City Council squabbles over when to end

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Disagreement about the length of City Council meetings

led to another council squabble this week.

Mayor Libby Cowan and Councilwoman Linda Dixon wanted to cut Monday’s

meeting off at midnight and postpone the unresolved issues until the next

council meeting in April.

“I think it’s very important to finish at a reasonable hour,” Cowan

said Thursday. “I think items after midnight don’t get the attention they

deserve and should get at 10 or 10:30 p.m. It’s certainly a balancing act

between people who stay for an item all through the meeting, but I also

think there is a balance for good government. And I don’t think good

government happens that late.”

Councilwoman Karen Robinson and Councilmen Gary Monahan and Chris

Steel overruled Cowan and Dixon, voting to address all issues on the

agenda.

“If we had three or four more hours of discussion, I could see waiting

another two or three weeks,” Monahan said Friday. “But if you have an

hour, two to three items left, and people waiting to speak, I think it

would be rude and obnoxious for us not to finish. We asked for this job.

If we’re so concerned about meetings going so long, maybe we should talk

less.”

Council members voted at 11:40 p.m. Monday to finish the meeting,

which ended a bit after 12:30 a.m. Tuesday.

A city ordinance allows meetings to be cut off at midnight and

continued the next day, but council members at a March 12 study session decided to consider postponing issues that remain unresolved by midnight

until the next meeting.

Since December, when new City Council members Robinson and Steel began

their terms, the meetings have generally lasted longer than the previous

council’s meetings, often past midnight.

The previous council’s meetings were routinely finished before

midnight.

“If you took the two years I was mayor and the two years [Peter Buffa]

was mayor, you could probably count on one hand how many times they

lasted longer than 11 p.m.,” Monahan said. “It’s something that’s been on

the agenda for years but has never really been enforced. One council

member, Ed Glasgow, used to get up and leave at midnight, but what’s so

magic at midnight? Some people say we, including myself, make terrible

decisions at 7 p.m., let alone at midnight.”

The disagreement is the latest in a series of council arguments.

In one instance, a divided council killed the previous council’s plans

to build a skateboard park at Charle and Hamilton streets in January.

The council members also disagreed about whether it would vote as a

whole on commissioners’ selections or if they would individually handpick

commissioners.

After ending all commission terms in December, the council decided to

vote on commission selections as a whole, but the February selection

process was a messy one, with misvotes, interruptions and substitute

motions, which left some commissioners feeling insulted or embarrassed.

Council members now are also struggling to agree on whether the city

should spend the money to restore the Huscroft House, a historic

Craftsman-style home.

Now, even the length of meetings is cause for contention among the

council members.

At a study session earlier this month, the council decided it would

take a timeout at 11 p.m. to decide what issues it could finish by

midnight and what issues it should hold until the next meeting, Cowan

said.

At Monday’s meeting, there was no break in discussion until 11:40

p.m., when the council voted to finish the meeting.

Cowan said she was disappointed but respects the decision.

“I think it is something the council really needs to look at,” she

said. “Good decisions are not made when people are tired, and I feel as

though our conversation on the 12th was completely blown off by Gary

Monahan.”

Dixon, who agrees with Cowan, said she thinks the new council’s

meetings have lasted longer than the previous council’s because it has

had to deal with so many important projects and has had a lot of

questions.

“These have been major, major projects in Costa Mesa, and they take

time,” Dixon said. “These have been projects that can truly affect our

life in Costa Mesa and a lot of thought has to go into making a decision.

It’s hard to be alert and sharp after [midnight]. After sitting there

concentrating and working hard to make good decisions for the citizens of

Costa Mesa for five hours, it is very hard to stay focused and, frankly,

I’m drained.”

Cowan added that there are other contributing factors.

The new council members are learning the process, she said, and the

public has been more energized and has come to meetings to express its

concerns to the council more than it had in the last year or two.

Robinson said although she agreed at the study session that midnight

should be a cutting off point, she thinks the council needs to be

flexible if it is almost finished with its meeting.

“If we are close to the end of the agenda and we have folks who have

waited it out with us, who have prepared and are waiting to speak with

us, I think we owe it to them to hear it out,” she said.

Steel agreed, saying a decision should be based on the general feeling

and opinion of the council, as well as the number of people who are still

waiting to speak.

“They have the right for those issues to be addressed,” he said. “Of

course, I’m a night guy.”