Target TCP Update Agendized for January 16 City-County Two-by-Two

Representatives from the City and the County will meet on January 16, to discuss among other issues, the issue of TCP that was found in test sites around the Target Superfund site. To date, the EPA has dismissed community based calls for further testing before construction begins at their site.

The City-County will have their 2-by-2 meeting on Friday January 16, 2009 at 9 AM in the conference room at the Davis County Office which is located a block from City Hall at 600 A Street. The item on Target and the issue of the TCP has been agendized for discussion. The 2-by-2 consists of two members from the Board of Supervisors and two members from the City Council. That will be the two Davis Supervisors, which means that this will be newly installed Supervisor Jim Provenza's first 2-by-2. Mayor Ruth Asmundson and Councilmember Don Saylor represent the city.

For some reason the agenda for these meetings is not readily available from the city. This is a public meeting and the public under the Brown Act ought to be informed about it. Thus there is no posted information on either the City's webpage or the County's webpage. It would be interesting to see where the meetings are posted and whether the city and county are in compliance with the Brown Act regarding posting and announcing such meetings. Regardless, even if this is within the letter of the law, it certainly seems to break the spirit of the law.

Here's a letter from Congressman Mike Thompson who seems unconcerned about the problem--further illustrating why it was a good thing that he was not selected as Secretary of the Interior.

Thank you for contacting me regarding elevated levels of trichloropropane (TCP) found at the 2nd Street construction site of the Target in Davis. I appreciate you sharing these concerns with me.

Rest assured that I am aware of the discovery of TCP at the construction site and agree that public safety - for residents, construction workers, future employees and shoppers - is of the utmost concern. I have been in contact with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the City of Davis about the concerns that have been expressed to me and I will continue to follow the issue. The EPA has explained that no contamination has been found at the building location and that the high concentrations of TCP are at the neighboring disposal basin and should be addressed soon as part of the final cleanup of the Superfund site.

Presently, remediation in the form of gravel/vapor barriers and air sampling is being conducted regardless of construction activity. Additionally, the EPA has an enforceable agreement with Target should more aggressive containment measures prove necessary. A strong EPA agreement with a responsible partner willing to conduct monitoring and remedial action as necessary is crucial to mitigate the risks from contaminants over the long term. For its part, the City of Davis has significant experience in managing matters of soil and groundwater contamination, most notably at the Fifth and G Streets site that now houses the US Department of Agriculture.

Again, thank you for your concern and vigilance on this issue. Please continue to contact me on all issues of importance to you and our district.

Sincerely,

MIKE THOMPSON
Member of Congress
http://www.mikethompson.house.gov

The problem that residents of Davis face at the moment is that the City Council has very limited jurisdiction over such matters. This goes back to the issue of Agraquest and possible health threats the community might face from environmental contamination at their Kennedy Place site. The city has limited ability to act on such things.

The county is far better situated on both issues to deal with it. However, the County Health Department summarily without investigation dismissed concerns about Agraquest, and now it appears they have done little with regards to the potential threat that residents adjacent to the Superfund site may face from exposure to TCP.

On Monday, the Sacramento Bee reported:

"The chemical has previously been found at the neighboring Frontier Fertilizer Superfund site along Second Street, near Interstate 80 and Mace Boulevard.

But nearby residents are now concerned it may be migrating northeast under the Target site, toward their homes."

Bonnie Arthur, the EPA Superfund project manager said the following:

"The chemical is known to cause cancer, she said. But she said it does not threaten the city's drinking water supply, which is drawn from deeper wells. "Nobody's drinking this water," she said."

However, members of the Frontier Fertilizer Superfund Oversight Group are not so sure that it is not a threat to drinking water if it continues to move and begins to leach into wells that lie at a deeper level.

The question is where is the county on all of this? They have a health department and they have the power to investigate these matters independent of the EPA. If this represents an actual health threat, it would seem that the county should step in.

But in both this and the Agraquest issue, the county has been silent.

It remains to be seen if a more aggressive Supervisor like Jim Provenza might be able to change some of this. January 16, 2009 will be a very important meeting on this matter, and residents concerned about this issue should try to attend, even though the meeting is happening during the work day when working people will have difficulty attending.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Davis City Council's Annual Goals

The Davis City Council began discussion on their annual goals this past Tuesday. At some point when the discussion moves further along, we can talk those goals. In the meantime, it seems that an interesting discussion may be what people in the community want to see done in the next year.

