LJSPRC resignation for unfair hearing This letter is to inform you and the La Jolla Shores Permit Review Committee (LJSPRC) that I am resigning from this committee, effective immediately. This is in protest for the committee’s unfair hearing given to the revised Hillel Project, presented to the committee at our February and March 2012 meetings. The reason for my resignation is threefold. First, every applicant coming before a community board should be afforded a fair and unbiased review of the proposed project. Several members of the board previously held positions in groups in opposition to this project or have previously publicly opposed this project. These board members failed to disclose this fact prior to our review of this project. Disclosure is required for committee members by either abstaining or by recusing themselves from deliberations regarding projects that they had previously opposed or where members were in opposition groups. Some committee members were members in organized groups in opposition to or had submitted public letters or public testimony in opposition to the previous rendition of this particular project. The requirement to abstain or recuse oneself is required by subcommittee bylaws, bylaws of the La Jolla Community Planning Association and by city policy 600-24, which governs actions of committee members. This inaction by committee members to disclose this has denied this applicant of a fair and impartial hearing. Second, members of the subcommittee chose not to follow the policy guidelines written in the La Jolla Community Plan. In the review of the project, which provided a community park, committee members disregarded policy guidelines advocating the need for community parks in that same policy document. And finally, based on the La Jolla Shores Planned District Ordinance, community members failed to review the project fairly. Because of their bias against the project, they denied the project based upon an unsubstantiated claim that the bulk and scale of these residentially scaled buildings were out of character with the neighborhood and failed to follow the overriding design guidelines of “unity of variety” by claiming the design of these buildings were out of character with the neighborhood. The importance of fair and unbiased review by the community group is at the heart of the reason for community review, and by denying a fair hearing of an applicant, not only violates the subcommittee bylaws, CPA bylaws and the San Diego policy 600-24, it is un-American and a clear violation of these guidelines. I can no longer support a group that so clearly denies applicants a fair hearing, and therefore resign from this committee, effective immediately. I will also request that the CPA investigate these serious allegations as well as the San Diego Planning Department and City Ethics Commission, as these actions raise major questions of fairness in the subcommittees’ work for the community. — Michael R. Morton, A.I.A., vice chairman of the LJSPRC