Darkness in the Afternoon: City Council Poised to Gut Sunshine Ordinance, Sharply Restrict Public Comments

At its meeting at 4:00pm next Tuesday, March 22, the City Council will consider a proposal by Mayor Farrah Khan and Councilmember Mike Carroll to drastically change Irvine’s Sunshine Ordinance. Agenda Item 5.1 proposes an ordinance that would shorten the time required for publication of Council and commission agendas by nearly 50%. It would also drastically change the current rules for public comments, limiting each resident to one comment of as little as 90 seconds per meeting, and would schedule all public comments near the beginning of the meeting. Additionally, it would impose content restrictions on public comments that raise questions of constitutionality under the First Amendment and legality under California’s Ralph M. Brown Act.
The Way it Is Now
- Under the Sunshine Ordinance, the agenda must be published 12 days before a regular meeting. Thus, the agenda for the March 22 meeting was published Thursday, March 10.
- A supplemental agenda may be published up to five days prior to the meeting. The supplemental agenda has been used often to add new items to the agenda and for staff to provide additional background materials.
- Special meetings require publication of the agenda at least five days in advance.
- Any member of the public may comment for up to three minutes during discussion of each agenda item, with limited exceptions.
- Any member of the public may also comment for up to three minutes on matters not on the agenda. In recent years, the practice has been to hold the general public comment period at approximately 6:30 p.m.
- There is no overall time limit for public comments. The comment period remains open until all wishing to speak have been heard, and every speaker gets up to three minutes, whether there are three speakers or thirty.
How Things Would Change
- The current 12-day requirement for advance publication of regular meeting agendas would be slashed to seven days.
- The agenda could be supplemented or amended up to three days before the meeting instead of the present five days.
- For special meetings, the agenda could be published as little as 24 hours in advance (the bare minimum required by the Brown Act) instead of the current five days.
- There would no longer be separate public comment periods for individual agenda items. Instead, there would be a single period for all public comments, regardless of their subject matter.
- All public comments would be heard early in the meeting, after the Pledge of Allegiance, invocation and presentations, but before reports and announcements. This would likely occur around 4:30-5:00 p.m. at most Council meetings, while many residents are still at work or commuting from work.
- Each person would have only one opportunity per meeting to speak, regardless of the number of agenda items the speaker wished to address.
- The amount of time permitted each speaker would depend on the total number of speakers. The current three-minute limit would apply only if there were 20 or less speakers. If there were 21 to 30 speakers, the individual time limit would shrink to two minutes. If there were more than 30 speakers, each individual would get only 90 seconds.
- Thus, the total time for all public comments on all issues would be no more than 40 to 60 minutes at most meetings. However, the Mayor and the Council would have discretion to expand or reduce time limits on public comments.
- Exception: There would still be separate public comments for items designated on the agenda as public hearings.
- The Municipal Code would be amended to ban commenters from making “personal, impertinent, slanderous or profane remarks to any member of the City Council, staff or general public.” Anyone deemed to have violated this provision could be barred from further addressing the Council at the meeting, and under some circumstances, ejected.
Why It Should Matter to You
Notice and an opportunity to be heard are hallmarks of due process and are fundamental to participatory democracy. Thus, the Ralph M. Brown Act declares:
“The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.” Gov’t Code § 54950.
In the fall of 2018, the Irvine City Council enacted the Sunshine Ordinance, setting higher standards for Irvine than the minimums required by the Brown Act. Molly McLaughlin, who was then City Clerk, explained the reasons for the Sunshine Ordinance as follows:
“California’s open meeting law, the Brown Act, requires an agenda be posted 72 hours in advance of a regular meeting. … However, the Irvine Sunshine Ordinance … would expand the agenda review time to 12 days, along with several elements that include staff reports and supplemental information that are part of the decision-making process. While there are exceptions, a 12-day window provides every community member the logistical and timely opportunity to thoroughly review agenda items. The chances for all interested parties grow exponentially for pre-meeting discussions, sharing of information, and asking of questions. The pulse of an entire community can be felt across 12 days.” (Emphasis added.)
Molly McLaughlin’s words are as true today as they were in October 2018. What has changed is the composition of the Council. The 2018 Council valued transparency and public participation; the 2022 Council, not so much. The City Manager’s memorandum explaining the proposed changes is couched in terms of efficiency and clarity. While it claims that they would “continue to allow robust opportunities for public review of agenda materials and participation in City Council meetings,” the indisputable truth is that the changes would deliberately and drastically reduce such opportunities.
