Opinion ID: 874533
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the Twin Falls Code Require the City Council to Make Specific Factual Findings in Order to Review the Decision of the P & Z Commission?

Text: At the regularly scheduled City Council meeting on July 21, 2003, the Planning and Zoning Director informed the Council members that on July 8, 2003, the P & Z Commission had approved the erection of a 120-foot-tall television transmission tower on Blue Lakes Boulevard. After discussing the tower in general terms, the Council voted unanimously to review and hear the matter. Turner contends that the City Council could not do so unless it made a factual finding, based upon evidence in the record, that the action of the P & Z Commission may have a significant adverse impact. Section 10-17-2 of the Twin Falls Code [2] permitted the City Council, on its own motion, to review and hear any action taken by the P & Z Commission if the Council determines, within fifteen (15) days of Commission action, that there may be significant adverse impact as a result of the Commission action. At its meeting on July 21, 2003, the City Council did not receive evidence as to any significant adverse impact that may result from the erection of the tower, nor did it expressly find that the tower may cause a significant adverse impact. The City Code does not expressly require that it do so. A city council, as the governing board, may exercise all of the powers required and authorized under the Local Land Use Planning Act, or it may delegate powers to a city planning and/or zoning commission it creates. I.C. § 67-6504. By City Code § 10-17-2, the City Council created the P & Z Commission for the City of Twin Falls. The Council interpreted Section 10-17-2 as reserving to itself the power to review and hear any action taken by the Commission if a majority of the members of the Council believed that such action may have an adverse impact. There is a strong presumption favoring the validity of a governing board's zoning decisions, including its application and interpretation of its own zoning ordinance. Chisholm v. Twin Falls County, 139 Idaho 131, 75 P.3d 185 (2003); Sanders Orchard v. Gem County ex rel. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 137 Idaho 695, 52 P.3d 840 (2002). The City Council's interpretation of its ordinance is reasonable. It therefore had the power to review and hear the action of the P & Z Commission simply by a majority vote without the necessity for hearing evidence or making findings as to whether such action may have a substantial adverse impact. Turner asserts that interpreting City Code § 10-17-2 in this manner would violate due process. It argues that if the City Council can decide, on its own, to review and hear an action of the P & Z Commission, the City Council cannot be an impartial decision maker. The Due Process Clause entitles a person to an impartial and disinterested tribunal. . . . Decisions by a zoning board applying general rules or specific policies to specific individuals, interests or situations, are quasi-judicial in nature and subject to due process constraints. Eacret v. Bonner County, 139 Idaho 780, 784, 86 P.3d 494, 498 (2004) (citations omitted). When acting upon a quasi-judicial zoning matter the governing board is neither a proponent nor an opponent of the proposal at issue, but sits instead in the seat of a judge. Lowery v. Bd. of County Comm'rs for Ada County, 115 Idaho 64, 71, 764 P.2d 431, 438 (1988). In this context, the Due Process Clause would therefore apply to the zoning board in the same way that it applies to judges. In Republican Party of Minn. v. White, 536 U.S. 765, 122 S.Ct. 2528, 153 L.Ed.2d 694 (2002), the United States Supreme Court addressed the meaning of impartiality as it is used in the context of applying the Due Process Clause to judges. It means the lack of bias for or against either party to the proceeding. Impartiality in this sense assures equal application of the law. That is, it guarantees a party that the judge who hears his case will apply the law to him in the same way he applies it to any other party. Id. at 775-76, 122 S.Ct. at 2535, 153 L.Ed.2d at 705. In the context of due process, it does not mean lack of preconception in favor of or against a particular legal view. This sort of impartiality would be concerned, not with guaranteeing litigants equal application of the law, but rather with guaranteeing them an equal chance to persuade the court on the legal points in their case. Id. at 777, 122 S.Ct. at 2536, 153 L.Ed.2d at 706. It also does not mean having no preconceptions on legal issues, but [being] willing to consider views that oppose his preconceptions, and remain[ing] open to persuasion, when the issues arise in a pending case. Id. at 778, 122 S.Ct. at 2536, 153 L.Ed.2d at 707. Impartiality under the Due Process Clause does not guarantee each litigant a chance of changing the judge's preconceived view of the law. Id. A decision maker is not disqualified simply because he has taken a position, even in public, on a policy issue related to the dispute, in the absence of a showing that the decision maker is `not capable of judging a particular controversy fairly on the basis of its own circumstances.' Eacret v. Bonner County, 139 Idaho 780, 785, 86 P.3d 494, 499 (2004) (quoting from Hortonville Joint School Distr. No. 1 v. Hortonville Education Ass'n, 426 U.S. 482, 493, 96 S.Ct. 2308, 2314, 49 L.Ed.2d 1, 9 (1976)). When deciding to review and hear an action of the P & Z Commission pursuant to its authority under City Code § 10-17-2, the City Council is not required to make a finding that the Commission's action was wrong. It must simply decide that there may be significant adverse impact as a result of the Commission's action. Having and exercising that power does not violate the Due Process Clause.