Democracy is an inefficient, contentious business. While its bottom line is important, we don’t measure its success by its profitability or its stock price. While we want its services to be efficient and responsive, attending immediately to our needs when sewers leak, businesses pollute, or when our safety is threatened, we also understand that democratic processes—the ins and outs of democratic decision making—frequently move so slowly that our patience is severely tested. While we know that the majority rules, we understand that minority views must be respected if we are to preserve civil discourse, redress wrongs, and encourage orderly and equitable change. And while we understand that those who behave badly or infringe on our rights must be held accountable, we know that a strong democracy, a democracy sure of its past and confident of its future, must take the necessary time to ensure due process, even when not required to do so, even when "legal controlling authority" clearly states that a commissioner serves at the "pleasure of the City Council."

The last Benicia City Council meeting, held on Tuesday, September 5, demonstrated, to an amazing and troubling degree, that it’s the best and worst of democratic times in Benicia.

At its best, the Council praised and approved the Good Neighbor agreement between Valero and Benicia, an agreement initiated by a minority within the community. The agreement is an example of how reasonable discussion, consideration and codification can result in better understanding and trust between a business and a town. While it’s an imperfect document, as all democratic documents are, would that all businesses and neighbors might have such agreements—agreements, for example, like the Benicia General Plan.

Which brings me to another Council best: the Council heeded the advice of the Historical Preservation Advisory Committee and the impassioned pleas of citizens that, the bottom line notwithstanding, Benicia needed to find some way to create a separate commission that would ensure the historical preservation of the town, a desire expressed in the General Plan and strongly felt by many Benicians.

But at its worst, the Council sullied these democratic accomplishments and severely eroded community trust by limiting public discussion to the beginning of the meeting, before the Council deliberated, and by summarily dismissing Planning Commissioner Elizabeth Patterson. Mayor Messina, reading from a prepared statement, said that the pending City lawsuit against Patterson, unanimously approved by Council, cast a "cloud of uncertainty" over Commissioner Patterson, who was charged with enforcing municipal codes that she was being sued for having allegedly violated.

Ironically, the very person who initially submitted the General Plan review resolution to the Council in 1991, and who saw the Plan through the long and arduous process to its successful completion in 1999, was Elizabeth Patterson. Strange, isn’t it, how the good that goes around can sometimes come back around as bad.

It seems that the possible encroachment claimed in the City’s lawsuit came to the City’s attention because Ms. Patterson and her new neighbor to the north had a dispute. (The information that follows derives from several discussions I had with Ms. Patterson and from the complaint and accompanying exhibits filed against Ms. Patterson on August 10 by the City of Benicia.)

Ms. Patterson came home one day to find that her neighbor had cut down three mature trees. Distraught by her new neighbor’s action and angry that wood chips were piled next to the alley which skirts her house, she asked her neighbor if he had secured a permit to cut down the trees. He told her that he had not, and she wrote a letter to Otto Giuliani, on October 14 of last year, in which she said: "The woodchips stored adjacent to the alley may be on City public right of way easement."

Ms. Patterson wrote a very angry letter, and, as frequently happens when tempers flare, one thing led to another. (Unless you’re a saint, and far be it from me to argue against your future beatification, you too may have had a problem or two in the past with neighbors.)

The neighbors to the north countered with a letter on November 12 in which they said that, "Last spring, when we purchased our residence..., we took notice of the porch extending approximately 7 feet into the seventeen foot wide alley behind [Ms. Patterson’s] house...." It’s at this point, I suppose, that the term "porch" entered the dispute, a term suggesting that the alleged encroachment might be easily removed.

Unfortunately, the "porch" is actually the front entrance to Ms. Patterson’s house, which was constructed in 1980. Ms. Patterson purchased the house in 1987. Ms. Patterson said that there was nothing in her title report that indicated either a problem with the property line or an encroachment into the City-owned alley.

I asked Ms. Patterson why the City had decided to sue her. She was mystified. She had repeatedly asked the City for clarification of various points, and discussions seemed to be progressing just fine, when she was sued. She believes the Council may have believed she was being intransigent, which might account for the unanimous decision to sue her, though she found it strange that no Council member had contacted her before taking action. She admitted to me that her questioning of the encroachment issue was persistent and pointed and that the survey of her property caused additional delays, but she felt she was acting in good faith.

So maybe you’re thinking that Ms. Patterson deserved what she got. After all, you’re thinking, as a member of the Planning Commission, her property should follow City codes to the letter. Anyway, you might be thinking, all she needed to do was take down the offending "porch". What’s the big deal, you’re thinking: The precipitous action by the Council would suggest that she brought the whole problem down on herself.

Well, I went to see her house, which is on West 2^nd Street, and was amazed to find that the alley owned by the City, which runs very close to her house, is really a driveway shared by Ms. Patterson and her neighbor to the west. Removal of her "porch", which is, in reality, the front steps leading to her entrance on the second floor, would require either that she enter her house using a ladder, which obviously would be very hard on visitors, even if Ms. Patterson seems to be in good physical condition, or that she create an entrance at the back of her house. The portion of the house facing West 2^nd has no entrance, and the likelihood of one seems slight given terrain and space limitations.

Consider how you’d feel if the City were to tell you that the front entrance to your house encroached on a driveway. I’m sure you would also ask many questions, especially given that the encroachment was not your doing. You bought the house thinking everything was fine, and you lived in the house without difficulty for 13 years. I imagine the last thing you would do would be to immediately hire an architect, rip out the encroachment, and rebuild a significant portion of your house. (Ms. Patterson believes it might cost her $100,000. Given the layout of her house and lot, I believe she may be underestimating the cost.)

You, as a reasonable person, might well expect that a just and equitable resolution could be achieved over time—given that the situation had existed for twenty years!—without legal action being taken. You would be especially inclined to think this if you had worked for almost a decade on the creation of an outstanding General Plan, because you would know that good governance can take a lot of time.

The rush by the Council to sue and remove seems bizarre. Ms. Patterson told me that she had proposed to City Manager Otto Guiliani that the dispute be settled through mediation, but he had stated that the City could not mediate with a City employee. (Though Ms. Patterson stated that as a commissioner her status as a City employee was not clear, it’s strange that the City can sue an employee but not mediate when the issue is not related to job performance.)

Did the Council members actually look at Ms. Patterson’s house? Why didn’t they take the time to talk to her before they took legal action? Why were they in such a hurry to remove her from the Planning Commission when other remedies were available to them, e.g., suspension until the issue was resolved?