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Health & Fitness

PLANNING, CHAOS OR PLANNED CATASTROPHE

I recently attended a City of Wildomar Planning Commission meeting during which I witnessed utter pandemonium.Following this display I decided to look at our Planning Commission.
The Planning Commission came into being on August 13, 2008 by council vote with commissioners sworn in September of same with their first scheduled meeting occurring in November 5 months after incorporation (this is something that could have been planned during pre-incorporation so the Planning Commission was ready to go the first month. Their education was to attend a County of Riverside Planning meeting. To be fair there were also two special meetings covering the Brown Act, land use and harassment prevention totaling 4 ½ hours. The very first regular meeting lasted 15 minutes and the next one was cancelled. In fact over the last 5 years out of 108 scheduled meetings 51 have been cancelled, that is  47% cancelled, at least one cancellation was a total embarrassment when at a presentation of the results of the Visioning session the planning commission lacked a quorum. Menifee a city incorporated around the same time has a cancellation rate of 13%.
Looking at the age and jobs history of our Planning Commission against others one finds the average age of the commission to be 60 years of age with 3 from the real estate field. (2 with licenses and one worked for an appraisal company) one is a teacher and one a business owner. Our commissioners are beholden to the city council member that selects them, which is why two of them are former members of Wildomar Incorporate Now (WIN) just like 2 of our council members.Again comparing us to Menifee their average age is 50.6 with one in construction, a insurance company manager, a teacher, one works for a broker services company and one is a 73 year old activist (the same age as one of our commissioners),  Murrieta has an average age of 51.4. Looking around California Hanford California a city of about the same land area and a population of 52,000 (our population at build out) has and average age of 50.57 and Menlo Park 53.7 ( the last 2 also have 7 members to our 5 members. These two cities also have a much more diverse spectrum of lifestyles of the population. 
Some recommendations I would make are to 
1. expand the size to 9 or 10 members, 1 each from individual council members and 4 from the population at large using the bought and paid for districts map to ensure representation of all of Wildomar.
2. A report card outlining the number of meetings scheduled versus those cancelled, attendance of each member, reason for cancellation of meeting (no work, no quorum, etc). An example would be the report card used by the city of Merced Planning Commission (http://www.cityofmerced.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=12438) along with a rule change requiring excused absence of a member be voted on by the commission at the meeting. 
3. A Planning Commissions handbook like the one used in Hanford found at http://www.ci.hanford.ca.us/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?blobid=6389 explaining the duties and responsibilities of a Planning Commissioner.

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