Anatomy of a City Council Meeting - Blog #7

Anatomy of a City Council Meeting was a large component of our class for the past two weeks. The anatomy had five units; background on the council and its members, an agenda analysis, attending a city council meeting, post-meeting analysis and a guest speaker.

The background section was divided into different issues the council is covering and the members themselves. Each person in the class was assigned a topic and had to research, write a paper to be handed out to the class and give a short oral presentation. Some of the really interesting reports were on the history of Malibu, the history of the city council and the Malibu families.

I researched the controversy of overnight camping in Malibu. It is a story that is ongoing between the council and the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy, which controls the campgrounds in Malibu. (Please see the report below) This will end up being a part of my in-depth story about the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy due in a few weeks.

The agenda analysis (please see the report below) was interesting because the minutes for the city council were accessible and really thorough. I have had editors that were able to read minutes and highlight a single sentence that ended up being a good story. One example were minutes that I got for the Cedar Grove city council that had one light highlighted that said, Council member moves.

A council member took a new job in Georgia as a principal and some of the citizens wanted him to resign because he was moving. The council member would still have his family in Cedar Grove and still have a home there but every city has a few citizens that cause a ruckus. These same citizens a few weeks later came to me with a story about the mayor’s finances claiming he was not filing the right tax forms and should be removed from city council. The gentleman was a former mayoral candidate that was not elected and he tried every week to find a way onto that council.

The meeting itself was really long for a city council meeting. Other meetings I have attended over the years in other cities seem to have less discussion and fewer agenda items. The Malibu City Council is also really high-tech compared to other cities; their long three-hour meetings are broadcasted on local channel 3 and also streamed online.

Malibu has the same citizens that go to every meeting and use their rights to offer their opinions on the issues of the day. My landlord is one of those citizens that went up to the podium a few times and gave his opinion.

The meeting was interesting with a lively debate on septic tanks in Malibu and their effect on the environment. The council attempted to do its part to meet regulations established by other governmental agencies even though many citizens will oppose the financial strain this may put on them.

My favorite parts of the council meeting though were the comments early in the night. Sharon Barovsky raised some good points about the fire department and she had a great tone in her voice that made it abundantly clear to everyone that she did not appreciate the way she came off in a recent Malibu Times article. This means that the coverage newspapers have on city council members and their decisions can effect change.

The post-meeting analysis (please see the report below) was a class discussion on what happened at the meeting. The class also used this time to brainstorm questions for Malibu mayor Ken Kearsley who was our guest speaker. The class was able to delve deeply into the history of Malibu and narrow in on some in-depth questions.

The guest speaker was the best part of the Anatomy of a City Council Meeting (please see the report below). Kearsley really opened up to the class and shared some great information. I have never had a local politician/leader open up that much to me, let alone a class. I learned more about Malibu politics from Kearsley than from any of the other exercises in this unit.