The changes proposed in Item 5.1, in short, would greatly diminish both your ability to be timely informed of what your city government is up to and your opportunity to effectively make your voice heard.
What You Can Do
- Email the Mayor and Councilmembers at [email protected]
- Attend the March 22 Council meeting and make a public comment, either in person or via Zoom. Instructions can be found here. If you can’t participate in the meeting, submit an e-comment before the meeting here.
- Get the word out. Share this article with your friends and neighbors.
Further Information
- Agenda for March 22 Council meeting.
- Read the text of proposals for Item 5.1 and City Manager’s memo here.
- Current Sunshine Ordinance (City Council Ordinance No. 18-10).
- Your rights under the Brown Act.
5 Comments
Jeremy Ficarola
March 18, 2022 at 9:24 amThat is not a small tweek to the Sunshine Ordinance. This is an absolute leveling of the ordinance. It will be demolished if this is passed. The amendment that really gets me is limiting a speaker to one comment, at the very beginning before the item is presented, per meeting. Agendas are often full of interesting and important items to comment on but we can only pick one? This is absurd censorship and completely undemocratic. I think the existing Sunshine Ordinance has been working. Why destroy it after 4 1/2 years of use?
zrg02
March 18, 2022 at 9:59 amA few questions. First, if the Mayor’s proposal for public comment goes through, what’s to stop the city council from discussing several controversial items in a single meeting, thus forcing residents to either address all of the items in, presumably, 90 seconds or focus on a couple of items and not be able to speak on the rest? Second, would the councilmembers themselves support this change if they *weren’t* on the dais? If not, I think it’s indicative that they may be out of touch with their constituents. Finally, why should their right to an “efficient” meeting trump their constituents’ rights to be heard by their representatives and to speak on each item in which they have an interest?
IrvineCAGuy
March 18, 2022 at 10:05 amAgenda Item 5.1 – Sunshine Ordinance changes – this goes beyond the need to just opposing the silencing of the citizens. This speaks to the lack of integrity of our mayor and some of the city council member(s). The notion of even suggesting such a draconian change is about as undemocratic of a measure that I’ve ever seen. Mayor Khan calls herself a Democrat and a feminist supporter – equality. It is, I hate to use this expression, ‘lipstick on a pig.’ She has gone beyond being influenced by the developers. She smiles and says nice things that she stands for and then goes behind your back to undermine everything we stand for as a people. We need some new candidates for mayor and city council that will not be corrupted and not be influenced by lobbyists. People who will uphold the constitution and our democratic values, and who will do the right thing for the people of our community, not for special interests.
Branda Lin
March 18, 2022 at 10:14 amHow can our Councilmembers adequately represent us if they won’t even listen to us? First they passed the “Rule of 2” restricting what and how items get on the agenda. Then they stopped reading e-Comments for all to hear during the Council meetings. Then they censored and prevented numerous residents from even making a public comment for a variety of bogus reasons violating our First Amendment rights. Then they moved general public comments to the very end of the meeting. And now they want to limit what we can speak on, lump comments on ALL agenda items together, and limit the amount of time we get to speak to as little as 90 SECONDS and limit the CONTENT of what we speak on, and move the time to an hour when most are working? This is a direct threat to our voice as residents and constituents of this city. Please email the council at [email protected] and oppose item 5.1. Or you can submit an e-Comment here:
https://irvine.granicusideas.com/meetings/1957-supplemental-agenda-city-council-regular-meeting-and-regular-joint-meeting-with-the-city-of-irvine-as-successor-agency-to-the-dissolved-irvine-redevelopment-agency/agenda_items/622ac3317d796536d90014f6-5-dot-1-update-to-ordinances-policies-and-procedures
Shame on Mayor Farrah Khan and Councilmember Mike Carroll! You have forgotten why you were elected in the first place — to represent the people of our wonderful city!
Christina Shea
March 18, 2022 at 3:18 pmAs an elected offical who supported and who helped craft portions of the sunshine ordinance with Counvilwiman Melissa Fox and our City Manager, John Russo, I am not only shocked but honestly disgusted with these constant agenda items each month, that shoot up costs, and diminish public participation .This Council and Mayor continue to look for as many ways as possible to shut out the public from their public house.
I hope we can come together and support candidates that will return our local government to the people in November.
Having politcal differences happens, but shutting out the public and closing our doors to Council discussions with these limitations, without allowing for proper scrutiny or oversight, is just wrong.
Next, we will see the Mayor padlocking the front door at 4 pm as they grab the keys and the reigns of our liberties and constitutional rights and lock us out for good..
Who is their mentor and consultant, Putin?
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