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Show Higher degree of cooperation Bountiful planners seek better communication with council By PAUL CHALLIS News Editor BOUNTIFUL Asking the city council for a higher degree of cooperation and communication, members of the city planning commission met recently with council members to discuss their role in city government. "Over the last few weeks I have seen subtle signals that we are not communicating with each other," Mayor Robert Linnell said. "I want to try to avoid any misunderstandings between the planning commission and the council. ' ' One of the items discussed by the two bodies included includ-ed a request from the planning commission for the city attorney to attend the regularly scheduled meetings to help the planners on tough legal issues. Linnell said that after considering the request, his recommendation would be not to have the attorney go to the meetings. He told the commission to call him for his input and expertise, but he didn't see requiring him to attend the meetings each time. Another question from the commission was whether it was legal for Councilman Leslie Foy to vote as a member of the planning group. Linnell said that, although al-though Foy was representing the council on the commission, com-mission, his vote was just as valid as any of the other members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. The planning commission has also discussed in open meetings the desire to be included in the planning of the downtown development of the 180,000 square foot shopping center proposed by Johansen-Thackeray and Company. At this point in the process the negotiating has been between the Redevelopment Agency and Bountiful City. "The planning commission has no authority to contract con-tract for the city,' Linnell said dispelling the notion that the commission should be involved in the process. "The RDA does the negotiations for Bountiful City." The mayor added that the council follows the recommendations rec-ommendations of the full-time staff including the city manager. "One of those things was to revitalize downtown as developed by the Bountiful Economic Development Plan," he said. The plan completed in 1990 through Bonneville Research Re-search included downtown development as the number one goal. Other subjects of the plan were retail resurgence res-urgence downtown, the possibility of a junior college in Bountiful and how to attract or develop a downtown anchor to draw traffic into the area. Priority A is to encourage en-courage high impact development. Planning Commission Chairman Cheryl Oku bo thanked the council and the mayor for the input and asked that a better or open line of communication exist between the planners and city officials. "We would like to work more closely with you (the council) than we have in the past," she said-Commission said-Commission member Kathy Izatt told the council that she was concerned about the option agreement with Johansen-Thackeray and Company for the RDA project downtown and thought it should go before the planners for their input. I Tom Hardy, city manager, answered Izatt saying the downtown project didn't need conceptual site plan ar proval from the commission and only put it into the fourth benchmark as a courtesy to the planners. "First the feasibility of the project has to be determined," Other commission members questioned the downtown project, wanted better education for members on planning issues, and asked for the council to work with the group with a higher degree of cooperation coopera-tion and communication. "I think we are all after the same thing. We both want to work at making Bountiful a better place as much as 50 years from now," Okubo said. "We only want what is right for downtown Bountiful." |
