12:40pm | The City Council is set to vote on an item Tuesday that could offer even greater public input into the City Hall process.
The item, originally proposed by Council member Tonia Reyes Uranga way back in 2003, would allow members of the public addressing the Council to use the Council Chambers’ audio/visual equipment during their three minutes at the podium.
This would mean that any member of the public could use Power Point presentations, video clips, audio clips, or other such material to help make their case while speaking to the Council.
Tuesday’s agenda item cites the city’s 2010 Strategic Plan: “‘We commit ourselves to a continuous civic dialog to build community strength and self-sufficiency.” It goes on further to acknowledge that, “the strength of our community is in valuing the importance of people: Every resident and business can have an impact on the future–[the public’s] ideas and input will craft the decisions that affect [their] neighborhood and [their] city.”
Reyes-Uranga, in making the original request to allow the use of audio/visual equipment in chambers, added, “I believe that the public should be provided every opportunity to participate in this decision making process.”
Democracy at work? Well, yes… but maybe with a dash of no thrown in. At least the way the agenda item is now written.
You see, the caveat in the agenda item is that a member of the public must present their electronic presentation to the City Hall tech services folks no later than five (5) days before the City Council meeting.
However, in the case of the regular agenda, the council can post an item to the agenda within three days of the Council meeting and in the case of a special meeting, up to 24 hours before the time such a special meeting is publicly noticed.
While Long Beach Municipal Code 2.03.070.B states that an agenda item must be turned into the City Clerk no later than a week before the Council meeting where it will be discussed, the city code does not specify, other than to say in accordance with state law, when the items must be publicly posted.
State public disclosure law covering city council meetings sets down that “At least 72 hours prior to a regular meeting, an agenda must be posted which contains a brief general description of each item to be transacted or discussed at the meeting.”
Keep in mind that it is not uncommon for agenda items at City Council, often times in the case of major items that are being worked on to the last moment by city staff, to be placed on the agenda just prior to the 72 hour deadline.
This means that the deadline for members of the public wishing to speak on such an item to submit any electronic presentations to the City Hall tech services staff would have already passed.
Why is so much lead time being requested of the public to use the audio/visual equipment–especially in these days of DVD burners and pocket flash drives that can carry whole presentations with ease and allow them to be loaded in seconds?
Council member Reyes-Uranga’s Chief of Staff Ray Ravith Pok said that the five day language in the item was based on an administrative deadline that city staff and council members were under back in 2003 (an internal deadline that is now technically two days longer).
While any attempt to encourage more input from the public and provide greater tools to do so can only be a good thing, an even better step would be to reconcile the deadlines so that the public can have the opportunity to see all agenda items before having to conceive, build and deliver an audio/visual presentation in time to be used at the council meeting.
Perhaps, come Tuesday, Council member Reyes Uranga, or one of the other council members equally interested in the public’s input, might consider moving for such a change to the agenda item language at the dais. That way the public wins all the way around.