Though it hasn't been on many agendas lately, the formation of the Comp Plan Committee in the city has been getting a good deal of discussion as of late by the members of the City Council, but they aren't the only ones.

Four people spoke out against the Comprehensive Committee that has been formed by Mayor Scott Johnson over the objections and without the input of the four other members of the City Council. If you'll recall, Johnson formed the vast majority of the committee by himself without formally informing any of the City Council members in late2012.

In his State of the City Address in mid-January, he informed the City Council they could have some say in the committee, but later clarified that the four of them could submit recommendations for the13-member committee, after already choosing 11 members. (He also suggested they choose one of the people he had already picked.)

Only Public Works Commissioner Anthony “Skip” Scirocco submitted a recommendation (from the list of suggestions). The other three Commissioners (all Democrats, unlike Johnson and Scirocco, which I'm sure is just coincidence), did not submit recommendations. They also tabled a vote on hiring a consultant for the process, later calling the whole thing “Dead on arrival.”

I'm planning a follow-up on the whole thing this week to see whether the committee is going to be meeting without the consultant or not, but I figured while I wait for this executive session to be over I'd post some of the public comments for the meeting to the blog.

The first to voice concerns about the formation of the committee was City Democratic Committee Chair Charles Brown.

He said “If all of the commissioners had a say in how that board was picked, it would be a different board, but perhaps not that drastically,” but he said what would be different would be the sense in the city that everyone had played a role in the formation of what everyone agrees is perhaps the second-most important document in the city.

“I would think the democratic process would dictate that we would bend over backwards to ensure all of the voices were heard, since we all live in the city,” he said.

Two others also spoke in general terms, one chastising the mayor and asking he be more conciliatory, and the other saying more renewable energy interests should be included.

In a very eloquent appeal to inclusion, Theresa Cappozola called on City Council to disband the current committee and enact another “in a more democratic manner.”

Capazola pointed out that “the overwhelming majority of members represent development interests or rely on development interests.”

She said she and others who do not support development in the city's “Green Belt” have “become powerless against development because they always seem to be in control and we don't have a seat at the table.

“This is a comprehensive plan,” she said, “not a development plan.”

She also asked the rest of the City Council not to vote for any consultants for the project because it would “merely legitimize” the committee which she said is “overly and improperly weighted to development interests.”

The way the committee was formed, she said, has stripped the public of “our small amount of power at the polls” since four of the city's five commissioners were not involved in the process. “This is history repeating itself,” she said. “This is the same fight and the community never wins.”

Anyway, I'll be following up on this, since the last I talked to the mayor about it he said he didn't know if they were going forward with meetings without a consultant.