There is hereby created a Planning Commission under “The Planning and Zoning Law” of the State of California.
(A) 
Members of the Planning Commission shall be residents and registered voters of the City of San Juan Bautista and shall not be officers or management-level employees of the City at the time of their appointment and continuously during their terms of office. A Commissioner who has moved residence from the City shall be considered to have resigned from the Commission office.
(B) 
Planning Commission members’ terms shall be four (4) years, which terms shall be staggered.
(C) 
Any vacancy in the Planning Commission from whatever cause arising, including expiration of term, shall be filled by appointment by the Council. Upon a vacancy occurring, leaving an unexpired portion of a term, any appointment to fill such vacancy shall be for the unexpired portion of such term.
(D) 
When there is a vacancy to be filled on the Planning Commission, except for a successful reappointment of a Planning Commission member for a successive, consecutive term as defined in subsection (E) of this Section, the City Council shall appoint an ad hoc subcommittee of two (2) members to receive applications and/or resumes, select qualified candidates for interviews, conduct interviews and make a brief report with a recommendation to the City Council. The City Council shall consider and vote on the recommendation and shall appoint the applicant who receives a majority of votes to the Planning Commission. If an applicant does not receive a majority of votes, the ad hoc subcommittee shall select a new candidate and present that candidate to the City Council at the following meeting.
(E) 
The City Council may, upon expiration of a Planning Commission member’s term, reappoint the Planning Commission member for a successive, consecutive term, without requiring an ad hoc subcommittee to conduct interviews and make a recommendation. If the Planning Commissioner, whose term has expired, is not reappointed, the Council may direct the ad hoc subcommittee to review credentials and interview that Planning Commissioner, or to also consider other candidates for appointment to the Planning Commission, as set forth in subsection (D) of this Section.
Any regular member of the Commission may be removed with good cause or without cause by a vote of at least three (3) members of the Council and such action shall be final and not subject to review.
The Planning Commission shall elect a Chairman and a Vice Chairman from among the regular members, and shall appoint a Secretary who need not be a member of the Commission, for the terms and in the manner set forth in the by-laws of the Commission.
The Planning Commission shall adopt by-laws providing for the method of electing officers, time and place of regular meetings of the Commission, which shall be held at least once a month, and such other rules as may be necessary for the transaction of the business of the Commission, and shall keep a public record of its resolutions, transactions, findings, and determinations.
A Planning Commission member who is absent without excuse from two (2) official meetings of the Planning Commission in a six (6) month period shall automatically forfeit his position on the Planning Commission. The Chairman of the Planning Commission shall have the authority to determine whether or not an absence from an official meeting of the Commission is excused or unexcused, and all excused absences shall be reported as such in the minutes of the meeting from which the absence occurred. The standard which the chairman must use in determining whether an absence is to be excused or unexcused is whether or not the average conscientious member of the Planning Commission would probably be absent under similar condition.
When it is determined that a member of the Planning Commission has been absent without excuse from two (2) official Planning Commission meetings in a six (6) month period, the secretary of the Planning Commission shall promptly inform the City Council and the member whose position has been forfeited.
Permission is hereby granted to the Planning Commission to use the Council Chambers in the City Hall as the place for its meetings or such other public facility within the corporate limits as deemed by the Planning Commission and the City Council to be appropriate and convenient for the conducting of such meetings, providing that such meetings shall not conflict with meetings of the City Council.
Three (3) of the members of the Planning Commission shall constitute a quorum of said Commission for the transaction of business.
The Planning Commission and the respective members thereof shall perform the duties and shall have all of the rights, powers and privileges specified and provided for in the Planning and Zoning Law as set forth in Title 7 of the Government Code, beginning with Section 65000.
The Planning Commission shall have no power or authority to bind or obligate the City or any officer or department thereof for any money, debt, undertaking or obligation of any kind in excess of the appropriation which the City Council may have made for the purposes of said Commission in any fiscal year.
A Planning Commission member who is absent from any special session of the Planning Commission which is scheduled by the City Council shall forfeit his position upon determination by the City Council that the absence was unexcused.