City avoids Verizon lawsuit

By Jean McLeod — Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Two Planning Commission members resign

Planning Commissioner Vance Johnson reads his resignation letter.

Brooks, Washburn and Sipes look on as Planning Commissioner Vance Johnson resigns.

There were about 20 people in attendance at the July 12, 2011 Fillmore City Council and very few items on the agenda. One item that was presented was the proposed Verizon tower to be erected on A Street and the Council’s performance on the issue in regards to a possible violation of the Brown Act. The meeting itself was short with a large part being closed session. But what was presented during the open session was sad news for the residents of Fillmore. Two of Fillmore’s Planning Commission members, Douglas Tucker and Vance Johnson, presented letters of resignation to the Council.

Johnson read a letter from Tucker who was not present to the Council first and then his own letter of resignation. Vance Johnson’s letter reads:

“I am tendering my resignation as a Planning Commissioner effective this date and hour. I never foresaw the time where this City Council would become so divisive in its actions, and lack of clear direction even from sentence to sentence when several of them speak. This has become a matter of personal and professional embarrassment to myself and others and its time to make my exit.

In this letter, when I speak of “the Council” I recognize there are two members of this body that actually very much understand the concept of good governing, and of good team work and my comments are not so much directed to or at them, but because the Council is a body that makes decisions with a majority of at least three, unfortunately the three that I’d rather to direct my comments to, must include Mr. Conaway and Ms. Walker to the context of ‘the Council.’

I believe the biggest reason that I feel it’s time for me to go is because of just that concept…’teamwork’…as nebulous as that appears to be for our Council. The Council majority recently elected, rode into office on a platform of chaos and they made good on that concept. This Council has succeeded in ripping apart one of the very finest teams I’ve ever known or worked with and they did it out of shear ignorance. When you join a team, no matter at the bottom or the top, you kick back and observe for a while before you start offering your ‘expert opinion,’ and you use the resources available to you….in the case of our City Council, that would be not only your own Council peers, but your own staff which has decades, maybe centuries, of ‘institutional knowledge.’ But no, you started chasing them off before you even drove up.

Then you hire a City Manager whose apparent goal…successful as it turns out…was to further decimate the staff. Then, in opposition to your own campaign platform, have brought in people from out of the area to replace our local talent!!! No vision, no teamwork at play here.

Because you probably don’t know this I have served on this commission two times, for five years from 1985 to 1990, and this time for six years from 2005 to date. In addition, I served on staff for nine years, being the only person in this city to have presented and heard from BOTH sides of the dais. I believe I’m an excellent position to tell you that this Commission has been the very best assembling of minds and talent that I’ve ever seen. And that includes our newest member Tim Holmgren.

However, I began to see the writing on the wall when in one breath, our Planning Commission selection committee, earlier this year, told you, Mayor Washburn, that they were recommending a new candidate for commissioner ‘it was time for a change’…no other reason given. It was the opinion of that committee that the Council simply needed a change for the sake of change for OUR commission, however, in the next breath, a recommendation that all incumbents for the other commissions remain in place ‘they were doing a good job.’ What a hypocritical decision those were, but YOU made them Mayor!

The next shot across the Commission’s bow came at during the process to decide the condoization of the El Dorado Mobile Home Park. It was made QUITE clear to the Commission and presumably the Council as well, that the state law requires that park owners be allowed to convert their parks to condominiums, and in an EXTREMELY painful decision, the Commission courageously, made the decision to allow that to go forth. I can tell you that I have paid a personal price for that decision, but it was the CORRECT and ONLY decision to be made. Yet when the decision came up to the Council, Councilmember Brooks and Sipes capriciously decided the state law was bunk, and THEY were going to vote against it, for no particular reason other than it was a feel-good vote, and also, perhaps, the El Dorado voting bloc is the biggest and most influential in the City. And in doing so, those two council members flirted with attracting an even bigger lawsuit from the owners of the mobile home park that we could certainly never prevail in, at a time when our budget is in the most disarray than it’s ever been in. How irresponsible is that?

I realize the Planning Commission is NOT a rubber stamp for the Council, and that there will be times that our decisions will not be upheld by the Council, but when those times occur, in the past, there has been good and logical reasons why they have not upheld our views. They explained themselves, and although members of the Commission may not have been happy about it, we remained a team. The Planning Commission and the Council remained on the same path and remained supportive of each other.

But that is obviously no longer so. This latest caper with the cell tower is a clear example that our City Council is unable to make logical and well-thought decisions regarding Planning Commission business. Discussion of appealing a Commission decision, or taking it off our calendar, at a council meeting is not only improper or unprofessional, but flirts with violating the Ralph M. Brown Act. Mayor, that was offensive, and a slap in the face. What grounds does the Council have to appealing our decision, especially before the decision was made? The project meets ALL local zoning, and any concerns regarding electromagnetic fields, is by FEDERAL law, outside our local bailiwick, and this is probably the forth or fifth cell tower the Commission has seen where there was no public interest in the slightest! And further on when the Council made decisions regarding this appeal and decided to wave the appeal fee, without it being on the Council agenda, you’ve again violated the Brown Act, in my opinion, not to mention engendering a probable lawsuit from Verizon Wireless. And this during a time when we’ve cut services, laid off employees attracting a lawsuit that will cost us a lot of money to defend, and we will certainly lose it, because we have denied the applicant their legal due, again, according to federal law. Jamey Brooks wearing the sword low and tied down, I suppose thought that would be okay and did not think that spending that kind of money outrageously would be a problem.

