Good evening Mayor Brand, City Council members and staff,
My comment this evening is about the previously scheduled Strategic Plan that was rightfully replaced with a Budget summit meeting due to the impacts of COVID-19 on next year's budget. Before this unprecedented time in history there were several items planned for the 2020 Spring Strategic Plan. I would like to know when the Strategic Plan will be held and request 2 specific topics be discussed and acted upon.
Last year I had brought up that the city, although previously discussed in January 2018, had yet to adopt any official parliamentary procedure for the Council and the Commissions. To date nothing has been officially adopted and this leads to unclear motions, excessive dialogue in my opinion, and overall a less efficient meeting that relies on the City Attorney to instruct on loosely adopted Robert's Rules.
Additionally the city does not have a clear policy for Public Hearing ex-parte communication disclosures for the City Council or Commissioners. This lack of clarity could eventually lead to a legal risk should someone want to exploit this potential hole in the city's policies. Currently, by historical norms ex-parte is disclosing who you spoke to. But I believe the essence of ex-parte is more what did you learn and what data was used to judge in a public hearing and ensuring every one of the council members/commissioners has the same information. For ex-parte, this has lead staff to directly recommend to commissioners not to speak to any other commissioners in advance of a public hearing which is not specifically the rule of either ex-parte or the Brown Act. (Which are often overlapping or erroneously discussed in place of the other).
I kindly ask that at the next Strategic Plan, whenever that may be, these 2 topics (Adopting some official procedural rules and adopting an ex-parte policy) be taken up to provide clarity for the residents, the city council and the commissioners to reduce the future risk of a procedural or ex-parte lawsuit issue that may arise due to a lack of an official policy.
Good evening Mayor Brand, City Council members and staff,
My comment this evening is about the previously scheduled Strategic Plan that was rightfully replaced with a Budget summit meeting due to the impacts of COVID-19 on next year's budget. Before this unprecedented time in history there were several items planned for the 2020 Spring Strategic Plan. I would like to know when the Strategic Plan will be held and request 2 specific topics be discussed and acted upon.
Last year I had brought up that the city, although previously discussed in January 2018, had yet to adopt any official parliamentary procedure for the Council and the Commissions. To date nothing has been officially adopted and this leads to unclear motions, excessive dialogue in my opinion, and overall a less efficient meeting that relies on the City Attorney to instruct on loosely adopted Robert's Rules.
Additionally the city does not have a clear policy for Public Hearing ex-parte communication disclosures for the City Council or Commissioners. This lack of clarity could eventually lead to a legal risk should someone want to exploit this potential hole in the city's policies. Currently, by historical norms ex-parte is disclosing who you spoke to. But I believe the essence of ex-parte is more what did you learn and what data was used to judge in a public hearing and ensuring every one of the council members/commissioners has the same information. For ex-parte, this has lead staff to directly recommend to commissioners not to speak to any other commissioners in advance of a public hearing which is not specifically the rule of either ex-parte or the Brown Act. (Which are often overlapping or erroneously discussed in place of the other).
I kindly ask that at the next Strategic Plan, whenever that may be, these 2 topics (Adopting some official procedural rules and adopting an ex-parte policy) be taken up to provide clarity for the residents, the city council and the commissioners to reduce the future risk of a procedural or ex-parte lawsuit issue that may arise due to a lack of an official policy.
Thank you,
Matthew Hinsley from District 3