City Council Meetings

One of the reasons that City Hall has gone so far astray is that most of our people are engaged in their family and business lives and therefore are not focusing on and are not aware of City Hall’s machinations.

Most of us share a general belief, presumptively, that people in the government will try to make their best efforts to reflect the will of the people. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a City Hall arrogance of power and an accompanying dismissive disregard of residential concerns.

More attuned to the goings-on at City Hall, residents are now more inclined to venture forth to voice their opinions. Now that we are becoming increasingly aware of City Hall’s excessive development plans, residents are coming forward to speak to the City Council.

Instead of giving the residents a fair opportunity to be heard during the course of due process hearings regarding these development projects, the presiding councilmember, Mayor Delshad, arbitrarily frequently limits the residents to two minutes to state their deeply felt concerns while granting unlimited time and access to the developer and/or his lobbyists.

The very truth and nature of a due process hearing is to give the interested parties a fair opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and place. To arbitrarily limit the residents to two minutes is to desecrate the due process hearing into no more than an obligatory “cattle call” giving the appearance that City Hall is really listening, when in fact we have every reason to believe it already has its mind made up.

Sadly, City Hall has corrupted the due process hearings on matters of major public concern into perfunctory charades. When a public issue induces large resident turnout at Council Chambers, the subject matter presumptively is of major public concern. Rather than limit to two minutes the residents, we believe, consistent with respected due process, that the residents should be given a fair opportunity to be heard and that the hearing be continued if necessary to another day or two.

Of course, that assumes that City Hall has an open mind! You decide.

.

Copyright © 2009 Beverly Hills Citizen™