Planning Agency Needs to Be Watched : To Repeat: Commissioners Are Still Far Too Cozy

The point bears repeating: It’s not good to have county planning commissioners who are perceived as having cozy relationships with developers. But too many of the former are accepting rounds of golf and other gifts from the latter, who may have business requiring Planning Commission approval.

Even if only by appearance, such giveaways cloud the conduct of the public’s business and create a sense of unfairness in the planning process. For public officials who make such crucial decisions on land-use, there’s no substitute for being squeaky clean. Commissioner Roger D. Slates is someone who apparently hasn’t learned that lesson.

Slates and other commissioners serve at the pleasure of the elected members of the Board of Supervisors who appoint them. So they are accountable not only for making sound planning decisions but also to the supervisors who appointed them in the first place. In that regard, Slates has lately been serving more at the displeasure of Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder; she is fighting for political survival this fall in a runoff election to retain her seat. An appointee on the Planning Commission who is perceived as too close to the developers is proving to be a political embarrassment for her.

Not long ago, Wieder did the right thing when she called Slates on the carpet and demanded that he publicly explain his role this spring in a political dinner at which developers were urged to contribute to a state Assembly candidate. The district attorney is investigating. But regardless of how that inquiry comes out, she must continue to hold her appointee’s feet to the fire.

Wieder had appointed Slates as her representative on the commission about a year ago, after he previously had served on the panel in the 1970s and also as a member of the Huntington Beach Planning Commission.

In the case of the dinner, the Assembly candidate at the fund-raiser was favored by Slates and his colleague, commission Chairman Stephen A. Nordeck. There’s a lingering dispute over whether Slates actively solicited contributions; witnesses say he did and Slates denies it. But there’s no question, from Slates’ very own acknowledgment, that he expressed his support at the fund-raiser, however briefly, on behalf of the candidate.

This is where the problem of perception comes in, and it has been an issue before for Slates. Twice, as a Huntington Beach planner, he had conflict-of-interest complaints lodged against him.

One involved his acceptance of a free VIP membership to the ritzy Seacliff Country Club, owned by Huntington Beach Co., the city’s biggest developer, which Slates was supposed to be monitoring as a local planner. A dispute lingers over the value of the membership, which the city attorney ruled was worth less than $250, but that Slates himself valued at $360 in a financial disclosure statement.

Then there were the votes he cast approving construction of a $9-million parking garage that, according to a complaint being reviewed by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, was financed by a bank where he served as director and where he held more than $100,000 in bank stock.

Did Wieder exercise good judgment in appointing him to his current term? In fairness to Slates, who is widely perceived to be pro-development, he did earn plaudits from environmentalists for a vote to scuttle a proposed road that would have cut through Trabuco Canyon and opened up hundreds of pristine acres to development. But if Slates slips again on the ethical slope, Wieder ought to consider removing him.