City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, now we're ready to start.

I think we need to finish the roll call, though.

Yes.

Okay, Council Member Brownstone.

Here.

Council Member Johnson.

Here.

Council Member Nagygaas.

Here.

Vice Mayor Penrose. Here. Mayor Ruddick. Here. We have a quorum. We have one public comment here when it's time.

So I'm going to read the closed session items. We have item 4A, conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6. 4B, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9. Subsection D1, item 4C, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation. And 4D, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation. And do we have... Any public comments on closed session items?

We have one in person who's on his way in. Any that are online, please raise your hand if you would like to speak. Right here. Perfect. You can sit down if you'd like. Madam Mayor, Howell requested that he have more than three minutes to speak on his particular item tonight.

Well, our meeting starts at 7 o'clock. How about, you know, keep it to three.

My specific request is just that it rather have hopefully a few very small minutes. I'll be concise. It could not be a difference to the tens of thousands of dollars that

Okay, I'm going to start the time now. You ready?

As you wish. First, may I ask, you know, have all the council members seen both the command letter from Brian Hildreth and the response letter from the city's law firm? I believe so. They've been sent to them. I'm asking if they've actually seen it.

Well, so why don't you get to public comment? This isn't really a question answer type of situation. And any communications that I would have sent to the council are attorney client privilege. So it's better for you to just start your public comment given the time.

My point here, Denise, is that the council is weighing your advice against other things. So I understand that you're advising them not to listen to potentially other things. So I appreciate that you're in that position. So basically, the public interest is served by this going to the voters. It's going to the voters. The public interest is served by the voters hearing the arguments from both sides and being able to weigh them and decide. And this will extinguish the controversy that exists in our town. So the fact that the city attorney is basically saying that the city clerk exceeded her authority in writing on August 3rd, sending me a letter that said the county deadline is August 11th, and not calling attention to anything else in that letter saying, these are the rules. And then when I came in on the 10th, per the recommendation in the letter, and I don't know if all of you have seen the letter that the city clerk had sent to me on August 3rd. But if not, I have a couple of copies that you guys can pass around later in your discussion period. It said, the county deadline, it said, this is the list we send to anyone asking about arguments. County deadline for all arguments is August 11th. We recommend submitting any written argument paperwork to the city clerk's office prior to this deadline to ensure all requirements have been met. I came to the office 345 Tuesday, Monday afternoon. The clerk was not in. The deputy clerk contacted her upon discovering the discrepancy between the city council resolution and the letter written to me by the city clerk and the fact that I was depending on what the city clerk told me. And after conferring, they didn't say to me, You got an hour and a quarter, buddy. Hurry up. They said, we'll accept this tomorrow. I came back with it tomorrow. They said, as soon as possible tomorrow. I came in with it after lunch. The city clerk and the city deputy clerk together both started going through it. They pointed to a couple of nits, if you will, that are not an issue here. And they were in the process of accepting it. They gave me file stamped copies of what I submitted. And But having called Denise, they then got into the situation where, OK, Denise said, you can't accept it. And at that point, they said, OK, we're going to have to figure this out. We will get back to you. So in the course of that, I should also mention that the clerk carefully examined the argument submitted, counted the words, saw the formatting, said no, didn't raise any issues about the formatting. It was in the process of accepting the argument. So I asked, well, please, while you're figuring this out, send it to the county. So they have it. It's the 11th. The county deadline is the 11th. They may just run with it. If the other side says, oh, they came on the 11th instead of the 10th, you know, maybe they can raise an issue. Then we get to all go to a judge. That would be raised by them. But the public interest being to see these arguments on both sides to the voters, that's what we're asking finally be accomplished. To be told that the city, that the county can't meet these deadlines if the city asks it to, probably. They actually have a hard deadline when they send things off to the printer. whether it requires a judge of law for order, or whether it requires a city council resolution directing the clerk to ask them, or simply an action by this council informally directing the clerk to ask them, you know, that, according to our attorneys, is very doable. They may compress the timeline if they need to, but the public interest is to see these things in the argument. So in the letter that was sent back to us, I also wish to point out that there's actually some things that are just not true. To say that Mr. Wagner was fully aware of the August 10th deadline is simply not true. To say that the argument did not comply with the city's formatting requirements of which Mr. Wagner was aware. and no other date in the email of August 3rd. Granted approval to submit tomorrow on August 10th in person. Well, she was on the phone. The in-person was with her deputy. But the two of them confirmed and I was told this. And then tentatively accepted the formatting on August 11th. So for your information, I went and took the timestamp copies here. Two county elections before 5 p.m. on Tuesday. They have copies on file that they know were submitted here. So if they raise a question of You know, if there's an error that needs to be corrected somehow, they do know that it was, in fact, brought in by their deadline. So these are the things I ask that, you know, the council find some way, you know, to let us move forward. If it takes a little bit of time, you know, let's go through that. If you wish to call me back in for any questions, I'll be available until you finish your closed session. Thank you for hearing me.

I'll check and see if there's any other questions.

Does Dan want to say anything?

He's not raised his hand.

Dan, do you want to talk at all?

Yeah. And hold on a minute where Matthew's checking for other public commenters. Hmm.

Okay, Dan, you're available to speak.

Just make it quick that I agree with the general sentiment of the previous speaker, Hal. Thank you.

He agrees with the previous speaker. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you, Ken.

No, that's fine. But before we go into closed session, Vice Mayor Penrose, do you want to make an announcement about your attendance via the Just Cause circumstance?

Oh, yeah. I'm home from the hospital with pneumonia, and I'm doing a lot better, but I'm very tired. So I'm here for the closed session.

Okay. Thank you, Debra. Okay, so we will end the open portion of this meeting and move into the private portion. So, Deborah, the second link that I sent you, you can log into it now.

Okay.

And I think I'll let's stay on the phone. And that way, if the audio is still an issue, you can just roll right in.

Got it.

Thank you.