South Tahoe council revises rules for itself
By Kathryn Reed
Stationary for council members, how to get an item on the agenda and receiving text messages during meetings. Those were some of the heady issues the South Lake City Council spent a chunk of time on this week.
It was all part of the council going over its protocols Feb. 8.
Apparently not realizing it doesn’t take a degree in graphic arts to create letterhead or even knowing the city has stationary, the electeds spent a good amount of time debating how it should look. All their names? A disclaimer at the bottom saying it was just from one member?
Finally, they agreed to spend taxpayer dollars to create note cards, which all but Mayor Hal Cole seemed to think they needed to send thank yous and what not.
Councilman Bruce Grego got his way after a lengthy discourse to change the requirement so only two councilmembers need to think an idea is worthy of being placed on a future agenda.
The reasoning behind this is so more ideas are vetted in public and don’t get discarded by a fractionalized council, as has been the case in the recent past.
Staff will bring back to the council a potential policy regarding social media, which will include how the Brown Act controls text messages with the public during meetings, and the constraints on the five when it comes to making comments online about stories.
Councilwoman Claire Fortier wants cell phones off during meetings. Her colleagues didn’t like that idea.
Councilwoman Angela Swanson’s desire to have only electronic agendas fell flat.
Grego wants to punish any council member who gives closed session information to the media, and presumably to the public in any manner. He thinks a $500 fine and removing their picture from what’s called city hall would be appropriate.
He didn’t get far with those ideas.
City Attorney Patrick Enright said the council’s every other year ethics training is coming up and maybe that would stave off any desire by the current council to leak information.
Swanson was successful in getting the council to reverse its policy about broadcasting public comments. They will be televised and heard via the web for the next six months on a trial basis.
Thanks for keeping us posted on the workings of our city government.
No wonder we’re so messed up! It just never really changes, does it?
Sounds like our city council is no different than any other political arena, they like to hear themselves talk and are after their own agenda. Seems pretty pathetic that they spend their time on items like this when so much more could be done for the city.
It needs to start with the smaller protocol and ethical items so that they CAN get on to the bigger issues. If they start with establishing the fundamentals, they can then spend the next 4 years guiding our city forward in the bigger issues.
What an incredible waste of time.
What bigger issues, Mo. Whether Grego can do this or that because his office is too far over there or over here. The city has it’s logo Council. Stamp your name on the bottom and move on. Stop wasting the city’s time or get out of office NOW!
It has just come to my attention that the Letterhead Scandal as it’s now being called is due to Hal Cole and Bruce Grego. Cole was upset he could not have a little Horsie stamped next to his name and Grego was offended he could not have a marijuana leaf with a red slash drawn across it on his new letterhead. Tom Davis was willing to give up the Heavenly logo at the last moment to make amends so the meeting could move forward with more important issues like cell phone usage in Council meetings. It’s one big carnival down here, said Claire and Angela. Come on down and speak your mind for the record. It’s legal now.
No, it never really changes and will never change as long as all people are willing to do is comment here and ***** and moan about the way things are without going to the council meetings and contacting the council members. What Bruce Grego did was what had to be done in order to get something brought before the council as it always took three and we all know there is and never will be a complete concensus with this current council as evident of attending the council meetings. What Angela Swanson did was also benificial for the public although I still doubt that all the anonymous moaners and critics still won’t attend due to the fact they have to give their name and be on tv, much easier to hide behind phony names and post in all caps to get their point accross. You can thank Ted Long for bringing televised public comment section to light as he was the only city resident to bring that up in several meetings which I think is great. As far as getting info from council members we don’t need to worry as not one council member is willing to talk with any “reporters” for fear of getting misquoted, publicly dissed in news articles and have personal opinions splattered within what is supposed to be a news article not opinion article, mine included. As far as cell phones go, if they get a text during a meeting we as the public have a right to know what is contained in that text, Clair is correct in wanting them off. If someone wants to say something they should show up and talk. This cell phone issue needs to be revisited. Our current council has the potential to actually make changes in the way we run the city but so far it has been same ole same ole in not being able to count to 3 on any personal agenda item with possibly the exception of the upcoming decision regarding TAU’s and the text 3 will get asking them if the $1500.00 last minute donation to them from PAC cleared.
The wild bunch, let-em pay for their thank you notes.
Get ready for “TEXTING TIME” the new way to Brown Act.
Back in the good old day’s the 3 of the 5 supes desired a private mens room. I noted “A great place for Brown Acting”
When someone gets elected to the city council, order them a rubber stamp.
Phones should be turned off while in meetings, it’s common sense, only exception I could think of, is if someone is a Dr on call, set it to vibrate, in that case.