The City of Williamsburg is considering a change to the way it handles beautification efforts.
The Williamsburg Planning Commission considered a proposal to reform the city’s Beautification Advisory Committee at its Sept. 17 meeting. The BAC is a subcommittee of the Planning Commission and is tasked with making recommendations to the board for “ways to improve the physical appearance of the City of Williamsburg.”
In a memo to the commission members, BAC Chairman Joe Hertzler said the current structure of the committee makes it difficult to accomplish its stated goal.
“Unlike most Boards and Commissions that react to specific cases that applicants bring before them for consideration and review, the BAC has to be proactive in finding areas in the City that need attention,” Hertzler wrote in the memo. “Nothing happens in the BAC unless [its] members make it happen.”
Hertzler, who also serves on the Architectural Review Board, spoke at the meeting Thursday, and said the City Council had expressed interest in reforming the committee to make it more effective. Hertzler said one possibility was disbanding it outright.
“I think there’s enough duplication in other entities in the city — Planning Commission, Architectural Review Board, Economic Development — there’s enough overlap that this committee can be restructured or done away with all together,” he said.
Hertzler said two issues in particular made this an attractive option: authority and budget size. He said the committees apparent lack of authority and the small size of its budget — $5,000 — made it ineffective.
“You really need those two things to get anything done,” he said.
If council members did decide to disband the BAC, Hertzler said, other city boards would be able to duplicate its functions.
David Kranbuehl, a City Council appointee to the committee, echoed Hertzler’s sentiments.
“We started acting by ourselves, acting like we were the third committee in the city,” he said.
But not all members of the BAC agreed the committee had little practical function. Planning Commission members Dan Quarles, who represents the commission on the BAC, said the committee served an important and necessary purpose.
“I’m not aware of any reason not to think it’s doing a good job,” he said.
Quarles said the BAC’s $5,000 budget allowed the city to encourage beautification projects throughout Williamsburg, and the committee handled the annual beautification awards.
“Mr. Hertzler indicated that the BAC doesn’t have either authority or a budget. Neither do we,” Quarles said. “We don’t have a budget. We don’t have a nickel of budget. And as far as authority, all we do is make recommendations to City Council.”
Rather than duplicating the functions of other city boards, Quarles said the BAC and other committees each focused on different things. Planning Commission Chairman Demetrios Florakis agreed, saying the City Council preferred reform to disbanding.
“I believe they want to look for a way to strengthen it and improve it,” he said. “I don’t think they want to get rid of it.”
Commission members voted to create a subcommittee consisting of Hertzler, Kranbuehl, Quarles, Planning Commission member Jeffrey Klee, Economic Development Authority Chairman Tom Gillman and Deputy Director of Planning Carolyn Murphy to craft of proposal for revising the BAC. Once completed, the proposal will go to the Planning Commission for approval.
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