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Cedar Hills council members spent two hours on Tuesday trying to decide if the city had a legal, functioning Planning Commission.
During the sometimes tense meeting, the council was forced to delay a vote on platting 19 residential building lots and a 3-acre commercial lot over the 15th hole of the city's golf course. The delay was necessary because last week, after a fight with the mayor, commissioners refused to vote on the issue, saying they were unclear on whether they had a legal commission and who was in charge. The Planning Commission has now scheduled a special meeting today to revisit the issue, and the council has scheduled its own special meeting on Tuesday to vote on approving the lots. Mayor Mike McGee essentially fired the Planning Commission chair and gave no explanation for that decision, said council and commission members. All the commission members have asked him to reconsider his decision, and reiterated that plea on Tuesday. In the meantime, because the city's ordinance was convoluted, commissioners said they were not clear if the mayor had the power to release the chair without council approval, who was now in charge of the commission, and whether alternate members were now full members. Knowing the golf course reconfiguration is controversial, they said they decided to disband their meeting without voting because they were afraid someone could later claim the meeting was illegal because of the confusion over the ordinance. McGee asked the city attorney to decide whether the commission's meeting last week was legal or not. The discussion lasted two hours with council members chastising the mayor over what they called a personality conflict. Council members also questioned why the mayor was required to have council consent to appoint a commission member but could fire a member, which in turn automatically moves an alternative member into a voting position, without council consent. Attorney Eric Johnson said the meeting had been legal and that the mayor had the authority to remove the commission chair. Council members demanded the ordinance be put on an upcoming agenda so they could rewrite the law to make commission bylaws easier to understand. Councilman Jim Perry said it should not be necessary for the city to use a "magic decoder ring" -- referring to the city attorney -- to decipher whether or not a meeting is legal. Commissioners said they had not been trying to stall the golf-course reconfiguration by refusing to vote, as some had thought, but were genuinely concerned that any decision they made could be illegal. "I think a couple of individuals could have swallowed some pride, and we wouldn't be sitting here wasting time and money," Councilwoman Charelle Bowman said. "I'm mad more than sad about it." "I think there are a dozen ways we could have avoided this whole thing, and we availed ourselves of none of them," said Perry. "I don't know why the mayor has not opted to reappoint [the commission chair]. I think it is a loss to our community and a mistake." Though they could not act on platting building lots on the golf course, council members accepted a $333,000 bid to begin reconfiguration of the 9th, 15th and 18th holes of the golf course, a move necessary if homes are to be built on the existing 15th hole. That work will start this month and is expected to be finished in April. "I think a couple of individuals could have swallowed some pride, and we wouldn't be sitting here wasting time and money." Charelle Bowman Cedar Hills councilwoman |
