When I sit in the back of the room at a meeting, aside from the sounds of the tip tap of my keyboard, I try to remain silent.

My job is to observe the scene, listen to officials and residents, and walk away ready to write a story that is relevant and interesting to the community. Technically, it's not in my job description to judge what I'm listening to and watching, but, in some cases, I feel the biggest service I can do as an observer is to let people know exactly what it is I see from where I sit.

At recent Sutter Creek Planning Commission meetings I have attended, I have walked away frustrated and bewildered. How is it that a group of fairly educated men spend an exorbitant amount of time nit picking minute details while missing the big picture? The most frustrating of these meetings happened within the last two months. I've been told by residents and city officials that the issues surrounding Sutter Hill and the leaking septic tanks are nothing new. In fact, the city council long ago identified fixing up the area as one of its goals and directed staff to come up with a solution.

So why did a planning commission, with the majority of its members long-standing Sutter Creek residents who have already served more than one term, act as though they were under the gun to make a decision on something for which they were ill prepared?

I'll give a brief history of the proposed solution to Sutter Hill's problems. The area is both residential and commercial. Officials have found that some chemicals have contaminated nearby streams and creeks, and suspect the source is leaking septic tanks from homes in the area. If that area is annexed into city limits, homes and businesses then have access to Sutter Creek's wastewater plant and, as a result, septic tanks can be eliminated.

For this solution to happen, the city needed to push an annexation request through the Amador County Local Agency Formation Commission by the end of 2007 before the commission enacted its freeze on annexations (due in part to a state requirement that LAFCO complete a Municipal Services Review this year).

Sutter Creek city officials approached LAFCO, got the go-ahead, then took it to the city to move the process forward. That's where it ended. The planning commission spent more time complaining about how they didn't know something about a long-standing issue than doing anything productive at the meeting - a meeting that ended with neither a recommendation of approval or denial of the annexation.

It worries me that these appointed commissioners are going to soon have their say about the largest development project proposal the city has ever encountered. I have a feeling future planning commission meetings on the proposed Gold Rush Ranch and Golf Course Development will consist of commissioners batting back and forth some inane detail. It almost seems sometimes that they are looking for any way to deny or delay just about every agenda item they review.

They claim they have a job to do and they want to do it right. But with what I've seen so far, they're not even close.

They can hardly gather the confidence to make a recommendation on anything. They don't trust their staff - something that has become so frustrating for some staff members that they don't even show up for the meetings.

I understand the role of the planning commissioner is a thankless one. In theory, they do all the research yet they have no substantial authority. I understand that this column won't help, but if they want to be taken seriously and their recommendations to count, they need to actually make them. Stop beating around the bush, crying ignorance and rehashing the same point over and over.

Listen to your staff, read your packet or leave the seat empty for someone else.