Thomas MacMillan File Photo
When the Board of Zoning Appeals meets Tuesday night, member David Streever won’t be there. He’s boycotting a city board that he says “doesn’t have the right to operate.”
On Monday, Streever (at right in photo) accused the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) of several improprieties: not keeping minutes or making them accessible to the public, not using Robert’s Rules of Order, and discussing agenda items outside of public meetings. Streever said he won’t serve on the board until the BZA fixes those problems and Chair Cathy Weber (at left in photo) agrees that she can’t tell board members to “shut up.”
That’s what Streever alleges Weber told him during the voting session of the last meeting of the BZA, in July. It caused him to storm out of the meeting, and triggered the complaint process that resulted in his boycott.
After the July meeting, Streever publicly accused Weber of bullying other board members and instructing them how to vote. Streever said he then contacted the mayor’s office and spoke with the city’s corporation counsel, with no appreciable result.
When asked for comment at July’s BZA meeting, Weber refused to acknowledge the existence of a reporter.
Sean Matteson, the mayor’s chief of staff, said the proper way to deal with Streever’s complaints is at the BZA, with a public discussion and board vote about BZA procedures. Streever said he’s submitted an agenda item to that effect. It is to appear on the October agenda.
In the meantime, since his concerns have not not addressed, he’s not going to show at the September meeting on Tuesday night, he said.
This is the latest in a string of complaints about allegedly secretive or improper behavior by mayorally appointed boards and commissions. An hearing is scheduled for Tuesday night into similar concerns about the Board of Assessment Appeals. The Fire Commission promised it would stop conducting public business behind closed doors after hearing from the state Freedom of Information Commission.
On Monday, Streever explained how he came to that course of action. He said he first contacted Mayor John DeStefano by email in July. He said he told him Weber shouldn’t be pressuring other board members to vote in certain ways, and that BZA members should not be discussing zoning applications privately. Such behavior leaves the city open to lawsuits, Streever said.
The mayor referred Streever to City Corporation counsel Victor Bolden, Streever said. “I met with Victor in late July.”
He said he told Bolden about what was going on at the BZA: no minutes kept, no method of running meetings, private discussion of zoning applications. “He just kept asking me, ‘Is any of that illegal?’” Streever said. “I said I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.”
Streever said he was assured Bolden would look into it, then he never heard from him. He contacted the mayor again. After three emails, the mayor responded, Streever said. According to Streever, the mayor said he’d talked to other BZA members and it seemed like a vote by the board on its own procedures was the best way forward.
“I suspect that won’t accomplish much if you’ve already talked to board members,” Streever said.
By the time the mayor got back to him, it was too late to get a procedural discussion on the September agenda, Streever said. So he submitted it for the October meeting and decided to pass on Tuesday’s meeting.
“I honestly think the process isn’t legitimate,” Streever said. Weber conducts meetings as though she has an employer-employee relationship with other members, he said.
He’s looking for a public acknowledgment by Weber that she does not have the right to tell members to “shut up,” Streever said.
Streever said he was told by the mayor that Matteson would be handling Streever’s complaints. He said he never heard from Matteson.
“I reached out to David and asked if he wanted to talk about it,” Matteson said on Monday. Streever declined to meet, he said.
The way to deal with Streever’s concerns is to take them up with the BZA itself, Matteson said. “The best place to address his concerns is with his fellow members of the board.”
“I don’t understand how it could not be a legitimate body,” Matteson said.
Matteson said he doesn’t know if the BZA is required to use Robert’s Rules of Order.
As for ex parte discussion of zoning application, board members can have “lots of reasons to talk about the agenda,” Matteson said.
No meeting minutes? “I believe everything is recorded and transcribed,” Matteson said. “To my knowledge, everything is recorded.”
Matteson rejected Streever’s contention that the BZA has no right to operate. “I don’t understand that,” he said.
Streever sent the following proposed discussion items to City Plan Department staff, for placement on the October agenda:
“1. Making minutes available to the public
2. Restricting conversation to the public meeting only: no conversations off-record
3. The Board must use a standard protocol (such as Robert’s Rules Revised) in conducting meetings
4. The City should appoint a full board of members. Currently the board relies on alternates to have a quorum, and this is not correct.”
The part Sean hasn't gotten back to is that I inquired about the Ethics commission and filing a complaint there. Yes, Sean did offer to talk to me on the telephone about Cathy Weber, and I declined. There is no need for a conversation about matters of transparency.
The Board needs to make it's minutes publicly available and open to the citizens. The board needs to acknowledge why it denies certain citizens and not others, so that they may amend their appeals and return with an appeal that does serve the public interest and the needs of their neighborhood.
Flat denials of appeals cost citizens time, money, and hurt our cities appeal to small businesses and home owners.
Not making meeting minutes publicly available hurts our democracy and makes the BZA appear to be an even more secretive body than it currently seems to be.
Why the Mayor's office is not willing to make meeting minutes publicly available and order the board to stop deciding votes outside of a public meeting is a real question that I think more people should be asking.
This board has power over the finances and day to day lives of real people in this city. Without some checks and balances, that power can be exercised to hurt some and help others in an arbitrary or unfair manner.
I've been trying to submit an ethics grievance but to date no one from city hall has sent me even so much as a phone # to call to do so.
If the Mayor and Sean are hell-bent on blocking citizens from filing ethics complaints, they should just dissolve the 2 (out of 3 person) board immediately. As it is, it publishes no agenda/minutes nor do they have a schedule of meetings listed.