As Ocean Beach Planning Board members sat in the activity room of the Ocean Beach recreation center discussing the minutiae of their governing document, jetliners roared overhead.
Although board members didn’t finish revisiting their by-laws, they voted to fire off a letter to the San Diego Regional Airport Authority in response to the environmental impact report concerning the proposed build-out of Lindbergh Field.
In spite of the obstreperous engine roars, board members pored over the document that will chart their future course.
Although they tweaked the language a bit, their revisions to the by-laws template ” a document provided by the city ” must be approved by City Council before becoming official. Adopting the template would ensure compliance with state law.
“We are elected officials who serve these [Ocean Beach] districts, and we have rules to follow,” said Landry Watson, Ocean Beach Planning Board chair.
Of the 42 recognized planning groups in the city, Ocean Beach joins the ranks of about nine ” including the Peninsula Community Planning Board ” that have yet to complete and submit their amended by-laws for city approval. The OB planning board will continue to work on them through next month, Watson said.
Those boards that fail to submit their new by-laws for approval would have to enter January’s election cycle with their old by-laws, said Maxx Stalheim, a senior city planner.
If approved by the city staff or City Council, the by-laws would offer a level of protection against lawsuits and in cases of indemnification.
Falling in line with the city’s shell allows the city to back the planning board in the event of a potential lawsuit.
While the shell, or template, also standardizes boards’ by-laws to ensure compliance with the law, it also leaves room for each community to make changes as it sees fit.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Stalheim said. “We [the city] recognize that each community is unique.”
Ocean Beach certainly is a unique community, said Craig Klein, local business owner and board member.
Changing some language in the by-laws would allow the Ocean Beach Planning Board to preserve some autonomy as an advisory board to the city’s Planning Department, he said.
“They gave us a template and said, ‘Your by-laws will look like this,'” he said. “We want our by-laws to reflect that we are a special community.”
One particular language addition would allow the board to “advise on issues of concern to the community,” allowing members to weigh in on bigger issues affecting the local community like those involving the San Diego International Airport.
The board also moved to send a letter to the Airport Authority with their response to the airport’s environmental impact report on plans to add 10 new gates at Terminal 2 at Lindbergh Field.
Authored by board member Shane Finneran, the OBPB’s letter addresses the proposed addition of the new gates, the construction of a proposed parking structure and other improvements.
The letter asks the Airport Authority for “evidence to support or refute the draft EIR’s claim that [San Diego International Airport’s] passenger and flight numbers will be the same with or without the proposed expansion.”
Finneran said the statement echoes that of the Port of San Diego as well as that of the city.