The better discussion here would be sticking to realistic goals, for example, building Covell Village in the next year is not really practical, however, approving a given housing development might be.

Since it is my blog, I will go first and name five goals I have.

I have numbered these goals for the sake of expediency. As I typed out five, I realized I could easily have written ten. But let us start with five basic goals.

1. Grocery store in West Lake Shopping Center

I will be West Davis Centric for right now. This is really my top goal for the upcoming year. I have lived next to West Lake Shopping Center now for over eight years, unbelievably. Since May of 2006 there has not been a grocery store. Amazingly places like Lamp Post Pizza, the little Mexican place, the Chinese place, and others have not gone out of business, even as West Yost Associates has also moved.

Criticism has to be lobbed at the owner, at least in the past, who first allowed the condition of the location to deteriorate, filled in the cargo bay at the rear of the grocery store, and it is unclear how hard he searched for a grocery store of the approximate size of 15,000 to 26,000 square feet.

A good specialty grocery store could work very well in this location. It turns out there are good amount of smaller chains that specifically design small and middle size grocery stores. We just have to find one to make it work.

There are people right now hard at work trying to find the right store to come into this location. This needs to be a top priority.

2. Road safety at 2nd D / and Pole Line

I put these together. One of the most dangerous locations in Davis is the left turn onto Pole Line in South Davis as you pull out of the Shopping Center. It is like navigating a mine field. First you have a steady stream of downhill traffic from the overpass who are generally driving like it is a thorough fare. Then you need to move quickly onto a suicide lane in the center and merge into heavy traffic. It is easy to miss some in either direction. It is an intersection that either needs a traffic light or needs to be a right turn only. The left turn set up as it is, is a recipe for deadly accidents, and deadly accidents have occurred there.

The intersection at fourth and D is a disaster waiting to happen. The good news is that D street just doesn't have the high volume of traffic. However, there are a few problems with the intersection if you are driving south on D away from Fifth Street. First, it is a two-way stop, meaning you have to stop at Fourth Street, but the traffic on Fourth Street doesn't stop. Some cars do not realize that. Second, because it is a two-way stop, the fact that the view of oncoming westbound traffic is obstructed by parked cars makes it perilous.

Accidents have almost occurred there for two reasons. Either the cars on D do not realize that it is a two-way stop. Or if they do, they can't see the cars coming and almost get hit as they drift out into traffic.

The sad thing is that the solution is simple. Put in a four-way stop. Or more being innovative, put in a round-about. Either way, a simple solution would save a giant pain if you find yourself on D Street heading towards downtown. And during Farmer's Market times, it is not an area that cars do not drive on.

3. Road diet on Fifth street

There are all sorts of problems with Fifth Street between B and L. First, traffic moves way too fast between those areas. Second, you have bikes that do not have a bike lane. Third, you have no turn lanes for people moving off Fifth. Fourth, you have no suicide lanes for cars moving on fifth. The result is that Fifth Street is an accident waiting to happen, and it often happens.

I drive on this stretch all the time, the biggest danger is the car turning onto Fifth Street because they have to wait for the traffic to die down and then they often try to squeeze into a very narrow space. Sometimes they misjudge that space, sometimes they don't see an oncoming car.

Contributing to that problem is of course the speed of traffic moving through there, which is why one proposal is a road diet, that would slow down traffic by narrowing the street to two lanes rather than four. This would cause congestion, which would lead people to avoid the area somewhat, but it would slow down traffic. They could then make turn lanes and suicide lanes to avoid the other problems of turns. It would also free up space for dedicated bike lanes.

This has been a subject of ongoing discussion. The DDBA and the Chamber of Commerce are concerned about the impact of changes to Fifth Street on business going to downtown. Nevertheless, this is an issue that needs to be resolved in a way that addresses safety concerns, bicycle transportation needs, pedestrian cross-concerns while at the same time not harming the downtown. A tough issue, but one that needs to be addressed.

4. Transparency in City Government

Those regulars to the Vanguard understand how heavily our focus looks at open government and transparency. This was an issue that Councilmember Lamar Heystek raised as well and of course we have some ideas.

