Both a Symptom and a Source - Our Problematic Ojai City Council Meetings

by Andy Gilman of the Agora Foundation

Many of us have noticed how painfully long and uncomfortable Ojai City Council meetings can be. Other cities can average two-to-three hour meetings (cities with much bigger populations than Ojai), while our meetings can easily go five hours and more. Further, camaraderie and cooperation are mostly absent. After reflection, surveying other city council meetings, and attending to conversations in person and on social media, here are some suggestions that may help to shorten the meeting times and improve the council member exchanges. Perhaps even modest improvements in the meetings will better the council members’ relationships both with each other and with the lager community. If that could happen, even only a little, the public might not feel so compelled to express their frustration, distrust, and disgust… and that will immediately shorten the meetings. 

1) As a formal procedure, the meetings by default can be set to begin at 6:00PM and end at 9:00PM. A majority of the council can vote to extend the meeting in 30 minutes increments. When 9:30PM is reached, another majority vote will be necessary to extend, etc. This looming time boundary, while not absolute, can (hopefully) encourage council members to be more succinct, on point, and coherent. 

2) Each council member, during an uninterrupted speech, can have a time-limit reminder of seven minutes. A member can speak again on a subject, but not more than seven minutes at once. 20-minute rambles have to stop.

3) Someone present at the meetings (perhaps the City Clerk / Records Manager) should be very familiar with the video recordings of prior council meetings, and have them ready to pull up and play. Council members forget what they discussed in meetings just two weeks prior to the current meeting, and want to discuss the problems all over again, as if for the first time. We watch and cringe…

4) Record the closed session meetings. That issue need no longer be discussed and trust can begin to be rebuilt. Arguments to the contrary do nothing to improve the frustrating state we are all in. Save time, build trust…

5) Issues that are sure to produce passion though public comments and council discussion can be workshopped in separate public meetings. The public can be given more time to speak and feel heard. Then the subsequent Tuesday Council meeting is not a rehash of the issue (please, for all of our sakes, council members stop repeating yourselves)… The Council meeting can then be a place for any final information exchange, final brief discussion, and a vote on the workshopped issue. 

6) Yes, council members and public commentators, please stop repeating yourselves (a repeat, but needed, from #5 above :)

7) In setting the agenda, the Mayor can agree to never unilaterally place anything upon the agenda, and instead appeal to one more council person before adding any item. Further, the Mayor can include the Mayor Pro Tem in helping to set the agenda. This will save meeting time, build trust, and avoid the highly contentious issues unilateral- and last-minute additions bring to the meeting. 

8) Bring the City Council Protocols Workshop / Ethics Commission to the top-priority spot on the agenda. We have a crumbling, unhealthy foundation and decisions emerging from such foundations are suspect, regrettable, and exhausting. Actually, they bring some to tears. 

9) Task the staff with two questions to then publicly report on:

   a) How much money are we currently spending on legal council, compared with past councils;

   b) What would the likely challenges, financial and otherwise, be if we moved back to at-large voting for all council seats, and away from districts (which we voted to do city-wide when legally feasible) in our 2024 November election. The current district voting situation has helped to plunge us into this highly contentious environment. Let’s get out of it, even if it hurts a little.

10) Lastly, and perhaps this is the most difficult change proposed here, the council regularly acts on anecdotes to determine profoundly important policy. As much as possible, decisions should have an unbiased data component, even if the data is probabilistic. This is huge. 

The Council meetings are a symptom of the Council members’ dysfunction and the source of continued (and sometime amplified) flaws. Perhaps we can’t fix everything, but even a little harmony and trust would go a long way. I hope the Council will take up at least some of these suggestions. 

Andy Gilman