Atherton has made yet another major decision behind closed doors, leaving the public to wonder what will happen next in the probe of the town’s troubled building department.
Last week, town attorney Marc Hynes told a crowd of more than 100 residents and builders at a council meeting that a controversial excavation fee would be rescinded and paid back, with interest, to property owners who were charged $22 for every cubic yard of dirt trucked on or off a building site. The unanimous council decision came after an irate group of residents challenged the legality of the fee, which set off a second look at the ordinance by Mr. Hynes, who last year had said the fee was within the law.
The imbroglio began several months ago, when Mike Hood, the building department’s long time administrator, abruptly retired and left town after an investigation by a private attorney that has never been made public. The Almanac has called for Mr. Hynes and the City Council to release the report, which resulted in at least one employee’s being disciplined and moved out of the department. An internal audit found that building department employees failed to collect about $134,000 in excavation fees last year.
Last week’s decision came after Mr. Hynes’ review, but as in the case before, no official explanation was issued, although Councilman Jim Janz later said that the council backed away from the fees due to the residents’ revolt. Presumably, Mr. Hynes told the council that the fee was not legally defensible after all.
Regardless of the outcome, the public remains in the dark about exactly what transpired in the earlier probe of the building department, and exactly what Mr. Hynes discovered about the fee’s legality that presumably caused him to change his mind.
And although we are sure City Manager Jim Robinson and the City Council wish the entire episode would go away, it clearly is just getting started. Residents who challenged the fee now vow to recall council member Kathy McKeithen, while another faction is focusing on Mayor Charles Marsala.
We doubt if this will do residents of the town any good or result in the changes needed to rein in property owners who are eager to dig complete basements under the maximum-size 7,800-square-foot home on a typical one-acre lot in Atherton. Surely the town can find a way to recoup the damage done to local roads and streets from the hundreds of trips from huge dump trucks used on these projects.
Finally, we urge the council and Mr. Hynes to adopt a much more open policy so that all residents can know and understand what is happening in this case, and the others that are sure to follow. Mr. Hynes should work with the council to release information about the investigation, as well as the decision to dump the excavation fees. All town officials should realize that they serve the people of Atherton; the public has a right to know all the details about the building department probe, and why the excavation fee was unceremoniously dropped.
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