Not in their backyards

By Brenda Fullick brenda@dmcityview.com

Two West Des Moines P&Z commissioners stand to personally benefit from their votes

When the city of West Des Moines decided to plan for a Raccoon River bridge south of 35th Street, neighbors rose up in apparent unanimous opposition. They argued that the residents don't want or need a bridge that would increase traffic in their quiet neighborhood and disturb the tranquility of Walnut Woods State Park.

The fired-up residents attended city meetings. They signed a petition, networked among themselves, and formed a neighborhood organization specifically in response to the threat of this bridge.

So when the city's planning and zoning commission voted July 19 to recommend taking the 35th Street bridge back off the comprehensive plan, a lot of residents sighed with relief and went on about their lives.

Yet is it really over? The P&Z commissioners warned repeatedly that the 35th Street bridge could be put back on the comprehensive plan at any time to help spur development on the south side of the city. What's more, the West Des Moines City Council can vote to put the bridge in the plan, regardless of P&Z recommendations.

But the real clincher is that for years, the city has planned for a Raccoon River bridge at 50th Street. In fact, the city already owns right-of-way along 50th Street to widen the roadway. However, two P&Z members own land along that section of 50th Street, and they voted to take the proposed 50th Street bridge off the comprehensive plan at the same time they voted to remove the proposed bridge at 35th Street.

P&Z also adopted a statement that reads: "At such time as there is a demonstrated need for a bridge over the Raccoon River, that need will be taken into due consideration and a bridge will be contemplated at that time."

Resident Mark Cullen wrote a letter to P&Z suggesting that certain commissioners had conflicts of interest, and he made vague references to it during a P&Z meeting this summer. But none of the commissioners were willing to broach that sensitive subject publicly.

Now Cullen suspects that the real decision has simply been postponed, because planners have been talking for years about the need to plan for a bridge in that area. "They pacified us," he says. "If any of us relax and assume it's not going to comeback, then we're not too bright."

Danielle Stull, who leads the Raccoon River Neighborhood Association with her husband Tom, also believes that neighbors are feeling a false sense of security.

The P&Z members "were really clear that this could come up again," Danielle Stull says. The commissioners made it clear that "they could revisit it. They could have new information. They could change their mind."

The Stulls now plan to attend every P&Z meeting because they're worried that once the neighbors aren't looking, the 35th Street bridge proposal will be quietly brought back to satisfy development interests. The Stulls are particularly motivated because a 35th Street bridge would destroy their family's historic home.

Personal interests

Many residents who would be affected by a 35th Street bridge say they don't think any bridge is needed, and they can certainly see why 50th Street neighbors wouldn't want a bridge, either, disrupting the scenic natural beauty with traffic and noise.

However, the 50th Street property owners have more political connections than the residents along 35th Street.

John Clarke, chairman of the P&Z commission, personally owns five parcels of land near the previously planned bridge at 50th Street south of Grand. He owns four houses on 16 acres in that area, with a total assessed value of $993,700.

Clarke's business partner is his father, Lloyd Clarke, who owns another four parcels of land in that area, 46 acres with one house. The total assessed value of Lloyd Clarke's property in that area is $648,993.

John and Lloyd Clarke are partners in upscale residential and commercial real estate development.

P&Z member Judy Gear also owns a home sitting on just less than an acre at 50th and Grand. Her property is valued at $312,200.

John Clarke has recused himself in the past when the P&Z commission voted on zoning that would affect his business interests. However, neither Clarke nor Gear publicly acknowledged their personal interests in removing the bridge from 50th Street on the comp plan.

West Des Moines procedural rules for the P&Z commission state: "If it is determined by any member of the Plan and Zoning Commission that he or she has a conflict of interest on an agenda item, said member shall so declare the nature of their conflict prior to commencement of discussion of the agenda item. Upon declaration of their conflict of interest they shall excuse themselves from the dais. They shall have the right to address the Commission from the floor. ... The vote of member(s) who abstain due to conflict of interest shall be registered as an abstention."

John Clarke did not return Cityview's calls.

Gear's husband, Greg, said she wouldn't be responding to Cityview's request for a comment, either, on the grounds that she has yet to be quoted accurately in the media.

West Des Moines Mayor Gene Meyer says he doesn't think it was a problem for Clarke and Gear to vote on the bridge issue, and that all people voting on city business must decide for themselves whether they have conflicts of interest. "I think it's an individual decision," he says.

Besides, he says, the proposal to add a bridge at 35th Street on the comp plan came through a citizens' advisory committee.

Gear sits on that committee, too.

Personally, Meyer will be retiring from his position as director Iowa's Department of Criminal Investigations this September to work in the marketing department for R&R Realty Group, a commercial real estate development company based in West Des Moines.

When R&R-related projects come before the city council, Meyer doesn't plan to step off the dais, since the mayor doesn't vote anyway in West Des Moines. "I just won't express a position one way or another," he says. "I know better than that."

Meyer says he doesn't see conflicts of interest as a problem in his city. "We all have to work someplace," he says.

Speaking up

Although most residents who knew about the Gear and Clarke properties along 50th Street were too polite to raise the conflict-of-interest issue publicly, resident Bill Trebilcock was upset enough to make an issue out of it. He notified Meyer in an April 28 letter to make sure the mayor knew what was going on. He wrote that Gear and John Clarke "both bought and constructed their residences with full knowledge of the possibility of a future bridge on 50th and a future four-lane road, 50th Street, approaching it."

The city's comprehensive plan has called for a bridge at 50th Street since 1993. But residents along 35th Street invested in their land with no reason to believe that a bridge would be built there.

Trebilcock obliquely mentioned personal conflicts during a P&Z meeting, without singling out Gear or Clarke. Gear would not look him in the eye during that presentation, and "John looked like he'd drank a bottle of Jack Daniels," Trebilcock recalls. "He was redder than red."

Trebilcock notes that Clarke is related to the Colby family of real-estate developers who own land south of the Raccoon River and would benefit from a bridge.

"When you're looking at developing things commercially, you start looking at infrastructure," Trebilcock says. "You've got a developer who's head of the zoning commission. ... I'm sure [the P&Z members] are good people, but it smells to me."

Trebilcock thinks citizen involvement has made a difference, at least for the moment.

"I don't think they've ever had a meeting [in West Des Moines] with that many people in attendance, twice in a row," he says. "Although we didn't kill this thing forever, it has some solid nails in the coffin." CV

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