Rules Committee Considers Moving City Council Meeting Times

The City Council decides how to spend more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars over the course of a single year. It makes land use and transportation decisions and introduces new policies and ordinances that directly affect the community. So, is it fair to the public that San Jose’s elected officials meet mostly in the early afternoon while the rest of the world is busy at its 9-5, or 6-9, or some other demanding schedule typical of Silicon Valley working drones?

Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio proposes pushing back the council’s start times to 4:30pm, at least, while still keeping meetings on Tuesdays. His plan goes before the Rules and Open Government Committee today.

The first half-hour or more of your typical council meeting is eaten up by ceremonious announcements—and the Pledge of Allegiance, for some decidedly unconstitutional reason. Oliverio figures that having meetings start at 4:30 in the afternoon means the council probably won’t get to any action items until 5pm or later, giving folks abiding by a conventional work schedule a chance to show up after they clock out.

“Because council meetings are held in the middle of the day, public attendance is very low,” Oliverio notes in his memo. “As a consequence, it is difficult for residents to be engaged and participate by voicing their opinions and/or concerns on agenda items.”

The council can always schedule closed-session meetings for 1:30pm, or earlier if it needs more time, he adds.

If city officials agree to Oliverio’s schedule change, it wouldn’t be the first time public meetings got moved around. The council agreed in 2004 to cancel meetings after a three-day weekend because councilmembers wouldn’t have enough time to review the agenda packet.

“Continuing to have meetings at 1:30pm does not accommodate public attendance and participation; it hinders both,” Oliverio says. “The City made changes to the council meeting schedule to fit their needs, and I would argue that it is now time to make changes in order to accommodate the needs of San Jose residents.”

More from the San Jose Rules and Open Government Committee agenda for April 17, 2013:

• The city’s volunteer Arts Commission will share its annual update and proposed work plan for the coming fiscal year.

• In case of emergency, San Jose police notify public schools and school districts to give them enough warning to evacuate or order a lockdown. But no such communication plan exists for private daycares, charter schools and afterschool programs. District 4 Councilman Kansen Chu wants to widen the scope of the emergency alert system, he says in a memo proposing the plan.

City Auditor Sharon Erickson’s job goes up for renewal every four years so city officials can figure out if she should stay, or how much of a raise to give her when revising the terms of her employment contract for another four years.

Erickson is up for review now, and it looks like she’s about to get a 2.5 percent raise, bringing her total annual salary to $174,100.

Her job is to audit various departments and processes within the city to keep everyone on task. You can read the terms of her updated employment contract right here. The Rules committee will vote on whether to agendize the item for a future City Council meeting.

• Not one to pass up a chance to parade his dramatic flair, David Wall set his sights on District 1 Councilman Pete Constant this time, essentially calling him a political cross-dresser for supporting Teresa Alvarado fro supervisor. Just read for yourself to find out how, in Wall’s theatrical interpretation of events, Constant “exchanged his shield, armor and his immortal political soul for a frilly pink sun dress and a pair of fuzzy pink stiletto pumps.” Lulz.

• The committee will also discuss which state legislation to support, ranging from a bill about battery recycling, handling medical waste and disposing of home-generated hypodermic needles.

WHAT: San Jose Rules and Open Government Committee meets
WHEN: 2pm Wednesday
WHERE: City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose
INFO: City Clerk, 408.535.1260

Jennifer Wadsworth is the former news editor for San Jose Inside and Metro Silicon Valley. Follow her on Twitter at @jennwadsworth.

10 Comments

  1. What difference does it make that the public is not there to voice their opinions when they are only allowed 1 or 2 minutes to get their point across, while the bored council looks on, pretending to listen and then vote the way they want to vote, anyway?????? So why is this starting to matter to PLO, after all of these years? We all know that their minds are already made up and listening to those 1 or 2 minutes is because they HAVE to do it.

    • I agree. One minute is not much time to provide input, and most decisions are already made before the meeting begins. Still, it would be nice from a symbolic point of view if the closed session business could be done during the day with the open session done at night in case the public wants to show up.

      Also, there’s no reason to inject a nasty swipe at the pledge of allegiance in this post. It has nothing to do with council meeting times and is just a cheap shot.

  2. Meanwhile they all voted themselves a big fat 5% payraise. So where is the outrage. We have slashed the throats of almost all the working class city employees, yet the elitists are unaffected. They are in another world. Where is the public outrage?

  3. I watched this portion of the Rules Committee meeting this past week. Rufus really scolded Pier about this idea, and how silly he seemed to think it was, and Pier seemed flummoxed and at a loss for words, and very irritated when Rufus completely shot it down.

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