City Hall Diary
In a prior blog I wrote about the “mystery” of closed session meetings. These meetings occur every Tuesday morning and cover real estate, litigation and labor negotiations. In addition, everything covered at the meetings is confidential. Last week, the city council voted to release a revision of a closed session memo for public distribution called “Confidential Legal Advice Related to Imposition of Appropriate Conditions in Land Use Approval.” This memo was released on May 16 so it could be shared with the general public and the development community.
The issue at hand is whether or not individual council members may ask for neighborhood amenities (like architecture, trees and parking for examples) when residential developments are being approved, so they may fit better into the existing community. The problem is that items the community asks for may not be required by existing city rules; therefore, those requests may not be allowed.
The release of this memo got me thinking of other things that should be released from closed sessions. Why stop at a memo about land use when our largest financial decisions do not see the light of day?
For example, labor negotiations are a long arduous process. In the past, the city and the unions have both pointed fingers at each other. Perhaps if these meetings were discussed in public, then there would be no finger pointing. In the era of sunshine, maybe we should consider making these meetings public, as is done in other parts of the country. It would be interesting to know, for example, the full dollar amounts of costs on proposals from each side through each stage of the negotiation, prior to final agreement.
If the city was being unfair, then everyone would know. If labor was asking too much, or they had good points about cost-of-living adjustments, then we would know. With the bankruptcy of our neighbor, Vallejo, it seems like we should shine more light on collective bargaining, or, at least, the city should provide some type of summary of the negotiations to the public at an earlier time. If allowing the public to view the negotiations in real time would harm privacy, then, perhaps, the negotiations should be taped on video and shown after the agreement has been reached. The negotiations could be viewable on the internet or channel 26. That way, the public would at least get to see what took place.
In the end, we on the council vote on compensation and benefit increases. However, we as a council will be long gone when the aggregate effect of past votes impacts the budget and neighborhood services. If decisions are made behind closed doors without public scrutiny, then it is easier to make unrealistic financial choices.
Making negotiations public will not take anything away from workers or make negotiations a game of “winners” and “losers.” People need to be paid a good wage with good benefits, that’s for sure. However, these decisions are nearly 70 percent of the budget and I think that public awareness is important.
So, in my opinion, if we can release a closed session memo on land use, we should certainly consider allowing more sunshine into collective bargaining that is currently done behind closed doors.
What are your thoughts? Constructive suggestions are welcome.
“… we should certainly consider allowing more sunshine into collective bargaining that is currently done behind closed doors.”
As always, the devil is in the details. More sunshine? What does that mean? Does it mean just enough sunshine to benefit City negotiators and a few grandstanding politicians, or does it mean illuminating the entire process and opening up the City’s books? If the former, then what you are proposing is new packaging for old methods; if the latter, then I suggest you prepare for another career change, as this city’s movers and shakers would welcome sunshine on the books about as much as the rats in the pantry would welcome the arrival of a new cat.
Pierluigi—Now we’re getting someplace interesting. Open view on City Council dealings a great idea. Revolutionary.
Here’s one stinky one that would STILL benefit from open disclosure—The project on the corner of 3rd and William, a Cindy “deal” that both Chuck and Sam knew of and did nothing to stop.
Third Street Partners of San Diego, at about the end of the dotcom bubble when real estate was jamming, bought the weedy vacant lot between the old triplex on the corner of 3rd and William, and the old but nice two story art deco apartment on 3rd. Planners had the lot zoned RSCA—no setbacks, little parking, much density. The San Diego guys bought the lot, paid for engineering, got a loan, paid for plans—then the neighbors attacked. Though approved by Planners, the project got stopped dead. For votes, Cindy got Labor and the Preservation Action Crazies interested. Your City Council bought the project from the 3rd St. guys, bought the triplex lot—taking both parcels off the tax rolls, moving a funky old house onto the corner and spending hundreds of thousands to rehab it, building offices and underground parking, and “suites” for the kids roaming the neighborhoods—and hired lots of SEIU folks to be the “caring professionals”. All this well below the radar—none of it started before the Mayor and Council changed.
Still to be determined, what did Cindy have to pay to make all this happen, and what in lost taxes, and in new salaries, did all this cost??? We’ll never know, but is it any wonder the budget, and a plan for downtown, is such a mess? And how did all this help downtown? How did it supply RSCA (residential support for the core area?)
In assisting in the “execution” of its plan, the usual roost of chickens in Planning. George Green
Pierluigi:
You sign off by inviting “constructive suggestions.”
I suggest that the rest of the council read and accept your idea. (The odds on that are about 1,000 to 1).
Pete Campbell
Sounds good PO….in the name of “Sunshine” I am sure you would approve of having every city coucil person and the mayor’s office, as well as their respected staffs, hooked up to live streaming which the public could access on their computers. Why should anything be confidential? Also, in the name of full disclosure, we the public should be able to monitor your phone calls and messages which we the public pay for. Every phone conversation you and the council make regarding city business have should be recorded and easily accessible for the public’s review. I think this would be the ultimate in “sunshine” and I can’t see why on earth you would not support this. With your weatlh of tech knowledge please propose this to the rest of your council and mayor. Everything you and the city council and the mayor do should be viewable on the internet or channel 26. That way, the public would at least get to see what takes place.
Bravo!
Pierluigi,
Nora and Cindy would have a cow if labor negotiations were made public.
I think you have a great idea there. I’d love to see wage and benefit negotiations out in the open. The fact that new GASB rules on reporting the true cost of public employee benefits has caused public agencies to reduce those benefits for new hires means that they were awarded at first without anyone’s knowing how much they were going to add up to.
Pierluigi,
Five San Jose City Council people sit on the VTA Board, Williams,Reed,Campos,Liccardo and Pyle. At the February VTA open session two requests were made on the record to Chaiman Knis and the VTA Board to begin the “Sunshine Process at VTA”. Mayor Reed at that meeting spoke in favor of “Sunshine” at that meeting. The next two meetings requests were made to bring “Sunshine” to VTA by three people for the record.It`s almost June and no response.
VTA operates largely behind closed doors.They are having private meetings presently about VTA`s performance on Measure A and BART, Carbon Free Buses etc. again behind closed doors. The public has a right to hear that discussion, it should be out in the open. There are enough votes on the VTA Board to begin the Sunshine process but, Chair Knis continues to drag her feet. This issue and their decissions behind closed doors will impact District Six and the other 9 Districts.Measure A was passed in 2000, what`s the big secret? Transportation and roads is becomming a bigger issue every day.