City Disrespects Planning Process

Dear Editor,
    Despite no authority to do so, city staff proposed their own amendment to the Dawson Neighborhood Plan, and they did so without notifying the two homeowners whose properties they had offered up for a scheduled vote by the Planning Commission (NPA-07-0001.01, Planning Commission meeting, March 27). One of the homeowners is 73, and the other is 90.
    Both longtime citizens had refused to sign papers necessary for the developer group's original proposed plan amendment. They both came to neighborhood meetings to clearly state that they did not care if their neighbors sought changes that would allow development but that they did not want to change their own property. City staff attended these meetings. After losing a neighborhood vote, the developer group applied for the plan amendment leaving out these two senior citizen's properties. This was the decent thing to do. These elders obviously wanted to be left alone. However, city neighborhood and planning staff decided that they had the authority to add properties that had not been applied for!
    This is the first time city staff has offered up properties for a plan amendment when the owner did not apply. This is also the first time the city did not inform the owners nor the surrounding owners that properties not listed in the official city notice would be voted on. City staff's disrespect for the elderly and disrespect for the neighborhood planning process is shocking.