Last year we raised the issue of the storage of public records. The concern was that the city only stores for instance the recordings of meetings for a few months, passes it on to the library who stores them for two years, but after two years those records are destroyed. So the only record we have of council meetings past two years are the minutes which are by design slim on detail. Thus past conversations and debates are largely lost. The issue was brought up at a joint HMRC-Council meeting this year and the council agreed this was an important issue and they wanted to look into way to store records of this nature.

That is really the beginning of the issue of open government. I would like to see the city pass some sort of sunshine ordinance which recognizes, as other cities do, that governing acts like the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act are minimum standards for open government, rather than the limit for open government.

In my dealings with the city, they have been pretty open to public records requests and willing to work with me for the most part. Unfortunately, the California Public Records Act is one of the weakest open government record acts in the country. That is also a legislative goal as well to strengthen it, but much can be done on this even at a local level.

5. City Council to find working system for council comments

When Mayor Asmundson took over, there was a big concern about her limiting the public comments portion of the agenda. I still think this is somewhat problematic on tough issues, but she does appear somewhat flexible when large crowds come up. To me, you have to stay late to allow members of the public to speak. It does not happen all the time, but when it does, it should be accommodated.

In the meantime, the problem has arisen at the last two meetings when the Mayor has cut off Councilmember Sue Greenwald. Again, I do not agree with limiting time for a councilmember to speak. However, if that is going to occur it needs to occur in a systematic manner. To me, it appears that the Mayor cuts off Councilmember Greenwald quicker than she does other people.

If that is how she wants to run meetings, my recommendation is to announce in advance of an item that each councilmember has a certain amount of time to ask questions and then enforce it across the board. That probably is not the best system to use, but it would avoid some of the current flare ups.

Alright those are five of my council goals for 2009. There are clearly some key ones I missed like vacancies in downtown business, parking in the downtown, transportation, energy efficiency, re-examining the water issue, and much more. I could easily have done ten. I am curious as to what other people want to see.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

A Burning Issue For Our Community

Programming note: Join the Vanguard tonight on KDRT 101.5 FM from 6 pm to 7 pm, as I host Alan Pryor who is one of the leaders in the fight to ban wood burning. You can call in with questions at 792-1648.

On July 29, 2008, the Davis City Council unanimously voted to recommend to the Natural Resources Commission to draft a resolution that would implement a full ban on wood burning in Davis with an exemption for hardship.

I will say at the onset here, that I am fully in support of that decision, particularly with such an exemption for people of lower income backgrounds who rely on wood burning as a cheaper means by which to heat their homes in the winter.

However, at the time I was concerned about the way in which this issue had been dealt with by the city, the city council, and the local paper--or that is, not dealt. I got up to speak before city council on the night of July 29, 2008, to recommend two things. First, that we need exemptions for people with hardships. And second, that we needed better outreach before this meeting.

On the morning of July 29, I wrote this article in the Vanguard. It essentially lays out my position on the technical aspects of this issue. But I believe that for many in this community, they did not know this issue was even under consideration until that article appeared the Vanguard and subsequently an article in the Davis Enterprise on July 31, 2008.

Following that article, the dam broke loose, and there have been several op-eds in the Enterprise, numerous letters to the editor, and commentary by Bob Dunning.

This is all a healthy part of the democratic process, but this should have happened before the July 29, 2008 meeting. This is an issue that effects so many in our community on both sides of the fence. Large numbers of people have come forward to tell of their health problems that they suffer from wood burning smoke during the winter months. They came before the council on that evening to present their compelling cases, and it is my belief that the council was moved by those testimonies and it enabled them to take tougher action that they were probably prepared to do prior to the meeting.

Unfortunately, there is also a group of people in this community who feel strongly the other way, and their voices were not heard on that night.

In yesterday's Enterprise for example, George Galamba suggests what he terms a more measured approach:

It is too bad that we are unable to see shades of gray in the debate. Yes, burning wood (or gas, oil, coal, etc.) does produce smoke, and smoke is a pollutant. But there is a bit of difference between burning a branch that was blown down a few months ago in an open-hearth fireplace and burning seasoned wood in an EPA-certified stove.

Rather than a draconian ban on burning all wood, why not a measured response to the problem, which is not wood, but rather smoke? I would like to offer a few suggestions:

-- If it is not already the law, ban open-hearth fireplaces in new construction. Why put a fireplace in a house and then tell the new owners that they can't use it?

