Santa Ana residents are finding it difficult to address the city council on matters of concern since the council always starts their meetings in closed session with no set time for resurfacing for the public session. -db
Voice of OC
October 7, 2010
By Norberto Santana, Jr.
Santa Ana resident Mike Tardiff has a couple simple requests for the members of his City Council. He would like them to start their regular meetings in public, and allow public comment before they adjourn to closed session.
It is a request that just about every City Council in Orange County would have no problem granting. But it’s a problem in Santa Ana, where members always start their meetings in secret.
On Monday, Tardif sat outside the eighth floor offices of the city manager, where the City Council was preparing to begin its closed session portion of the regular meeting, hoping to be able to plead his case before the closed session started.
He never got the chance. So later in the evening he addressed the council from the podium during the public part of the meeting.
“This is very inconvenient for Santa Ana residents,” Tardif said, adding that Santa Ana residents — unlike those across the rest of Orange County — aren’t even given the courtesy of knowing what time their regular council meeting starts.
“We don’t know if the council will start at 5:15, or 6:15 or 6:30 p.m.,” he said. “Not having a regular time for public speakers discourages those from addressing their elected officials.”
Even cities that hold a closed session before the public session usually convene in open session and then retire to closed session after hearing public comments about the closed session.
Santa Ana’s curious approach means that a resident can never really be sure when the council meeting starts. Many residents say they feel as if that’s exactly what council members want.
“It’s very frustrating, and often it’s done to thin out the audience,” said Peter Katz, 62, who has lived in Santa Ana for 30 years.
The practice is a major concern to open government advocates.
“I don’t think there’s any way you can achieve the Brown Act’s requirement to allow public comment on items in closed session without first convening in open session,” said Terry Francke, Voice of OC’s open government consultant and general counsel of the First Amendment advocacy organization CalAware.
According to Francke, the Brown Act says in general that there must be an opportunity on the agenda to address the body on anything that is on the agenda before or during the item being considered by elected leaders.
The only way to reconcile that with a closed session is to provide an opportunity before, Francke said.
“The closed session is part of the regular meeting,” he said. “And the regular meeting has to open in public session.”
He also said that Tardif has a point when he says that council members should have a set hour for the public meeting and says state law backs him up. “They have to state and stick to a fixed hour at which meetings will commence,” Francke said.
Francke said the violations were serious, adding that “these things are worthwhile bringing to the district attorney’s attention.”
Copyright 2010 Voice of OC | Orange County’s Nonprofit Investigative News Agency, Santa Ana, CA.
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