Meeting curfew a good idea
Every now and then, something I write has modest impact. I don’t want to overstate this: At times, my political table-thumping has precisely the opposite effect of what I seek. And there are those occasional moments — very occasional, and best forgotten — when I’m flat wrong.
But now the San Jose City Council has a chance to remedy a problem I pointed out last month. Burdened with knotty land-use items, the council’s last meeting of the year lasted until 2:30 a.m., when only the die-hards and insomniacs were left in the room.
My argument was that this was bad government: Ordinary people who had to go to work the next morning were effectively being disenfranchised.
And at 2:30 a.m., it’s questionable how solid and incisive the council’s decision-making would ever be.
On its agenda Tuesday (item 3.6), the council can go a long way toward correcting that problem. The immediate issue, which is noncontroversial, involves moving the starting time of evening meetings from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m., while providing for a half-hour break from the afternoon session.
This is a good idea, and it should pass without question. The second issue, which is on the agenda for discussion, is setting a curfew at midnight for council meetings. If need be, the rest of the session would be postponed until the next day.
A couple of weeks ago, the council’s rules committee discussed this issue briefly. It came after Councilman Chappie Jones — to my mind, one of the more impressive city lawmakers — asked, “What about the concept that nothing good happens after midnight?’’
Mayor Sam Liccardo, who bears some of the responsibility for these late meetings, said he worried that a hard stop at midnight would allow certain players to game the system: If you could show up with just another 100 more speakers — each entitled to a minute — you could force the council to postpone because of the curfew.
And let’s face it: Postponement is part of the currency of council decision-making. It’s a big reason why the agendas on the last day of June or December are so long. On those days, because of various legal or financial deadlines, items that have been postponed for weeks are finally forced to a decision.
Fortunately, Liccardo is a pragmatic politician: He understands the critique about the fuzzy quality of late meetings. At the rules meeting, he said he was willing to cut things off at midnight as long everyone knew that the meeting would be continued the next day.
This is a sensible solution, and City Clerk Toni Taber said it would be possible to let everyone know to clear calendars for a possible Wednesday session. I don’t think this would happen very often. But the council should at least anticipate it on the last day of June and December.
It doesn’t take a lot to convince the public that you’re serious about good government. If people know that their chariot will turn into a pumpkin at midnight, we’ll all be better off. Kudos should go to four rules committee members — Liccardo, Jones, Magadalena Carrasco and Johnny Khamis. Let’s hope the rest of the council goes with the idea.