In March, the Orange City Council will start regularly meeting twice a month, with the hope of making it easier for the community to participate.
For years, the council has typically met once a month on the second Tuesday – on occasion something urgent would require a special extra meeting. That schedule made for a packed agenda of city business to get through. Add in a hot topic and meetings could run several hours.
“I heard many people used to peel off at 9, 10 o’clock,” Mayor Dan Slater said of when most people have to call it a night to get to work the next morning or turn their attention to family needs.
And if community members wanted to speak on something the council was discussing, “it was frustrating to sit there for hours and hours just to speak for 3 minutes,” he said.
Now the council will meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. The times won’t change: Meetings start at 6 p.m. for the public portion. The council also meets at 5 p.m. for a session that is closed to the public to discuss items such as litigation, personnel or real estate negotiations – the state’s Brown Act narrowly limits what can be discussed in the close session.
It was Slater who suggested the second monthly meeting – the council was convening that often when he first served about 20 years ago – but he said, “I think it was definitely on the minds of all of the council members.” The change got full support.
“It should provide better customer service for the residents,” he said, “and for project proponents who are trying to get businesses open.”
The council will next meet March 14 and community members can see what councilmembers are going to be discussing and voting on at cityoforange.org; there is an icon to click to see the agendas, which by law must be posted at least 72 hours ahead of each meeting.
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