Besides transportation, the biggest reoccurring theme on this site so far has been civic participation in our governance process.  The City of Anaheim’s boards and commissions are a great way for regular people to get involved in the City’s decision making process. Each board makes recommendations to the City Council regarding a small range of issues.  The thought behind the boards and commissions is not only does it get more residents involved in the process, but the board members and commissioners are able to spend more time than the City Council members are able to and hopefully provide recommendations that are the best thing for the city.

Finally, in my post two months ago, Public Meetings the Public Can Attend, I said, “One way the city can [increase public participation and engagement] is by holding public meetings at a time the public can attend.” At tonight’s meeting, it looks like the City Council is prepared to make our boards and commissions do just that. The City Council will be discussing the times that public meetings are held in order to “provide an opportunity for public participation.” Unfortunately, the staff report for this item recommends waiting to make any changes until the City Council decides whether or not it wants to combine the Budget Advisory Commission, Investment Advisory Commission and the Senior Citizens Commission. However, I see no good reason why combining these three commissions should hold up a directive from City Council that all boards and commissions should meet no earlier than 5:30 or even 6:00 pm.

The staff report indicates that this is a change that Mayor Pringle has initiated.  It is clear, based on the Planning Commissions previous history discussing this issue, that he will face some opposition in this discussion.  Hopefully there will be enough residents that see how this benefits them and their ability to influence what happens at City Hall who decide to show up to support the mayor.  He is likely to need the support.

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.

Through the late 1970s and into the ’80s, the City of Anaheim, lead by the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency, sought to revitalize the city’s flagging downtown by demolishing what was there and rebuilding. At the time, some Anaheim residents tried to save downtown, but the Agency pushed ahead with its plans despite the objections.

Everybody, residents and City Hall alike, knew that something needed to be done with Anaheim’s downtown. The storefronts had been taken over by adult bookstores, the movie theater showed x-rated films. Many residents wanted a reinvigorated downtown, bringing it back to its heyday from decades earlier. The Redevelopment Agency’s plan was to scrape the existing buildings off the land to make way for something new. The Agency moved ahead with its plans, which unfortunately has turned out poorly.

As a reaction to the city moving forward with a plan that was not supported, Anaheim saw a resurgence of civic participation throughout the city. Many organizations were revitalized or created in reaction to the City’s lack of responsiveness to the residents. These organizations—such as The Anaheim Historical Society and the Anaheim Neighborhood Association—are still active within the city and they are influential along the margins.

The City of Anaheim, to its credit, also made some changes to get residents more involved. Anaheim expanded its boards and commissions and created the neighborhood district council system. While these bodies allow more people to be involved in making recommendations for the city, they are toothless bodies unable to affect change. So while Anaheim made some token efforts to involve more residents, there was no fundamental change at City Hall to make the city more responsible to the residents.

The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency continues to be the worst offender in this regard. The Agency will almost always reach out to the communities in which it wants to build something new, but only after the project has been decided on. That is not to say that the Agency does bad work, only that their process is backwards and broken.

What Anaheim needs, and residents should demand, is a new system for civic engagement within the city. This new system needs to be responsive to the residents so they believe that their voices will be heard. The first step in this process needs to be residents being consulted in the initial stages of a project when real changes can still be made.

For any of this change to happen, City Hall and the residents need to trust one another a little more than they do now. Residents need to understand that City Hall is trying to look out for the best interests of the city as a whole. At the same time, City Hall needs to trust the residents to be reasonable in their feedback to the City’s plans. But residents will only be reasonable if they are well informed and believe that new city projects are truly the best thing for their community.

The City of Anaheim has made many missteps and done many misdeeds that have created mistrust within the residents of the city. The city needs to regain that trust if we are to come together as a community to work towards our common good.