PORT ANGELES — The City Council removed the local-level appeal of conditional shoreline development permits Tuesday, a move that cuts short an appeal to the council of its combined sewer overflow project.
The Port Angeles City Council voted 5-2 to amend the appealing process, with council members Max Mania and Cherie Kidd opposed.
City Attorney Bill Bloor said after the decision that the rule change is not retroactive but does apply to pending appeals of conditional shoreline permits, such as the one filed by the Olympic Environmental Council and Port Angeles resident Tyler Ahlgren last month.
“This is a dangerous precedent and should be voted down,” Ahlgren said. “It makes a mockery of the law.”
State makes decision
City staff said they proposed the change because the state Department of Ecology will make the final decision on the permit, which was approved last month by the city’s Planning Commission, and that they are following the council’s desire to no longer hear appeals.
The council directed staff members in January to seek hiring a hearings examiner to handle all appeals other than those of conditional shoreline permits.
Ahlgren, who said an appeal will likely be filed to the state Shoreline Hearings Board once Ecology rules on the permit, and the environmental group are opposed to the city’s plans to use a nearly 5-million-gallon tank to store untreated sewage and stormwater that would otherwise overflow into Port Angeles Harbor during heavy rain.
Not superfluous
Mania and Kidd said they doubted whether a hearing of the appeal by the council would really be useless.
“I don’t consider this process superfluous,” Mania said.
Said Kidd: “I just feel as a City Council member, I have a responsibility to hear the appeals of the citizens.”
Council members who voted for the change said they agree with city staff that the local-level appeal has little use for these permits since the state has the final say.
They also said they think it’s better for a hearings examiner to handle these issues.
Deputy Mayor Don Perry said handling the Nippon boiler appeal in December made him feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t want to go through that again,” he said.
Said Mayor Dan Di Guilio: “It’s not being uncomfortable that concerns me . . . it’s the technical aspect of the information. I don’t feel qualified to really understand it.”
Ahlgren said he agrees with the council that such appeals should be heard by a hearings examiner rather than the council members.
Local-level appeal
But he said he believes there needs to be a local-level appeal, which is less costly and time-consuming then taking the issue to the state Shoreline Hearings Board.
Port Angeles resident Janet Marx also spoke against the change.
Bloor said there was no reason to wait until the appeal is heard by the council before making the change because Ecology has the final say anyway.
He did acknowledge that the council could side with the appellants and direct the Planning Commission to change its ruling, which acts as a recommendation to the state agency.
But he questioned how much weight Ecology would give such a decision.
“They don’t make their decisions based on that,” Bloor said.
“They make their decisions based on statewide issues.”
The policy change adopted by the council only applies to conditional shoreline permits, which are the only permits that Ecology approves, he said.
Bloor said staff will have a proposal to hire a hearings examiner to handle other local-level appeals in about a month.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
