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Published by the Arden Association No. 110 August 1977 ' So here is the first questions What is the purpose of the Planning Commission? In June this group considered two requests for setback variances for two new houses that wanted to be built. In Arden Hills, a now house is supposed to be set back at least 40' from the road, and neither of these houses fit its lot in accordance with this rule. After two hours of discussion, the Planning Commission denied one request and granted the other. (I do wish when people present plans to the Commission or Council they would show the audience also. I'm not pushy enough in this job yet to go peek over the counter when someone is huddling with the Council with maps and pictures. I have no idea what either of these houses looks like.) The time I spent at the following Council meeting was like two hours of d'eja vu. The two variance requests were red iscussed,-reargued and rehashed --only the faces behind the bench were different. The Council finally granted both variances. I came away feeling that at least one of these meetings had been a total waste of time. ' Disturbed over the situation, I called several members of the Planning Commission to get their views. Since the final decision-making power lies with the Council, I asked the Planning Commissioners if they felt their job was doing any good. Dick Ericson laughed at my question but agreed that there is a tremendous duplication of effort between the Planning ' 01 mission and the City Council. "However," he said, "most people like to have their oases heard twice. This does indeed cause a certain redundancy of effort, but we must remember This is my fourth attempt at writing the Town Crier for you. In these few months I've learned a good deal about how our city operates and how to put ' Titems together for this newsletter. The main problem with this publication stems from the terrible time O lag from the minute I finish typing the original ' copy to the.time you receive your issue in the mail. w It was unbelievable last month. I took the original ' to the printer, Joe Bender, on Sunday evening, June 19. CN The 1900 copies were returned to me Thursday evening, June 23. Velda Pierson addresses them for me before Rand after her regular hours at the Village Hall, and she finished with them on Wednesday, July 29th. I ' packaged the little devils into bundles of 100 on Wednesday morning, and John Buckley kindly hauled them E to the New Brighton Post Office that afternoon. (I'd take them myself, but the mail sacks are quite heavy.) I received my copy at home on Tuesday, July 5. Now, I realize there was a holiday and all, but that really • is slow mail delivery. I'd love to take my business elsewhere, but let's face it, the U.S. Post Office is the only store in town. As a result of this time lag however, the type ®f article contained in this paper becomes rather limited. There is no point in trying to print up-to-the-minute news; for that you will have to consult the New Brighton Bulletin or the North Ivrea Section of Tuesday's St. Paul Dispatch. And if you want to know exactly and ' entirely what the Arden Hills Council is doing, you can read the minutes of the meetings. Therefore, this paper must lean heavily on news of general information, human interest, and controversial problems. As William Buckley put it so well in his column of July 7 in the ' Dispatch, *What a newspaper does best is to question." And that is what I hope to do. ' So here is the first questions What is the purpose of the Planning Commission? In June this group considered two requests for setback variances for two new houses that wanted to be built. In Arden Hills, a now house is supposed to be set back at least 40' from the road, and neither of these houses fit its lot in accordance with this rule. After two hours of discussion, the Planning Commission denied one request and granted the other. (I do wish when people present plans to the Commission or Council they would show the audience also. I'm not pushy enough in this job yet to go peek over the counter when someone is huddling with the Council with maps and pictures. I have no idea what either of these houses looks like.) The time I spent at the following Council meeting was like two hours of d'eja vu. The two variance requests were red iscussed,-reargued and rehashed --only the faces behind the bench were different. The Council finally granted both variances. I came away feeling that at least one of these meetings had been a total waste of time. ' Disturbed over the situation, I called several members of the Planning Commission to get their views. Since the final decision-making power lies with the Council, I asked the Planning Commissioners if they felt their job was doing any good. Dick Ericson laughed at my question but agreed that there is a tremendous duplication of effort between the Planning ' 01 mission and the City Council. "However," he said, "most people like to have their oases heard twice. This does indeed cause a certain redundancy of effort, but we must remember