New Plan to Micromanage City Commissions Isn’t Good Government (Or Legal)
September 05, 2024
By Dan Carson and Elaine Roberts Musser
Mayor Josh Chapman and Councilmember Bapu Vaitla recently began asking city commissioners for feedback on a proposal for “clarification of how items are placed on a commission meeting agenda.” Chapman and Vaitla did not invite the public at large to weigh in on their proposal, but we feel compelled to do so in the public interest.
To sum up, we recommend jettisoning this illegal and ill-conceived plan. It would empower even a single councilmember to micromanage and indefinitely block any commission-initiated proposal they didn’t like for any reason whatsoever. There are far better alternatives to promote teamwork and collaboration between the City Council and the city’s expert volunteer citizen commissioners.
Current city policy allows commissions free reign to work on pretty much anything they want as long as it is consistent with the written charter established for them. Once a commission has explored a policy matter, the city’s Commission Handbook says it may submit items to the Council to be placed on the Council agenda for its consideration.
The Chapman-Vaitla plan, summarized in a flow chart [see graphic at the beginning of the article], overrides those policies. The Council and the city staff could continue to place items on commission agendas. Yet, in a big change, proposals initiated by a commission would now be subject to review and veto -- by either any relevant council subcommittee (two councilmembers) or that commission’s assigned Council liaison (typically one councilmember).The Chapman-Vaitla plan says these new rules would apply whenever the council wished to “undertake a particular task/project/discussion.” In other words, almost anything and everything a commission might ever want to do would be subject to veto by one councilmember. The Council and city staff would dictate what a commission can or cannot do, but the commission itself would have absolutely no control over its work. This is bizarre and extremely unwise.
Huge policy fiefdoms would be carved out for individual councilmembers. Bapu Vaitla (Council liaison for the Climate Commission) alone would make the call on commission proposals to address greenhouse gas reduction proposals. Donna Neville (Council liaison for the Fiscal Commission) would have sole control over commission proposals regarding budgets and taxes. Josh Chapman (the Council liaison for the Social Services and the Recreation and Parks Commissions) would call the shots for commissions that oversee housing projects and city parks.
The plan sets no time limit for a councilmember to review and act on a commission proposal, allowing it to be tabled for months or years. And Councilmembers would have wide discretion in making such decisions: The plan says their decisions could be based on whether they align with “Council goals and priorities,” the “cost,” “staff bandwidth,” and “other Commission workload or priorities, etc.” That is one gigantic “etc.” Nothing in their plan prohibits decisions based on whether they made their friends and political supporters happy or unhappy rather than serving the public interest.
A councilmember could have to decide whether to rubber stamp or veto a particular commission proposal amid fierce lobbying for or against it by special interest groups. Under this flawed approach, their decision would be made in secret, and that councilmember would not be required to explain or justify their final action in writing or in public.
We predict that commissions would rarely bother to follow the cumbersome process outlined in the Chapman-Vaitla plan. They will have quiet off-the-books conversations with their assigned councilmember and quickly ditch any proposed agenda item their “minder” didn’t like. Many important city government decisions would be hidden from the public.
Those decisions may not reflect the will of the voters. A single council “shot-caller” delegated the control over a particular commission might act very differently on an issue than the council majority.
The Chapman-Vaitla proposal clearly violates the Brown Act, the landmark state law enacted to ensure that local government decisions are made in the light of day. That law says that only a Council majority – not one or two councilmembers out of five -- can make city policy decisions on issues within its jurisdiction, such as a decision to block a specific policy proposal being considered by a commission. Council decisions by law must occur in a public meeting for which the public has been provided advance notice and a chance to weigh in with public comment. The Chapman-Vaitla proposal would violate requirements for open meetings and open government. Their proposal also conflicts with various state laws and local ordinances that authorize certain city commissions to take official actions unimpeded by review and vetoes by one or two councilmembers.
Why do this at all? Commissioners are being treated like children rather than adults. Why straitjacket them, stifling innovative proposals? It is crucial for commissioners, as subject matter experts, to anticipate changes like AI technology they may see on the horizon and keep the Council abreast of the latest developments.
The Council already has the tools it needs to ensure city commissions do what they are supposed to. It can appoint commissioners committed to its goals. Each commission is governed by a charter approved by Council spelling out what it can work on. Each commission has a Council liaison empowered to weigh in at every commission meeting with their opinion about what work would help the Council achieve its goals.
There are much better alternatives for creating a desirable environment in which the Council and its commissioners collaborate more closely in policymaking. The Council could invite commissions, as it has in the past, to review and comment on the official list of Council goals before they are adopted, fostering mutual buy-in. The current Council halted the longstanding practice of holding a public workshop with a different commission each month to discuss issues they wanted to work on together. Council could resume those workshops
The Chapman-Vaitla plan to micromanage commissions is neither legal nor good government. It would create a breeding ground for bad policymaking and corruption and frustrate the independent oversight of city government that commissions were created to provide. This plan should be scrapped as illegal and unworkable.
Dan Carson is a former Davis City Council member and city commissioner with a 45-year career in journalism and state and local government service. Elaine Roberts Musser is an attorney who has served on county and city commissions as well as various task forces. She was given the award of Davis Citizen of the Year in 2014.
