CITY PLANNERS IN COLLUSION? INTEROFFICE MESSAGE HAS COUNCIL MEMBER QUESTIONING.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- A note of drama was injected at a marathon City Council meeting this week when Councilman Tim Ben Boydston questioned the allegiance of two top city planners overseeing Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial's proposed expansion.

During the project's first public hearing before the council, Boydston cited a passage from a February 2006 interoffice message from senior planner Fred Follstad to his boss, Lisa Hardy, the city's planning manager, written while the controversial project was before the city's Planning Commission.

Follstad was briefing Hardy for an upcoming meeting with Jeff Lambert, the hospital's land-use consultant, as Santa Clarita's former planning chief used to be Follstad's and Hardy's boss.

An excerpt, noted by Boydston:

"July 11 ... City Council hearing on the item ... (then-Councilwoman) Marsha (McLean) is usually absent from this one ... and if (Councilman) Bob (Kellar) doesn't vote, all they will need is two votes. ... The staff report will be more direct and to the point, I will make a direct recommendation if that is OK with you. I would like to have a two-phase staff presentation at the planning commission in April. I go over the technical issues and you come in for the kill! I will not let you down."

Boydston and the crowd interpreted the memo as Follstad's effort to push the project through, an interpretation City Manager Ken Pulskamp and Councilman Frank Ferry said was wrong.

"Any allegation of collusion is offensive ... our staff is ethical and professional," Pulskamp said.

Boydston had misunderstood the communication, he said, and instead of trying to subvert the process the staffers were trying to avoid scheduling a controversial vote when less than a full council would be present.

The same information surfaced at a November Planning Commission meeting, offered by David Gauny, who heads SCV Smart Growth, a grass-roots group of about 500 that opposes the current hospital expansion plan. Members packed City Hall on Tuesday.

Hardy noted Wednesday that Follstad's message -- written more than a year before the matter came before the council -- was meant to alert her to a number of issues she needed to raise with Lambert and to remind her of the need to work around council members' summer vacations. As for the two votes noted in the memo, approving any project requires a minimum of three votes among the five-member council.

"Fred was making the observation -- should the project be brought on a particular night and given the schedule -- it would not have a full City Council making the determination on the project. It needed to be considered so we could work around the summer hearing schedule," Hardy said.

Regarding the "kill" comment, Hardy noted it was made by a senior planner to his boss, not to Lambert. Follstad had admitted to Hardy that he'd stumbled in a presentation before the commission and wanted to do better, Hardy said.

"His (message was) 'I will not let you down, I'll deliver a better presentation. I'm going to do the meat and potatoes, the nuts and bolts ... you're going to do the concluding remarks,'" Hardy recalls. "It was a poor choice of words."

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