San Diego City Council Rules Committee Meeting - February 8, 2017
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San Diego City Council Rules Committee Meeting - February 8, 2017
The Rules Committee held its first meeting of 2017 on February 8, 2017, chaired by Council President Cole. Members present: Councilmember Breed, Councilmember Ward, Councilmember Kate, Council President Pro Tem, and Vice Chair Kersey. The meeting began with approval of the consent calendar and non-agenda public comment, followed by discussion of 2017 committee priorities and a proposal to update municipal code references from "city manager" to "mayor."
Consent Calendar
- The committee record of actions from November 14, 2016 was approved by unanimous consent.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Non-agenda public comment: Martha Welch criticized the reduction of non-agenda public comment time, asserted that city budgets have changed, and noted police stations are closed without officers.
- On agenda item #1 (2017 priorities):
- Eve Cowser (Women Occupy San Diego) spoke in favor, urging the committee to review the Community Review Board on police practices, specifically requesting independent investigators, subpoena power, and independent legal counsel.
- Kate Yavendetti (attorney, activist) spoke in opposition to proposed limits on public comment, arguing that reducing community input is appalling and that the Brown Act is being misused to restrict repeated comments on carryover items.
- Martha Sullivan spoke in favor, criticizing the two-minute limit on public comment and urging the committee to prioritize homelessness over the proposed hotel occupancy tax ballot measure.
- Martha Welsh spoke in opposition to what she called an "assault on non-agenda," defending public comment as a source of ideas and expressing frustration with the city's inaction on homelessness.
- Robert McNamara (District 3) spoke in favor, suggesting the charter review committee address salary setting for mayor and council, attorney and investigator for the CRB, land issues for the convention center expansion, and a survey of boards and commissions. He also called for equal division of CPPS funds among council districts.
Discussion Items
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Item 1: Rules Committee Priorities for 2017 Council President Cole outlined four priorities: (1) review and update the council policy manual; (2) review the city's boards and commissions, incorporating an upcoming audit; (3) hear a presentation on Mayor Faulkner's proposed ballot initiative to increase the transient occupancy tax (TOT) to fund convention center expansion, homelessness programs, and street repairs; (4) receive an update on the Get It Done customer service pilot program. Councilmember Ward expressed support for tying the TOT measure to homelessness services and noted that additional police oversight measures would be considered in 2018. Councilmember Kate emphasized continuing charter review committee work and evaluating measures K and L regarding ranked-choice voting. The motion to adopt the priorities passed unanimously.
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Item 2: Amending Municipal Code - Replacing "City Manager" with "Mayor" Council President Cole noted that many municipal code sections still reference "city manager" despite the strong mayor form of government, causing confusion. City Attorney Sharon Speebak clarified that an existing code section deems those references to mean "mayor," legal compliance is current, but a full cleanup would be a larger project requiring subject-matter attorney review. Councilmember Breed moved to request a legal opinion from the city attorney on how to concisely make the necessary changes and to bring the item back within 120 days. The motion passed unanimously.
Key Outcomes
- Consent calendar approved.
- 2017 committee priorities adopted unanimously.
- Motion to request city attorney legal opinion on updating municipal code references to "city manager" passed unanimously.
- Future rules committee meetings will be held at 10:00 a.m. on even months; next meeting scheduled for April 5, 2017.
- A special council meeting on homelessness was announced for March 20, 2017 at 2:00 p.m.
Meeting Transcript
Okay. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the rules committee meeting of February 8th, 2017, our first rules committee of this wonderful year. And the meeting is now in order. Let the record reflect that our committee members, Councilmember Breek, Councilmember Ward, Councilmember Kate, as well as our Council President Pro Tim and Vice Chair Kersey are all present. The committee record of actions from November 14th, 2016 will be approved by unanimous consent and let's pull for discussion. See not we'll now move to non-agenda public comment. I believe we have one speaker, and that is Martha Welch. Good morning, Martha. This um non-agenda should be moved back to three minutes as best practice on Brown Rules. Now also on Tuesday, you missed it on 2000 two times. Why? It's clean it's supposed to be clean government and open. Now the move to uh Profits Um prevent um profound autos in the charter, it says that it says that's supposed to do. We didn't vote for that. Now before 2015, we always had budgets. How did it change? Fifteen, fourteen, every I I was there. I have I've been um budgets for about five years, and it's it's changed. We didn't do that because you know why we went we want financials because right now we're not we don't get what you want. We went public um service. The police say um stations are closed, and I asked them. They don't have another officers. So what's we're not getting we're not getting what you do, so the rules are wrong. And you should change those rules. Uh because uh it's not right to have performance only. It's supposed to be f uh that's not right what you're doing. Oh kiddo, thank you. Moving on to committee member comments. Any members would like to make any comments? Seeing none. I want to uh welcome our members of the rules committee. I have received and reviewed all of your priorities for the committee. The discussion regarding priority priorities will take place today. Item number one of the agenda. I would like to announce a few scheduling updates to this committee. First, future rules committee meetings will begin at 10 o'clock a.m. vice chair. Uh instead of 9 a.m. Second, this committee will meet the even months of 2017. These changes were approved by the council meeting on February the 7th. Uh would our city attorney, IBA, or mayor staff have anything to comment or share anything. Okay. Now we'll proceed to our discussion agenda. Item number one rules committee priorities for 2017. I want to thank my colleagues for submitting their priorities for 2017 as outlined in my memo. My priorities are first, we should review and update the council policy manual 000-01. My committee consultant in partnership with the city attorney, the IBA, and the City Clerk's Office will review various council policies to ensure that policies are current, effective, necessary, and compliant. Review of the council policy manual will assist this committee in determining whether the council policies are providing support to the council as intended by its adoption. Second, review of the city's boards and commissions. The Office of the City Auditor will release its audit report on boards and commissions sometime this spring.
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