Board won’t be required to include city employees

The city Planning Board is another step closer to no longer being required to have two city employees among its members.

During an online meeting last week, the Common Council unanimously adopted a local law changing language in the city code to no longer require the mayor to appoint two city employees to the body. The new law changes the word “shall” to “may” in the section of the code that stated the Planning Board “shall consist of two members who shall be officials of the city of Kingston and three who do not hold any municipal office therein.”

Before he can sign the law, Mayor Steve Noble will hold an online public hearing on the matter. That hearing is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 27.

The code change was being considered at Noble’s request. He previously told council members the amendment would give the city more diversity in volunteers who could serve on the board and that it would not preclude him from having city employees serve.

“This is to amend the membership of the Planning Board to make it easier to fill vacant positions,” Alderman Jeffrey Ventura Morell, D-Ward 1, said during the council’s April 6 meeting. He said it was hard to fill vacancies on the board when two of the members were required to be city employees.

The change also makes the city code consistent with those of other municipalities, Ventura Morell said.

Kingston Assistant Corporation Counsel Daniel Gartenstein has said the change would make Kingston’s code consistent with state law.

Noble had asked city lawmakers in February to consider the code change. At the time, the Planning Board had a vacancy as a result of the December 2020 retirement of longtime city employee MaryJo Wiltshire.

Shortly after Noble’s request was endorsed by the Common Council’s Laws and Rules Committee, Wayne Platte Jr., the other city employee on the Planning Board, retired as a Kingston deputy fire chief. Platte, though, has continued to serve as Planning Board chairman.

There currently is one vacancy on the Planning Board.