As the middle child of three boys, I was always in a state of warfare with one of my siblings while growing up.

My parents, in an attempt to bring a quasi-détente to our household, told (just) me to pick my battles.

Whether anyone else, including my parents, actually practiced that adage was beside the point. I learned to not engage unless it was necessary.

At the Maple Valley City Council meetings, battles are often fought that could be avoided.

Last week’s meeting featured one of those confrontations.

The opening shots were fired when Karen Crowe spoke during the initial public comment about the Council’s imminent approval of the new planning commissioners. Crowe had been one of the applicants, but had been ostensibly told by Community Development Director Ty Peterson during her interview that being a board member on the Maple Valley Black Diamond Chamber of Commerce could be perceived as a conflict of interest. Crowe offered to tender her resignation if appointed.

Crowe and her husband run a business called EnviroSpect Northwest, located at Four Corners. Only one planning commissioner is allowed to be a business owner whose principal area of business is located inside of the city, is state-licensed or has a city-issued business license.

One of the planning commissioners recommended for approval was Ryan Ryals, who runs I-5 Driving School in Maple Valley. He also served as Allison’s campaign manager during his race against Jim Flynn in 2009.

Guess where Crowe saw a conflict of interest.

During the ensuing discussion, Councilor Layne Barnes expressed concern for the recommendations as well.

To be sure, there were legitimate reasons for further discussion before the approval was made. Out of 12 applicants, those Allison and Deputy Mayor Victoria Laise-Jonas recommended were Sandy Brecker, Douglas Fortner, Anna Jones and Ryals. Recommended for alternate commissioners were Chuck Knickerbocker and Bevel Hoffpauir respectively.

Two of the commissioners, Fortner and Jones, have only lived in the city for four months, while one of the alternatives, Hoofpauir, doesn’t live in the city, but runs a business within the city limits.

Yet, when examined, those applicants come with very lengthy resumes.

Fortner, for example, has a B.A. in Political Science, a J.D. from the University of Washington, and a Masters degree in Public Administration. He has worked as a town planner, city attorney and deputy prosecuting attorney. At the moment, he is currently Steilacoom’s Community Development Department manager.

That’s about as qualified as you’re going to get for a volunteer position.

But, as Crowe and Barnes inferred, Frotner wasn’t the one who really drew concerns.

This is where the mood started to change.

When given the chance to speak, Noel Gerken applauded the mayor and deputy mayor for “not selecting politicians to the planning commission.”

Whether that was an implied message to Crowe – who unsuccessfully tried to unseat him in the November election – depends all on interpretation.

While Barnes approached the controversial matter very delicately, Linda Johnson launched the verbal equivalent of a blitzkrieg on the mayor and deputy mayor, whom she accused of treating three unnamed candidates disrespectfully during their interviews. Johnson also attacked Allison’s decision to recommend Ryals, declaring that it was “nepotism at its highest.”

“It made be legal,” she said. “But it does not pass the sniff test. It is nothing more than political rhetoric, and it is being done for the future political needs of some council members.”

She then attacked Ryals, claiming that his columns published in this newspaper were “divisive” and “caustic.” Additionally, she claimed once Allison was elected, Ryals stopped writing for the Reporter.

Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. Both Ryals and Allison were present at that Council meeting, yet for some reason I couldn’t see the family resemblance.

What I could see (or read), however, were opinion columns Ryals wrote over the years specifically criticizing Johnson, such as her decision in April 2010 to walk out of a City Council meeting in protest to actions made by the city manager.

Ryals first started writing for the Reporter in November 2009, right after Allison was first elected to the City Council. His last column for this newspaper was “Lessons Learned from a Road Trip,” dated July 22, 2011, four months before the November 2011 election, during which Ryals acted as Sean Kelly’s campaign manager.

For good measure, Johnson discussed how “the Council has a reputation of being very business unfriendly,” and that it was “was an opportunity for our mayor to take action to help mend this rift.”

Finally, she addressed Fortner and Jones, telling them that they have “walked into an impossible situation” and that they should “trust, but verify” everything they are told.

“If you knew what you were getting yourselves into, I wonder if you wouldn’t have chosen to wait,” she said.

Councilor Erin Weaver discreetly pursued an armistice when she said, “All of them were well qualified. Everybody had attributes that would be wonderful on the Planning Commission.” She added that the decision had been difficult to make.

But when Jonas got a chance to speak, she couldn’t resist firing a broadside at Johnson.

According to the minutes, at the first City Council meeting in 2008, Johnson asked the Council to consider an ordinance that would prohibit family members of councilors from serving on the planning commission. At that time, the only person who it affected was Jonas’s husband, who had also served as the commission’s chairman. The ordinance was eventually approved at the Council’s Feb. 25, 2008 meeting.

Jonas claimed Johnson did it in an act of “political retribution at its worst” against her for not supporting Mayor Laurie Iddings during the 2007 election.

As Special Agent Adam Frawley said in the 2010 film “The Town,” you need a venn diagram to keep up with this.

Kelly flew the neutrality flag as palpably as he could, stating succinctly that he approved the recommendations, and that’s about it.

Ultimately, the council voted 5-2 to approve the mayor’s recommendation, with Barnes and Johnson voting “nay.”

Mind you, this entire squabble was (seemingly) over a volunteer, unpaid position for a commission that has, quite frankly, no authority beyond its powers of persuasion. This was not akin to President Obama nominating David Axelrod to the Supreme Court right after the 2008 presidential election. The Planning Commission can only recommend a proposal to the City Council, which the Council can choose to approve or ignore at their discretion.

In fact, the council just recently demonstrated the commission’s limitations at its Feb. 27 meeting, when they voted to remove one of the Commission’s recommendations from the Northwest Quadrant Sub-Area Plan that would have decreased the abandonment period for non-conforming businesses from a year to six months.

To paraphrase the decrepit crusader from “The Last Crusade,” this battle was chosen poorly.