While listening to Council Member Roger Fawcett speak at the end of last Thursday’s Community Engagement Session, when he told Suffolk residents, “If you get the attitude that you are going to stop something, get a life!”, it was clear that his focus was not to hear public feedback and be responsive to the community. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has presented this attitude towards the citizens of Suffolk.
Going back just a couple of weeks ago, to the January 18th City Council Work Session, Fawcett again was dismissive of the public and lamented that the citizens voicing concerns and any opposition to rezoning and development could “bog down” the process of pushing the rezoning forward. He seemed far more concerned with the money that this might cost builders and if “that’s going to have any adverse effect on the applicant moving his application forward.” When listening to his comments during this work session, one gets the sense he is far more concerned with development, developers, and builders than he is with any issues these developments might pose to the public.
Let’s step back a bit to get some contexts for these reflections of Fawcett’s. Currently, citizens are only aware of an application to rezone or obtain a variance for a particular property if they the live adjacent to the property (in which case they receive a letter from the city), if they see the blue sign posted on a property as they drive by, or if they know where to look and check out the city’s website every month to see what is on the agenda. If you have never been impacted by this before, the process is a bit overwhelming and for first timers, the current system doesn’t give them much time to look into the rezoning. If there are any concerns, there is limited time, just two short weeks, to be ready to present them to the Planning Commission. For that matter, according to Council Member John Rector, a former Planning Commissioner, the Planning Commission itself would usually only get the information on Thursday evening before having to vote on the matter the following Tuesday.
Many employees of the city have been responsive to citizens’ concerns regarding this procedure and during this Work Session of the City Council, Deputy City Manager Kevin Hughes was presenting proposed changes to the procedure. These changes include putting all relevant information up on the city website, so citizens can obtain information more easily and more expediently. Additionally, for larger projects, there would be an additional 30 day period where the planning department would present to the Planning Commission and the City Council, respectively, at their meetings the month prior to when the public hearing will be held. This will help provide for more public awareness and public feedback, as well as giving the Planning Commission and City Council additional time to consider. Kevin Hughes said that when discussed with the Coastal Virginia Business Industry Association, the response was mostly positive and they understood what the city is trying to accomplish with these changes.
After hearing about the proposed changes, City Council Members Tim Johnson, John Rector, and Leroy Bennet, as well as Mayor Mike Duman, all responded positively to the changes. They welcomed the increased transparency and appreciated the city manager and staff putting in the hard work to make this happen. Mayor Duman also made the point that many times these applications would come before City Council and information was not complete. There were questions that needed to be answered and many times this led to the application being tabled to provide the necessary extra time to properly obtain and weigh that information. He indicated that he feels this is a positive step forward for the city.
Roger Fawcett was the lone Council Member that felt that doing this just to “appease” (he used finger quotes to emphasize this) some of the public would be burdensome to developers. Is this just about Suffolk being open for any and all developers no matter the plan, the impact on our community, or the objections of the residents? Should we as citizens just sit back and watch as development after development gets approved and our roads become more crowded and unsafe, our schools become overcrowded and understaffed, and our waterways and drinking water become more polluted? It is the city’s responsibility to make sure that growth is done responsibly with these factors considered, not just build, build, build.
It seems Council Member Roger Fawcett would prefer the quick timeline that fails to give both the Planning Commission and City Council adequate time to evaluate. He clearly seems to prefer for development to happen with little or no public input, and those who question a development and any impacts it might have on our community are just “negative” because our priority is our way of life, and his is clearly making things easier for builders and developers.
Below are the videos and transcripts of Fawcett’s comments. You can watch the whole thing from the city’s site.
City Council Work Session on January 18, 2023 (16:48)
“Kevin, appreciate the update on that. It looks likely a fairly smooth transition and just the thirty days in, but how is the um building folks out there receiving that? Are you getting any ideas because, you know, you’re adding on more and more time. It’s more money for them. They got more money tied up, in application fees, they got a whole lot in the pipeline to get it to where it is going. And we’re doing this just to [makes finger quotes with his hands] appease [end finger quotes] some of the public out here, to make sure they get the information, which is great, but you know, we’ve had other mechanisms for people to get the information, but they didn’t quite go at it. I don’t know what this is going to do to change that. It may, for some of those who are more aggressive, but how do we stack up with the builder community and how do we stack up with the other surrounding cities? How do they do this? Are we going to be similar or are reinventing the wheel here for this project, for this process?”