It’s time for this ol’ boy to cut this foolishness lose. Mayor your job is to direct traffic, and you’re doin’ a poor job of it. I cannot be part of this team anymore, and I can’t support the team, if I don’t believe in the team, and if I believe it’s my job to oppose the team, it’s time to get off the team.
So color me ‘gone’…Vance Johnson”.

Councilmember Jamey Brooks responded to Johnson’s written resignation by saying that he did not feel the comments made by Johnson during the Planning Commission meeting were appropriate. The comments Brooks was referring to included a comment by Johnson that found the City Council members decisions “ludicrous and I’m being gentle.” Brooks also thanked the Commissioners for their service but added a thanks for their resignation also, calling it a political ploy.

Councilmember Patti Walker addressed the Council with two items. The first was an opinion piece written by Martin Farrell in the Gazette that stated Walker was selling her home and moving out of state, which Walker said was partially true; she is selling her home, but is not moving out of state. She stated Farrell should have called and asked her personally if she were moving out of state. Second she asked for the Councils’ help and understanding because she had just recently been informed that a family member is in a medical situation and she is not sure how much of her time she will have in the future to devote to her council position.

Citizen Bob Stroh took opportunity during public comments to call Farrell a liar.

The Council then informed everyone that they had dropped the appeal of the Verizon cell tower and were no longer questioning the Planning Commission’s decision to go forward with it.

Theodore Schneider, Fillmore’s City Attorney, addressed everyone with his comments on whether the Brown Act had been violated along with discussion of a letter sent from Verizon. He went on to say that with regards to the Brown Act, the Council only directed staff to put the item on the agenda and that no decisions had been made. With regards to the letter from Verizon, he stated that what was in the letter that Verizon cited as precedence did not pertain to Fillmore; and that the City received the recordings from Verizon on July 5, 2011 in which the City has 10 days to respond, to which he turned to the Verizon representatives and legal council and said, “We’ve responded, right?” And the Verizon representatives replied “yes”. Schneider stated there was no reasonable delay is addressing Verizon. As to the Planning Commission decision, City Council has withdrawn its appeal.

Local business owner Alex Mollkoy addressed the Council with his concerns about their decisions and actions stating, “I am deeply saddened and disturbed by the lack of professional knowledge and understanding you have of your duties and responsibilities as a city council. It appears at times you must feel that you can supersede protocol and/or written ordinances for whatever reason you deem fit. I feel this is a flagrant violation of our trust given to you as elected officials; whose duty it is to follow the laws, as you try to represent the best interest of all the citizens of Fillmore. Can you please tell me the City of Fillmore has not in violation of the Brown Act on June 28th, 2011 when you began a twenty minute discussion on how to appeal a Planning Commission’s ruling and decided to appeal this ruling when the item was not on the agenda?.......You have often commented that the council meetings are excessive in length. I feel that this is of your own making, as many times comments are unnecessarily repeated by each of you. It is apparent to many that you are unprepared and ill-versed on the issues before you and it also seems that you are frequently lost with what comes next on the agenda. I feel that if you did your homework the meetings would be shorter in length, thus saving valuable time and money for Fillmore. I believe that the public deserves better representation by and from the City Council.”
Laurie Hernandez, who spent many years as a City Council member, addressed the Council by asking how close they were to expiration of the Federal Communications Commission’s 150 day requirement (shotgun rule) to respond to an application. Schneider, replied the time would expire August 15, 2011. Hernandez went on to add that a local Fillmore business owner, who employees Fillmore residents is being basically harassed by three on the Council. “Is this your idea of economic development?...What you’ve done is potentially harm a local business, broken federal law, increased legal fees for the city and just plain wasted everyone’s time and caused more ill will between this dysfunctional council and City leaders and the community you’re elected or paid to serve. First off, you stuck your nose in business it had no reason to be involved in.” She then rhetorically asked if the City Manager Yvonne Quiring, had helped to prevent this avoidable event from happening and responded, “No, she sat silent and didn’t even try to intervene. The City Attorney informed you of the liability of the appeal and you ignored his legal counsel.” Hernandez went on to ask why Fillmore still has an Assistant Deputy City Manager when we just laid off eleven employees and wasn’t it time that Quiring stepped up and got rid of her right hand and dig in like the remaining few employees Fillmore has left.

There was also a vote on the issue of presenting on the November ballot a measure to increase the sales tax in Fillmore at a cost of $20,000. The vote was 4 yes, 1 no with Councilmember Brooks the lone No vote.

Walker reminded everyone that the Ventura County Fair will be August 3-14 and free shuttle service is provided daily during the Fair between 10:30am and 11:00pm from the six off-site parking locations. Admission is $12 for adults 13 & older, children 6-12 $9.00, seniors 62 & older $9.00 and children 5 & under and Super Seniors (100 years & older) admitted Free.