Yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting had all the charm of divorce court when it arrived at its final piece of business for the day – determining whether or not to deep-six the Building, Accessibility and Fire Code Appeals Board which, while only three meetings old, has strayed outside of its prescribed role in an attempt to hear appeals which the Planning Department and county staff say is none of its concern.
BAFCAB members Marty Fiorovich and Richard Irish each read half of a statement asking the supervisors not to dismiss the remaining members and to consider changing county code to allow a body other than the Planning Department to decide which cases the board should and should not hear . “County codes do not include an independent process for determining the validity of appeals,” read Fiorovich. “A few simple changes to county code could address this.” The statement went on to deny charges leveled by Santa Cruz County counsel Dana McRae and county administrative officer Susan Mauriello that the BAFCAB members had reached “misguided legal conclusions” and was not hearing appeals in an expedient fashion. “The fact that these charges were even allowed to be posted to the agenda says lot of about who’s running this county,” said BAFCAB chair Dan Bronson. “The county administrative officer has chosen to make this a game of political hardball. Ultimately, this is her fault.”
Tensions between the planning department staff and BAFCAB came to a head three weeks ago when Bronson called a meeting to hear an appeal by architect Cove Britton that planning staff had already deemed outside of BAFCAB jurisidiction. Though the meeting was ultimately cancelled, the action resulted in yesterday’s agenda item, which was originally intended to “clarify” the role of the board.
Bronson, Irish and Fiorovich were all that remained of BAFCAB after the resignation of former chair Michael Bethke and, most recently, that of David Parks, who wrote in a letter than he was leaving “in light of the shenanigans that have occurred by actions of the county’s Planning Director.”
A line of speakers stepped to the podium in support of the BAFCAB members. “You don’t have the authority to do what you’re being asked to do,” said Joe Ritchey, a Scotts Valley resident. Two other speakers called the supervisors “domestic terrorists” for attempting to eliminate the board.
Nevertheless, it became clear when Supervisor John Leopold began to speak that BAFCAB didn’t have a prayer. “I want to thank the members of BAFCAB for the work that they’ve done,” he said. “I’d like to make the motion to remove the existing members ֓ He was quickly drowned out by a chorus of loud booing.
“Please stop,” said Supervisor Neal Coonerty over shouts of “This is tyranny!” and “Dictatorship!”
Supervisor Ellen Pirie seconded, saying, “We’ve gotten this board in this situation where it’s so severely dysfunctional. The public deserves better.”
In the end, the termination of the board received unanimous approval, and the room emptied into the hallway for a spirited bout of complaining and half-joking about a recall on Leopold. “I kind of expected this to happen,” said the ousted Irish.
“We bet on it,” joked Fiorovich.
“The ultimate loser is the people of the county,” said Irish. “We were right.”
