At the Stockton City Council meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Christina Fugazi pushed the designated time for attendees to comment on general issues within the city from the beginning of the session to the end.
It was the second consecutive meeting in which Fugazi moved to postpone the public comment period for topics not specifically scheduled for City Council consideration from its usual place several minutes into the session.
Last week, Councilmember Mario Enríquez tried to block Fugazi’s decision to bump the comment period, but his motion failed in a 3-3 tie, with Councilmember Mariela Ponce absent.
But on Tuesday, no councilmember challenged pushing back the comment period.
“I will be moving things around,” Fugazi said at the beginning of the session, announcing the start of general public comments toward the end, just before councilmembers’ closing remarks.
In a Facebook post Tuesday afternoon, Fugazi said the move would allow the council to focus on the meeting’s scheduled agenda items — such as new business, voting, ordinances, public hearings, etc. — first, “ensuring action on time-sensitive decisions.”
The change will also “keep meetings … running smoothly,” she said in the post.
Through a spokesman, the mayor didn’t immediately respond to a question about whether the change would be permanent.
Some people who attended Tuesday’s City Council meeting to share general comments weren’t happy.
“It’s asking a lot of the public who just want to make a comment on something that’s not on the agenda to wait all night long to be able to say that,” local artist Diana Buettner said.
In California, the public’s right to voice their opinions at meetings of city councils and other lawmaking bodies is enshrined in the Brown Act.
Under the law, all regular meetings must “provide an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the legislative body on any item of interest to the public, before or during the legislative body’s consideration of the item, that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body.”
Though that wording may seem confusing, California courts have ruled that the law means legislative bodies like city councils must provide people time to speak on topics that aren’t on the council’s agenda, as well as on each issue included on the meeting’s agenda, according to David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition.
In Loy’s view, the law doesn’t bar officials from pushing general comment to a meeting’s close, he said by phone Tuesday.
“It has historically been a very common practice to do non-agenda comment at the beginning of the meeting,” he said. “But I don’t know anything in the Brown Act which prohibits moving non-agenda comment to the end.”
Either way, it has to happen every regular meeting, Loy said.
“If the agenda were to say ‘sorry, we’re out of time, there’s not going to be any public comment at this meeting,’ I think that would be a Brown Act violation,” he said.
In December, the City Council unanimously passed a new rule proposed by Fugazi that council meetings – which usually start at 5:30 p.m. – must conclude by 11 p.m.
When asked after council Tuesday what will happen if the council doesn’t get to general public comment by that time, Fugazi said councilmembers can vote to extend the meeting to ensure it happens.
“I don’t want to stifle public comment at all. But we’ve got to get the work done,” she said.
To ensure they’re following the Brown Act, the council would have to vote to extend the meeting, said Jason Teramoto, Fugazi’s spokesman, in response to a question from Stocktonia.
“The mayor said she would call the vote to extend time in that case. If a councilmember voted against that motion, the city attorney would remind them of the law,” he said.
Stockton arts commissioner Aisha Abercrombie, who attended Tuesday to make general comments praising the council and seeking guidance for the commission, said she hoped the change isn’t permanent.
“I thought I was going to be in and out,” she said. “Keep comments up front.”
Downtown Stockton Alliance to continue with new funding
Also on Tuesday, the City Council established a special tax district downtown to continue funding the Downtown Stockton Alliance, which along with its existing tax district could have disappeared in December without a new income source.
At first, the council voted 6-0 in October (with Ponce absent) not to allow the tax district after blowback from some Fremont Street property owners who would’ve been newly included in the tax scheme. But the next month, councilmembers voted to reconsider their decision.
On Tuesday, the council voted 4-3 to establish the tax district without expanding its territory to areas whose property owners had protested at council meetings.
Vice Mayor Jason Lee and councilmembers Michael Blower, Mario Enríquez and Brando Villapudua voted “yes,” and Fugazi and councilmembers Mariela Ponce and Michele Padilla voted “no.”
Tuesday’s session ended uncharacteristically early, without overt conflict.
“I was very happy with the decorum that was out in the crowd, as well as on the dais,” Fugazi said.
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