Mayor, commission set to face off.
Mayor David Coss is headed for a showdown July 12 with city Planning Commissioners who have refused to resign.
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Last week, Coss launched his first full-scale overhaul of a major city commission since taking office in March.
Coss' plan was to reappoint two members whose terms had expired, not reappoint two others and ask for the resignation of four. He then planned to unveil seven new members for the nine-person Planning Commission at the July 12 City Council meeting.
As reported this week in the Santa Fe New Mexican, commissioners Eric Lujan and Michael Trujillo have declined to resign. SFR has learned that the other two commissioners-Latricia Gonzales-McKosky and Bob Werner-will also not resign.
The four commissioners' terms do not expire until June 2007.
"I'll either have the resignations or I won't," Coss says. "If I don't, then I'll move to take a vote [by the city councilors] to remove them. But I'm hopeful that it doesn't get to that point."
It's gotten to that point.
"I was appointed to serve out a term and that's what I intend to do," Lujan says. "I have no qualms with the mayor, but the letter he sent doesn't list anything of probable cause that would warrant my resignation."
Coss sent out letters on July 7 asking the four commissioners to resign.
"I support the mayor and I support the city," Gonzales-McKosky says. "But I was upset by the way that he did it, insinuating in the letter that we had done something wrong. If he would have met with us and gone over it with us it would have been a lot smoother."
Coss has been working to overhaul the city's Planning and Land Use Department.
"The planning and land use function for the city has become very difficult and very unsatisfying for everybody that's participating in it," Coss says. "I believe that having a fresh Planning Commission will help reestablish a very sound planning and land use process."
City Attorney Frank Katz tells SFR that the state statute governing planning commissions allows for a mayor to remove commissioners through a Council vote as long as the mayor shows cause. But, Katz says, the statute doesn't specify what constitutes probable cause.
Trujillo says he is fighting the decision on principle, not to get involved in a "pissing match" with City Hall.
"This has nothing to do with the new commissioners and it has nothing to do with the mayor," Trujillo says. "This has to do with the mayor's poor judgment in trying to replace us before our terms are done. There are staggered terms set up by state law for a reason."
Coss is concerned about the potential acrimony that may be caused between the Planning Commission and the Mayor's Office if the proposed City Council vote does not remove any or all of the obstinate commissioners. But either way, Coss notes, the point will be moot in a year.
"When their terms expire," Coss says, "I'll still be mayor."
