At the March 8 City Council Meeting, Planning Commissioner Mike O’Halloran asked the Council to review the delay in posting commission and committee minutes on the City website.
“Right now it’s a minimum of two months – some are as old as six or seven months,” he said. “It was raised in 2014 with even greater lag – it’s frustrating that it’s coming up again.” The Council referred the matter to the governance committee.
While California’s Brown Act requires that meetings be publically noticed in advance and all items discussed be on the agenda, it doesn’t say anything about keeping minutes. However, the Santa Clara city charter requires keeping a record of public meetings, but doesn’t provide any more direction as to the form of record-keeping.
Here are the most current minutes available as of press time: Planning Commission – 11/4/2015; Civil Service – 11/9/2015; Historical and Landmarks: 12/3/2015; Library Board of Trustees – 12/7/2015; Parks & Recreation – 1/19/2016; Senior Advisory – 7/27/2015.
The Cultural Commission is in a class all its own. Minutes from the Jan. 4, 2016 are posted, but no minutes were posted for the seven meetings from April 20, 2015 through December. The missing meeting minutes include discussions and votes on the Commission’s approximately $70,000 discretionary budget for grants, events and Sister Cities activities.
For the current charter review committee, there’s nothing at all.