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Tuesday night the members of the Wake
Forest Planning Board received a
lawyerly overview of the town’s new
conflict of interest guidelines, some
straight talk from chairman Bob Hill and
an avuncular but pointed message from
Commissioner Frank Drake.
“There has been some concern
about the planning board and its role,”
Hill said. The town is very fortunate to
have the talented people of varied
background and experience on the board,
“but there are a lot of thing we’ve been
slipping into.”
Board members need to leave
areas that are regulated by local, state
and federal agencies to those agencies.
“Let those agencies handle them.”
If board members have a
question or a concern about an agenda
item – they receive their agendas with
full documentation about a week before
the meeting – they should call or e-mail
a planning staff member.
“When we have a public
hearing, the purpose is to gather input
from the public,” Hill said. “It is not
the time to engage in debate with them.
Let the person speaking finish before we
start peppering them with questions.”
He also said the meetings
need to be orderly and referred to an
incident during the meeting that evening
when there was someone at the podium
trying to speak, three planning board
members were talking and a staff member
was trying to answer a question.
Drake made it clear what his
authority was: “The board has asked me
to speak to you.”
The board agrees, he said,
“We need you. It is critical that you
are here.”
Any legislative body, Drake
said, “has a practiced sense of
decorum.” He cited his relationship with
Commissioner David Camacho. The two have
served together on the planning board
and the town board. “David never tells
me I am hair-brained. He may say one of
my ideas is hair-brained, but not me.
“If you want to be in
disagreement, disagree with somebody’s
ideas. Persuasion works, derision does
not. When dealing with the public we
must be decorous to the greatest
possible degree. The person standing at
this podium is the reason we are here.
The expression is public servant.”
Drake next turned to the
planning staff. The commissioners, he
said, “hold in high regard their
technical understanding of their jobs.
They are policy wonks. They love what
they do.
“If I want to deal with a
micro level of detail, the staff love
it, but they prefer it before the
meeting. They want it before the meeting
and the town board prefers it before the
meeting.”
Planning board members
should “read up, show up and stay. If
you don’t stay you can’t play.”
The town board derives great
benefit from the planning board’s
questions and discussions. “We get to
see your thought processes. We take to
heart your votes. Do not think we wait
for you to finish and then do what we
bloody well want.”
Drake concluded by saying
they are all volunteers and no one is
trying to “torpedo government or
anybody’s project or serve some secret
agenda. Our goal is to try to bring this
particular herd of cats together.”
Roger Knight, the planning
board attorney, spent the half hour of
the work session before the regular
meeting defining and explaining the
details of the conflict of interest
guideline as pertain to the regular
zoning questions and the more stringent
evidentiary hearings for special uses.
If in doubt, he advised, the board
member should ask one of the planning
staff or call him for advice. |
