Councilmember Holmdahl at least offered a single half-hearted question: he asked the City Attorney if he had any response to public comments. Mr. Joseph Pannone basically reiterated that he and I disagreed on how to interpret the Brown Act. What: no follow up questions, Mr. Holmdahl? Maybe you could have asked him to specifically address the State Attorney General's Opinion (since it clearly undermines Mr. Pannone's position)?
The next thing that jumps out at me, as I review the video, is Mayor Bob Lingl's reiteration of his campaign platform. First, he acknowledges my concerns about transparency; he says it's true that "all of us have run on the platform of trying to be transparent."
But there's more. Starting at 43:15, in explaining his motion to accept the City Attorney's recommendation, he explains:
- "one of the things I ran on was that we as councilmembers, we certainly are not experts in everything that happens in the city"
- "we rely on the staff that we hire"
- "I believe that we did hire two very good people for the positions of city manager and the city attorney; for that reason I rely on their expertise"
Another important take-away: the mayor professes that "trying to be transparent" and relying on the expertise of the city staff are both campaign commitments - but when those two aims directly contradict each other, it is the "trying to be transparent" that gets tossed.
Discussion about Brown Act begins at 16:10, ends at 46:50.
But don't miss my final two cents (in two minutes), beginning at 1:08:50.
