All five candidates running in the May 6 City Council elections in Fredericksburg were asked last night about an issue that hasn't been on the front burner lately, but will very likely be decided in the next City Council term.
It's the question of who has the right, or "standing" as it's known in legalese, to challenge decisions made by the Architectural Review Board, which regulates development in the Historic District.
Last night's forum was hosted by the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation Inc., which has voiced support for a wider standard for who can challenge these decisions.
City ordinance says only people who are "aggrieved" by the board's decisions may appeal them.
The Circuit Court upheld the city's definition of aggrieved as meaning someone with a direct, immediate, pecuniary interest that is different from that of the public at large, or even that of residents of the Historic District at large.
Mayoral candidates Debby Girvan and Tom Tomzak both gave answers that differed slightly from statements they've made at council meetings about standing.
Both have advocated in the past for retaining the current definition of standing.
Tomzak said last night that the definition of standing "should be based on objections that were made at the ARB," and "should be extensive."
At an October council work session on standing, Tomzak argued that citizens already have the ability to participate in ARB decisions through the public hearings that board holds.
"If we've got full public participation in the process, and I as a private citizen disagree with the outcome, why should I have the ability to appoint myself to derail [a project] even more?" he said in October.
At that same October meeting, Girvan said opening ARB decisions to more appeals could provide dissenters a tool to slow down development projects.
"The victim is going to be the property owner who is trying to make progress," she said at the time.
Last night, she said the main issue is that "citizens have a right to be heard by their elected officials when there are controversies or questions."
She advocated a compromise that would allow residents to get an "executive review" of an ARB decision shortly after it was made.
"That would give the residents an opportunity to have a say," she said. "It would still protect the property owner and keep the project on schedule."
Kerry Devine, who is running for re-election to her at-large council seat, said in October she was interested in broadening the definition of standing. She repeated that position last night.
"When something changes within the Historic District, I do believe that members of that district do have standing," she said. "My argument was to allow citizens to be heard."
At-large candidate Mary Katherine Greenlaw was on the task force that examined standing more than two years ago.
She pointed out that when the Planning Commission and ARB got together to consider the issue, they voted to keep the current standard.
She indicated support for the current "aggrieved" standard.
"Standing is too important for it to be restricted," she said. "Anyone who is aggrieved should have standing."
At-large candidate B-J Huff said he didn't want to open the standard too wide.
"We have limited time and limited resources, and we can't have a situation where anyone can just come on a whim and say 'we don't like this project,'" he said. "But if you can find either enough people or someone with a substantial interest in this process, I think that's where we need to go."
Emily Battle: 540/374-5413
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com
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Here are the facts behind recent candidate statements: THE RIVER EASEMENT Tom Tomzak claimed at a forum earlier this week that he persuaded Debby Girvan to vote for a conservation easement to protect city river lands in 2006. Girvan said Tomzak had nothing to do with her vote. "The document had to be legally sound and the money had to be protected in perpetuity in an endowment," she said. "Neither was the case until a few weeks before the vote." Here is what happened two years ago: At Girvan's request, the city hired an outside attorney to review the easement. That attorney suggested some minor word changes and clarifications, but nothing that significantly changed the document. City e-mails from the time show that Tomzak, not Girvan, asked city staff to postpone the vote on the easement until after the details of the endowment had been clarified.
AUTOCHALK Girvan has repeatedly held up the $100,000 the city spent to buy the AutoChalk parking-enforcement equipment as an example of something the city could have done without to free up money in the budget for greater needs. "If we're borrowing money from the executive office plaza fund to buy needed safety equipment for public works, we should not be spending $100,000 for a parking vehicle downtown," she said at a candidate forum. She also said that the city brought in more revenue before AutoChalk was instituted than it does after the fact. She said AutoChalk has increased the cost of parking enforcement because the city now has three parking attendants when it once had two. The city used revenues from the gas tax it charges as a member of the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission to purchase the AutoChalk software and the hybrid Toyota Highlander it is on. That money must be spent The money to replace two pieces of old public works equipment came from leftover funds in the Cowan Boulevard project. Money from the Executive Plaza project went toward other needs. According to city police, Fredericksburg has brought in more money in parking fines during the first nine months of the 2008 fiscal year than it did during all of fiscal 2007, before AutoChalk was implemented. Police Chief David Nye agreed in August to enter a partnership with the University of Mary Washington by which both UMW and the city would put up $8,000 for a part-time parking enforcement officer who could focus on the student-related parking concerns in College Heights. That was how the third parking-enforcement officer was added to city staff. |