This is alarming, since the divison has responsibility for making sure the city grows in a well-planned fashion by researching development plans and issuing or denying building permits.

How could this have happened? The report addresses that, too.

It points to a downward spiral over more than a decade and maybe as long as 15 years. It blames elected officials - that would be past and present City Council members, former Mayor Rocky Anderson and even his predecessors - for leading the planning staff to believe that certain projects should be approved, even when they did not conform to city ordinances.

That caused confusion, " a general feeling of hopelessness and uneasiness among the planning staff," the report states. And division leaders did not demand clear signals from their elected bosses. Instead, they quit. In fact, the division has had five directors in eight years and 11 in the past 20 years. That kind of ineffective leadership led to a degenerative process of "ever-increasing dysfunction," according to auditors.

To his great credit, Mayor Ralph Becker recognized the festering problem and had already begun to make some changes before the audit was completed. Before taking office, he fired Community Development Director Louis Zunguze, and in March, he fired Planning Director George Shaw.

We have to wonder why Anderson, a micro-manager and near-tyrannical overseer, failed to do anything about the pervasive shortcomings of this division.

But what's past is past.

The report, authored by Citygate Associates, which has done similar audits for other large cities, offers a list of nearly 50 things the city should do to begin to fix this broken system, an action plan and a timetable for implementing it.

It rightly suggests that, even more than policies and ordinances, the city must start with a change in culture. Developers and residents must be able to trust that policies are fair and consistent and that the city recognizes and cares about the people involved. No more mixed messages, no more exceptions to the rules, no more excuses.

We agree.