

remarks on television the night before.

If council members feel “that anything we’ve done is outside [our

scope,] they can point us in the proper direction.”

Commissioner Michael C. Kranzley agreed that he and his colleagues

simply had tried to find ways to enforce council policy. He added that no

recommendation on the citywide review of projects would come before a

joint meeting between the two bodies.

City officials said they’d schedule a joint study session between the

two bodies in the near future, but noted that the next three sessions

will be taken up by workshops on next year’s city budget.

Council members appoint planning commissioners for four-year terms and

commissioners are limited to two terms plus the remainder of a term they

start due to an unexpected vacancy. New commissioners take office each

July. Both Selich and Kranzley are up for reappointment this year.