[The March 21, 2023, Transportation Safety Committee meeting that was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. was cancelled with no public notice at some point perhaps 1/2 hour prior to the meeting. It was at this meeting that the Transportation Safety Committee would be issuing recommendations on the General Plan Update and the Gateway Plan, with particular regard to the “L Street – K Street Couplet” proposal in the Draft Gateway Plan. The Transportation Safety Committee has on numerous occasions expressed their opposition to the proposed couplet, and has requested alternatives be supplied. However, to date, there have been no alternatives offered by City staff. The meeting will likely be re-scheduled soon.]
[It appears that the agenda for the Transportation Safety Committee was removed from the City’s on-line Meeting Calendar webpage for a short time on Monday. The Brown Act requires that meetings be noticed (announced) at least 72 hours prior. By having the announcement of the meeting off the calendar, even for a brief time, it pretty much forced the City to postpone the meeting.]
The full letter starts below:
Note: This e-mail is being sent to all the members of the City Council, all members of the Planning Commission, to City Manager Karen Diemer, Community Director David Loya, and other Committee members and staff as outlined below.
As these are Gateway-related issues, this and other memos should appear as Submitted Comments. There is nothing of a private nature in this memo that, in my view, needs to be redacted.
I will see to have the Subject Line indicate what the e-mail is about. If this e-mail does not concern you, then feel free to ignore it. I apologize if this is burdensome to you individually.
Recent circumstances indicate that I should be sending my memos to all persons involved in the Gateway Plan. The amount of non-transparency in the Gateway process seems to have increased as time has gone on.
If this was not important to the public good, then I would not be sending this.
Highlights are utilized so you can skim, to save your time.
Thank you.
To: Honorable Mayor, City Councilmembers, Planning Commissioners,
Transportation Safety Committee members
City Manager Karen Diemer, Community Director David Loya,
Assistant City Engineer David Caisse (for forwarding to the TSC)
From: Fred Weis Wednesday, March 22, 2023
1. Transportation Safety Commission Meeting cancellation – Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Can someone please tell me what happened here?
It seems that the TSC agenda listing was removed from the City’s Meeting Calendar webpage for a small number of hours on Monday, and this was the impetus for the cancellation on Tuesday. (The Brown Act requiring 72 hours of notice for a meeting.)
The cancellation seems to have occurred around 20 or 30 minutes prior to the meeting. This is inconsiderate to the public.
Question: When was the Transportation Safety Committee informed of this cancellation?
There was no e-mail notification sent. Just the word “Cancelled” appeared on the City’s Meeting Calendar page.
Could City Staff have issued this notification at some point earlier? Perhaps 24 hours earlier. The City does have an email list that could be used for notification.
2. Sea Level Rise Joint Study Session, Tuesday, March 28, 6:00 p.m.
Can someone please tell me if it is the intent of the City to create an audio or video recording of this meeting?
I have asked this many times. And, if not, then could the amount of $175 can be provided to hire the videographer Eric Black for this task?
It seems to me that the Community Development Department was given $118,000 in funds to allocate on a discretionary basis for such things as public engagement and community outreach.
If a meeting on Sea Level Rise does not qualify as a topic that the public wishes to know more about, then I don’t know what would.
In a related question, there has been no official response about a reimbursement of the amount of $194 for the video recording of the Planning Commission February 11 (Saturday) Study Session. Could that be reimbursed from the discretionary funds, or from another source?
There is expected to be at least two further Saturday Planning Commission study sessions.
The City Council members are prohibited from attending these study sessions. Would it not be important to have an audio or video recording of the study sessions? (The February 11, 2023, session has 55 views on Arcata1.com.)
3. Brown Act Violations
The Brown Act requires that material provided to a majority of an agency be also made available to the public at the same time they are distributed to the governing body. This can mean having copies available to the members of the public who are in physical attendance, and also online on the agency’s website, at an easy-to-find location that is identified in the agendas of all meetings.
