One incumbent planning commission member, Jeffry Burton, will remain on the body while Shanna Francis, another incumbent, is out.

With three seats coming open on the body — focus of an Ogden Valley resident’s ire in a pair of recent opinion pieces that garnered a lot of attention — Weber County commissioners on Tuesday took action to fill the spots. Burton, an attorney, was reappointed to his spot and Janet Wampler and Don Stefanik were picked to the other two spots.

“It really puts a nice balance of different personalities on the commission up there,” said Commissioner Jim Harvey.

Harvey put forward the recommendation that Burton, Wampler and Stefanik get the nod, backed on Tuesday by fellow commissioners Gage Froerer and Scott Jenkins. Wampler previously worked in marketing though she shifted gears to become a stay-at-home mom. Stefanik has a marketing background and serves on the board of trustees of the Wolf Creek Water and Sewer Improvement District, a public utility in the Ogden Valley.

Francis — operator of the weekly newspaper that published the critical opinion pieces, the Ogden Valley News — had applied for appointment to a second term but was turned back. Jack Howell had held one of the three spots, but he died last month.

Harvey, speaking after Tuesday’s action, deferred comment on why Francis wasn’t reappointed, focusing on the attributes of Wampler and Stefanik, the two newcomers.

However, Kay Hoogland, who wrote the opinion pieces putting the Ogden Valley Planning Commission under a microscope, said after Tuesday’s vote that there may be “some element of retribution” in the decision not to reappoint Francis. Not only does Francis run the Ogden Valley News, which ran Hoogland’s letters to the editor, but Hoogland noted that Francis unsuccessfully challenged Froerer in the Republican primary last month for his post, up for grabs this cycle.

Harvey, for his part, countered, saying he doesn’t see those sorts of forces at play.

Either way, Hoogland lauded Wampler and Stefanik as “excellent choices.” In her opinion pieces, Hoogland had charged that planning commissioners were skewed too heavily to the interests of builders and developers, thus weren’t representative enough of the broader population. Development is an increasingly delicate issue in the Ogden Valley as demand in the area increases to build homes, potentially boding for overdevelopment, some fear.

In fact, 14 people in all applied for the three Ogden Valley Planning Commission spots. “Lot of interest right now with what’s going on in the Upper Valley. Lot of interest — it’s obvious by how many people applied,” Jenkins said.

Officials were originally scheduled to take action on filling the three spots on July 5 but held off to give themselves more time to review the 14 applications. One of the factors officials used in the selection process was assuring geographic diversity of planning commission members.

“I don’t think we could be accused of rushing the process,” Froerer said.

Notwithstanding the heat the planning commission makeup generates for some, Harvey noted that it’s the Ogden Valley General Plan, finalized in 2016 with input from area residents, that outlines parameters of development. Planning commission members — who serve as advisors to county commissioners — don’t have power to act according to their whims.