Correction, noon Oct. 25: This posting has been corrected due to
a wrongly attributed quote. Bill Bellman did not make the statement
that the proposed plan had been “rammed through “ by a small group
of people. The quote should have been attributed to Linda
Jacobs.
Mr. Bellman did make a comment about the process by which property
owners were notified via post card about meetings of the design
standards committee. He said, “You might have gotten two postcards,
but you were limited in what you could talk about at the
meeting.”
Note: Maps of Manchester’s commercial core and view protection
overlay zone are pasted at the bottom of this entry.
At last night’s planning commission meeting, people who
testified about the proposed update of the 2002 Manchester Plan had
almost more to say about the way it was drafted than about the plan
itself.
On the one hand were people like Linda Jacobs, who felt the process
was dominated by a small group of people on the citizens’
committee.
“I don’t think that the community has been informed,” he said. “I
think a small group made the decisions. … I just think this has
been rammed through.”
On the other hand, were people like Ray Pardo, who said, “I’d say
overall the process has been fantastic,” said Ray Pardo.
The discussion was set off by a comment made at a Sept. 11 planning
commission meeting by Lary Coppola, who is on the commission and
also owns property in Manchester. Coppola has moved to Port Orchard
to establish residency for a run for PO mayor. He complained on
Sept. 11 and last night that he didn’t get any notification of
meetings of the design review committee, which examined the
controversial issue of building height. He called the process
“bogus and fraudulent,” and said,
“I don’t question the outcome, but as someone who owns two
properties in Manchester, I can say I never received any
notification. If I had not served on this commission, I would not
have heard of it.”
To which Pardo replied, “If you didn’t know what was going on in
Manchester for the past nine months, Lary, you weren’t living in
Manchester.”
And Lary shot back, “In case you haven’t read the papers, I haven’t
been living in Manchester.”
One last note, at the Sept. 11 planning commission meeting,
several of the commissioners, including Coppola, grilled planner
Philip Fletcher to about medium rare. One could see Fletcher’s
blood pressure rising.
At last night’s meeting, Fletcher, appearing quite upbeat,
announced his resignation from the DCD. He said he’ll be moving to
Montana soon (apologies to Frank Zappa, this is true.) Fletcher,
addressing the board, said, “It’s actually been fun coming before
you. I like eccentrics.”
I’ve pasted the story below, as it won’t be posted on the Web
site until later. CTH
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