By Lisa Mortensen
Dear Councilmember Rivera et al councilmembers:
I attended the 9-hour city council meeting last Monday, July 22nd at 2pm to hear item S400 regarding the Kettner Mega Shelter lease. After sitting through close to 5 hours of filibustering by the city council on the three prior items, all the while the council was able to come and go from the dais to refresh themselves. But sadly, we lost 30% of those who had wished to cede their time to the speakers in opposition to the Kettner lease.
The public hearing rules only allowed 1 minute of speaking time so even though I was present 7 of the 9 hours, I was only able to cede my 1-minute of time in exchange for my voice. I remember when we had two minutes of time and wonder when the council reduced this time allotment?
There were other hearing attendees who had to leave after 5 hours due to prior commitments, other responsibilities or pure hunger. But, the city council has the luxury to come to city hall, receive their 6-figure salaries, park in their assigned parking space adjacent to the lobby doors, and go up and spend 9 hours talking continuously while we, the public, had to wait in silence, continually being browbeaten by you, the city council president, for clapping in support of those in opposition to the shelter after they gave their speeches.
Then during hour 6, we heard our first speaker, Mr. Shane Harris, founder of the People’s Assoc of Justice Advocates. Mr. Harris’s speech was 12 minutes long and very inspirational. The audience applauded Mr. Harris for his passionate speech. But you, sir, chastised those in the audience that you would ‘clear the room’ if we continued to disrupt the meeting. Disrupt? Have you ever been to a lecture series or a concert? People applaud to show support and appreciation.
There were three female speakers who emotionally spoke, wiping away tears, recalling their assaults during their past stays in congregate shelters. The audience clapped after each woman finished her speech and again, you reprimanded us that you would clear the room if we continued to defy your admonishments. It was really shocking how unmoved the city council appeared to be by these tragic events that the women spoke about.
Mr. Harris has spoken at all 5 of the public testimony sessions on this Mega Shelter and a few press conferences at the Rush Press site. He has basically asked the city to put the lease on hold and have public meetings with robust community engagement. Yet, in the end at 11:15p (hour 9), the council voted to continue the item until Tuesday, July 30th without public testimony.
Of course, the press was monitoring the meeting (in addition to your lobbyists, consultants and city employees who flooded the room at 6:30-7p just before the item was heard and probably were paid for their attendance). The news was very unflattering about the long meeting with an unresolved conclusion at the wee hours of the night. After much negative press, we were told that Todd Gloria had decided to delay the decision of the Kettner lease until September.
Then on Wednesday, July 24th, I virtually attended the City Council Rules Subcommittee meeting that you chair. I was preparing to speak to Item #4 about the council’s request to eliminate virtual public testimony. 2.5 hours into the meeting, you announced that you would continue this item 4 until sometime in September.
So, my question for you, Mr. Rivera, is are you going to approve the elimination of virtual public testimony before or after the Kettner Mega Shelter hearing in September? If you did have the Rules meeting before the Shelter hearing and voted to eliminate virtual testimony, wouldn’t that be a Brown Act violation? Afterall, this is a public hearing with public testimony even if it has been methodically restricted since your first term as council president. It appears that the city council is on track to silence our voices completely. Why is this? I would think as elected officials, you would want to hear from your constituents. But your actions show a different direction.
In closing, you will be receiving this email 5 times with close to 790 households blind copied on this email. These recipients know that their emails are to be passed on to members of their household, surrounding neighbors, and at least one person outside their household/neighborhood. Our grassroots effort has proved to be very successful to directly spread the word outside of social media channels. We anxiously await your reply regarding how the September meetings will be held and if the city council will actually invite the public to their so-called “working advisory groups” for the Mega Shelter lease prior to September. We hope to hear from you on this.
Lastly, we ask you to show leadership and democratic principles of freedom of speech by bringing back our 2-minute allotment of public comment at council public hearings and, as important, to continue to allow virtual testimony. Because our metro community constituency is made up of informed voters who believe OUR VOICES MATTER!
Good luck to you in November.
I was at a committee meeting recently, and they gave non-agenda commenters 2 minutes, but only 1 minute on agenda items.
In the past, you got 2 minutes unless there was a ton of speakers, then they would announce reducing it to one minute. I get with virtual it increases speakers, and should make 1 minute more likely, but that is the entire point of public comment. It’s in fact the most important part of their meetings, and gets the least attention.
If they council wants to save time they should remove all the pointless declarations and bloviating and patting each other and staff on the back. I swear it takes up half their testimony. “Today we are going to declare that slavery was wrong!” SMH.
There are also a few career commenters that are annoying as shit and comment on every damn item every day, including non-agenda. I don’t know how to make them go away.
I’m sorry this happened to you. How frustrating. It’s pretty clear, our city government in San Diego has been completely HIGHJACKED by the current regime.
Does anyone think it’s an accident City Council meetings are held at 2pm in afternoon? A time when one must take off work and arrange for hours upon hours of parking time ( in 2 hr meters or pay $30-$40 at the local lots). I assure this is by design. Other cities in California hold their City Council meetings for their communities AFTER REGULAR WORK HOURS: Pasadena, Santa Clarita, Santa Clara, Vista, Los Alamitos just to name a few.
It’s beyond clear after the last few years, that our current San Diego Council has absolutely no interest in from their tax paying constituents.
Anyone paying attention should be horrified. We barely recognize our neighborhoods after this last election. Ugly, cheap high rise apartments with no set backs or parking, 3 story apartments in what were single family neighborhoods, more homeless encampments, empty bike lanes…
Let’s remember in November, how all of our input has been ignored and overruled by Todd Gloria and his team again and again.
And, the cherry on top…. they want to silence taxpayers who can’t come to the meetings who wish to voice an opinion virtually?? This fits right in with the recent award Todd Gloria was given for being the least accessible public official by the local press. STOP THE MADNESS.
The past two weeks have provided insight into the attitude of our City Council, especially in light of Sean Elo-Rivera’s feeble attempt to pass an Amendment to eliminate virtual public comments. I have personally spoken at numerous council meetings. I believe that the effort to silence the voices of the people is treading upon the freedom of speech. Furthermore, interrupting and stopping a person from speaking on a particular topic because you do not believe the topic is connected with the discussed item violates the Brown Act. While I cannot make myself believe that all of the remaining eight City Council members agree with the comments or the Council President’s lack of tact and disrespect, I think some may share the same views.
Suppose the proposal was intended to streamline and simplify the City Council’s daily business. Why not look inward at the grandstanding performed by the Council President and the City Council practically on every agenda item? I understand that complementary comments are always good for any worker, but it is also their job. However, I question why each Council member, including the Council President, must speak for three to five minutes, thanking the presenters/city staff for doing a great job. Why doesn’t the first Council member say to the effect, after a presentation, on behalf of the City Council, thank you for all the hard work, and so on? This would be one item I would implement.
The second item would be establishing a one-minute time limit for in-person and virtual public comments. Of course, people should continue to be allowed to cede time to other in-person speakers if possible. Additionally, I would limit each City Council member’s ending comments to three minutes and not begin the discussion from the start. Arguably, most of the delays and inefficiency of the City Council meetings are caused by the Council itself. The City Council is dysfunctional. The weekly agendas are always changing, and special meetings are constantly placed on the docket, making multiple agendas for the same day. Let us hope they will wake up and smell the coffee during their recess until the next meeting on Monday, September 9, 2024.