– Council Member Roger Fawcett
(19:07)
“Yeah, because I mean, I mean I’m ok with it. I just think that no matter how much we do when it comes to the public address, to let them see this information or have input, there is always going to be another layer of information, that’s going to come on top of it, that’s going to try to bog it down. And that’s where we don’t want to go. I don’t want to bog it down. If we go thirty days, we get a whole lot of negatives, because we always have the negative groups out here, that don’t want, [makes finger quotes with his hands] that don’t want anything done in the city [end finger quotes], except close up in all four corners. That’s, that’s not going to do it. We got to make sure that we can maintain stability for those investors to come in here and build in a timely manner. And even though the public has a process to look at it, I don’t think we need to bog it down from there either. That’s my personal opinion. Because I have a feeling that thing is going to open up that- and you might get some good comments, don’t get me wrong, there might be some good feedback that somebody didn’t think of, or whatever, but I don’t know if that’s going to have any adverse effect on the applicant moving his application forward. That’s going to be the point. Because I guess those comments will get scrutinized at the planning commission level, and then depending on how they feel about it, it gets moved over for us to look at, so I think there’s some, I see some things in there that could potentially slow this project more than thirty days. If we’re not careful. Thank you.”
– Council Member Roger Fawcett
Yes, I must say that I have supported Councilman Fawcett the last few elections, he has always been available and helpful when I thought there were issues that needed to be addressed. But some of his comments lately have been disturbing. Yes, there are some negative groups out there that I don’t think you could please no matter what you do. Just recently I read some comments that the city needs more shopping, restaurants, and mom & pop stores (which many don’t support, that’s why there aren’t many left). But the city is not in the retail, entertainment or restaurant business, they are there to manage the city. I know growth is going to happen and you can’t stop it, but they can do a much better job at managing it. We do need change in our city government. I supported a new candidate for council in the Cypress Borough, I had supported Councilman Bennett for years, but after 28 years I didn’t think he was representing the people as he should and was more responsive to businesses that benefited from his voting on city issues. So I am sure with the comments he has made, people will think before voting next time.
My concern with the Council is the lack of infrastructure to support this growth. We are the only city in the state that has torn down a crumbling bridge on a regularly traveled state road and has never replaced it because of politics and money influence. Driver Ln has the last 2 parcels of farm land being developed now for another 125 homes while Driver Ln is one of the narrowest roads in a residential area, do you see road improvements on these 2, no. The speeding and reckless driving here is terrible. But it can’t be informed because the police department is so undermanned. That is a direct problem that is a result of the Council decisions behind closed doors.
I could go on and on, but it is in your hands, I have instilled in my children how important it is to vote, and more importantly at the local level, because they are the ones that make the decisions that affect our everyday lives. The Council should install a 1 year period for no new development and focus on roads, bridges over water and trains, our police department , school system and internet competition. Fix these and you can encourage growth. It may take on some temporary debt and hurt our credit standing that can be repaired. If we don’t get better infrastructure you are going to start to see a massive amount of vacant homes and deterioration of the neighboors
Maybe it’s time to vote to remove council members who are unwilling to represent the citizens that put them in office in the first place. Their only job is to make decisions based on the will of the people. Builder’s rights and wants are secondary to the desires of the citizens of Suffolk. We have a process that represents the people, not special interest groups.
This sounds a bit one sided and an arrogant outlook along with a diminished respect for those of us that have chosen to live here. Mr Fawcett is this about dollars and not lives?
This city is being developed much too quickly! The roads are not developed for the traffic we have now much less adding to it. When, I move around in the city, I am amazed at the huge condos and other housing going up everywhere. I’m not sure we are going to have any wooded areas left in Suffolk at the rate they are being destroyed. Increase the population, and the crime will follow! We will begin to look like the big cities that are suffering from crime. We will have long-time citizens who have paid taxes for 40-50 years leaving for safety reasons.
Lynne Johnson,
Your comment was well said.