away for council
By Daily Press staff
Prompted by the threat of a lawsuit brought on by two of its members looking to shorten public meetings, the Santa Monica City Council was scheduled to discuss the issue Tuesday night.
But because the council wanted to hear public testimony on the controversial Civic Center redevelopment plan first, the council put its discussion at the end of the meeting. By presstime, the council had-n’t talked about how to shorten its meetings.
However, council members did spend the first hour of the meeting talking about how to proceed with the evening’s agenda.
Councilmen Herb Katz and Bob Holbrook, along with local attorney Rosario Perry, plan to sue the city, arguing that the public doesn’t have fair access to council meetings because they run into the wee hours of the morning. The suit would ask a judge to prohibit the council from conducting the public’s business beyond 11 p.m., arguing anything beyond that would be a violation of the state’s open meeting law.
Perry said his clients asked him to hold off on the lawsuit to see if a solution could be reached Tuesday night.
Tuesday’s meeting was continuation of the council’s Jan. 29 meeting that lasted until 3 a.m. and left about 140 people waiting for hours to speak on the Civic Center redevelopment plan.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 6, 2002. Read the original PDF.