Pease calls on Del Snow to resign from Planning Board

For folks (like me) who find the Town's e-mail archive extremely difficult to use, below is the text of the letter, which was attached as a PDF in a reply from Councilmember Pease to a message from Chairwoman Snow requesting "Guidance" from the Council in the wake of their approval of the Bicycle Apartments after the Planning Board recommended denial.

3-4-13

Del,

Let me provide some feedback you have requested in your email last week.
First let me state that I sincerely appreciate the work and commitment any citizen makes to our advisory board system. Prior to my Council commitment I was in your position for approximately twelve years serving on a variety of town boards and commissions, and at different times felt both a connection and disconnection to the town Council. Whether I agree or disagree with some of the Planning Board, or other Boards and Commissions, recommendations I appreciate your work.

Second, in the last year or so you and a few other planning board members, and a small group of activists in the community (primarily from the neighbors for responsible growth group NRG) say they are not against growth, but support “responsible development” and consistently have used the vocabulary of “fact based information” in the arguments which primarily focus against the majority of developments the Council has considered. I have had multiple discussions with members with these opinions, and when challenged they can’t articulate what responsible growth is. I’ve concluded in reality they are against any growth. They can’t articulate how we pay for the increased costs of running the town, they don’t want our town services cut, nor do they not want their taxes raised, but consistently they are against growth in any form. After serving in various volunteer capacities in this town for fifteen years, I don’t understand how this could possibility work if we don’t increase our commercial tax base.

So what is “fact based” decision making? Let’s be clear that I understand the term. For the past ten years I have been CEO of an analytics company who solves complicated problems using advanced statistical methodologies for Fortune 500 companies (like Chrysler, Microsoft, US Bank, etc.). To put it simply our work is centered on “fact based” decision making in the purist sense, making decisions in a logical manner based upon data and facts, not individual opinions. In my experience the rhetoric around “fact based” decision making generally is used by amateurs trying to sway an argument that is primarily based on their personal bias. In our town the term has been greatly overused.

Most of our work in considering a development application is interpreting criteria that are not crystal clear, and we use our best judgment as to how to interpret the language of the Comprehensive Plan, LUMO, 2020 goals, etc. That is primarily why I hope the 2020 outcomes puts clearer language around our future development and takes much of the ambiguity out of our future development process, and discussing we have around it. Today, we expect the citizens we appoint to our Boards and Commissions to use their best judgment interpreting these sometimes confusing and not entirely clear language and documents. We also expect our appointed citizens to be open minded and fair in the interpretation of these documents. We would love to have our appointed citizens use “fact based” decision making, without a ton of biased in their decision making. But we know that we all bring some level of opinion and bias into our decision making. That’s human nature. The challenge we have is to not let our bias overrule the data that we are presented with. Sometimes the information we have makes our decisions crystal clear, but in many cases it is not. That is why we have differences of opinions from our various boards, citizens and Council members in this process.

I have to say I have seen very little of that unbiased decision making from you and a few others on the Planning Board in the past several years. I can recall several instances where you have spoken to Council representing the Planning Board’s recommendation of a development application, and have spent equal or more time articulating the minority position (which you have been on the side of) rather than presenting why the Board recommended approving the development. Because of this I have over the past year lost confidence of some of the Planning Board recommendations, and as painful as it is to say, I have very little confidence in the Board’s ability to weigh the development applications fairly, particularly with your leadership. Your rhetoric around “fact based” decision making has in reality not been applied.

I respect the right for any citizen, or appointed Board or Commission member, to disagree or vote against any proposal in front of them. We celebrate discussion in Chapel Hill. It is our right to disagree and/or vote against an issue before you as a volunteer. It is another to sue the town because you don’t agree with a decision the Council has made. That is taking the opinion to an entirely another level. It is the right of any citizen to sue an entity over an issue they feel wrongly hurt. Those are our rights under the law.

But how can you as a member of the Planning Board have an unbiased opinion on any development application before the Board, when you are leading a citizen group suing the Council over a development decision you disagreed with? I don’t dispute your right to sue, but you cannot have an unbiased opinion, nor should have a role, in future development applications while you are involved in a development law suit against the town.

You have shown a pattern of bias in your decision making on the Planning Board. There is a major ethical line that has been crossed with the filing of the law suit, therefore I respectfully ask you to resign from the Planning Board.

Sincerely,
Gene Pease Councilmember
 

And here is the letter that prompted the reply above:

From: Del Snow
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 2:17 PM
To: Town Council
Cc: Neal Bench; John Ager; Brewer, Kimberly; Melissa McCullough; Deborah Fulghieri; Jason Baker; Amy Ryan; Andrea Rohrbacher; Suzanne Haff; Jason Baker
Subject: Guidance

Mayor and Town Council -

As Chair of the Planning Board, I feel that I must follow up on last night's Bicycle Apartments decision.

The Council appointed a diverse group to the Planning Board.  One of our charges is "to determine whether specific proposed developments conform to the principles and requirements of the Comprehensive Plan for the growth and development of the Town." (See http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=142 - bullet point five) We had serious concerns about the Bicycle Apartments and the applicant returned a second time to try to address them.  We certainly appreciate the removal of the balconies facing Hillsborough Street that resulted.

However, these same diverse Board members, none of whom are against growth or economic development, all agreed that this application did not reflect the guidance of the 2020 Comprehensive Plan. We are looking at applications with attention to fact-based data in order to justify how we arrive at our recommendations.  I found it very distressing that Council brought up legitimate concerns that Staff could have answered, but chose, instead, to act last night before answers were received, instead of deferring action. 

If the Planning Board's attention to the Comprehensive Plan and fact based information is the wrong approach,I would appreciate knowing that so that we can act with that knowledge.

from Del's letter to Gene "these same diverse Board members, none of whom are against growth ..." (emphasis added)Sure. 

According to the Planning Board notes from 2/26/2013 (email Del sent to Ed Harrison), every member of the Planning Board opposed Bicycle Apartments. So why is Del being singled out? Isn't it the chair's job to represent the group view? 

It basically revolves around the conflict of interest from her participation in the lawsuit. It seems perfectly understandable that she could use her position as PB Chair to influence stuff related to the case.