So much for the Planning Commission PC being the bridge between the people and their government.  At Thursday’s meeting the PC Members defied the will of the people and voted 5-2 to allow RV Camping in our Marina District.  Citizens opposed with more than 2 to 1 against at the June public hearing and yet the PC voted to pass Thursday.  It was apparent the citizens had no vote here and one PC member even said “we are not politicians” could be interpreted as, we can do whatever we want for friends.  That’s obvious!!  There were 2 petitions presented to the PC.  The petition for RVs had a handful more signatures than the one against but it should be noted that it was the mayor‘s father that started the petition for.  The public comments and letters were overwhelmingly against.

We were told by Mr. Mack there was a lot of misinformation being spread.  The problem is he could not hide his enthusiasm to pass this for his friend.  Yes this is how small town politics still works.

What did they actually vote for? Answer they voted to create a definition for a Maritime Resort Zone and in the definition they allowed for RVs with a conditional use permit. One of the ways Mr. Mack supposedly convinced other members to vote for this was by saying in order for marinas to even qualify to be re-zoned they need to have all of the following: active marina, restaurant, hotel with 3+ rooms and a commercial recreational establishment.  Seems a little like spot zoning to me since very few if any of our marinas would ever qualify for this designation.  One citizen that is very well versed on Planning Commission matters said this made absolutely no sense.

The final vote was

YES - Byron (Tree) Mack, Bailey Thompson, Pat Kurtz, Bob Christiansen, and Nathan Howell.

NO votes were Vicki Luna and Bill Hutchins.

It should be noted that the potential buyer has a piece of property in Florida he turned into an RV Park by demolishing all the existing buildings.  Good sources have told me that we could end up with anywhere from 15 to 50 RVs.

I know citizens are very frustrated but this is not over because Council now has to vote to pass this definition. I know of one person at least that needs to recuse themselves, and that would be the mayor.