279 Soundview - CTPost on flawed process attempt to sell

The Mayor's office requested the BOA consider the appropriateness of the City selling a piece of land which is part of a larger acreage recently acquired at 279 Soundview Ave. The lot is likely the one containing the farmhouse that came with the larger acreage acquisition of the full original parcel.

I don't know what is being proposed because the Conservation Commission has not been consulted yet. I do not know the acreage, street frontage, any impact on access to a remaining public parcel, or who is making the request to the City that they would like to acquire the land.

The Mayor's office is NOT supposed to initiate requests to the Planning & Zoning for them to consider selling City real property (land). Such request must be received by the BOA and then the BOA must determine that the BOA has an interest in selling the property.

Look at my previous blog post on the subject to understand more on the subject.

I have an RSS feed that alerts me to Saturday's CtPost article appearing online today (Friday). I encourage readers to go to the CtPost article as they are the content creator of the article and have methods for readers to comment on their articles within their website. I cut/paste with my comments under right of fair-use for public education as Chairman of the Conservation Commission.

http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_11907251
Process to sell city property flawed
By Kate RamunniStaff Writer
Updated: 03/13/2009 08:02:39 PM EDT

SHELTON -- The Planning and Zoning Commission's favorable recommendation for the city to sell a portion of the property on Soundview Avenue it just bought may not hold much weight.
That's because the process to sell city-owned property wasn't followed, according to the president of the Board of Aldermen.

On Tuesday the commission voted 3-2 to report favorably on the proposal to sell about an acre of the 14-acre property -- the portion of the site that has on it a single-family home -- in order to recoup part of the $2.1 million price tag.

++ The PZC should only be concerned with this from the perspective of a planning for city purposes perspective. They are a land use agency, not a fiscal authority ++

Mayor Mark A. Lauretti's office asked the commission for the ruling, which violated the process to sell city-owned property. The request was supposed to come from the Board of Aldermen and was supposed to go to the Conservation Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission before being forwarded to Planning and Zoning.

++ If the BOA had their Reg monthly mtg last night. Their next Reg monthly mtg will occur after the CC has it's Reg monthly mtg. If the BOA do not receive this request, then act on it to forward to the CC for comment during a special mtg during the interm, the CC can not act on it during it's Apr1 mtg, and it would have to wait for our May mtg. Something that should have been taken care of at last nights BOA mtg was fouled up proceedurally ++

Former Alderman Chris Panek, who heads up the Citizen's United Party, brought up the issue at the Board of Aldermen's monthly meeting Thursday. "It was a blatant violation of the process," he said. "The vote should be null and void."

++ I must give credit to Chris who caught that a request to the PZC must come from the BOA, not the Mayor's office. I missed that when I talked to the Mayor's Adm Asst this week to ask what was going on. ++

He also expressed concern about the fact that the zoning agenda didn't specify which property on Soundview Avenue was being discussed -- it only listed the road name. "The agenda didn't say which number it was," he said.

++ The PZC should list, consistently the development name, street address, and application number. A search engine such as google can be restricted to the city website by entering site:cityofshelton.org as part of a query in the search box. If the balance of the query is an application number, you can deftly find all content in minutes or agendas that refer to that matter. Not having minutes in the full on the City website, works toward hiding information from the public, which can be done either purposely or unknowingly ++

Conservation Commission Tom Harbinson shared Panek's concern. "Not listing the full street address is suspicious," he said. "The process was not appropriately followed."

++ Just for the reasons stated above. ++

Board of Aldermen president John Anglace agreed. "Your comments are absolutely on the mark," he told Panek. The request for the 8-24 referral -- which refers to the state statute that requires land use boards give such recommendations to the legislative body -- came from Lauretti's administrative assistant and not from the board, he said.

"We have to get in synch," he said. "We will not go any further with this until we ask for the recommendations from the Conservation Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission. As far as I am concerned, the zoning recommendation is null and void," he said.

++ I will be curious to see the accompanying request. ++

Harbinson said that communication between city board and agencies needs improvement.
"Communication from City Hall is very poor," he said. "I am disappointed with the communications that comes from City Hall."

++ There are many good workers in City Hall, but there is a poor process put in place in which they are reqd to work under. The worst of those processes is communication. There is no sharing process or central application system by which progress of proposals can be monitored. This is one such case. A simple pdf scan of the request could be emailed to the BOA. They review it at their leisure, then discuss it and act on it if need be at the BOA mtg. The same materials can possibly then be emailed to the CC and PRC members who review it at their leisure, comment on it during their meetings and make recomendation back to the BOA. The BOA can then email fwd those two responses to the PZC for their consideration. The whole process can take one month, and be transparently and clearly be known to the public. ++