Political Gumbo: Different Day For City Council Meetings?

Yes, we’re doing two pots in one week.

Enjoy.

Couple of weeks back, the City Council voted to change the start time of City Council meetings to 5 p.m.

That means the City’s electeds will go into closed session at 5 p.m. and the main event will start sometime after 6 p.m.

But on the way to approving the time change another discussion broke out.

This one centered on changing the meetings from Monday altogether.

The idea is not new. According to Mayor Victor Gordo, it’s come up several times before.

Interesting idea, but I don’t think it can work.

Here’s the behind the scenes skinny.

City staff is off every other Friday and in order to accommodate that, the City Council agendas are released on Thursday, 72 hours in advance of the Monday meeting, which is mandated by the Ralph M. Brown Act.

Special meetings need only be posted 24 hours in advance.

Moving the meetings to Tuesdays or Wednesdays naturally is out due to the Friday schedule, and moving the meetings to Thursday would require a lot of weekend work by staff.

The only combination that might work is a Tuesday meeting and the agendas still come out on Thursday.

Problem there is that on Wednesday staff has to hustle and push to get staff reports back out on Thursdays.

And yes, there must be time for agenda review at City Hall.

From where I sit, rushing work at that level just does not seem like a good idea.

There was an idea floated that the City Council could meet on Thursdays and the next week’s agenda could be released the same day.

But somebody smart pointed out that would create agenda confusion and at some point somebody would mix up what was being heard at the current meeting if the agenda for the following day is being released on the same day.

And I don’t want to take those calls.

Yes, I get it the people who sit around the dias are extremely busy.

They have to juggle careers, kids and constituents, all of which require a whole lot of time.

But, let’s not forget.

Monday meetings are what you signed up for when you asked local residents in your neighborhoods to vote for you.

Monday seems best.

Of course, I don’t have a vote and the meeting date can be changed, so we’ll have to see if it garners more discussion down the road.

For now, Monday it is.