Planning Commissioner resigns from his post

Blair Farley, a Huntington Beach planning commissioner since 2006, resigned from his office Monday shortly after dropping out of this year's City Council race.

Farley, who was most recently appointed to the commission by Councilman Joe Shaw, wrote in an email to the Orange County Register that he stepped down to devote more time to his family, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

"I have been on the weekly grind of the Planning Commission for six years and it felt like time to step away and be able to spend more time with family and my job," he wrote, according to the Register.

Farley could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

City spokeswoman Laurie Frymire said the city does not have an official timeline for when a commissioner must be replaced. Shaw said he had at least one candidate in mind but declined to give names.

"I'm not going to put their name out there until I talk to them thoroughly and they understand completely what the job is about," he said. "It's a big responsibility."

Shaw added that he would miss Farley on the dais.

"We're losing someone who is a voice for residents throughout the city, and that distresses me, of course," he said. "He's going to be a very hard person to replace. There's just no one with his kind of institutional knowledge."

Farley ran for the council in 2010 along with Shaw and Connie Boardman, with the group billing itself as Team Huntington Beach. While Shaw and Boardman were both elected, Farley finished sixth in voting.

This year, he put his name in the running for council, but had not filed his paperwork to run when the deadline passed Friday.

michael.miller@latimes.com

Twitter: @MichaelMillerHB