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.

Former Mayor Valerie Keehn says she doesn't know what is going on with current Mayor Scott Johnson's formation of his Comprehensive Plan Committee.

After some contentious politics, Johnson named all 13 members of the committee, breaking with precedent.

Keehn was the last mayor to appoint a committee to review the Comp Plan. She called the other day to clear up the debate about how many people she appointed.

Johnson said she had appointed 11 and each of the commissioners had appointed 1 each.

Keehn said that's not what happened. "It's incomprehensible to me why he wouldn't look up the info or just ask someone who was on the committee at the time," she said.

Of course, to be fair, I tried that. No one I talked to could remember with certainty (not even one of the commissioners who made the appointment). And I couldn't find it anywhere in the minutes, coverage of the City Council or in the Comp Plan they came up with.

It's clear Johnson didn't form the committee the way mayors before him had, though.

Johnson started forming the committee in November. It was in The Saratogian a couple times, but he never communicated directly to the other members of the City Council that the committee formation was underway. 

Keehn said when she was mayor, the first thing she did when forming the comp plan committee was request recommendations from the City Council for who should be on the committee: She took two recommendations from each of the commissioners and she appointed the remaining seven seats.

"I didn't say 'Maybe I'll accept your appointments," she said, which is a contrast to Johnson's assertion that recommendations would have to come through him to get to the committee.

He also initially chose 11 names, said he wanted to keep the committee to 13 members, and suggested the commissioners choose someone he had already chosen to be on the committee.

Before Keehn, Ken Klotz (who formed a committee in 2000) appointed five members of the committee and let each of the commissioners appoint one as well. He told me he based that on previous precedent.

Klotz's plan was the last to be adopted. Johnson said Keehn's plan "died on the vine," the committee did, in fact, generate a plan — it was just never voted on.

The required vote of the City Council for adoption would have come when Johnson was in office. It just didn't.

"He probably tossed it in his garbage can," Keehn said.

She said she considered it "an insult" to the work and time the 15-member committee had put in that the plan was never voted on.

"I'd like to know specifically why he decided it wasn't worth him even looking at," she said.

Johnson has not yet returned calls looking for comment. I'll add his comments to the story when I hear back from him.

And while Keehn say's Johnson "probably tossed (the Comp Plan) in his garbage can," someone kept it and here it is:

The 2006 Comprehensive Plan update by