Marathon Council Session Raises Questions

By Jorge Casuso

Monday, Monday 17 --What if the city council holds a public meeting and there's no one there to watch?

That was the concern raised by last Tuesday's marathon session, which saw the council tackle two key issues long after the opposition had left and most viewers had turned off their TV sets and gone to bed.

The first to leave was Councilman Paul Rosenstein.

"I looked at my watch and was amazed at how late it was," said Rosenstein, who left the meeting shortly before midnight. "Everyone form the press to the council members to the audience has to struggle with the exhaustion factor."

Then at around 12:15 a.m. Councilman Robert Holbrook excused himself, saying he didn't want to risk killing a client the next morning.

"I'm the only pharmacist on Wednesday morning and I do serious work," Holbrook, who heads the USC pharmacy, said afterwards. "There is absolutely no reason barring an extreme emergency to have a meeting past midnight. You cannot make really intelligent decisions at that hour.

"I think the public understands that any normal working person has to get some sleep," he said. "This reflects the nocturnal habits of a few council members."

By the time Holbrook and Rosenstein had gone home, two key items still remained on the agenda - a housing moratorium requested by tenant activists and a vote that lay the groundwork for taking on the massive $8 billion Playa Vista project in Marina del Rey.

The council members who stayed all belonged to Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, the powerful grassroots tenants group that gained a fifth seat when Richard Bloom was sworn in earlier that night. The dozens of speakers who waited their turn were staunch supporters of the council majority, which had a chance to flex its new-found clout.

With the opposition gone, both items were approved 5-0, and there were no dissenting statements for the record.

"Most of the public can't watch," Rosenstein said shortly after leaving. "Effectively, they're no longer public meetings."

City Attorney Marsha Moutrie says that while the late night meeting was not a literal violation of the Brown Act, "the entire spirit of the act is to ensure that the public's business is done in public."

That it was to be a long meeting was evident early on. When the council broke for a mid-meeting closed session, it was already past ten o'clock. The car repair shop owners and the neighbors angry at them had all gone home. And still the room was packed with speakers.

The council needed to reach a decision - postpone some of the items or prepare for a marathon session.. They decided, Mayor Pam O'Connor said, to do the democratic thing - they let the public decide. All of the speakers with items on the agenda - including LeRoy Jamison, who patiently waited till close to 2 a.m. to address the council regarding over billing for his rubbish containers - decided to weather it out.

"What's democratic,?" asked O'Connor. "Is it saying to people too bad, it's inconvenient to hear you now?"

O'Connor noted that the meetings are rebroadcast on cable and that there are tapes available at the public library for viewing. Besides, she said, Tuesday's meeting was an aberration.

"We weren't meeting quite as regularly before the election," O'Connor said. "We're a complex city and we have a lot of items. There's no easy answer."

There were several times during the meeting when a visibly tired mayor complained about the difficulty of stringing sentences together, and the city staff members who remained seemed glassy eyed. By the time the marathon session ended, it was past 2 a.m.

"The next day you have city staff stumbling around the city," Rosenstein said.

"It's a problem when meetings go that long," acknowledged City Manager John Jalili. "Nevertheless, the Santa Monica community is much more active and involved. An awful lot is happening that is not common. Our city gets involved in many more things."

Too many, think some council members, who complain their colleagues dabble in issues that have little bearing on Santa Monica business. The council has been known to tackle everything from endangered forests in Canada to human rights in Burma.

"Many times it's orchestrated, and it's orchestrated by the council," Holbrook said. "We become a media outlet…. You have to sit and watch council members pontificate. It's silliness. It doesn't need to happen."