Christmas is almost here, and so is the Grinch. A week before Christmas, the Council has a surprise for you. You might want to change your plans for Tuesday evening. But first, there are five items on the regular agenda, and my commentary on four of them will be brief:
Item 12: Revisit of the Noise Regulations and Standards, mostly about outdoor entertainment. This issue has been going on for years and has continued from a few meetings back. This should generate some discussion.
Item 13: Proposed changes to rules and procedures on City Council, adding items to agenda and Mayor/Mayor Pro Tem selection. See below for commentary.
Item 14: Proposed moratorium on existing senior-restricted mobile home parks changes. This is a Rancho La Paz issue. The owner called for a meeting of residents on December 26, and they fear the intent is to change it to an all-ages park. Members Charles and Zahra asked for a moratorium so that the issue and the City’s role can be more fully examined and understood.
Item 15: Regulations and protections for “Critical Infrastructures.” In effect, the goal is to further limit homeless encampments. A complete list of the relevant critical infrastructure is not included. Apparently, there is a pre-existing list, but it includes such locations as schools, government buildings, parking structures, bridges, and underpasses for starts. It does not restrict all encampments, but it is unclear where they would be allowed.
Item 16: Updates (raises) citation fees for short-term rentals (STR) and establishes fees for water theft as permitted by recent legislation (SB 60 and SB 427). Currently, there are no fees for water theft, which includes meter tampering, and STR fees are too low to be a deterrent.
And now Item 13. The last meeting was a disaster. There were only two items, but one, the UP Trail, brought back at the request of two Council members, was, at the request of Councilmember Whitaker –for no apparent reason — put off until January 16 (that will be a busy meeting). Twenty people, most of whom had come to speak in favor of the trail, spoke against the delay. Following that item, Nick Dunlap was elected Mayor, and Fred Jung was elected Mayor Pro Tem, again ignoring the current selection policy.
I mention all of this because of the contents of Item 13, which boils down to two things: do away with the current policy for selecting Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and require a majority vote to put an item on the agenda. Currently, this requires only two votes. This is the first item that Mayor Dunlap has put on an agenda, and he did it with the support (unneeded) of Fred Jung. It does not bode well.
First is leadership selection. On one level, this is symbolic. Current policy permits ignoring the seniority-based election system, which is exactly what the Council has done since the election of Jung and Dunlap to the Council. Eliminating the policy will not make any difference. It is just a gratuitous slap in the face to those who would have been selected under the existing policy and to those who worked hard for many years to establish a rotation policy. At their first meeting, Jung nominated Dunlap for Mayor Pro Tem, in contrast to the rotation envisioned by the policy. Dunlap accepted, thus disrupting any possibility of collegiality and cooperation for the next four years. But the next Council can re-instate the policy. What goes around comes around.
Second, getting an item on the agenda. Current policy permits the Mayor or City Manager to put an item on the agenda. That will remain unchanged. Current policy also permits any two members of the Council to request that an item be placed on the agenda. Two items on this week’s agenda are there because Members Charles and Zahra requested them. If this policy is passed, in the future, three votes will be required to put an item on the agenda (In the agenda summary, this would only pertain to items that have already been voted on in the past year, but in the draft policy, that distinction is not made). This strips the minority of any impact on the agenda and, thus, policy.
In effect, this says that the Council does not want to discuss any item the majority does not want to pass. Any concerns that the minority members have will not be aired, transparency will be reduced, and the majority can avoid unpopular votes. For the next year, we will have a three-member Council.
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Categories: Local Events, Local Government, Local News
“The last meeting was a disaster.”
No, it was fine.
Yah, we didn’t have pitchforks and torches.
The Mayor rotation is stupid and it is time it gets a refresh. I approve this message!
Mayor rotation is a fair approach.
What’s “stupid” is refusing to rotate the mayorship without letting the voters weigh in.
At least the rotation is between directly elected members. Not members ganging up and deciding the mayor for us.
I’m ambivalent about the mayoral rotation policy, but I strongly oppose a requirement for a majority of council support to place an item on the agenda.
Matt, that 3 person thing isn’t going to fly.
The relanant issue is how did 2 members of the City Council get to revive an issue (the so-called Trail to Nowhere, as Jane put it) that had already been clearly decided by the majority of the City Council? That was pure nonsense and required the connivance of the City Manager and the useless City Attorney.
Easy… because the public was unprepared and surprised by the vote outcome, and rightfully demanded to be heard post facto.
Years of promising that trail in the form of a master bicycle plan, approved by council, parks and rec putting resources for all the necessary planning and grant application to get it realized and funded, and then council knifes it at the last moment with no convincing argument and no public notice that they would suddenly act so unpredictably and irrationally… the public was left out and completely shocked.
What the heck happened? It doesn’t make any sense. How is our city spending our money planning things it doesn’t want to do? How does it get that far? Why do we have a bike master plan on the books that current council majority seems unaware of and has no interest in implementing or developing further?
How do you not put it back on the agenda for discussion? To not discuss this government waste would be to sweep incompetence or corruption under the rug.
No, council majority should not be free to hide from their incompetence.
“Easy… because the public was unprepared and surprised by the vote outcome, and rightfully demanded to be heard post facto.”
