Key Issues Rarely Debated at Supervisors’ P.M. Meetings : Agendas as Different as Night and Day

SANTA ANA —  The Board of Supervisors spent almost as much time saluting the flag and praying Tuesday as it did voting on county business.

Ah, night meetings.

Launched after the bankruptcy in a populist gesture to allow ordinary working folks a chance to observe and participate in county government, the board’s once-a-month night meetings are becoming a farce.

County department heads are shying away from bringing issues of substance or controversy before the board at the 7 p.m. get-togethers, preferring instead to load up the agendas of the sparsely attended daytime meetings.

“Most of us would rather do something else with our Tuesday nights,” said one department head, who asked not to be identified.

Several department heads admit they are reluctant to put items that could trigger lengthy public discussion on evening agendas. Some say it is not safe around the Hall of Administration at night, while others say they don’t want to present their projects or programs in front of frequently hostile public audiences.

County Clerk-Recorder Gary L. Granville blames the county bankruptcy for attracting to the board’s night meetings large crowds of people who are openly angry and discourteous to county staff.

“Is there a conscious reluctance to bring something forward on a night meeting? My answer is yes,” he said. “They are high-stress meetings. It’s just not the climate to get stuff done. There is rudeness, lack of respect and a lack of civility at these meetings.”

Robert A. Griffith, director of the county’s General Services Agency, said he places items on agendas according to the timeliness of the matter.

“We don’t specifically try to exclude things from the night meetings,” he said. “But if I’m only going to have one item and it’s not time sensitive, I would delay it a week rather than put it on the night agenda.”

The department heads are largely responsible for deciding when and which items are placed on the board’s agendas. County Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier said through a spokeswoman that she didn’t have advance notice of what items were being placed on the agenda. Sources said, however, she is concerned about the issue and will soon discuss it with department heads.

Typically, county supervisors tackle 50 or more issues during their regular daytime meetings, which are every Tuesday, except for the once-a-month night meeting.

But at this week’s nighttime meeting, the board’s printed agenda listed less than a dozen issues, and those were all handled with two votes. Clocking in at about 30 minutes, it was one of the shortest meetings in recent memory. The biggest item of discussion was the merit of holding night meetings and the lack of items on the agenda.

In fact, there were so few items on the agenda that some county leaders suggested canceling the meeting altogether.

The lack of business being done during the board’s night meetings is not going unnoticed by the supervisors or the public.

“I hope we’re not at a point of just going through the motions of having an evening meeting and pretending to have participation by the public,” Supervisor William G. Steiner said. “I hope we’re not being manipulated.”

Bruce Whitaker, a spokesman for Committees of Correspondence, a grass-roots anti-tax group, said the supervisors are condoning a “transparent attempt [by department heads] to avoid the public.”

“It’s a clear violation of what the public keeps screaming for,” Whitaker said. “The public wants to see things done out in the open. . . . It’s an affront to groups like us. We want to be involved. These [night] meetings are a charade.”

After complaints from some citizens that their jobs made it extremely difficult to attend the board’s traditional 9:30 a.m. meetings, the supervisors agreed to once-monthly meetings at night, starting on Jan. 31 of last year.

That meeting was packed with angry residents who demanded greater accountability from their elected leaders. For several months after that, the evening sessions were full of lively public and board debate. Weighty issues, such as putting a half-cent sales tax increase on a ballot, were decided at night. One night meeting in March didn’t end until 1 a.m.

“There is no question that issues of substance were debated during the evening meetings at the beginning,” Steiner said. “But lately, the number of controversial items have decreased.”

A few department heads said they considered the night meetings mostly as public forums on the bankruptcy.

“The tone was set early on,” said Ronald R. DiLuigi, assistant director of the county’s Health Care Agency. “A lot of discussions were bankruptcy related.”

He said there was “an inclination” among department heads that routine matters should be left for other meetings.

But as the bankruptcy became less of a crisis, department heads were still keeping items off the agenda. As a result, there have been relatively few items submitted for public hearings before the board at night.

Public attendance at the evening meetings also started to drop. Whether it was because of the lack of interesting issues on night agendas, or just a general lack of interest is hard to tell.

On Tuesday, there were about two dozen members of the public at the night meeting. None got up to address the board.

Supervisor Marian Bergeson said she is rethinking the board’s year-old night meeting policy.

“In my opinion, we tried it and the meetings did not provide the involvement that the board had wished,” Bergeson said.

Instead of a once-a-month evening meeting at the Hall of Administration, she said she would like to have the board meetings in different parts of the county to make them more accessible to the public.

Bergeson said she also would like to see the board’s meetings televised--a request that many residents and the local grand jury have echoed.

The grand jury even issued a report last year suggesting that the board have more than just one meeting a month at night.

But that’s an idea that has little support among county staffers and officials. Having one evening session is hard enough, they say. Two have been canceled because of legal holidays and one night meeting in October was scuttled after board members decided they wanted to spend Halloween with their families.

“Let’s get real,” one county worker said. “Nobody wants to be here after 5 p.m.”