Updated and corrected at 5 p.m. Monday to clarify planning commissioners dual membership on other city volunteer boards.

Commission to consider limiting applications
By SUSAN LEATHERS
Brentwood Home Page
At the end of tonight’s Brentwood City Commission meeting, each member will vote for their top three choices from a field of eight applicants to serve on the city’s Historic Commission. If an earlier item on the agenda passes, none of those eight had better be sleeping under the same roof as a member of another city board or commission.

The commission meets at 7 p.m. in the second-floor board room on the Brentwood Municipal Building, 5211 Maryland Wan.

Late last year, Commissioner Anne Dunn asked city staff to prepare a draft policy that if passed by the commission would preclude more than one person per household from serving on the city’s volunteer boards and commissions. 

While the city has a nepotism policy for its employees that prohibits the hiring of a person to work in the same department as a family member or under the direct or indirect supervision of a family member, it has no such official policy for city volunteers. 

Dunn explained that it has been an “unofficial policy” of the board that if an applicant’s spouse already sits on a volunteer board, he or she will not be selected. Dunn said she just wanted to make it official by asking for the resolution.

“My thing is that in a city of 37,000 citizens, half of them adults, we have a lot of talent, a lot of experience; we don’t need to put it on one family,” Dunn said. In 2011, a total of 57 applications were received for a total of 22 available volunteer board seats.

The only recent case of a husband and wife applying for different boards came in June, when Laura McClendon applied for and was one of two citizens selected to serve on the Library Board. Devin McClendon was one of eight applicants for a single seat on the Board of Zoning Appeals. That seat went to Todd Lockhart.

City attorney Roger Horner explained that if the proposal on Monday night’s agenda is approved, “it will be the City’s policy that persons living in the same household may not concurrently serve on City boards.”

If passed, the present application form will immediately be amended to read:

“Please note that it is the policy of the City of Brentwood that family members or other individuals living in the same household may not concurrently serve on City boards. Do any of your family members or other individuals living in the same household with you currently serve on a City of Brentwood board?  If so, please describe…”

Dunn stressed that information now requested of applicants meant to identify other potential conflicts of interest or family relationships to someone who does not reside in the same household doesn’t mean a person would not be selected if otherwise qualified. She said the goal is to learn as much about a candidate as possible to help individual commissioners decide who to vote for -- and to keep them from being surprised after the vote.

“It is not mean to be a limiting thing. It may not preclude you at all,” she said.

For example, County Commissioner Tom Bain is a member of the Historic Commission and his son, Preston Bain, serves on the Parks Board.

There are three special cases where a citizen will serve on two boards at once.  Individual members of the city's appointed Planning Commission sit on the Historic Board, the Environmental Advisory Board and the Tree Board as all of those boards occasionally deal with issues that affect matters before the Planning Commission. Planning Commissioner Carole Crigger is the rep on the Historic Commission; Bob Power is on the Tree Board and Neal McBrayer represents the board on the city’s environmental board. 

Attrition, death and relocations have led to openings on all of the volunteer boards in recent years but there no limits to how many times an incumbent can reapply to maintain their seat. That is left to sitting commissioners, who can vote to keep an incumbent or to vote for another applicant, much like it is left to voters to decide whether or not to re-elect an incumbent commissioner.

“It may be a direction the city wants to go,” Dunn said of establishing term limits for volunteer boards. She noted, however, “that type of thing doesn’t come from a staff member.”

“If (a commissioner) wanted to bring that forth, they can,” she said.

In 2011, seven incumbents sought to be reappointed. All kept their seats. That meant 15 newcomers were elected to serve, with only the Board of Construction Appeals not having at least one new member.

The seven applicants for the three open seats on the Historic Commission are Mark Buck, Thomas Carden, Arlene Cooke (incumbent), Hollie Cummings, Susan Doughty, Donald Fischer, Rachel Waterhouse (incumbent), and Eric Wyse.

At the March 12 meeting, the Board of Commissioners will appoint two members to the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA).  The appointees will serve a three-year term expiring March 31, 2015.  Applications are now being accepted and interested persons may complete the application online by clicking here.