-- As properties change hands, require that fireplaces be retrofitted with approved appliances or bricked up.

-- Prohibit burning on days when the air is polluted.

-- Issue burning permits that would require attendance at a workshop on how to burn cleanly.

In many ways it was Thomas Cahill editorial on August 5, 2008 that lit the fire.

He writes:

"One of the greatest threats to effective environmental progress is asking the public to bear the cost of environmental actions that later turn out to be unnecessary or unsupported by current science. Such errors erode the political will to do the hard and necessary environmental tasks. Think of the current credibility of the FDA, for example, after it erroneously labeled tomatoes as the salmonella culprit.

Davis is in danger of sliding down this slippery slope in instituting a total ban on wood burning when the science is not supportive of such an action."

He argues that Davis during the winter months has low levels of Wood smoke and even during the severe problems during this summer, there were no notable increases in doctors' visits or hospital admissions.

"There are two problems. One is that the city of Davis' Natural Resources Commission did not have key documents that have actually determined the surprisingly low levels of wood smoke in Davis in winter, a 55-page report submitted to the City Council in March 15, 1995. This work shows that even in the worst stagnation periods, Davis represents a tiny enhancement over the valleywide winter particulate pollution, which is largely caused by diesels and smoking cars.

In addition, for the past month we have been breathing smoke from the much more dangerous wildfires at levels roughly 100 to 200 times what which we saw during our worst stagnation period, the cold, hazy day in Davis on Dec. 23, 1995.

Yet Glennah Trochet, M.D., Sacramento County's health officer, noted no increases in doctors' visits or hospital admissions from the present wood smoke even in the worst period of mid- to late June 2008."

On the other hand, perhaps that should not be the measure of such problems. Many people I know cranked their air conditioning up and simply stayed inside during the horrid smoke and incessant heat of the early portion of this summer.

Alan Pryor, who will be my guest tonight on KDRT, had a response Op-Ed on August 14, 2008.

Mr. Pryor argues that:

"Cahill made three claims that are unfortunately not substantiated by the older data he presented nor accepted by the larger scientific community."

He then refutes Mr. Cahill's objections.

"Firstly, Cahill implies that wood smoke is not as harmful as suspected or represented... In that article, a county health officer said they had not yet observed a local jump in hospital emergency admissions due to respiratory difficulties during the recent weeks of wildfire- induced wood smoke pollution. There was no data to support that observation and that was the only item in that article that could be possibly be construed to minimize the hazards of wood smoke pollution.

In fact, the actual thrust of that article was to warn people how dangerous were the then-current levels of wood smoke pollution levels and. Both Kent Pinkerton, a UC Davis professor and expert on the health effects of air pollutants, and Larry Greene, executive officer of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, are extensively quoted in the same article, pointing out the severe adverse health effects of wood smoke. "

Next:

"Secondly, Cahill further claims his own research shows wood smoke concentrations are at "surprisingly low levels" in Davis and thus do not constitute a major pollution or health problem. This observation was based solely on a one-time measurement of air quality taken at only two different points in Davis on a single winter day about 13 years ago... The Yolo-Solano AQMD now estimates that, on average, about one-third of current wintertime particulate pollution in Davis is due to residential wood smoke. In Sacramento, the percentage of particulate air pollution due to residential wood - burning in winter is closer to 50 percent. "

Finally:

"Cahill also claims we can solve any "residual" wood smoke problems that might exist simply by heeding the "more stringent" "Spare the Air" restrictions on wood - burning that are periodically issued by the Sacramento Air Quality Management District. Well, that certainly sounds like a reasonable idea.

Unfortunately, the Sacramento AQMD issued only eight mandatory alerts last winter for restricting open-hearth fireplaces and no alerts at all restricting the use of EPA Phase II stoves. That means that during the unrestricted 112 days of the 120-day burn season (from Nov. 1 through Feb. 28), anyone in Davis could still burn an open-hearth fireplace as long as they wanted, at any time and anywhere — even next to a school, hospital, senior center or the home of an asthmatic child or senior. Similarly, an EPA Phase II stove actually could operate without any restriction whatsoever."

The debate is interesting, informative, and necessary. I encourage people to read the full op-eds from August 5 and August 14, in addition to the feature article from Claire St. John that appeared last Thursday in the Davis Enterprise.

