HMB City Council violated its own procedures in selecting planning commission

The Half Moon Bay City Council violated its own procedures when it appointed two at-large members on Tuesday, February 22, without public interviews.  This departure from past practice was questioned by council members Gorn and Grady at the time, but they were overruled.

According to a resolution passed by the city council in 1998,  and signed by then-mayor Naomi Patridge, "Nominations shall be accepted only of applications who have been interviewed by the city council prior to such nomination." [PDF of procedure] The five "councilmember-designee" positions do not require interviews.  The resolution was discovered by city council staff after the meeting.

This puts the city council in an embarrassing situation that they will have to rectify at their next meeting, probably by rewriting the policy after the fact.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, council members will receive a list of all projects City Hall staff are currently working on. [PDF of priorities]  The city council members will discuss additions or deletions to the list. They’ll get the amended list on March 16 and have until March 23 to individually select the most and least important projects and return the list to staff, which will compile the results and present them at the April 4 meeting of the city council.