The other item that got some citizen interest was Item 26, approving rules to govern Council committees. In other words, there are Affordable Housing committees, Covid Oversight committees, Criminal Justice Reform committees, etc. Generally these only have two council members, so they don’t trigger quorum rules, and then relevant community members or staff or representation from interested parties. So the city has not formalized rules for these committees regarding agendas, minutes, points of order, etc, and the Mayor decided it was time to do so.
Five people spoke on Item 26 during the Citizen Comment period, all from Mano Am/iga, about transparency of committee meetings. Since Mano Am/iga is very concerned with the criminal justice in general, it gave me the impression that the subtext of these reforms was something to do with the disagreements and feuding over the CJR committee. (In fact, using my crystal ball, it will be the very next May 4th meeting where the CJR committee defends its existence and creates its new mission statement.)
The speakers are all concerned that there is no requirement that committee meetings be open to the public. It’s required to take minutes and make those publicly available, but they can be just the bare minimum of what is being voted on and how it shakes out.
It comes up for discussion at 12:20 am. Everyone is tired. Max Bak/er has a list of amendments. All meetings must be available over zoom, the public must always be invited to participate, that sort of thing.
Melissa Der/rick gives the pivotal speech, roughly “Look, I really support transparency and citizen participation. But we can’t get anything done if we’re never able to speak frankly and compromise. And if we’re always in danger of getting flayed on social media, we can’t speak frankly.” That speech probably didn’t change anyone’s vote, but it gave cover for the centrist position to vote no.
It’s a problem. Councilmembers operating in good faith can be hamstrung by citizens operating in bad faith. In that case, there’s a defensible position for closed committee meetings. Councilmembers operating in bad faith need citizen oversight to mitigate the damage. There’s a reasonable argument for open committee meetings.
Baker’s amendments were all voted down 5-2, and the original proposal passed.
I’m glad Mano Am/iga is scrutinizing these things, and I’m glad Max Bak/er is a squeaky wheel, but it’s probably fine that his amendments didn’t pass. All committees can do is pass policy proposals up to Council, and Council is governed by TOMA, the Texas Open Meetings Act. Bad councilmembers can get voted out of office. Good councilmembers can opt to have open meetings when appropriate. Citizens have to stay engaged and informed. Good governance is hard.
The San Marxist 