Public’s Agenda Is Aired During Councils’ Open Comment Periods

At a microphone in the chambers of the Costa Mesa City Council, a man rattled off a long list of concerns about zoning laws and property values.

Then, Mayor Peter F. Buffa interrupted and told the man that he had used up his five minutes the council had given him to speak.

“We have to go on to the next speaker,” Buffa said.

But the man responded with a threat:

“Either you give me two minutes more to speak, or I will speak on every issue on the evening’s agenda.”

Fearing the man would extend a long calendar of public hearings into the wee hours, the Costa Mesa council gave in. The man got the extra two minutes, which he used to talk about traffic-light synchronization.

The man’s cause was small, but his persistence made a council meeting dominated by discussions of zoning changes, general plans and road easements more memorable. It also symbolized the fact that at meetings all over Orange County, virtually no cause is too small for council members to hear.

Most citizens tout these causes, often not newsworthy, yet very important to them, during a City Council’s open-agenda period, when residents are given the chance to speak out on any issue as long as it is not on that evening’s regular agenda.

For example, a Garden Grove man went before his City Council several times to vent his frustration about his neighbor, who has an RV parked next door in the driveway.

This man said his neighbor’s RV blocked his view when he tried to pull out of his driveway. His proposal to the council: Ban all RVs.

I’ve had the chance to witness such incidents well beyond the confines of Orange County.

In Hawthorne, an elderly man, his voice shaking, walked up to a microphone in the middle of the chambers and told the City Council what a fine job the police and fire departments had done.

Then, he almost broke out into tears.

“You really have done the police and fire departments a disservice,” he told them. “They had a spaghetti dinner and there was virtually no publicity. Something has to be done about publicity in this city.”

As these people speak, many times the rest of the audience--and even council members themselves--do not listen. But I record everything they do, hopeful that at some time the information will be useful. I’ve since discovered that I am not unique in this regard. Reporters covering other cities have told me their own stories about a resident complaining about sidewalk cracks or another citizen pointing out misspelled items on the evening’s agenda.

In Irvine, one woman criticized Mayor Larry Agran because she was upset that a veterans delegation going to distribute aid in Nicaragua visited the city.

“Mayor Agran,” she said sternly, “what you did was treason. “

Then, she added, “Mayor Agran, I have something to tell you,” and she started singing a song about freedom.

In Anaheim, a woman who didn’t want to go through the bureaucracy of getting a street light at a crosswalk frequented by schoolchildren decided a better idea would be to recite poetry to the council. She had written the poem, which described the danger the children would face.

The most recognizable people to come before these open-agenda sessions are the council watchdogs, those who attend every meeting for many years and who monitor the city’s every action. Council members know them by name.

At times, these watchdogs can get together and complain so bitterly to a council that the uproar is enough to make headlines.

That happened in Manhattan Beach, where council activists are so numerous that they formed an association and created their own newsletter. The monthly publication includes a chart rating each council member’s vote with either a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down.”

Last fall, city officials started to renovate a pond in a popular city park. To do so, city officials disposed of 83 ducks that inhabited the pond. This came as a shock to many council watchers, and many of them voiced their alarm to the council over the death of the ducks. Some asked council members to put themselves in the ducks’ place.

Perhaps the most extreme and heart-rending opinion came from a woman who called me shortly after one of these meetings.

“I can’t believe they did this,” she said, crying. “And you know, there was a duck in that pond that I would go out to visit. I called him ‘Ducky.’ He would come up to me and I would pet him. He actually recognized me. Now he’s gone.”