Oakley Councilman Suggests Disbursing Planning Commission

In what could be observed as nothing short but election retaliation, Oakley Councilmember George Fuller wanted to disburse the planning commission only to reinstate it with five new members.

Fuller attempted to use the recent District 5 election as justification as Fuller ran against planning commissioner Oleskii Chuiko and teacher Christina Pena Langley. While Fuller is on his way to re-election with 41% of the vote, 58.73% of the District did not support Fuller after voting for Chuiko or Langley.

On Tuesday, the Oakley City Council was asked to adopt a resolution authorizing advertisement of two planning commission seats that are expiring on Feb 27, 2025. They were also being asked to direct staff to bring back a Resolution to consider a change the two current 2-year term seats to 4-year terms in February 2027 to allow for 3 seats to expire in 2029 and 2 seats to expire in 2031.

The five-member commission is made up of Chuiko, Diego Verduzo, Leonard Price, Jeanne Krieg and Jimmy Ramirez. The seats up for appointment are held by Krieg and Ramirez.

Councilmember George Fuller had other ideas, he wanted all 5 seats to be up for appointment.

“Considering the way the voting went in the election I detected an unhappiness with what is going on with the planning commission and I would suggest disbursing it and have them resubmit to reinstated into the planning commission but open it up for other people as well to give others a chance to apply for it,” stated Fuller.

Vice Mayor Shannon Shaw noted the planning commission has two positions expiring and everyone in the city could apply and next year, the other seats were up for appointment.

“Yes, but we can disband the planning commission up at the dais and have it reply to everyone,” said Fuller. “It might not be a bad idea to let the whole community reapply for different positions.”

Mayor Anissa Williams disagreed noting the community could apply noting 2 positions were up this year and 3 positions next year.

“Just like the city council, do you want to have 5 new people? That is why we rotate and stagger,” explained Williams. “Which is why the terms are the way they are. We actually don’t want our planning commission to be handicapped. We want them to do the work we want them to do.”

Fuller argued, “we did it before, we can do it again. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

Councilmember Aaron Meadows had enough and simply made the motion to move approval.

It passed in a 4-1 vote with Fuller dissenting.

Future Agenda Item Request Fails

Mayor Anissa Williams requested a “work session” on campaign finances and how they could cap campaign donations. She said even with the switch to Districts, residents do not find running for election “approachable” due to costs. She wanted to see what type of ways they could potentially cap campaign contributions.  The item did not get support.