PARLIER – Hoping to increase public engagement and give residents more of a say in how their city grows, Parlier is moving forward with the establishment of a planning commission.
Four members of the Parlier City Council agreed at their meeting May 21 that a planning commission is something they would like to see for the city; Mayor pro tem Sabrina Rodriguez was absent. The council directed City Planner Jeff O’Neal to create and bring back a city ordinance that will officially form the commission.
“I would like to see that, just to get the city more involved, so they can see the process of what’s going on, and how long it takes, and they can bear witness to what’s actually happening in our city of Parlier,” Councilmember Diego Garza said.
The topic first came up in February, when O’Neal presented on what a planning commission does and how the city council could authorize one. The council had directed O’Neal to bring back a resolution declaring the council’s intent to establish a planning commission.
O’Neal said that after his last presentation, the council didn’t really talk much about its thoughts on establishing one, which he wanted to hear.
His recommendation was that the council not form an entirely new administrative body “unless we seriously need to divest the city council of some of the things that it normally is responsible for considering.”
“I don’t know that that would make anything more efficient or practical,” O’Neal said.
While there are some development-related items the planning commission can approve on its own — taking away the burden from the city council — having a commission also adds to the cost and time it takes to process other development applications.
For example, the planning commission can conduct site plan reviews or approve conditional use permits without those items then needing to be approved by the city council.
When it comes to general plan or zoning ordinance updates, however, if a city has a planning commission, that body must hold a public hearing and vote on the item before it moves to the city council, where the public hearing process starts again.
Although this gives the public two opportunities to see an item and comment on it, O’Neal said an additional public hearing adds on the time and costs that come with publishing public notices. This can also create scheduling issues depending on when in a month meetings end up falling, he said.
Council members said they understood this but liked that the commission, and the additional public hearings, can get more people involved.
“I feel it’s really important as a council member to have our community involved in a lot of the questions that they have, and firsthand they’ll be able to see how it works,” Councilmember Janie Molina said. “I think it’s a good idea for us to do this and have our community involved in it.”
Council members also said they liked the idea of forming a commission with four members appointed by council district and a fifth member appointed at-large, mirroring the makeup of the city council. Garza said he also thought the idea of having an alternate would be good to ensure the commission can always achieve a quorum to conduct business.
O’Neal said he could likely have the ordinance prepared by the council’s second regularly scheduled meeting in June.
Water shut-offs
The city is also planning to reinstate its water shut-off policy. Finance Director Mayra Escobedo said the city had a policy prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but no policy has been in place since shut-offs were paused during that time.
According to a city staff report, shut-offs were previously enforced for utility accounts that became delinquent due to non-payment. Without a shut-off policy, unpaid balances have continued to accumulate, which negatively impacts the city’s water utility operating budget.
Parlier’s utility billing includes all fees and charges for water, sewer and disposal services, which must be paid at the same time, the staff report said. This means that people who are not paying their water bills are also not paying their sewer bills or their garbage disposal bills.
The staff report said the city is working to bring back the water shut-off policy in compliance with the California Water Shutoff Protection Act, which details specific things the city must do before it can disconnect residential water service for non-payment.
Escobedo said she brought the item to the council to get any thoughts or direction on the shut-off policy before city staff finalize it. She said she was trying to look for Parlier’s old policy but was not having very much luck with that.
Beltran said the city had developed a policy several years ago and had followed what the city of Sanger was implementing. Her direction to Escobedo was to look at what policy Sanger has and based Parlier’s off of that.
Escobedo said she plans to bring the policy back to the council for adoption at the June 18 council meeting.
