A Jan. 13 special meeting of the zoning board was another continuation of the appeal of the zoning ruling for 2 West Market Street. Morningstar Partners LLC has been seeking a zoning variance and/or a amendment to the city zoning ordinance.

Chairman Jim Shantz opened the meeting, announcing to those assembled that the subject of the hearing had already consumed 18 meeting hours. This includes many hours of testimony from the appellants, the opposition, and owners of neighboring properties. The last hearing on the matter ended with testimony from civil engineer Mark Bonnick, who was accepted by the board as an expert witness for the opposition.

The hearing resumed with appellants’ attorney Tim Stevens’ cross-examination of Bonnick.

Stevens was joined at the appellants’ table by appellant Bruce Haines. Across the room at the opposition table, Bonnick was seated between attorneys Matthew Deschler and James Preston.

Steven’s cross-examination of Bonnick lasted a full two hours, during which a pronounced lack of decorum was demonstrated. Early in the questioning, attorney Deschler brought the hearing to a stop, to ask the board to direct appellant Haines to refrain from using profane language. Erick Schockz, board attorney, remonstrated Haines’ behavior.

During the cross examinations, Stevens attempted to get Bonnick to declare the applicable zoning code to be invalid. This brought objections from both the opposition and the board. Stevens took Bonnick on a building by building tour of the length of Market Street, questioning his knowledge of the individual properties. He also attempted to question Bonnick about other witnesses’ testimony in previous hearings, as far back as the year 2016, as well as Bonnick’s own testimony in those hearings.

This prompted board attorney Erick Schock to state “ In all candor, I don’t recall if he testified to that. I could look through my 38 pages of notes”.

Steven’s responded, “I think I’m entitled to explore how thoroughly he remembers.”

At another point in the cross, Stevens asked Bonnick to consider a hypothetical property, loosely based on 2 West Market St., with non-existent conditions including alternate location of an office on the property, and an alley turned into a street.

All of Steven’s lines of questioning were met with objections, and most of the objections were upheld by the board. After Deschler made several objections to Steven’s multi-part questions of Bonnick, “Objection, I’m not sure what he just said”, Schock attempted to help Stevens re-word his questions.

Later during the cross-examination, board member Linda Shea Gardener, who is also an attorney, exclaimed “He (Stevens) is testifying!”

When asked by Stevens about the multitude of multi-use properties within the city limits, Bonnick pointed out that in order to ascertain the exact use of every residence with a possible business in the city, every individual owner would have to be contacted, and every property would have to be physically toured.

A notable feature of Steven’s cross-examination was he seemed to wanted to promote a view of not just the street, or the zoning district, but every property in the city that might have a feature similar to the 2 West Market St. property. This was in clear contrast to the opposition’s view of the local neighborhood surrounding the property. Deschler worked on his redirect to make the oppositions viewpoint clear, while Stevens made numerous objections.

After a few procedural issues, the hearing was closed. Both sides will submit their responses to the board, the appellants by Feb. 5, and the opposition by Feb. 19. On Feb. 26, the regularly scheduled Zoning Hearing Board meeting will begin an hour early, at 5 p.m. The parties will reconvene, and each side will have five minutes to address the board. Then the board will deliberate, and vote. Following the vote, the regularly scheduled hearing will begin.