Hi! Colborne here. I appreciate your work and thoughtfulness. Your brief has certainly given me, and the rest of the community, a lot to think about through the years.
Regarding this part:
"I'd rather be confident that my city's appointed planning commissioners are knowledgeable about land use planning than expect them to follow the same political motivations as the councilmember who appoints them. I'd even be happy to see the introduction of requirements for planning commissioners to have actual experience with something related to land use planning before they're appointed (which is not the case today)."
I don't disagree, exactly. I just think that, if you want that, the most straightforward way to get it is to hire professional planners as staff and then review their work at the political level where voters are paying attention to it — which is basically what happens to planning commission recommendations anyway.
On a more fundamental level, I just personally think a lot of commissions at the local and state level are neither fish nor fowl — neither political nor technocratic, in other words — and I suspect a lot of voters don't realize how much responsibility has been devolved to groups that, despite the Brief, they may not know exist, much less how they operate, what responsibilities they have, or how they arrive at their decisions. Additionally, I don't think many people appreciate that, historically speaking, how intentional that disconnect was when it was first implemented.
I do wonder what happened to civil grand juries in Nevada, though. That's another rabbit hole I'll need to explore one of these days.
Thanks for this comment, and I appreciate your thoughtful analysis, as well. I do think it's important to understand the history and function of these boards and commissions, and I also believe in the role they play--occupying a citizen-constituted space in between City staff and elected politicians. As a former Washoe County planner wrote in response to my FB comment, "I've always considered the planning commission as the educated filter between citizens who may have a more parochial view of an application or change to a policy/law and the elected officials who often have a more political view of planning issues." We need that buffer to provide insight and perspective that even City planning staff sometimes don't have.
And with planning in particular, we need these decisions to be as divorced as possible from all the political pressures involving land development, which has become unbelievably political in Reno over the past 10-15 years. I'll probably write something about that trajectory soon. Of course, the key is appointing planning commissioners who not only understand and believe in smart and sensible land use planning but who are dedicated to the public interest--and whether or not that happens is up to the body that appoints them. We should all be paying a lot more attention to that process, for sure.
Sounds like the City is preparing to shine a brighter light on all of its boards and commissions, but you may be on your own with the question of civil grand juries. I wouldn't mind bringing back the position of city ombudsman. Where did that go?
Hi! Colborne here. I appreciate your work and thoughtfulness. Your brief has certainly given me, and the rest of the community, a lot to think about through the years.
Regarding this part:
"I'd rather be confident that my city's appointed planning commissioners are knowledgeable about land use planning than expect them to follow the same political motivations as the councilmember who appoints them. I'd even be happy to see the introduction of requirements for planning commissioners to have actual experience with something related to land use planning before they're appointed (which is not the case today)."
I don't disagree, exactly. I just think that, if you want that, the most straightforward way to get it is to hire professional planners as staff and then review their work at the political level where voters are paying attention to it — which is basically what happens to planning commission recommendations anyway.
On a more fundamental level, I just personally think a lot of commissions at the local and state level are neither fish nor fowl — neither political nor technocratic, in other words — and I suspect a lot of voters don't realize how much responsibility has been devolved to groups that, despite the Brief, they may not know exist, much less how they operate, what responsibilities they have, or how they arrive at their decisions. Additionally, I don't think many people appreciate that, historically speaking, how intentional that disconnect was when it was first implemented.
I do wonder what happened to civil grand juries in Nevada, though. That's another rabbit hole I'll need to explore one of these days.
Thanks for this comment, and I appreciate your thoughtful analysis, as well. I do think it's important to understand the history and function of these boards and commissions, and I also believe in the role they play--occupying a citizen-constituted space in between City staff and elected politicians. As a former Washoe County planner wrote in response to my FB comment, "I've always considered the planning commission as the educated filter between citizens who may have a more parochial view of an application or change to a policy/law and the elected officials who often have a more political view of planning issues." We need that buffer to provide insight and perspective that even City planning staff sometimes don't have.
And with planning in particular, we need these decisions to be as divorced as possible from all the political pressures involving land development, which has become unbelievably political in Reno over the past 10-15 years. I'll probably write something about that trajectory soon. Of course, the key is appointing planning commissioners who not only understand and believe in smart and sensible land use planning but who are dedicated to the public interest--and whether or not that happens is up to the body that appoints them. We should all be paying a lot more attention to that process, for sure.
Sounds like the City is preparing to shine a brighter light on all of its boards and commissions, but you may be on your own with the question of civil grand juries. I wouldn't mind bringing back the position of city ombudsman. Where did that go?