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Shorter City Agendas will Quiet NCs |
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Empowerment Report
By Greg Nelson
I have a suggestion for those neighborhood councils that have become frustrated at the glacial speed with which the culture of city government has been changing: get ticked off!
 One of the first hints that a culture change was occurring was when the
City Council adopted the unprecedented Community Impact Statement
process, following a 2002 motion by Councilwoman Janice Hahn. The City
Council was taking itself to a place where no other City Council had
been.
The new process allowed neighborhood councils to have a 100-word position statement printed right on the agendas of the City Council, its committees, and city commissions.
Councilwoman Hahn constantly explained how important it is for the council members to have these public positions glaring them in their faces before they vote.
Recently, the Neighborhood Council Review Commission joined in the praise and said we should go a step further.
Presently, if more than one statement is received on an item, the agenda only includes the statement from the first neighborhood council to submit one, and the agenda lists the names of the other councils from which statements have been received.
The NCRC felt that “because the primary value of the Community Impact Statement is its transparency and clarity,” the 100-word statements of each neighborhood council that submitted one should be printed on agendas.
Fans of transparency and participatory democracy rejoiced.
A few days before the Education and Neighborhoods Committee was to meet yet again to discuss the 73 NCRC recommendations, the committee approved some recommendations from the City Clerk. And the City Council approved them a few weeks later. Click here to read the full report.
Even if you are lucky enough to find anyone who knew about the Clerk’s report, there wasn’t time for any neighborhood council’s voice to be heard before the committee voted. The votes were a 180 degree turn from what the NCRC had recommended. The Clerk convinced the City Council that no 100-word statements should appear on the agendas at all.
Instead, readers of the agendas would know which neighborhood councils submitted statements, but only those accessing the agendas online would be able, with some extra clicking, to read the text of the statements that used to be right there on the agenda.
The justification was that this would reduce the length of the agendas, make “navigation” easier, and reduce “paper dependency.”
A proposal that makes agendas shorter by quieting the neighborhood councils’ voice is certainly arguable. The savings are so small that they couldn’t be measured.
What’s most distressing about this is that in developing this recommendation, the Clerk’s staff talked privately with Councilwoman Hahn’s office, some unnamed members of the NCRC, and the Chief Legislative Analyst. Yet, no one took the time to tell neighborhood councils that this change was being considered. It would have taken just a few minutes for DONE to send out a newsletter.
As bad as this whole thing looks, I don’t honestly believe that this was a result of some conspiracy to attack neighborhood councils. The people involved don’t run like that.
However, this is a clear indication that City Hall still doesn’t understand that they are expected to do things with neighborhood councils. This materialistic/paternalist “business as usual” attitude has prevailed for so long at City Hall that many aren’t even aware that they have become engulfed by it.
It would helpful if some apologies were issued, and that the insiders promised to read the Early Warning System section of the City Charter.
It’s at times like this that I wish they were a citywide coalition of neighborhood councils dedicated to ensure that the voices of neighborhood councils reverberated through City Hall so that there won’t be a next time.
As for the City Clerk’s office, a better way to improve the agenda is to print them using language that non-bureaucrats can understand regardless of how pages it takes. You can reach Greg Nelson at
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