Temecula City Council inexplicably changes start time for public meetings without public input
1TVPAC Team
TEMECULA — During Tuesday night’s Temecula City Council meeting, Mayor Brenden Kalfus presented the council with a new policy, seemingly derived out of thin air, that proposed moving city council meetings to a different time of the day on Tuesdays.
After a 4-1 vote with Councilmember Zak Schwank voting no, as of July, Temecula City Council meetings will begin with closed session at 2 p.m. and open session at 3 p.m.
Meetings previously, like Tuesday’s meeting, started at 5 p.m. with a closed session, and the public open session started at 6 p.m.
The change of time proposal came as a surprise to some of the city council members, who voted on the issue with no lead time in order to garner input from their constituents. There were no public surveys regarding the issue.
The discussion began with Mayor Kalfus proposing the idea to the council, saying his motivation was to increase engagement from the community.
“I really want to try something different and change up our city council times,” he said. “While I recognize that there's always going to be a portion and a segment of our community that is unable to attend any time that we put a meeting at. We need to look at providing the most access and the most effective and efficient way possible.
“A few reasons for trying something new could include enhanced participation, like I said, that some daytime residents, who haven't participated before, like retirees parents whose kids are in school, those working from home, or some businesses, may find daytime meetings more accessible than the current evening meetings. Also, people tend to be more alert and productive in the morning.”
Schwank stated his opposition to the idea.
“I don't like the negotiating on the dais approach to this at all because I think we're just throwing stuff out there, ‘oh this sounds good’ or ‘maybe we could try this.’” he said. “We don't really know if anything that we do would be an enhancement over what we're doing and I (don’t like) that this item was one of the very last items tonight.
“If we were to decide something tonight with, like, zero public outreach — I didn't do any outreach on this — I didn't talk to folks about it. I didn't necessarily think we're going to come up with a new start time tonight.”
Mayor Pro Tem Jessica Alexander supported the move.
“I'd rather get up as early as possible and get my work started but most people are like they are the productivity peaks between 10 and 2,” she said. “And so for us I think it would be a great opportunity to be able to just have a lot of clarity and be able to work on projects even better since we're handling a lot of issues and things like that also. I think looking at it with the staff, you had brought it up, as well the staff is definitely going to make an impact on overtime.”
Alexander said she supported a 9 a.m. start time.
Councilmember Matt Rahn also had some reservations before ultimately voting yes.
“I think we're working under a lot of assumptions of people we know or our own perspectives, but I wouldn't say that we're perfect at answering this question,” he said. “Or this solution is going to resolve things for everybody because it might complicate things for others. One of those populations in particular that I'm worried about is our youth because you know we've had great engagement in our community over the years I've been here. Especially from our high school showing up and in the evening to attend if we move this to a daytime meeting.”
Schwank continued.
“More importantly, for me, I think the optics of this is bad,” he said. “If you talk about being more transparent, you can't argue that more people would come here at 9 in the morning they're dropping the kids off at school, they're either heading to work if they're lucky enough to work in Temecula, they're heading to work for the folks at work day shifts. They've been at work for a few hours in San Diego or Riverside or Orange County and L.A. I would hate to do that.”
According to labor statistics compiled by city staff, Temecula has a labor force of approximately 54,000 people– roughly 95% of its population over the age of 16. Working residents have an average commute time of 38 minutes; 11,380 Temecula residents have a commute of one hour or longer.
Council members also talked extensively about the conflicts that would be caused with subcommittee meetings and the inaccessibility for residents being honored with city presentations, proclamations, etc.
For instance, if someone was being honored for service to the city, what time would the council suggest those honorees show up for the meeting? Who is to say when the business of the city would be completed in order to have the time to perform those honored duties? Would they have to cut short discussion on city business to perform those awards ceremonies?
With schools letting out around the 3 p.m. hour, would resident parents have the ability to provide public comments to the board on city issues the council would be deciding upon?
What about business owners and workers within the city that don’t get off of work until 5 p.m. and later? How can they speak on agendized city issues, given the early start time?
Yet, inexplicably, the decision was made to move the meetings anyway.
“Saying” you want to increase engagement with no tangible proof or verifiable evidence that making this change would do so, seems disingenuous.
Not seeking and receiving any input from the community is foolish and selfish to the ends you wish to accomplish.
We have to wonder if there is another agenda in play here, one that ultimately limits the wider public’s ability to voice their concerns and opinions toward city business items in favor of helping a small circle of influencers to have their say exclusively.
Or, rather, intentionally changing the time to limit having to hear from the public at all.
Considering the council’s recent decision to shut down some community commissions, the question begs whether Temecula City Councilmembers are willing to listen to their constituents at all — outside of their personal social media accounts, of course.
It is our opinion that this change in no way serves the general public in a positive way, will severely limit the public’s ability to participate in city business, and is bad governance by nature.
Watch the full meeting at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqNKkNJWRCc
