By Jeffrey A. Schwartz
Now that Starbucks has withdrawn its application, perhaps it is a good time to look at what happened procedurally. The Planning Commission hearing about Starbucks should be a wake-up call, but unfortunately not of the caffeine and steamed milk variety. The hearing was something of a sham. While the planning commissioners were trying to do the right thing, staff provided false information to them.
The Planning Commission chair told the large audience at the hearing that the commission had received direction from the planning director that the Starbucks decision had to be based exclusively on questions of parking and traffic, and that issues like competition could not be considered. The planning director echoed these remarks. That ruling determined the course of the public hearing. Some people who came wanting to speak about competition or the mix of businesses in the Village or how Starbucks would affect the business climate did not speak or changed their remarks to conform to those guidelines. When residents did raise those topics, they were told they could not be considered. After the public hearing closed, discussion among the planning commissioners was limited to parking and traffic circulation.
The staff direction was wrong. The Planning Commission may consider how a proposed new business will competitively affect existing businesses, the business atmosphere of the area and the existing concentration of similar businesses. All of this is abundantly clear from both case law (Van Sicklen v. Brown, 1971; Bickford Realty v. City of Livermore, 1977) and from prior city practices. In 1992, an additional liquor store applied for a use permit in the Village. The city attorney told the City Council that they could consider "the concentration of this business within the Village and the effect it will have on other businesses as well as the atmosphere as a whole." Both the Planning Commission and the council were told they could consider competition as an issue. The City Council resolution denying the use permit to the liquor store includes the following finding: "Two establishments which sell alcoholic beverages for off-site consumption currently operate in the Village." Earlier city decision-making about the number of gas stations, restaurants and banks in the Village has also considered competition and the impact on existing businesses. At the Starbucks hearing, the Planning Commission was told they could not consider that there were already two coffeehouses operating in the Village.
The larger question is whether this incident will motivate our elected and appointed officials to hold city staff accountable. This is, after all, only the latest in a series of situations in which senior staff have lead the city in embarrassing or financially disastrous directions. Most recently, the city lost between 12 and 20 percent of its operating budget, because apparently the city manager or the city attorney recommended a "heads we win, tails you lose" strategy on the utility tax ballot measure, which residents defeated at the polls.
Measure G passed overwhelmingly, substantially aided by citizen reaction to the city staff's biased "the sky is falling" analysis of the measure. Yet, for the staff, even Measure G was not an adequate signal from the community about the importance of neighborhood integrity and environmental preservation. In the last council election, City Hall arrogance remained a central campaign issue, and the incumbent councilmember lost in a landslide. There are a host of other issues, ranging from the Cocciardi hillside disaster to embezzlement by the city's previous finance director, to the city's spiraling costs for litigation.
If the city of Saratoga were a publicly held corporation, the last few elections would have led to the resignation of the CEO and, perhaps, other top managers. How can the city of Saratoga change direction or style without holding its top staff accountable?
Jeffrey Schwartz is a community activist and Measure G backer.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 19, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.