Then they should have prepared themselves. The vote was legal. There was no justification to bring that back and no authority to do it. If 2 people can re-agendize anything already voted on, any vote could be protracted indefinitely. BTW, you aren’t supposed to be replying to my comments, per “Amy” and “Bernard.”
The vote was legal. Re agendizing it was legal, relevant, and continues to be popular with everyone but the council majority that wants to hide from their choice to knife the park without rational explanation or bringing the public along.
Again it looks like incompetence or corruption and it should be brought up until the public gets a proper explanation and the situation is rationally resolved in the public interest.
As to who I respond to, that’s my business. I prefer to debate issues, unlike council majority who prefer to avoid public scrutiny for bizarre decisions.
Bruce Whitaker did the same thing a few years ago (although I don’t recall what the issue was). Yes, it’s irksome and inconvenient, and sometimes an obvious political wedge tool to bring back an item, but I think, on balance, it’s better than a permanent majority shut out of a council minority. It’s also the kind of thing that tends to backfire when a new majority takes power.
If a potential third voter asks for a reagendizing viable topic there’s no problem with doing it, and the City Manager should accommodate that action. But two people could use it to embarrass the majority by stringing something out – precisely the way Zahra and Charles did about the so-called Trail to Nowhere. A clear vote was held. The fact that a few people don’t like the outcome is no reason to give the minority the opportunity to put it back on an agenda. That’s what happened and it’s absurd.
I’m not talking about requiring 3 people’s assent to agendize something which is a terrible idea.
” But two people could use it to embarrass the majority by stringing something out”
Stringing something out? How so? The trail for example… I’m not sure anything is being strung out except the constantly growing public attention on an inexplicable council decision that wasted public resources.
So much attention. Heck how many articles has FFFF run on it and they’d prefer to pretend like it never happened, just like you?
Allowing the minority to raise an issue keeps public focus on it. But you’re wrong in that it changes the outcome. It can only change the outcome if council majority votes differently.
And talking about it can only embarrass the majority if their decision was embarrassing. If it’s a popular decision they should relish the opportunity to remind the public of a great decision.
Demanding 3 votes to simply talk about something is to completely shut out the minority and to admit the majority is afraid of sunlight being cast on their decisions.
Basically it will mean council will only talk about things in public that are going to pass. Why even meet? Just send out bullet points to the public informing us of the decisions of our Supreme Conservative Majority. The public is irrelevant.
‘Demanding 3 votes to simply talk about something is to completely shut out the minority and to admit the majority is afraid of sunlight being cast on their decisions.”
And since I never said that you are arguing with the wrong person, which may be typical for you.
2 councilmembers dredging up an old vote they lost is nonsense and asinine. Even a troll like you must admit that.
@Zenger The Union Pacific Trail was re-agendized because the Urban Greening Grant Board said that the grant could not be used for the UP PARK. Councilmember Zahra thought that warranted more discussion and direction to staff. I am biased. I think it is idiotic to make plans, designs, have all the public input and meetings, apply for a grant, be awarded a grant, say yes, and then at the last moment say no with out any explanation that made any sense. At least Councilmember Whitaker gave a reason albeit bizarre and completely unattainable.
@ Kennedy. So what? The decision was made in August. If the grant couldn’t be repurposed it should go back. NOTHING changed. I’m sure you do think it is idiotic to make idiotic plans and waste lots of money on them.
Bazar is not a word.
“Trail to Nowhere” was made popular by Tony Bushala and his blog – Jane just copied it – for reasons the entire town (of her acquaintances) is mystified by (but I suspect is in return for future campaign contribution promises).
Made perfect sense to re-agendize the trail. Councilmembers Zahra and Charles noted that there was new relevant information on the trail issue (ie: the state saying no to the idea of using the urban greening grant elsewhere in town as the three were trying to do).
Since there was still time to use the $1.78 million grant as it was meant to be used for the 176-tree pedestrian/bike trail joining Union Pacific Park near downtown Fullerton to Independence Park on W. Valencia – that was critical information that everyone in town needed to know.
Though it does put Whitaker, Jung, and Dunlap in a bad light (of their own making) to be opposing the trail and being so sloppy about city funding – that is not the intent of sharing the new information with residents.
The three will have another – perhaps last – chance to make things right at the next council meeting in January.
What complete and errant nonsense. There was not one iota of new information. The Council voted in August to reject the grant UNLESS it could be used elsewhere. If it can’t it goes back. Since when can two losers reagendize something when they don’t like the outcome? Only a fool would agree with that.
Your insulting Jane’s motives isn’t beneath you, unfortunately. I am not only her acquaintance, I am also her friend and I was quite pleased to see her take an honest position, especially knowing she would take heat from some of her less bright and her disingenuous acquaintances.
Yes, the Council voted to continue this in January, thereby giving credibility to the reagendizing. They should have just tabled the stupidity forever and dressed down the City Manager and City Attorney publicly.
“They should have just tabled the stupidity forever and dressed down the City Manager and City Attorney publicly.”
Yeah, who cares what the public wants. The Imperial Council has spoken… we must not talk of this again.
Sheesh.
An update: to my understanding, the agenda item has been updated to require a majority vote to agendize ANY item, not just items that have been voted on in the past year. A travesty for democracy and representation. PLEASE VOICE YOUR OPINION AT THE UPCOMING MEETING. Fullerton’s future is at stake.