No wonder students and College of William & Mary officials never negotiated in good faith during this year’s deliberations of the Focus Group on the 3-person rule.
They knew they didn’t have to.
The fix was in.
With the exception of a few footnotes and codicils, the ordinance to expand the city’s 3-person limit on the number of unrelated persons to four wasn’t much different than the deal secretly negotiated by city staff, Mayor Jeanne Zeidler, Vice Mayor Clyde Haulman and leaders of the Student Assembly in November 2008.
The three months of work by the focus group? The multiple public hearings in front of the Planning Commission, which unanimously rejected the idea of expanding the 3-person rule in single-family homes near the college? Those were just for show. They were designed to give the appearance that council was listening to the public and to provide political cover for council and city staff to do what they’d already decided to do anyway.
In short, they were a charade.
Personally, I’d like to thank council for wasting my time for a year.
