Close to 100 community members at the La Jolla Recreation Center Thursday, Oct. 5, put a halt to voting for the La Jolla Community Planning Association’s (LJCPA) bylaws until January 2007, when community members who have been attending this year’s meetings will be allowed to vote.
The LJCPA bylaws are a list of rules that regulate the planning group based on a model, called a shell, given to the LJCPA by the City of San Diego. The current bylaws draft states that a person must attend at least two LJCPA meetings within the previous calendar year in order to be considered a voting member in 2006, but some who attended meetings this year claimed they were not aware until recently that they didn’t meet the requirement.
“I was led to believe I was a member in 2006,” said Cindy Thorson, a member of the La Jollans for Clean Government Inc., to the board of trustees. “I went to the meetings concerning the bylaws. I thought I was participating in the right to vote.”
The LJCPA faced a lawsuit in May of this year filed by the La Jollans for Clean Government Inc. group that alleged the planning group had violated its bylaws. The lawsuit was dropped under the condition that the LJCPA update its bylaws document by the end of October, according to Tim Golba, LJCPA president.
At Thursday’s meeting, eligible members were scheduled to vote on amendments to the bylaws. But protests from the crowd, including a member and the lawyer representing La Jollans for Clean Government, held up that process and generated a debate, lasting well over an hour and resulting in an approved motion by the board to wait until the new year to update the bylaws.
“I can’t begin to draw a conclusion about what happened, except that Mr. Haskins knows there will be more sympathy to his cause in January when everyone can vote,” Golba said by phone on Friday. “There is no doubt that was his motives.”
La Jollans for Clean Government Inc. also claims that the LJCPA held a secret meeting, again violating its bylaws, on Sept. 21, but Golba and trustee Marty McGee both denied that claim, stating that the LJCPA met to discuss litigation matters and that the city attorney, the planning board and a representative from Scott Peters’ office were all present.
The bylaws issue became heated during the last hour of Thursday’s meeting when Phil Merten, a board of trustees member, made a motion to approve the current bylaws with four amendments. The most controversial amendment would increase the meeting requirement for LJCPA membership from two to three meetings per year.
“I think it takes at least this many meetings to understand the issues going on in the community,” Merten said to the audience.
However, that was not the general consensus of community members present at Thursday’s meeting.
Several people stated that they thought the current bylaws made it too difficult for La Jollans to become members of their own planning association. They argued that if an individual owned property in the community, he or she should automatically be considered a voting member of the LJCPA.
One La Jolla resident, after discovering that 94 people were named as LJCPA members and given the right to vote at the meeting, questioned whether that was a fair representation of the entire community.
Joseph Dicks, who is also a member of the La Jolla Shores Association, backed up Thorson’s argument, stating he was told months ago by a board of trustees member that he belonged to the LJCPA and would be able to vote at Thursday’s meeting. Dicks said he thought his status changed after the lawsuit was filed.
La Jollans Ray Weiss and Sherri Lightner pointed out many ambiguities within the document, such as spelling errors and unclear terms.
“It is poorly edited and not ready to be voted on,” Weiss said about the document. “I don’t think it’s a reasonable framework to base our community on. I think we should table it and let educated people take a rigorous look at it to clean it up.”
The San Diego mayor’s office has strict limitations on how each planning committee within the city can design its bylaws and has stated that the documents must stay standard to each other and the city’s model, according to Golba.
“We have a real handcuff on us with what we call the shell,” he said of the LJCPA bylaws. “But I do think we will be the ones to push the envelope on this because of the nature of the community and the fact that we have so many active groups.”
The LJCPA has six months left to approve an amended bylaws document, according to Golba, and he hopes that the board and the community can agree on a revised version before that deadline.
The La Jolla Community Planning Association meets the first Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at La Jolla Recreation Center, 615 Prospect St.