Council agenda item moving to intended position

June Casagrande

Somebody was confused. It’s possible everybody was confused.

In January, council members voted to change the order of business

on their meeting agendas. But by the next meeting, they realized that

their new lineup wasn’t what they thought they had approved.

“I wasn’t confused but what happened wasn’t what we intended,”

Mayor Tod Ridgeway said.

Council members wanted to shuffle around the meeting schedule to

move items pulled from the consent calendar until the end of the

night. Much of their reason centered around one gadfly, Balboa Island

resident Jim Hildreth, who, at almost every meeting, pulls from the

consent calendar the minutes of the previous meeting to protest how

his comments had been recorded.

Council members felt it was unfair to make people wait through

these comments for public hearings and other business. They decided

to move discussion of items pulled from the consent calendar to the

end of the meeting -- or so they thought.

At their Feb. 24 meeting, several council members were left

scratching their heads as to why the discussion of pulled consent

calendar items had been moved back only slightly and not all the way

to the end of the meeting as they had thought.

“What they approved in January was just to move the dispensation

of the consent calendar items to be after public hearings,” explained

City Clerk LaVonne Harkless , whose department prepares the agendas.

At the council’s request, the matter will be back on their agenda

at their upcoming meeting.

“What they’ll be considering on Tuesday is to move the

dispensation of consent calendar to be after current business but

before motion for reconsideration,” Harkless explained.

The motion for reconsideration is a formality to allow council

members to question any of their earlier decisions. It is always the

last thing on the agenda.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.