Features

By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR 

A slate of proposals by Mayor Tom Bates to alter several Berkeley City Council rules has been put on hold while the City seeks further public comment. If approved and implemented by City Council, the most controversial of the proposed changes would significantly limit the abillity of Berkeley citizens to present their views to Council. 

Three of the proposals—one to limit the time allotted to individual public speakers at various Council meetings and hearings, a second to allow the Mayor to “establish overall time limits” for presentations at public hearings, and a third to move contentious or lengthy Council public hearings from Tuesday nights to Thursday—have already drawn fire from several Berkeley citizens. 

Instead of going directly to the City Council, the Council Agenda Committee decided at its Monday, March 1st meeting that the proposed revisions will now be available on the city’s website for the public to review. The Agenda Committee set no time for the proposed revisions to be returned to the committee for further action. 

Councilmember Linda Maio said that the proposal to cut down the time for public speakers from the present three minutes to two was her suggestion. Maio told the Daily Planet that she made the suggestion in order to increase the number of persons who could speak on subjects at Council meetings. “I’ve looked out and seen a lot of disappointed faces [in the audience] because they couldn’t speak,” Maio said. 

But even before Monday’s Agenda Committee meeting, the proposals were drawing fire from some Berkeley citizens. The Daily Planet received copies of several opposition letters addressed to the Mayor and City Council. Among them was a letter from Planning Commission Chairperson Zelda Bronstein, who protested the method in which the proposed changes were brought forward. “In the past year, we have seen a continual effort to strengthen the Berkeley mayoral office through a series of piecemeal changes,” Bronstein wrote, “most notably, the establishment of an Agenda Committee appointed by the Mayor, the creation of Task Forces appointed by the Mayor (a practice that is, I believe, contrary to City law), and now, a proposal to have the Mayor set rules for the procedures to be followed at public hearings. Berkeley has a weak mayor system of government. If the Council or the Mayor or, for that matter, a group of citizens want to institute a strong mayor form of government, then such a change should be formally proposed and vetted in an appropriate public process, not slipped in through a series of incremental changes that are poorly publicized and insufficiently reviewed by the public.” 

Planning Commissioner Rob Wrenn also wrote to the Mayor and Council, in part, “I hope you will reject [the] proposal being considered by the Agenda Committee to limit public comment at regular City Council meetings to two minutes. ... To limit [speakers] to only two minutes is a ridiculous idea. Anyone who has spoken at a Council meeting knows that you have to be well organized and concise to say what you want to say in three minutes as it is.” Wrenn also called the Thursday public hearing proposal “a bad idea. ... Putting hearings on any other day [than Tuesday] will make it difficult for some people to participate [because of] conflicts with [Zoning Adjustment Board meetings], other commissions, neighborhood group meetings and meetings of other organizations that have an interest in civic affairs.” 

Mayor Bates made the 9-point proposal in a February 17th memo to the three-member Council Agenda Committee on “Council Rules of Procedure Revisions.” At that time, the Mayor wrote that “After discussion and appropriate changes [by the Agenda Committee], I suggest that we ask the City Clerk to return with specific changes to the Council Rules of Procedure to implement the requested changes. The Agenda Committee would then forward those recommendations to the full Council for review and approval.” Along with the time limit and public hearing changes, the memo also proposed allowing the Agenda Committee to move City Commission-generated items between the Consent and Action calendars on City Council’s agenda, as well as extending the authority of the City Manager to perform certain duties during Council recesses. 

Bates also suggested at last week’s Council meeting that he was considering another speaker proposal: ending the often-used practice of public speakers “ceding” their time to another speaker. Because speakers at Council meetings are chosen by random lottery, organizations often use this tactic in order to ensure that the spokesperson of their choice is the one who actually gets to address Council. The anti-”ceding” proposal, however, was not part of the Maor’s procedure revision proposal. 

City Clerk Sherry Kelly’s detailed workup of the proposed Bates changes were presented to yesterday’s (March 1st) Agenda Committee meeting, as well as posted to the internet at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee/2004/packet/030104/2004-03-01%20AC%20Item%2008.pdf. 

Also opposing the two-minute limit in a letter sent this weekend to the City Council was Berkeley resident Wendy Alfsen. “Many members of the public not well versed in public speaking have trouble completing their comments in less than three minutes,” Alfsen wrote in a letter to Council. “Similarly, speakers on the many complex issues facing the City need a minimum of three minutes to adequately outline the issue presented.” Alfsen added that if the 2-minute speaking limit is adopted, Council should drop the present 30-minute total for all public speakers and “allow everyone who wishes to speak the opportunity to do so. Otherwise, the meaningful opportunity for public verbal input required by the Brown Act is not met.” 

Another Berkeley resident, Judith Scherr, suggested in writing that Berkeley “copy Oakland’s format & let all views be expressed before items come up for a vote on the agenda. The goal of public comment is to get out views on all sides of the issue.” Scherr called Berkeley’s practice of choosing public speakers by lottery “about the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen.” 

And resident Michael Katz wrote “Having occasionally attended Council meetings, I’m aware that sitting through 30 minutes of sometimes contentious, repetitious, or misinformed public comment is not the most enviable aspect of your jobs as Councilmembers. Still, I hope you will agree that receiving complete public comment is one of the Council’s most important roles. When the Council needs to make hard choices, the public will more readily accept those choices if each issue’s most passionate advocates feel they’ve had a chance to be heard.” 

Agenda Committee members were already tinkering with the proposed suggestions at Monday’s meeting, considering a suggestion that Thursday public hearings be limited to nights that the Zoning Adjustment Board is not meeting, and adding a change that the Mayor can establish overall speaking limits at public hearings “subject to authorization by the Council.”›