MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Area Town Hall's members this month considered whether to make changes to the organization's bylaws relating to board membership.
MATH has previously held some discussions on a proposal to change the organization's bylaws so that board members would be elected from districts. The matter was brought up for a formal discussion at the June 9 meeting.
Linda Diehl-Darms had asked for the matter to be placed on the June meeting agenda. The discussion begins just before the 47:24 mark.
She said Cobb Mountain residents are now forming their own municipal advisory committee – similar to MATH – and she suggested boundary changes for MATH to take that new group into account.
“If they're having their own group, I think it's important that we respect that,” she said.
When MATH was formed in 2006, board members were elected from districts, Diehl-Darms said.
Those early districts had included an area along Butts Canyon Road to the county line and a district that stretched from the county line south to the rancheria, both of which had one member on the board, plus three members from Middletown, one from Cobb and one from Hidden Valley Lake, she explained.
That district membership requirement was changed due to challenges getting a quorum in those early days because not enough people were attending, she said.
Diehl-Darms said she believed that if there were districts again – and they could be different than those previously outlined – people who cannot attend the meetings can take any concerns they have about community issues to their district representative.
“It's just a thought,” she said, adding that it was up to the pleasure of the group if they wanted to consider it.
Diehl-Darms has noted that MATH's borders follow those of the South Lake County Fire Protection District. Supervisor Jim Comstock, to whom MATH acts as an advisory body, suggested the logical way of delineating MATH's boundaries – in light of the new Cobb group forming – would be supervisorial districts.
MATH Vice Chair Claude Brown said he didn't think MATH should change its boundaries to exclude people from Cobb who want to attend.
During the discussion, several people said they felt MATH should hold off on making a decision until the Cobb advisory council gets off the ground. At that point, MATH can decide if it wants to adjust its boundaries.
“We don't want to be in competition,” said Comstock.
Dave Rosenthal suggested the different groups are like the subappellations working in the wine industry. “I don't think we need to work in conflict necessarily. I think it's a boost.”
MATH Chair Fletcher Thornton agreed, explaining he also wanted to wait before taking action.
Referring to MATH's development, Thornton said, “We went through a lot of growing pains and we kept two things in mind all the time.”
Those two things, he said, were maintaining credibility and relevance.
He said the group has to understand its job, which is to provide a platform for community members to express their opinions about community issues.
“That's our job. That's our only job,” he said.
Monica Rosenthal said the Cobb residents began wanting to form their own town hall in the wake of the Valley fire as part of addressing their own specific issues – including the need to update the Cobb Area Plan, last revised in 1989.
“They've been severely impacted by the fire. That's one of the reasons why they're starting their own,” Monica Rosenthal said of the new municipal advisory council.
Thornton said he wasn't willing to exclude the people from Cobb who have been attending MATH meetings for years.
“We've never excluded anybody, ever,” Thornton said, adding if the Cobb group wants to come and work together, MATH can consider bylaw modifications later. “We want to help them.”
Brown said they should be proud of the fact that people from other parts of the county have come to MATH to study how it operates in order to create their own groups.
Comstock said Supervisor Jim Steele came to him about patterning a new town hall for the Clearlake Oaks area after MATH.
Thornton said he wrote the bylaws for MATH by pulling a set of bylaws off the Internet for another Northern California area.
Ultimately, MATH members held off on making any decision on the matter. Diehl-Darms agreed to pull the matter and wait until the Cobb group had made more progress.
She added, “I do believe that we need to amend our bylaws at some point.”
In other business discussed at the June 9 meeting, the group got an update on an appeal hearing on a proposal to build a 9,100-square-foot Dollar General store at 20900 Highway 29.
Texas-based Cross Development, the firm proposing to build the store, went before the Lake County Planning Commission seeking approval of the project in April. The commission denied the request..
Cross Development appealed the decision to the Board of Supervisors, and the appeal initially had been set for the board's June 14 meeting, but has been rescheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 10.
Concerns were raised about the fact that Cross Development is offering to make changes to the project but most community members haven't been able to see them. Comstock suggested inviting the developer to MATH before the appeal is heard.
Thornton said he would invite Cross Development to the next MATH meeting to discuss their plan updates.
He said a company representative had told him they were willing to make changes to the plan so long as they were economically feasible, and exterior changes were not a big deal for them.
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Middletown Area Town Hall considers board membership bylaw changes
- Elizabeth Larson
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