PORT ANGELES — City Hall took a major step Tuesday toward hiring its own hearing examiner.
The City Council voted unanimously to direct staff to draft a funding plan and necessary ordinance amendments needed to hire someone to handle land-use applications and appeals.
Such a move would remove that responsibility from the Planning Commission and City Council.
City staff members said it would create a more effective and efficient hearings process.
But it could cost the city around $50,000, staff members estimate.
Nathan West, economic and community development director, told council members that a plan to come up with those funds would be brought to them for consideration.
West and City Attorney Bill Bloor said having a hearings examiner could save the city money if it lead to fewer appeals, which they expect it will.
They didn’t have an estimate for how much savings are expected.
City Councilman Brad Collins, who once headed the city’s Planning Department, said he has been a longtime champion of hiring an examiner and commented that Port Angeles is one of the few cities in the state without one.
“It’s kind of embarrassing that 90-plus percent of cities are doing this out there and not us,” he said.
Hiring an examiner has been a goal of the City Council since its retreat in January.
In March, it took another action to limit the number of appeals it handles.
The council voted 5-2 then, with Cherie Kidd and Max Mania opposed, to eliminate the local-level appeal of conditional shoreline development permits.
The move killed, though temporarily, an appeal of the city’s sewage overflow elimination project.
The appellants, Olympic Environmental Council and Port Angeles resident Tyler Ahlgren, have since appealed that project to the state Shoreline Hearings Board.
The purpose of that move was to eliminate an appeals process that had no weight on the state Department of Ecology’s decision to approve such permits, staff said.
Some council members also expressed a desire to handle fewer appeals — preferring they be handled by someone with more expertise — when explaining their yes votes.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
