The Santa Monica City Council is exploring changes to its meeting procedures aimed at improving public participation, though members remain divided on how to balance accessibility with the practical demands of their part-time positions.
Councilmember Lana Negrete brought forward a proposal Jan. 27 requesting three major changes: guaranteeing speakers a minimum two minutes of public comment per agenda item, restructuring when closed sessions occur, and shifting one monthly meeting to a 10 a.m. start time.
"I know it sucks to be here late at night, but this is their only opportunity to talk to the seven council members at one time," Negrete said, noting residents often arrange childcare and travel to City Hall only to receive 60 seconds of speaking time.
Her proposal specifically calls for ensuring no speaker receives less than two minutes on any agenda item regardless of how many people sign up to speak. She also requested that closed sessions either start at 3 p.m. or move to the end of meetings, rather than occurring mid-agenda, and suggested holding closed sessions on alternate Tuesdays separate from regular council meetings.
The daytime meeting proposal stems from Negrete's belief that evening-only meetings exclude workers in retail, restaurants and other industries with nighttime hours.
"There's a whole workforce that works after the hours of five," Negrete said, adding that restaurants have had to close to bring staff to evening meetings to testify.
Several council members expressed reservations about the proposals, particularly the daytime meetings.
Councilmember Barry Snell said the current meeting demonstrated the challenge, with 60 to 70 speakers potentially requiring hours of additional time if each received two minutes.
"I'm exhausted," Snell said. "To be on council requires us to keep our day jobs. There's just no way around it."
Councilmember Dan Hall warned that daytime meetings would effectively exclude teachers, city employees and anyone with traditional work hours from serving on council.
"We'd end up with a council that is either fully self employed, their own business owners or retired," Hall said. "I don't think that's particularly representative of our community."
He noted the council's $19,000 annual salary makes it impossible to serve full-time, adding he would need to sponsor a charter amendment for full-time council positions with six-figure salaries before supporting daytime meetings.
Councilmember Ellis Raskin said cities of Santa Monica's size struggle to balance public participation with getting work done, noting some jurisdictions cap total public comment time even on agenda items.
"We're gonna have to make some tough policy choices," Raskin said.
Mayor Jesse Zwick supported moving general public comment, which currently opens meetings, to the end of the agenda to prioritize discussion of items actually before the council.
"I think it's a bit of a fallacy to say that if we give someone an extra minute, suddenly we'll understand so much better what the community thinks," Zwick said.
Hall proposed a substitute motion that council members ultimately supported, directing staff to bring back several options for consideration at future meetings.
The approved motion calls for staff to explore scheduling special closed session meetings on alternate Tuesdays for lengthy agendas, moving general public comment to the end of meetings, and changing speaker time from one minute per section of the agenda to one minute per individual agenda item.
The motion also requests analysis of options to increase collaboration among council members before bringing items forward, such as requiring multiple sponsors for council member requests.
Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya successfully added a provision requesting staff explore alternative public input methods, such as quarterly town halls potentially held on weekends.
Snell requested that when staff returns with options, the analysis include information about council member compensation in other cities that hold daytime meetings.
All proposed changes would return to council for public comment and further debate before any implementation.