22 seats open on our city boards!

Check out what's available

Aug 27, 2024

brown wooden board — Photo by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash

There are 22 open seats on our boards, commissions, and committees. Click on the links below for the boards that call to you, read up on their duties, and apply now or chat with members and staff at the open house:

August 29, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM at the Bob L. Burger Recreation Center, 111 W. Baseline Rd

If you’re wondering why some boards aren’t included, they have full membership with no members’ terms ending this year.

Other board members are serving terms that end at some point this year (remember the one-time term length adjustments to make this transition work) and some boards have vacant seats. For instance, SRAB the Sustainability and Resilience Advisory Board shows 5 open seats, currently they have 1 alternate seat open with 4 members’ terms ending in November. Those 4 members can reapply for the seats during this recruitment period if they want to stay on SRAB.

There are 2 openings on the planning commission, the chair and the vice chair’s terms ended in June, their terms were extended for this transition and they can apply to be reappointed if they wish.

Up to now, except for the planning commission and LURA, sitting board members could be reappointed to their seats by asking the council via a letter of interest. Moving forward sitting members wishing to stay on their board after their term ends will be required to reapply during this new recruitment period.

The planning commission has been handled differently. When a member’s term ended, the seat was advertised as open and anyone could apply including the member who wished to stay. Our code requires that 3 councilors interview the applicants and make a recommendation to the full council who then votes to approve. Nerd that I am I have attended all of the interviews conducted since 2015. The PC is an important board and listening to the interviews can be enlightening.

HISTORICAL PLANNING COMMISSION SIDESTEP

You know how I like to add tidbits of history!

In 2001 some of us had been asking for changes to the makeup of the Planning Commission. At the time the mayor and two councilors served on the commission with 6 residents appointed by the mayor.

We wanted to remove the councilors from the commission and have the entire council appoint the members. We felt this would create a better method of checks and balances with the council checking the planning commission’s work.

With this change, councilors would no longer be in the position of analyzing the work of their colleagues, and we hoped there would be less rubbing stamping of the commission’s decisions by the council.

The council was supportive ( it would also lessen some councilors’ workload!) and placed the issue on the ballot, changing the number of members to 7, removing the councilors, and requiring the entire council to vote on the appointments. The voters approved.

After the vote, I had a disagreement with then City Attorney Pat Tisdale about the ballot language. I maintained it said all sitting members of the commission reapply, but she said it didn’t. (Narrator’s voice “It did”) Finally, she copped to saying it was “inartfully” written but stood by her opinion. (insert an emoji with tongue sticking out here)

THE OPEN SEATS!