Councilmembers Tammy Kim and Mike Carroll Seek to Rescind Irvine’s Sunshine Ordinance
This Tuesday, October 26, 2021, Vice Mayor Tammy Kim and Councilmember Mike Carroll seek to rescind City Council ordinance 18-10, which is Irvine’s Sunshine Ordinance.
On October 23, 2018, the Irvine City Council made the first of two votes toward approving a Sunshine Ordinance that would enhance government transparency by making agendas available 12 days in advance, rather than five. The second required vote for approval was held on November 13, 2018, and the Sunshine Ordinance was passed unanimously by Councilmembers Wagner, Shea, Fox, Lalloway, Schott.
Former Mayor Christina Shea stated, “rescinding this transparency ordinance is a step backwards. The public’s request and desire is for more openness to review and scrutinize public business items proposed for City Council meetings, in advance.”
The goal of the proposed Ordinance was to assure adequate review of various related agenda materials by the public before items are considered by the City Council and its commissions and advisory boards. In the 2018 presentation, page 3 listed the “Four Pillars of Good Governance” (shown below):
How do you feel about taking away transparency for the public in order “to reduce the burden on staff, make the City more responsive to emerging issues”? Is this a step backwards for transparency in Irvine?
6 Comments
Doug Elliott
October 25, 2021 at 9:29 pmThis proposal is a brazen assault on transparency. Ironically, placement of the item on the supplemental agenda violates the very ordinance it seeks to repeal. The Sunshine Ordinance generally requires 12 days public notice for agenda items, but specifies limited circumstances in which items may be placed on the supplemental agenda with five days notice, such as emergency or urgency. None of those circumstances apply here, certainly not emergency or urgency. Kim and Carroll did not get around to requesting the item be agendized until October 19, 2021. Under the operation of the Sunshine Ordinance, the Council may not legally consider it until the November 9 meeting. It’s imperative that residents make public comments against this abomination, or at least submit e-comments.
Branda Lin
October 25, 2021 at 9:45 pmDoug, you are absolutely correct re: the rule for Supplemental Agenda items. Disappointingly, that rule is broken more often than not by our City Council. Non-emergent items are seen for the first time on a Supplemental Agenda regularly. Shouldn’t our City Manager or City Attorney be preventing such violations from happening? Where’s the enforcement?
Melisa Masri
October 25, 2021 at 9:54 pmRestricting agenda setting was one of the first things to happen under this council. Now, further regression from transparency and public access. So disappointing. From Investopedia: Sunshine laws are in place to ensure certain activities are conducted in an open and ethical nature. This allows members of the public to bear witness to certain activities or to request access to records pertaining to certain topics. They are designed to limit corruption within the affected organizations and increase public trust through willing transparency. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sunshinelaws.asp
Christina
October 25, 2021 at 10:17 pmSunshine is not what this group of City Council Members seeks. It has become apparent, they like dark halls, dim lights, and shady corners.
Branda Lin
October 25, 2021 at 10:39 pmSince this City Council was elected, here is a recap of all their actions AGAINST transparency:
1. Khan & Kuo submitted a Memo requiring 2 councilmembers approval to place anything on the agenda. Passed 4-1 with Agran dissenting.
2. They stopped reading e-comments during council meetings.
3. This City Council has censored numerous public commenters citing to bogus rules or suspicious technical issues during GENERAL public comments. I’ve never seen such censorship in years prior.
4. At the last Council meeting, Mayor Khan stated general public comments would now be heard at the very end of the meetings. So Councilmembers can give their long public Announcements at the beginning but make the residents wait through an entire meeting to be heard, at the very end? Who are they prioritizing?
5. And now Kim and Carroll seek to rescind Sunshine Ordinance. How will they vote?
It seems they’re constantly finding ways to silence residents, doesn’t it?
Christina
October 26, 2021 at 7:07 amAbsolutely. The people’s voices are being limited.
Public discussion about Districts was shut down.
This is a very important City policy to discuss.
And what about the increase of their personal staff budget buried in the annual budget.
Limit public access and limit public discussion, this is the hallmark of this Council.
Comments are closed.