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# City Hall failing on customer service, users say
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-hall-failing-on-customer-service-users-say/
- Published: 2004-04-23T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:14:34.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*City Hall’s planning dept. likely to be overhauled*

It’s been said before, but a $75,000 city-hired consultant wants to hear again just how bad it really is for developers who must navigate through City Hall’s red tape.

Palo Alto-based Matrix Consulting Group is charged with fixing City Hall’s notoriously slow and bureaucratic planning department. Gary Goelitz, Matrix’s vice president, on Wednesday met with about a dozen people, ranging from architects, developers, business owners and contractors to hear their horror stories and experiences using the system.

For the past several months, the planning department has been criticized for being inefficient by residents, developers and business owners. They complain that getting what should be simple approvals costs them thousands of dollars in time and delayed plans.

But officials within the department, who defend themselves by saying they are short-staffed and encumbered by City Hall’s complex laws and policies, hadn’t until recently been ready to take action on fixing their problems.

That’s because the City Council directed staff to address the issue and approved the contract with Matrix. Now there’s a willingness to look at the inefficiencies and figure out how to reallocate the department’s resources so it can run as effectively as possible.

“We are focusing on not accepting things the way we are,” Goelitz told the group, adding there is a long list of issues that need to be addressed, including a lack of customer service, and policies created by the City Council, as well as other decisions it makes. “There are issues that are beyond staff control.”

But there are many problems that are in staff’s control, say those who use the system regularly.

Barry Cappilly, of Maya Design, said residents will lodge complaints about developments and planning staff will spend an inordinate amount of time checking them out — whether they are valid or not.

“It’s obvious there is an abuse in the system,” he said. “There is nobody in the middle to exercise any common sense.”

> “It’s obvious there is an abuse in the system.” — — BARRY CAPPILLY Maya Design

Mario Fonda-Bonardi, a local architect for of 25 years, said there are multiple problems within the planning department, including the amount of corrections to applications staff requires from developers. The result is months of delays and the effort usually ends up being done in vain.

“You essentially end up chasing your tail,” he said. “The result in the end after correction after correction is that you can’t correct it... You take your best shot and you get beat up.”

Fonda-Bonardi also said there is a complete lack of quality control in the system because each staff member interprets the codes differently. “There are some novel and original ideas about the code,” he said.

He also said there is no relationship between permit and application fees and services. Fees in the planning department have doubled in the past year, yet the process takes twice as long as it should, Fonda-Bonardi said.

Cappilly added that in an effort to protect their co-workers’ jobs, planning staff will honor their colleagues’ decisions whether or not they are correct.

“When you are stuck, there is no recourse,” he said. “Everybody is protecting the last guy there. There is no accountability.”

Gary Gordon, executive director of the Main Street Merchants Association, said when issues come up in his business district like outdoor sidewalk sales, or the Farmers’ Market, staffers appear uninformed about the area.

“We end up dealing with people in those departments that are unfamiliar with the street,” he said. “You get this blank stare because they don’t know Main Street. My hunch is that it’s city-wide.”

Gordon suggested that orientations be held in different districts of the city a few times a year so the staff is familiar with all areas of Santa Monica.

Kathy Dodson, president and CEO of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, said policies handed down by government make the process difficult to navigate through and creates delays.

“Santa Monica seems to have extremely limited over-the-counter approvals,” she said. “Everything is a long, laborious process... many developers just want to get their projects to the City Council.”

Goelitz said that issue, as well as the workload for the governing bodies, must be addressed.

“It takes two months to get on the Planning Commission agenda,” he said, adding that will be an issue for the leaders in City Hall to deal with. “But what I am hearing from the staff, the (Architectural Review Board), the Planning Commission and the mayor and City Council is an openness to find new ideas.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 23, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/042304.pdf?ref=smdp.com)