One of the primary tenants for improving Anaheim is to increase public participation and engagement in the City’s processes. One way the city can do this is by holding public meetings at a time the public can attend. Unfortunately for city staff and our elected and appointed officials, this means that public meetings need to be held in the evening.
A couple of months ago this very question came up before the Anaheim Planning Commission. The Planning Commission is one of the two most impactful commissions in Anaheim after the City Council itself. Many important decisions are made regarding Anaheim’s future built environment at Planning Commission meetings. It is absolutely vital that community members be able to attend and have their voices heard without having to miss work to do so.
Unfortunately, when the Planning Commission addressed this issue, they decided no to move the time of their meeting from the mid-afternoon. While two of the commissioners did support the move, the other five offered a range of excuses for not wanting to change the meeting time. Most loudly heard, commissioners did not want to take that time out of their private lives to serve the community.
With that type of attitude towards public service, these commissioners should be removed from office. It is clear that they are putting their personal concerns over the public good, which makes me question why they agreed to serve on the Planning Commission in the first place. The City Council should make an effort to stress the need to have these meeting in the evenings. If the Commission does not voluntarily change their meeting time, the City Council should pass a policy, or even propose a charter amendment, that requires all public meetings to begin after 5:30 pm.
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