This week’s subject is narrow, but contains a question worth considering. It involves one of the ways that ideas emerge and ultimately shape public life in Davis. This specific path involves the Davis citizen commissions that advise the City Council on subjects including city spending, planning, police accountability, and several other areas.
A commission can take up a topic for various reasons, including if the council asks it to, if city staff needs it to, and on its own volition. The third option might be changing. This year the council will decide if a commission should get prior approval from its council liaison (or a council subcommittee) before putting an item on the commission’s agenda.
Why make this change, what’s good about it, what isn’t? Today on Davisville we hear from two proponents — Mayor Josh Chapman and Vice Mayor Bapu Vaitla, who form the council’s subcommittee on commissions — and Elaine Roberts Musser and Dan Carson, two of the change’s leading critics.
Comments
Bill, nicely done radio show on the subject of the proposal that a single City Council member can veto an item a commission wants to put on its agenda. It became very clear, from what Dan Carson and I said, why the original proposal was an incredibly bad idea and more than likely illegal under the Brown Act. The proposal has now morphed a number of times, and it is not clear what the final proposal will look like. Apparently Councilmember Vaitla and Mayor Chapman are struggling to come up with a definitive proposal that doesn't violate the law, as they seek a solution in search of a problem. One crucial point I think these two are missing. It is necessary for a commission to act independently of the City Council in order to represent a particular constituency, be it a utility customer (Fiscal Commission), a senior citizen (Senior Citizens Commission), the low income and ethnic minorities (Social Services Commission), home buyers (Planning Commission), historic buildings (Historic Resources Management Commission), the health of Davis citizens (Climate and Environmental Justice Commission; Police Accountability Commission), or commuters (Transportation Commission). And finally, if Mayor Chapman and Councilmember Vaitla truly appreciate the expertise and work product of commissions, then why attempt to curtail a commission's ability to set their own agenda?
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