Councilwoman Cathy Fahey rounded up her own summary of the last Planning Committee meeting by writing "Though, I was not completely satisfied with the outcome, the legislation is adequate and I plan to vote in favor of it at the May 7 Council meeting."
So it seems likely that the legislation will pass. After all, it's very rare for the council not to pass something that a committee recommended for passage. (Once upon it time it was rare for anyone to vote against anything . . .)
This should not mean that anyone should avoid coming to make comments if they have them. Because the legislation is leaving a lot up in the air, the way the new board will operate is still subject to discussion.
The one main point that has been under contention and will actually be decided in this legislation is that four city employees—the chief of police, the commissioner of development and planning, the commissioner of general services and the director of Albany Community Development Agency—and one appointee, a member of the planning board, will be voting members of the new board.
Many people have questioned both why employees who should be expected to be working on this process as part of their jobs also get to being voting members, and others have questioned why these people in particular; why the police chief for example, as opposed to, say, the commissioner of the Department of Recreation or a member of the Water Board.
These are good questions to ask, and I don't know that there is one perfect answer. There is at least one good reason that I haven't heard mentioned to have these people involved directly: Like anyone else, they are more likely to cooperate with implementing a plan that they feel bought-in to. And you need their cooperation to implement one, especially if you want to get into any changes beyond a simple land-use plan. That shouldn't trump public control of the process, but it's a good subordinate goal.
On the other hand, as many people have said, even the appearance of any back-room dealing or bias could compromise the process by turning people off. There are plenty of people who feel that the presence of city employees might do that.
I understand this, and even sympathize with it somewhat, but I have a couple countervailing thoughts: First, if this process is limited only to people who have set opinions about the trustworthiness of various portions of city government, then it will have been far too narrow.
And second, a planning process should be about working together. It's not about formulating two competing camps and arm-twisting people to vote for one or the other. Decisions should be made by as near to consensus as possible. So while there will likely be conflict and disagreement, and I would be reluctant to file this under the same model as much of the rest of what happens/has happened in this city. Rather, I want to see whoever is on this board enter into a process so open that even if they're used to cutting back-room deals, horse-trading, power-broking or currying favor, that there is no space for it. That would be a far greater success in my mind than flexing the might of the Common Council by keeping all members of the administration off the board.
A while back I was involved in some of the large direct-action protests that followed the one at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. We knew that our meetings were going to be infiltrated by police. Rather than set ourselves on a futile mission of trying to be more and more secretive and exclusive so that wouldn't happen, or constantly accusing people of being infiltrators, we went the other route, doing everything completely out in the open. It was better for our souls and better for our results.
I'm pretty sure that the people who hold this concern, like Councilwoman Fahey, are not going to abandon the process if the legislation passes as is. That, at least, is clearly the right answer.
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