This fall, Davis Mayor Josh Chapman and Councilmember Bapu Vaitla asked our city commissioners for feedback on a proposal they offered for “clarification of how items are placed on a commission meeting agenda.” Their plan, which may come before council in the coming weeks, would empower even a single councilmember to sidetrack any commission-initiated proposal he or she didn’t like, for any reason.
Commissioners pushed back against the proposal in a recent series of commission hearings:
David Sandino, Fiscal Commission: “The danger of this is [it] is pretty bureaucratic … I would personally be comfortable with the chairperson working with staff to craft agendas, and not have to have additional review by a council subcommittee or a council liaison…It seems to me too many cooks in the kitchen… I’d hate to stifle commission thought and initiative because you had a few major examples that have ruffled some feathers.”
Mitchell Marubayashi, Fiscal Commission: “I don’t really understand… the problem that this is solving…”
John Reuter, Climate & Environmental Justice Commission: “This is something the whole city is going to have to live with… If someone has to check on every agenda item, this is a logistics nightmare…an outrageous effort and waste of time…. I think we should be allowed to set [our] own agenda… If you go down that flow chart…where does the commission’s point of view come in?”
Alana Gamage, Climate & Environmental Justice Commission: “I think [this] can lead to more profound continuity issues. If we have an executive team here and in the moment trying to evaluate what we want to do and have to extend that for a month, go through the review process, have it come back to us for review, it’s going to lose momentum… We’re going to … forget what we talked about… what matters… we’re not going to be able to make those executive decisions very wisely…”
Timm Herdt, Recreation & Parks Commission: “It does seem like it’s intended to inhibit commission participation and set up additional …procedural obstacles… The impression one gets from reading that flow chart and reading the narrative is that this is intended to tie our hands….”
Judith Ennis, Social Services Commission: “This year we established our liaison approach where we reached out and met with nonprofits … That was hugely beneficial to us. It was pretty time sensitive…Imagine the delay…if we jog that back and explain the project multiple times and had multiple checkpoints. I worry about the loss of good work from talented people who want to volunteer and not use city resources……”
Kevin Baker, Human Relations Commission: “There’s a state law that authorizes the creation of human relations commissions, that empowers them, that sets forth their rules and responsibilities… We’re not… down with the recommendation… I’m personally a little resentful that this is something we have to spend our time talking about when I feel like there are items that need our attention right now, including development of our work plan…”
Thomas Rost, Senior Citizens Commission: “This was really submitted to be discussed before the city really understood what it was. It shouldn’t really have be discussed before it goes through the city attorney and it was approved.”
The Police Accountability Commission passed a motion preferring their current practice of letting their chair and vice chair set their agenda. The Transportation Commission voted to have their council liaison be completely removed from their decision-making process.
Commissioner comments highlighted a number of difficulties. It stifles the independence of city commissions and prevents commissioners, many experts in their field, from offering a different point of view or new ideas the City Council needs to hear. It interferes with a commission’s ability to advocate for the very constituents it represents, such as senior citizens, the disabled, persons with low income, and ethnic minorities. The process of setting agendas and conducting commission business is severely slowed. It fosters government meetings and decision-making behind closed doors that would be illegal under the Brown Act. And it interferes with the legal mandate of some commissions, such as the Human Relations and the Historic Resources Management Commissions. It is a solution in search of a problem.
Three different written versions of the plan were presented to various city commissions. The details and explanations for it varied from meeting to meeting. Commissioners were often baffled about how the plan worked and staff was often unable to answer basic questions about it.
After we voiced concerns that the plan violated the state’s open meeting laws for local government, new versions were released that attempted but failed to fully address that legal issue. Their revised plan would allow an agenda item approved by a commission to be sidetracked by just one or two councilmembers. Instead of going forward to Council, it would instead be returned to that commission for further discussion. State law is clear that such government policy decisions must be made in a public setting, with advance notice to local residents, by a governing majority of a local government body, such as the Council.
There are better ways for Council and commissioners to work collaboratively. The Council could invite commissions, as in the past, to review and comment on the official list of Council goals before they are adopted. The current Council halted the longstanding practice of holding a public workshop with a different commission each month to discuss how they could work together. Council could resume those workshops.
Commission feedback is having an impact. Councilmember Donna Neville told the Finance Commission, “I don’t want to stifle commission-initiated work and I appreciate the frustrations you have shared.” City Clerk Zoe Mirabelle told one commission, “This might quietly go into the night…Maybe it’s not a one-size fits-all approach…”
The Chapman-Vaitla plan to micromanage commissions is neither legal nor good government. It would create a breeding ground for bad policymaking and corruption and frustrate the independent oversight of city government that commissions were created to provide. This plan should be scrapped as illegal and unworkable.
Dan Carson is a former Davis City Council member and city commissioner with a 45-year career in journalism and state and local government service. Elaine Roberts Musser is an attorney who has served on county and city commissions as well as various task forces. She was given the award of Davis Citizen of the Year in 2014.