This is specified explicitly in the 2nd paragraph of each and every City Agenda — that these materials are to be placed in the agenda binder and on the City’s website.
A key element here is the phrase “at the same time they are distributed to the governing body.”
I have been attending City meetings for over a year now — mostly in person and sometimes via Zoom. I am going on record as saying that I have not once seen this done. I check the binder frequently. I have not once seen the specified material in this binder. And if it is on-line it certainly is not in a place where it can be found.
A recent example is the 1-1/2 page memo from Commissioner Peter Lehman that was distributed to the Commissioners at the March 14, 2023, meeting. Paper copies of this memo were made available to the public in attendance at that meeting. But, by law, the memo should have been available on-line, at the time it was distributed to the Commissioners. By law, if a member of the governing body or staff of the local agency prepared the materials, and the governing body received the materials during the meeting, the public must have access to the materials during the meeting.
If members of the Transportation Safety Committee were notified of the March 21 cancellation, and the public was not, this would also qualify as an infraction.
By my estimate, there have been dozens of infractions over this past year.
A possible solution:
Designate a specific webpage for this purpose, and specify this webpage on the agenda listings. Anything that staff has even a small suspicion of being required per Code § 54957.5, AB 2647, and other pertinent legislation should be simultaneously posted to that webpage, as soon as it is received or distributed. It should have a recognizable, useful, date-oriented title such as “2023-03-14 Planning Commission – Peter Lehman memo.pdf” and would just be added in the list, so to be in close-to chronological order. And anything added to this page during or prior to the meeting must be mentioned at the beginning of the meeting or at such time as appropriate, and also specifically included in the minutes.
This, I think, will allow the City to comply with these State laws in a thorough and complete manner — and in a simple, easy-to-accomplish manner.
I will note that letters sent to the agency from the public are included by definition of “a public record related to an agenda item for an open session of a regular meeting of the legislative body of a local agency and is distributed to all, or a majority of all, of the members of a legislative body of a local agency by a person in connection with a matter subject to discussion or consideration at an open meeting.”
Thus, I regard the removal of letters from the public from the Agenda Packets, as has been done after May, 2022, and placing them away from the agenda packet at a later time, ranging from 2 weeks to 3-1/2 months later, to be against the wishes and interests of the public, and a continuous, gross violation of State law — and one which, since it can be remedied with only a small amount of effort on the part of Staff, represents a clear, obvious, and evident disregard for applicable law and for recognition of public engagement.
As I have said to the City Manager, to the City Council, and to the Planning Commission:
This process of developing a Gateway Plan is difficult enough. Why augment a legal risk when to do things in accordance with State law involves such a relatively minor amount of effort?
On a risk / reward basis, current City actions make no sense to me.
— Fred Weis
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See:
California School Boards Association website.
Requirements when materials are provided less than 72 hours prior to a regular meeting.
Board members should note a new ruling regarding timing and document access
https://publications.csba.org/california-school-news/july-2022/requirements-when-materials-are-provided-less-than-72-hours-prior-to-a-regular-meeting/
and many other sources.
There are three timeframes that may apply:
- If board members receive the materials more than 72 hours before the scheduled meeting, then the materials are deemed public records and must be made available upon request and without delay.
The location where the documents can be publicly inspected must be included in the posted agenda. (Gov. Code, §§ 54954.1 and 54957.5, subd. (a).)
If a member of the governing body or staff of the local agency prepared the materials, and the governing body received the materials during the meeting, the public must have access to the materials during the meeting. (Gov. Code, § 54957.5, subd. (c).) If someone outside of the local agency prepared the materials and gave them to the governing body during the meeting, the public must receive access to the materials after the meeting. (Gov. Code, § 54957.5, subd. (c).)
If governing body members receive the materials less than 72 hours before a regular meeting, then the materials must be made available for public inspection at the same time they are distributed to the governing body. (Gov. Code, § 54957.5, subd. (b)(1) and (2).)