Monday’s Council Meeting: Will they do the right thing?
August 19, 2012 in Uncategorized By: Dave Emerson
(8/19/2012, Los Alamitos) Once again this Monday’s 6 p.m. Regular Council Meeting gives out City Council a chance to come clean. To turn the page and move forward without covering up. To show the people that we really have five independent Council Members who think for themselves.
In short, to do the right thing.
There are a number of items on Monday’s Agenda that will once again demonstrate if we have five Council Members who put the community first and think for themselves, or only one or two.
To me, the two that stand out the most as presenting opportunities to move forward are Agenda Items 11A and 11B.
Here’s 11 B:
Council Member Request Regarding Investigation of Alleged Brown Act Violation
Council Member Kusumoto (with the support of Council Member GrahamMejia) has requested that the City Council hire an independent expert to determine whether a violation of the Brown Act occurred as a result of conversations among Council Members concerning agenda item 10A that appeared on the July 16, 2012 agenda.
Recommendation: City Council take no action
Clean and simple. Hire an independent expert to review all the Brown Act violations that have been alleged over the past year and clear things up, once and for all. Who could object to that?
We’ll see. . . Monday night.
Hopefully also our two non-repeating candidates will take advantage of the public comments to introduce themselves to the voters. I suspect Mayor Edgar’s opponent in November, Travis Allen, may also have a public comment or tow.
Should be intersting. [ad]
If I don’t get a “Your Comments & Reporting” post up by Monday night, please use this post to report what you see & what you thought. In the meantime, your comments, diplomatically expressed, are encouraged!
http://ocpoliticsblog.com/troy-edgars-latest-dilemma/
Will Edgar show at all?
Kiss butt of GOP bigwigs to get an endorsement or attend a City Council meeting where you will get slowly roasted for 4 hours or so?
Hard call? No.
Let’s be clear here. None of the majority wants to address any of item 11. But then again, the PAX that was reached was violated by the majority when they made it clear that the minority can do whatever they want and the majority will blow them off.
As part of a negotiation in good faith the minority asked that the majority allow for them to call a special meeting if they wanted the City Council to address something – then they would agree to reduce the number of meetings to one per month. The majority smiled and agreed and the minority supported the majority opinion since the majority agreed that there would be no attempts to silence them. But the first time the minority used the powers granted in the agreement, the majority made sure that they remained powerless by not showing up and ensuring that there was no quorum.
The PAX was broken by the majority. The minority gave the majority the one meeting per month, and they abused the power by diss-ing the part of the agreement where they would allow the minority to bring items forward with special meetings.
The time of playing nice is over. The majority had every chance to end this. They could have taken the sword off Warren by stating that they had determined Warren did nothing wrong. They didn’t. They cut a deal to give the minority some semblance of power, and then showed that it was all for show. At every turn the majority had the opportunity to work WITH the minority. They have taken none of those opportunities. The gloves are back off Monday night.
No, it’s not “political”, it’s about the majority abusing their power and treating the minority as if they represent no one in this city (remember, Warren got more votes than anyone else sitting on that dais). Some tried to play nice, some did not. The piper will be paid.
DOes THIS COUNCIL MAJORITY EVER DO THE RIGHT THING!
No, so why should tonight be different than any other nights?