NOTE: Tuesday night's meeting will begin at 5:30 pm and not the usual 7 pm start time.
The City Council meeting this week was originally cancelled and then revived by Councilman Nick and I and scheduled for July 5, then changed to July 11. The focus of the evening will be on how the Council conducts its business, but there are a few other items as well, most notably licensing cats. I’m not sure if there isn‘t some irony in the scheduling.
AGENDA
Our meetings sometime go beyond 11 pm. By that time everyone’s mind has turned to mush, and people who wanted to talk about an item have long gone home.
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One way to improve the system is to personalize the agenda to meet the needs of the people present.
The Clerk has a list of people who want to speak. The agenda items can be prioritized and then discussed in the order that reflects the interests of the people. The Clerk also has a list of people who are present and making a presentation. Giving priority to the presenters, a new agenda order can be created.
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We could still write the agenda as we do now, and at the beginning of each meeting we could make a motion that allows the agenda items to be prioritized.
COUNCIL RESPONSE
During the “Public Comment” section people ask questions of individual Council members and also ask general questions. Under Mayor Hamilton we adopted a policy of waiting until everyone spoke before anyone made a comment. This disastrous policy often means that people who make comments aren’t present by the time someone gets around to responding to them, especially when there are a large number of speakers which happens often.
I’ll ask that Council comments be made after each public speaker. According to staff, this procedure is used by 82% of the 64 cities who responded to a survey. The policy adopted by Hamilton is used by only 18% of the cities.
FILLING A VACANCY
A few years ago Councilman Herzog resigned and the Council decided to appoint a new member. I argued at the time that the Council should not preempt the will of the people. When Herzog ran in 2010 I was the person who came in just “out of the money” and in 2012 the person who came in just “out of the money” was Terry Anderson. I argued that either Anderson or I should be appointed since this reflected the will of the people. The Council really didn’t care about the will of the people. They saw it as a chance to get one of their buddies on the Council. For example, Kathryn McCullough pushed to get her BFF Marcia Rudolph appointed, after Rudolph had lost the election in 2010. If anything, this would be working against the will of the people. In the end, after much debate, the Council appointed a man who promised not to run in 2014, broke that promise, and was soundly defeated. I prevailed, showing that the will of the people ultimately succeeded.
I’m going to suggest that we pass an ordinance that says that in the event of a resignation, the person who wasn’t elected but received the most votes in the most recent election, serve the remainder of the term. An alternate possibility is that the person who wasn’t elected but received the most votes in the election in which the Council member who resigned was elected, serve the remainder of the term. Either way, the will of the people should be served by this system, not the whims of the Council.
In some cases this would be the same person, but not necessarily so. For example, if Councilman Robinson resigned, the person would be Adam Nick who came in just 99 votes shy of Robinson in 2016. If Councilman Hamilton resigned, the person would be Col. Tom Cagley who came in just behind Hamilton in 2014.
In the event the person did not want to serve, the next person in line in terms of votes would be offered the position.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.
Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on Sept 9 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.
