Letter to the Editor: Blame council members for long meetings

Dear Editor:

I support the City Council action to reduce the public comment period from five minutes to three, but not to stifle the free and often offensive speech of the one individual which may have prompted current Mayor Blanca Pacheco, and former mayor Rick Rodriguez before her, to introduce the change. 

Councilman Alex Saab is right. Reducing the opportunity for public comment will not modify that person's behavior during council meetings. 

I support the reduction in the time alloted for public comment because council meetings have become interminably long, often going past midnight if a contentious issue brings the public out or a controversial hearing is scheduled. 

However, I believe what contributes most to the length of council meetings is the time spent on comments from council, and the various presentations to community members and staff from the mayor and others on the dais 

Comments at the beginning of each meeting from individual council members, while informative, sometimes go on too long. 

Comments from politicians are to be expected of course, but I've yet to see a member of the council in all my years of attending meetings, pass on the opportunity to regale those in attendance about what he/she did, or plans to do, out in the community. Leave that for individual social media accounts. 

For the sake of brevity and out of fairness to members of the community who now can only speak for three minutes at a time, I recommend that council members limit their comments at the beginning of the meeting to no more than three minutes as well.

The mayor should direct the City Clerk to use her timer to manage individual council members' comments, too. 

I also recommend that the number of presentations be limited to one per meeting, or that a special meeting just for presentations be held quarterly. That way, those who wish to be in the audience for a presentation (and the requisite photo opportunity) can plan on it. 

Most of us in the community who regularly attend council meetings are there to participate in and witness the conduct of our city government and elected leaders. 

We're not there to waste the time of council or staff; please don't waste ours. 

Brian Heyman
Downey