By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com
MOUND CITY – The application for a conditional use permit (CUP) for Tanglewood Lakes to build a clubhouse that also would house the development’s offices met a delay on Monday, Feb. 10.
Linn County Commissioner Alison Hamilton and Commission Chair Jim Johnson decided to delay taking actual on the application until they had more information about the CUP. And since Commissioner Jason Hightower was not able to attend Monday’s meeting, they wanted his input as well.
The CUP had been approved by the Linn County Planning and Zoning Board on Thursday, Jan. 23 by a 6-to-0 vote.
Hamilton asked Tanglewood Lake Owners Association President Les Warner to come up to the podium and told him, “It’s not your project, honestly, it’s just a process for me.”
Hamilton apologized to Warner for the delay but explained how she needed more information to make a decision.
Public Works Director Shaun West said that he would get the commissioners more information so they could make a decision at their Feb. 18 meeting.
Warner said that the application process had taken much longer than he had expected. He said that they had been expecting that the CUP would have been approved today.
Originally, the case was slated to be heard by the county planning commission on Jan. 14 but was postponed until Jan. 23 because interim planning and zoning director Darin Wilson had time conflicts with his job with the city of Garnett.
The decision to postpone the vote came after Hamilton had expressed concerns that she should have more information about CUPs ahead of time. She also wanted more information when CUPs were applied for so that she would know what to tell people that were calling her about them.
Mark Hagen, an Overland Park attorney who has been representing the county for some issues, first answered Hamilton’s concern about not having enough information when the CUP was presented to the commission with no background information.
“What I’ve seen in the past, and what I recommend you folks do, is to address your concern directly is you get the issue on your agenda for a regular meeting,” Hagen said. “So, you take it up and the planning and zoning commissioner presents it to you and you say, ‘Thank you for this information; we’re going to table this until a future time,’ so you’re not put in that spot where you get it and decide at the same time.
“And table it until next week or the week after, or put it on the agenda next week and say during the week we reviewed this and we have these questions.”
Hagen said that they could table it again and put it out further if they needed more answers.
“I agree with you 100% this is not a good idea to be hit with something. Get information and decide,” said Hagen.
Hagen told them to use the tools available to them to make a decision, the information, the planning and zoning committee and the planning and zoning director.
Hamilton wanted to clarify the process.
“So I just want to make sure I understand the application,” she said. “So when someone or a citizen would like to file a conditional use permit or whatever it may be, that goes through the planning and zoning director.
“When that application is submitted to planning and zoning, at that point as a commissioner if I have any communication, ex parte communication, with the person that filed the application, I am required to publicly state that I’ve had communication with the person that was on the application. Or I am in violation.”
Hagen said that was correct and continued, “The reason for that is we don’t want you to have a conflict of interest when it comes time to sit at this table and make a decision.”
And that’s just with the person that’s filed, asked Johnson.
“You want to keep a distance between you and these things,” Hagen said. “You want to be conflict-free. You don’t want anybody to question your vote.”
“But there has to be a process for the commissioners to know who has filed any application, what the application is and the person that filed it,” said Hamilton. “Otherwise when I get a phone call from someone and they are yelling at me about something, I don’t know who filed the application. I don’t know anything about the project. I don’t know the address.”
“Mark’s trying to tell us we’ve got full control over once we table it, and I never did what he’s saying,” Johnson said. “But we’ve got full control until we talk about it as a commission and decide what we want to do with it.”
“What I am going to say to you, and you’re not going to like this answer, but if you’re stopped at a convenience store, if you’re stopped at church, whatever,” said Hagen. “If someone wants to strike up a conversation with something that is pending, you don’t know anything about it, and you shouldn’t know anything about it. And you definitely shouldn’t talk about it, because you’re supposed to have a clear mind, so to speak, or a blank slate whenever the planning and zoning brings in the completed document.
“It starts with the applicant, goes through your planning and zoning director where he staffs it. He compares what the regulations are with what they are trying to do and whether they meet them or don’t meet them, makes a recommendation to the planning and zoning (commission) and then they review it using the tools that they have for public comment and presenting evidence and they know the regulations as well.
“It’s somebody’s pipe dream,” Hagen continued, “it’s just imaginary unless and until it leaves planning and zoning in the form of a decision. A decision to recommend it to you or a decision to reject it to you. Then and only then, I am sorry to say this, it’s the way the rules are, that’s the only time you really care about it.”
“Theoretically, planning and zoning could be getting dozens of applicants for any kind of use, re-platting, rezoning, conditional use permits, and they’ll really swamp you,” said Hagen. “You’ll get them confused, and there’s no need.
“If you turn down someone who wants a conditional use permit, and they’re unhappy with your decision, it’s kind of imperative that you never knew anything about it until you had time to review it after planning and zoning finished it.
“You listen to public comment, you listen to recommendations from planning and zoning, the eight factors that we talked about in Golden versus the City of Overland Park, all that stuff. And then, you make your decision.
“But it’s awkward to have a citizen that knows you well and know what you do and says, ‘I just applied to re-plat my property, and I want to sell some lots on it,’ and you say ‘Good for you. I don’t know anything about it and I insist on not knowing anything about it until somebody makes me know about it, namely planning and zoning,’ ” Hagen explained.
“I know that makes sense. I want to say that,” Hamilton said, “but I also do not like it when they call and they tell me about this is going in by my (their) property, and I’m like, I just want to know the application.
“I don’t want to know anything about the project. I just want to know, yes I know it’s on file, it’s going through the process. But I do not like saying ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’”
“Tell them, based on what you are telling me, ‘Mr./Miss citizen there’s an application pending, and let me tell you what the process is and I want you to participate in that, because I can’t participate until somebody makes it real,’“ Hagen said. “And that making it real is get it out of planning and zoning in one form or another, recommended or not recommended.”
Hagen said he felt her pain, but she needed to flip it back on the person who is questioning the permit.
“You need to flip it back on them saying, ‘You’re telling me you have an application’,” Hagen said. “‘I’m happy to hear that, and I fully support your efforts to get whatever you want to get. But I don’t know what it is, and I really shouldn’t know what it is because if you tell me too much, if you make a big issue out of it, Mr./Mrs. applicant, then I am going to recuse myself, and you’re not getting my vote.
“‘You can’t get my vote because you sort of contaminated me, you tainted my vote’.”
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