However, again, I want to go back a step. This debate should have occurred before the July 29, 2008 City Council meeting. That is not to say the ordinance that will emerge from the NRC will be a done deal any time soon. There will be plenty of time to debate, but it would have been helpful to have a full debate prior to the direction to the NRC.

It is easy for a city like Davis to meet the basic Brown Act requirements for open meetings. Posting notices with able lee-time are sufficient for those requirements. But as I said at the July 29 meeting, the Brown Act should be considered the bare minimum standard for public notification, not the extent to which they go to inform the public on issues that they know will generate public debate. And this was clearly an issue that would. The debate that has emerged in the last month bears out my concerns at that time.

The city, in my estimation, does not make use of its considerable power of the bully-pulpit. It is easy to sit back and rely on reporters to report on the City Council meetings. However, in fairness to the Enterprise, at best one receives the agenda on Thursday late afternoon, that leaves Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to report on anything that has to do with the council's agenda. That is not a lot of time to warn the public and to have any sort of public debate. And so, we often see debates develop after the fact.

Fact of the matter is that the city can write its own story and submit it to the newspaper whenever it wants and the the newspaper is pretty accommodating. Heck, they could submit it to the Vanguard and nine times out of ten, I would probably run it as well.

I think it would have been helpful had the George Galamba's and the Thomas Cahill's of Davis had been able to weigh in on the meeting on July 29, perhaps the council would have given the same recommendation, perhaps not. But at least they would have had their say.

I know they will get their say later on in this process, that is the justification that you will hear for the way this has unfolded, but as I have discovered, the further down the field they run with the ball, the harder it is to stop forward progress. Once they get the ball in field goal range, it is all a matter of damage control.

The debate on this issue will fortunately go on, the public will learn much more about this issue before the final vote is taken, it seems likely that the final vote will be considerably weaker than the direction given in late July. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that this is a serious health issue.

In last week's Davis Enterprise article, Jennifer Anderson of Ace Hardware was quote, among other things she suggested that the city of Davis stay out of the issue.

"Anderson said the YSAQMD should be responsible for regulating wood burning.

'It would be my dream to just leave it to the Yolo Solano Air Quality realm and not bring it into local politics, because that's what they're there for,' she said."

As I understand the issue however, the YSAQMD sets emission standards, it does not regulate wood burning or set policy for the city. The local jurisdictions are in charge of setting such policies.

I point this out because these are issues that must be fully vetted in public and explained. What are the emissions requirements that the city has no control over and what policies are needed in order to meet those standards.

The next question is whether those standards are tough enough. Just like the Brown Act, emissions standards can be minimum requirements rather than limitations on regulations. They are often based as much on political expediency as they are on scientific premises. We need to sort through and determine whether we need to simply adhere to these standards or whether we as the city of Davis, need to set our own in order to meet the health needs of the population.

Regardless, these questions still need to be sorted out and the city has a duty to educate the public on this issue. If the city believes that wood burning represents a health threat, then they should use the power of the bully-pulpit to communicate that, rather than sit back and let those who like the comfort of burning dictate the terms of this debate.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Limiting Public Comment and Free Speech Considerations

There has been an interesting debate both on the editorial pages of the Davis Enterprise and in the community itself with regards to some of the new regulations that Mayor Ruth Asmundson has imposed both on the length of council comment and more explosively it seems on the length of public comment.

Her decision to limit the public comment period to fifteen minutes has drawn heavy criticism. Unfortunately, the rhetoric has been couched in grandiose terms such as freedom of speech and the Brown Act.

While freedom of speech is ostensibly government by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it has always effectively been subject to time and place restrictions. Public meetings could not function with complete freedom of speech which would allow anyone to talk at any time. The need for order is balanced against the right of the public to have access to their local government. Thus enters the Ralph M. Brown Act in California which governs access to local government bodies.

Section 54954.3 governs the right of the public speak. Subsection (a) reads:

"Every agenda for regular meetings shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the legislative body on any item of interest to the public, before or during the legislative body's consideration of the item, that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body, provided that no action shall be taken on any item not appearing on the agenda unless the action is otherwise authorized by subdivision (b) of Section 54954.2."

However even in this case, the right to speak is not an unlimited one.

