In their turn, they can be overruled by a majority written vote of the full membership. This happens once every couple of years. These days the Planners mostly don t even have hurt feelings when a majority vote overrules them. At least our conscience is clean. Planners usually meet about three times a week and deal with whatever issues come up at the time.
Issues can be large or small.
The larger they are the more time the Planners use in coming to a decision. They talk to people, perhaps have a meeting or two on the subject, maybe even put out a written survey to gather group opinions. Then they examine all this information, compare their own opinions to the general public input, and eventually announce a decision. This may take several months, though they have been known to move faster when a particular issue seems to require it. Though there are norms around planner behavior, there are almost no solid rules controlling it, which means that the kind of decisions that come out of one Board of Planners might have a totally different feel from those of a different Board.