By Geoff Hueter
The City of San Diego is changing Council Rules to comply with a new state law that requires “equal treatment” for in-person public comment and residents who attend meetings virtually and phone in their comments.
Among the options beings considered by our city is the elimination of group presentations and time ceding. This change would limit citizens to a one to three minute comment, depending on the number of people who wish to speak on an issue.
The loss of group presentations and time ceding would severely limit the ability of Neighbors For A Better San Diego and other organizations to present a comprehensive, factual analysis of new regulations being considered by the City Council. Because staff reports often support the administration’s recommended action, it is crucial that the City Council hear data-driven analyses that sometimes conflicts with city staff’s presentations.
For any policy item that has high public interest, the time per speaker would be reduced to one minute per person, which barely provides enough time to thank the Council and state support or opposition to the action item.
The Brown Act is intended to provide rigorous guidance for equal and open public participation in governmental decision-making. While the conduct of public meetings is an important part of this, it is equally important that the public receive timely information on agenda items and equal access to councilmembers.
Accordingly, we also recommend that the City Council post agendas 72 BUSINESS hours (3 business days) before the meeting, rather than the current practice of allowing the posting of agendas on a Friday afternoon before a Monday council meeting. We also encourage the Council to consider additional policy and procedural changes to make it easier to schedule meetings with Councilmembers and policy staff.
We encourage people to attend Wednesday’s Rules Committee meeting and/or submit a written comment urging the committee and full council to preserve citizens’ rights to make organized presentations at City Council meetings. This will be an informational item (Item 4) at Wednesday, Feb. 18’s 9 AM Rules Committee meeting.
Geoff Hueter is the chair of Neighbors For A Better San Diego
Is there anyone in this photo at least under the age of 50? I can say that because I’m 64.
Don’t get hung up over a photo we used.
Take it with a grain of salt.
What does it matter how old, young, male, female, gay, straight, Republican, Democrat, or whatever demographic anyone is in any photo? This is a crucially important issue, and shouldn’t be minimized or joked about… especially because some proponents of limiting the impact of viewpoints contrary to their own try to minimize those arguments by attacking the age and race of their opponents.
Looked like a church service. Lol
I’m no longer apologizing or making excuses for all the gray-hairs and bald-heads — who show up at council meetings and at anti-Trump protests; that generation will save America.
Because it’s the one killing America with all the dotard Dumpy supporters?
Chris, you should know the UT used this same photo in an article from today.
LMAO, much like voice uses the same concrete construction worker one.
I would love to see a group give a 30 minute speach 1 minute each. It’s time to get creative.
The actors AirBnb brought down from Los Angeles seems to have figured it out. Get there early. Each one might be able to cede their minutes to the group, and then have more than one person speak for the group. I have not watched the video to see exactly how it worked.
By the way, having so many AirBnB’s is going to affect negatively OB’s protest against losing historic status on Feb. 24. Council member Joe La Cava already commented on it, forgetting that it is a City Council decision that has made this happen.
To those commenters incoherently attempting to argue that there seems to be a problem because there are a coalition of older San Diegans attending City Council meetings… Yeah we are engaged and growing enraged because we need to be. We are representing those younger generations of San Diegans silenced through politico-corporate real estate monopolist rental slavery forcing them to work some two and three jobs in order to pay for all of the $2750/mo for “affordable rental housing units” being benevolently built to “accommodate” them.
In the meantime, the Mayor and Council are making up their own rules and regulations to suit themselves. Every day I turn around and it’s another decision to eliminate any input from and/or interaction with the citizens who live here.
How can we gain control of our home town?