Subsection (b) allows the legislative body to adopt:

"reasonable regulations to ensure that the intent of subdivision (a) is carried out, including, but not limited to, regulations limiting the total amount of time allocated for public testimony on particular issues and for each individual speaker."

Finally subsection (c) essentially protects the right to public criticism of policies, procedures, programs, or services of the agency, but not beyond the current protection offered by the law. In other words, the Brown Act does not protect individuals from slander and other prohibitions on speech, but it does in general prevent the agency from shutting down dissent.

In the debate that we are dealing with, subsection (b) is the one that is applicable. It is here that we find that the actions of the Mayor are in fact legal under the Brown Act. "Reasonable" is always a judgment call and it also appears that her body could probably overrule her on policy, but obviously given her majority status, that is not going to happen.

That said, as with so many other provisions for open government in California, I believe that the Brown Act provides the minimum standard under which an agency should operate, not the maximum standard.

An active and engaged public is vital to this community. By limiting public comment, we begin the limit the chances for the public to participate in their own government and this I think will likely produce unwanted and undesirable consequences.

As has been pointed out before by members of the public and members on the council alike, the number of times in the last two years that the public consumed more than 15 minutes at a council meeting one could count on one hand. And it always surrounded an issue of great controversy and therefore of great import. On those occasions, what is the harm of the body of representatives to the public to listen to public input?

There is nothing more frustrating, as we have seen in the past, for the public to come to a meeting, speak on an issue for a long period of time, only to watch as the councilmembers make their comments from prepared statements as though the public's comments have no impact whatsoever on the council's final decision. Nothing is more frustrating than that except perhaps the public not even being able to fully speak out on the issue.

At the July 22, 2008 city council meeting, a number of members of the public spoke out against the new policy.

Jean Jackson, a prominent member of the public was especially eloquent:

"Your new policy of only having fifteen minutes of public comment before the meeting starts--it's not Democratic. It shuts down opposition. It shuts down good ideas, I get inspired by listening to public comment from people. It shows lack of flexibility and you are doing a great disservice to the citizens who want to participate in government and their sense of empowerment. You wonder why people don't sign up to be on commissions, well when you give them fifteen minutes public comment for all the issues, it really shows that you are not interested in what people have to say. I really urge you to get the citizens involved and not belittle us by allowing only fifteen minutes of public comment."

However in the Enterprise, members of the public such as Sheryl Patterson defended the policy. Ms. Patterson is correct that the council not violating the Brown Act (and likely not the American with Disabilities Act) with their policy. However, she also went too far in defending the policy.

She argued for instance:

"The purpose of a council meeting is to address items on the agenda."

The Brown Act actually specifically provides for the public to address items that are not on the agenda provided that the council is proscribed from taking action on those items.

Her final statement, I think misses the point as well:

"Just get to the meeting early and sit by the podium if you need to speak first. It's not that hard to be heard."

Under normal conditions, that is correct, it is not difficult to speak as a member of the public. But if a large number of people have decided to speak on a given subject that could become a bit tricky. The concern is the point about cutting off debate after 15 minutes--something that most weeks is not going to be an issue. But on those weeks that it is, what does Ms. Patterson suggest for those meetings to those individuals who did not get a chance to be heard?

This weekend, Kevin Klein in a letter to the Davis Enterprise weighed in on the issue and argued that free speech does exist at meetings.

Mr. Klein actually straddles the fence on this issue suggesting:

"I would think a better solution would be for City Council to assess the length of each meeting, and if need be, spilt public comment to two parts (before and during agenda items); and then asking those waiting to give public comment if they could wait until later in the evening. "

However he also offers a note of caution for the council:

"The one caution I would give to the council, though, is to not set public comment at the end of their meeting (which is almost always after 11 p.m.). To do so would be an act of denying citizens reasonable access to public comment otherwise required by the Brown Act."

That of course leads one to wonder exactly what the council would gain by splitting public comment. If the idea is to move the agenda forward more quickly, it seems to me that splitting the public comment section does not aid in that. It is better to allow the public to speak up front and then move on to scheduled council business.

This is an issue that is not likely to go away in the near future. The council has the authority under the Brown act to limit public comment in this manner. The question before all of us is really whether the council should in this manner and whether that really furthers our goals in the name of expediency.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting