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Agenda Item

e. REPORT 21-0076 BROWN ACT DEMAND FILED BY ALASTAIR HAMBLIN, JED SANFORD, AND ANTHONY HIGGINS (City Attorney Michael Jenkins)

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    Dean francois about 3 years ago

    After careful review of the agenda, written communications is still on your list of pending future agenda items. this needs to be taken off that list.

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    Deleted User about 3 years ago

    It's a shame that we had to spend our resources on legal issues such as this.

    The report is carefully written.

    It could be said that it's time to put this issue behind us. However, we do need to improve the manner and ways our meetings are agendized and conducted. We need to improve on transparency and avoid getting into this situation.

    According to report, written communications will continue to be as it always has been in Hermosa Beach a part of the agenda. Let's make it perfectly clear - that's the way it will be.

    Furthermore, to avoid issues such as this and to promote transparency staff should be encouraged to provide written reports on agenda items. A written report as part of the agenda allow the public to know what will be presented or discussed and gives the tools for you as council members to take further action or to add items on a future agenda.

    I have served on several municipal commissions. I know how the Brown act can be used to your advantage to make government work for the people. I encourage you to do that.

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    Carolyn Petty about 3 years ago

    City Council and Staff: Again, another outrageous decision by the City Manager, with acquiescence from the City Council to eliminate public comments of a general nature from the agenda. While the City Attorney may claim no action was taken, that is a disingenuous statement. The lack of response from the City Council and their inaction to stop this proposal in its tracks DID constitute the elimination of general comments from the agenda. The only reason this stopped was due to the actions of one or two people in the community who pushed back. Now the City Manager, most likely with advice from the City Attorney, knows that in order to stop public comment from being posted on the agenda, the best course of action is to wait a few months, let this all die down, then bury it in a much larger agenda item, figuring that nobody will notice. This was actually said in the meeting! It doesn't get any more shameful than this. To actually say that eliminating general comments from your constituents makes it "easier to understand" or "corrects erroneous comments" is insulting to the community who knows better. What is going on with the City Manager, City Attorney and this City Council? During a pandemic when people cannot attend meetings, when many people are not comfortable speaking in public anyway, when other people have a hard time managing the tech, how can you eliminate their one way to make their voice heard? How can you justify this silencing of the people who elected you and pay everyone's salary? The true reason is that eliminating public comments of a general nature eliminates all opposition and tightly controls what people can say. For instance, if the community wishes to weigh in with the ridiculous road diet on Hermosa Avenue and Pier Avenue, they would no longer be able to do that. They would have to wait and hope that at some point it shows up on an agenda. Public comments of a general nature is the only public way to get your attention and you wish to eliminate that. Very disturbing and the only way to remedy this is to commit to the community that this is NEVER coming back. Will you do that publicly?