On December 31, 2020 Ardy Kassakhian posted on Twitter:
“Meeting agendas ready 12 days before the actual scheduled meeting. Let’s make this a regular occurrence so the public has a chance to see what’s coming up for a vote. #transparency#LocalGov “
I agree that the public should have plenty of advance notice. Perhaps even 14 days. And, certainly, government transparency is a good thing. The more we can get out of it, the better.
However, it doesn’t seem an especially great accomplishment to get an agenda out, not even a full two weeks in advance, after much of our government has had the better part of a month off. Not to mention that then-Mayor Ara Najarian’s ineffective May 14, 2020 proposal of City Council ‘Dark Days’ once per month was supposed to accomplish that months and months ago. Instead it only gave Council and staff another handful of paid days off. Yet December’s City Council meetings contain at least two examples of councilmembers expressing their frustration with the lack of timely agenda and/or document releases.
Seems that staff would have enough time on their hands to write a few agendas in light of a 20-day stretch of no meetings.
As I write this on 1/4/21 there is still only one other item added to the Public Meeting Portal, scheduled for 1/13/21, and that’s a cancellation.
Excuse me if I’m not impressed. At least our government is getting plenty of rest during this December/January peak of COVID-19.
And, I’m just kind of wondering… it’s probably not a very important point… and I’m sure there’s a very good politically designed explanation for it…. But, why is it that during two holidays, Christmas and New Year’s Day, City Council needs three weeks off? It doesn’t seem especially right considering we are in the midst of a pandemic when Glendale residents are dying faster than I can blog about them.
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