Costa Mesa planning commissioner keeps his seat, despite councilwoman’s selection error

Recently appointed Costa Mesa Planning Commissioner Stephan Andranian will not be booted from his post, City Council members decided Tuesday night, despite pushes from the public to do so or redo the selection process for the entire panel.

Mayor Pro Tem Sandy Genis had asked her colleagues to consider releasing Andranian from his seat, saying he was appointed as a result of an error she made in ranking her preferences for the reconfigured commission earlier this month.

On Tuesday, however, most council members said they were prepared to let the commission stand as is.

“I’m confident in the choices and I’m prepared to move on,” Mayor Katrina Foley said.

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Andranian had already been removed from the commission once as a result of a Jan. 3 council vote to vacate every appointment on the planning, senior and parks and recreation commissions and start a new search for members.

He regained his seat Feb. 7 when the council appointed new commissioners.

“I’m glad that the City Council upheld their original vote approving the Planning Commission and I’m just looking forward to working with my fellow commissioners and moving forward, getting the city’s business done,” Andranian, who earlier this month was chosen to be the commission’s chairman, said Wednesday morning. “I think we have a good group of people, and I’m just looking forward to getting down to business.”

Councilman Allan Mansoor, who, along with Councilman Jim Righeimer, voted against vacating the commissions, said Tuesday that “it left us with a big mess. But I think a redo would be an even bigger mess.”

When the council appointed the new commissioners Feb. 7, members used a process in which they ranked their preferred candidates by assigning them a point value from one to five for the planning and parks commissions and one to seven for the Senior Commission.

Those point totals were then multiplied by the number of council members selecting a particular candidate to determine a final score.

Andranian, Isabell Mayer Kerins and Carla Navarro Woods were selected for two-year Planning Commission terms. Jeffrey Harlan and Byron de Arakal were seated for four-year stints. The council approved those appointments unanimously.

Shortly after that meeting, Genis said she had mistakenly ranked her candidates in reverse order. Had she marked her ballot as intended, another applicant, Teresa Callo Drain, would have secured a seat instead of Andranian. The other appointments would not be affected.

“If I just ordered the wrong thing on Amazon and I can’t return it, I’m the only one who’s stuck living with it,” Genis said Tuesday. “But this is something that everyone will live with, and so I wanted to lay it before the council as a whole.”

“There’s nothing personal here,” she added. “Basically, I’m the idiot clerk who sent the Rolex when I was supposed to send the Timex, and now I’m trying to get it fixed.”

Commissioners serve at the pleasure of the council and can be removed at any time without cause.

The Planning Commission reviews issues related to local land use and development and has authority to take final action on certain applications. Members receive a stipend of $400 a month for twice-monthly meetings.

Several residents who spoke during Tuesday’s meeting urged the council to honor Genis’ request, while others said it should let the matter drop.

“I think you should leave it the way it is,” resident Sue Lester said. “I think long term it’s going to be the best thing for our community. We don’t need any other freaking drama.”

Some speakers raised issues with the way the appointment process played out.

Particularly objectionable to some was the council’s decision to appoint Navarro Woods, who originally applied and interviewed for a seat on the Parks and Recreation Commission.

On Feb. 3, she sent an email to City Clerk Brenda Green asking to also be considered for the Planning Commission.

Green said Tuesday that she then prepared new nomination forms with Navarro Woods’ name included so council members could vote for her if they chose.

However, some members of the public said they felt Navarro Woods’ candidacy wasn’t properly disclosed.

“She was not interviewed for this position; she was not timely in asking for it,” resident Tamar Goldmann said. “She, therefore, has no business on it if this council wants to stay and appear aboveboard. No matter how innocently this happened, it doesn’t look good.”

Foley and Councilman John Stephens chose Navarro Woods among their top five commission candidates.

“I believe she’s going to be a great representative for our community and I think you’re all actually going to end up loving her because she has a lot of experience that she can bring and she’s resident-oriented,” Foley said.

Stephens attended last week’s Planning Commission meeting — the first for the new panel — and said he came away impressed. He also vouched for Navarro Woods, praising the fact that she’s fluent in Spanish and describing her as “poised, careful, thoughtful and intellectually curious.”

“She will make this community proud,” Stephens said, “and we need to move on.”

The process for picking commissioners this time was different from years past.

Previously, council members drew numbers to determine the order in which they would nominate their preferred candidates. Three votes were needed to approve those appointments.

Foley said the goal this time was to have a more equitable process.

“I feel bad that this has turned out like this, because the intention truly was to try to be extremely fair and to do something different than what had been done for a decade, where two council members were being left out just because they were in the minority,” she said. “I didn’t want to be that kind of leader.”

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Luke Money, [email protected]

Twitter: @LukeMMoney