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Jacob
rejects APG appointment, cites standing rules violation
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Planning group to consider suspension of standing rules
By Billie Jo Jannen
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — District 2 Supervisor Dianne Jacob did the almost unheard-of last week when she informed the Alpine Planning Group that she would not present for confirmation the group’s Oct. 27 appointment of Jim Easterling to the seat vacated by Scott Lamb’s September resignation.
In response, APG Chairman Mark Price has added a question to the Dec. 8 final agenda that, if passed, would allow the standing rules to be suspended pending a speedier process in voting to fill the empty seat.
In her Dec. 2 letter, Jacob cited the group’s standing rules, writing, “…the APG standing rules have not been followed and therefore I am returning this appointment back to the Alpine Community Planning Group so that the item can be considered in accordance with the APG Standing Rules.”
“This review has not been about any specific individual but rather a simple issue of fairness and whether or not the rules have been followed by the Alpine Community Planning Group,” she added.
In general, appointment requests forwarded to county supervisors are placed on the next San Diego County Board of Supervisor’s agenda for approval by whichever supervisor represents the planning or sponsor group area in question. Only rarely does a supervisor question a group’s choice and, while Jacob has received many such protests, she has acted on only two others in recent memory — both in Ramona, according to her chief of staff, Geoff Patnoe.
Easterling’s appointment would have been on a November board of supervisor’s agenda, but Jacob delayed it in order to review a minority report filed by APG members Jane Fitz and Paul Rohal. The report said the group’s standing rule regarding appointment of new members to a vacant seat was not followed when the group took action on the undeclared vacancy.
Jacob said she reviewed a tape of the October proceedings before making the decision that Fitz and Rohal were correct.
Fitz argued at the October meeting that the group was breaking its own standing rules by filling the seat at the Oct. 27 meeting and asked that the item be moved to next month’s meeting:
“According to our standing rules, we have to make an official declaration of a vacancy,” Fitz said. She continued to say that the seat might only be filled at the meeting after that declaration. “We’re not adhering to our own standing rules.”
Fitz argued that the planning group only accepted Lamb's resignation at the September meeting, and that an official declaration must be included on the next agenda as a seperate item. That would have gone on the Oct. 27 agenda. Only after that, at the November planning group meeting, should the seat be filled, Fitz said.
APG Chairman Mark Price argued that the group used the same procedure in the past to fill a vacant seat; Fitz’s motion to delay making the appointment until the next meeting failed 4-8, with one abstention.
The vote was 8-3 for Jim Easterling, with Paul Rohal and Jane Fitz abstaining.
A number of residents wrote letters to The Alpine Sun, decrying the decision to move forward with the seat selection without first declaring the vacancy. Further angering writers, the APG, for the second time, had passed over former planning group candidate Linda Richards in favor of Easterling.
Richards ran for a seat on the planning group in 2004, placing just behind Ned Holmes. Following the resignation of recently elected Harold Cox, a number of residents and some board members argued at the group’s May 26 meeting that Richards should assume the seat as the next highest vote getter. This was not a provision of the group’s standing rules and Pat Cannon was appointed to the seat. Helen Horvath and Larry Nelson also applied for the seat.
Jacob made a similar call this year on a Ramona Planning Group appointment that was also generated by protests grounded in the group’s standing rules. In contrast to Alpine, Ramona’s standing rules specify that appointments made within six months after an election must be the highest vote-getter from among the candidates who didn’t win seats, if that candidate is still eligible and willing to serve on the group.
A similar situation arose in 2002,
when the Lake Morena-Campo Sponsor Group replaced absent member Dave Herrera without following the public noticing provisions of the Brown Act.
It later found itself revisiting decisions made in the subsequent months because the new member was determined by county counsel to have been illegally included in group votes. Jacob said the county had been led to believe that the group followed the terms of the Brown Act.
Price defended the APG appointment, saying that he had researched agendas back 15 years and found that, at no time had the standing rule been followed — including in the process for his own appointment.
“She’s seeing black and white...where there are shades of gray,” he said.
Price added an item to tonight’s agenda to use a little-known provision of Roberts Rules of Order in which a group may temporarily suspend its own standing rules. If it passes, he said, the group will be able to both declare and fill the seat at the next regular meeting in January. If it doesn’t pass, the vacancy will be declared at the next meeting and an applicant chosen at the February meeting, he said.
The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at the Alpine Community Center.
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Billie Jo Jannen
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