To the surprise of few, former Mayor Mickey Segal was appointed by the City Council to fill the seat of John Wuo, who resigned as a Council Member on Oct. 6. The only uncertainty was whether he would get the votes of all four Council Members — he did.
Segal confirmed that he intends only to fulfill the remaining 5 1/2 months of Wuo’s term and not campaign for office in the next election March/April 2016. Segal made it clear it is his desire to try to resolve two “very pressing issues” before the next election that begins by mail in March or at least before the next Council is sworn-in April 19, 2016:
fighting to shoot down a measure on the April ballot to repeal the Utility Users Tax – “I find it somewhat just short of appalling that 500 citizens can sign a document that would challenge the services and the quality of life to all Arcadians,” he said.
ensuring that the process of updating the residential (and commercial) zoning code is completed quickly so that a resident-written code limiting home sizes will not be required — signatures are now being gathered (3,000 are required) for such a measure to get on the ballot as early as April — “It’s broken, it needs to be fixed, but there’s a proper process to fix it,” he said. “It would be a terrible shame to take away the process of input from the community; 15, 20 members picked by our planning and our City Manager whose goal would be to get in a room, work for three or four months and try to resolve our residential zoning, presumably coming up with a unanimous recommendation to the council. That’s process; that’s how a city like ours should work.” Segal later got a majority endorsement of his proposal to have a study session to consider putting a moratorium on home demolition permits until the zoning code is updated. He said the potentially tens of thousands of dollars that could be lost by developers during the delay could easily be absorbed in the eventual profits they will make when the moratorium is lifted (presuming they will be allowed to build big houses again). He said he didn’t know all the consequences but would be willing to study it. Presumably some of the impacts might include homeowners having to wait 6-months to sell their property, on real estate agents, and on potential buyers from now until next spring.
Later in the same Council meeting the reconstituted (re-positioned) five-member Council, two weeks after a lawsuit filed by homeowners in the Highlands, unanimously approved the re-starting on work on the update of the zoning code as well as once again including homes in the Highlands in a citywide survey of historical buildings. (Mayor Gary Kovacic separated Council Members Sho Tay and Roger Chandler by designating seats for them on opposite sides of each other on the rostrum (“to change the mojo,” the Mayor said – they were two of three Council Members, including Wuo, who represented the majority vote on issues relating to residential zoning codes during the months that a lawsuit was pending against the City)
A committee of community members that had been constituted months ago before being put on hold due to the lawsuit will be embellished with additional representatives to get as many voices as possible in the process of deciding codes should be established.
The acceleration of the process after months of delays and in an effort to get it done by March 2016 before the election will cost an additional $16,000 for the consultant and an addititonal $20,000 for more community education outreach, including public meetings and mailings. The process was previously budgeted at $160,000, of which $103,000 had been spent earlier this year before being put on hold. The first mailing is going out this week to provide facts about zoning codes and comparisons to other nearby cities.
— By Scott Hettrick