This illegal action completes an explicit but unspoken plan by the City Council's Subcommittee on Commissions (comprised of Bapu Vaitla and Josh Chapman) to gut/neuter the City's long-standing Commission structure so they can push their own agendas without interference by those pesky Commissions.
First it was the planned but secret refusal by Vaitla and Chapman to fill vacancies on almost all key Commissions for over a year. By these failures, these neglected Commissions did not have quorums and could not legally meet to offer input on important items before the City Council.
The most egregious was the failure to fill vacancies on the now dissolved Finance and Budget Commission so they could not discuss City's massively deteriorating financial condition. Then they simultaneously canned the Fiscal and Budget Commission and Utilities Commission (both of which had massive tasks that they could barely complete as it is) and merged them into a new Fiscal Commission. But they wrote a whole new charter for the new Commission that substantially reduces the ability of this new Commission to address the most glaring financial problems of the City.
For instance, in the past year alone without any input from the former Finance and Budget Commission, our City Council decided to 1) grant huge salary increases to our City Manager, Senior Staff, and the Firefighters Union based on bogus and contrived data, 2) reduce the street repair and maintenance budget by $1.5 million this year, 3) stop paying down the City's unfunded $48 million pension debt, 4) failure to complete audited financial statements for 2022 and 2023, and 4) allowing the City's General Fund reserve to shrink to 7.5%, which is half the desired 15%.
Then they dissolved both our standard-setting Natural Resources Commission (NRC) and our beloved Tree Commission and replaced them them with a new Sustainability and Environmental Justice Commission - but similarly hobbled them with a charter that will minimize their ability to take the initiative on anything not "pre-approved" by the City Council.
Both of these previous Commissions had achieved many admirable goals over the past decades including our ground-breaking new Building Codes that set the standard for the State, our progressive Integrated Waste Management and Water Management Plans, and our Integrated Pest Management Plans that eliminated use of glyphosate (Round-up) and the pollinator-killing neonicotinoids from our parks and bike paths.
Similarly, our Tree Commission ushered in a new Urban Forest Plan and a Parking Lot Shade Ordinance requiring minimum placement of trees in new developments and in parking lots to reduce the heat-island impacts. Now our tree canopy is the envy of cities across the state.
From our first-in-the-nation curbside recycling plan to our exemplary bike path network to our Community Choice Energy program, Valley Clean Energy, these were all initiatives and ideas brought forward by the Commissions - often while meeting extreme Staff and Council resistance. But the Commissions persevered to give us the quality of life we now enjoy in Davis.
All of this is at risk if Vaitla's/Chapman's petty, controlling, and autocratic little plans become embodied in the City's burgeoning bureaucracy and little fiefdoms envisioned by their new proposal. The City of Davis grew up on the backs of these volunteer Commissions and NOT on any sell-promoting visions of our elected City Councils.
Vaitla and Chapman, both newcomers to the Council and without long-standing Commission experience, would do well to remember that.
Posted by: Alan Pryor | September 05, 2024 at 12:27 PM
I never liked Bapu Vaitla's ideas when he ran for office, and now I like him even less.
Posted by: Jan Bower | September 05, 2024 at 05:10 PM
Dan & Elaine wrote:
"To sum up, we recommend jettisoning this illegal and ill-conceived plan."
Then AP writes:
"This illegal action completes an explicit but unspoken plan by the City Council's Subcommittee on Commissions "
Can someone tell me what actual "law: the council in violating?
P.S. I'm not a fan of this and see it as "typical politics" where ellected officials try and avoid hearing things they don't want to hear (or deal with) an I'm actualy wondering if a law on the books is being violated (I'm not just trying to be funny or give people a hard time)
Posted by: South of Davis | September 05, 2024 at 09:15 PM
SOD, re-read the article. The Brown Act.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | September 05, 2024 at 09:29 PM
Honestly, folks - if you don't like what the council is doing, get someone else to run for office (and then vote for them).
Pretty simple, really.
Posted by: Ron O | September 06, 2024 at 07:40 PM
Dan Carson?
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | September 06, 2024 at 08:54 PM
Bapu started out running as a man of the people [edited], started advocating for the application of Monsanto produced known toxic pesticides/herbicides in direct conflict with more than several of his supporters who adhere to organic orientation .... and then all this City Commission blatant disrespect...he is a modern day tragedy and I for one miss the days of Tom Tomasi, Bob BLAck, Ann Evans, and ike Corbett on the Council, people of true integrity who were not swayed by narrow special self interests...Iam glad I lived through the Davis golden years of progressive leadership...most of these council members appear to be proxies for the real estate developers..sad
Posted by: David Kupfer | September 07, 2024 at 03:11 PM
I agree with the last four comments that were posted. The City Commissions used to do great work and the City Councils used to do great work. It is too bad that we are now stuck with two Council members who care only about whether they can decide everything without input from others — and without even publicizing the issues and discussions in advance of voting. This is exactly what violates the Brown Act.
Posted by: Robin Wiener | September 21, 2024 at 01:34 PM
Maybe so, but in all my years of annoying City Councils, I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted, or even hand slapped, for violating the Brown Act. But I've heard the accusation hundreds of times. So unless you are willing to sue or lodge a complaint with the State over it, why does anyone bring it up? If they can get away with it, they get it away with it.
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | September 21, 2024 at 07:50 PM