Next Tuesday’s Supervisors meeting mostly concerns inconsequential housekeeping items: meeting schedules, committee assignments, board rules, etc.
There are some seemingly innocuous but significant changes buried in Item 4c, the adoption of some new provisions for this year’s version of the Board’s “Rules of Procedure.” It’s not clear who proposed these particular additions or who they’re aimed at. According to the agenda item the “sponsor” is the Clerk of the Board who also happens to be CEO Darcy Antle.
Rule 3 has a new paragraph called “Supervisor Role,” which basically says that once a board majority has taken action on something, any subsequent dissent is “inappropriate.”
“One of the fundamental tenets of County governance [sic] is recognizing that the Board acts as a body [but without a head?]. No individual Supervisor has extraordinary powers beyond those of other Supervisors. Although the Chair and Vice-Chair have additional parliamentary and administrative responsibilities as described elsewhere in these rules, with respect to the establishment of policies, voting, and in other significant areas, all members are equal. While individual Supervisors may disagree with decisions of the majority, a decision of the majority binds the Board to a course of action and provides County staff with direction to follow.”
Are there rogue Supervisors that this rule is aimed at? Has Supervisor Williams been throwing his weight around and bothering the CEO or some department heads?
Another proposed new rule says that Supervisors should not spring questions on unprepared staff at a board meetings, but should “resolve” such questions in advance. It also claims that Supervisors should “refrain” from giving direction to staff because it would “undermine the authority of the Department Heads.”
This odd rule implies that Department Heads are so stupid that they would run off and do something questionable or time-consuming without confirming that the entire board wanted it done first. Then there’s a new requirement that Supervisors do not have “the right to require that staff insert particular material in the staff report or Agenda packet.”
Yes they do, unless the material requires a lot of prep work, in which case the staff can simply ask for confirmation. Here again, we suspect these proposed new rules are thinly veiled attempts to rein in Supervisor Williams somehow.
There’s a big block of new rule text prohibiting “disruptive behavior” in the Board chambers. Here’s just a small part of it:
“In the event that there is a disruption of the public meeting by an individual who actually disrupts, disturbs, impedes, or renders infeasible the orderly conduct of the meeting within the meaning of state law, prior to removing any individual, the Chair shall warn the individual that their behavior is disrupting the meeting and that their failure to cease their behavior may result in their removal. The Chair or their designee may then remove the individual if they do not promptly cease their disruptive behavior. No prior warning is required before removal of an individual whose behavior constitutes a use of force or a true threat of force…” And on and on and on at considerable length.
We have not seen anything remotely “disruptive” in the Board chambers for years, unless you count the time coastal activist Sherry Glaser bared her breasts at the Board back in 2017 during her “breasts not busts” protest of a proposed cannabis permit policy she didn’t like. At that time Board Chair John McCowen first tried to gavel Ms. Glaser and her sizeable protest down. When that didn’t work he cut off her mike after which she composed herself before stomping out of the Board room in a huff.
It would be nice if whoever is proposing these overbearing and seemingly unnecessary rules would explain why they’re so paranoid and what problems, if any, require such extra attention. The Board Rules don’t even come up very often in ordinary Board business, so we don’t see the point.
Another proposed new rule regards what items can go on the consent calendar. The new rules say that equipment or service contracts of less than $750,000 can go on the consent calendar. $750,000? Why not $1 million? Hell, why not just put all the contracts on the consent calendar? The threshold should not be more than $50k. And retroactive items should never be in the consent calendar. They are also proposing that “Public Works project change orders that are $100,000 or less regardless of the cumulative project cost” can be on the consent calendar. Why “regardless of the cumulative project cost”? Small change orders can be on the consent calendar of course, but all such consent items should include the impact on the total project cost and whether it’s within budget.
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