The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 108, No. 37 - September 12, 2019
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................8
Classifieds............................9
Crossword/Sudoku.............9
Entertainment......................3
Legals.................................8,9
Obituaries.............................2
Pets......................................11
Police Reports.....................2
Real Estate..................5-7,12
LA Kings Cut Ribbon with New
Partners at El Segundo Facility
Los Angeles Kings Tyler Toffoli (center) helps cut the ribbon during the opening of the Keck Medicine USC and Meyer Institute of Sport at the Los Angeles Kings recently renamed Toyota Sports Performance
Center on Sept. 4, 2019 at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo, California. (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)
Sports.............................. 4,10 City Council Takes Steps to Make
Weekend
Forecast
Meetings More Efficient for All
By Brian Simon
It was only a few months ago that the
“over/under” on an El Segundo City Council
meeting was frequently somewhere between
10:48 and 11:19 p.m. With the growing list
of increasingly complex agenda items often
pushing the gatherings (held on the first and
third Tuesday evenings of each month) to the
four-hour mark, one had to wonder if the
Council members – not to mention City of El
Segundo staff, attending citizens and maybe
even some reporters – found it a struggle
to maintain peak energy, attentiveness and
performance. On certain nights, one could
realistically ask, “Could this meeting actually
end on Wednesday?” Even if the regular
meetings didn’t quite stretch to midnight, the
Council members typically also had to go
into closed sessions afterward (and always
beforehand).
The increased running time of the meetings
became a running joke earlier in the year,
with playful remarks from the dais referring
to the usually failed effort to fall below the
aforementioned mythical over/under. But it
was a serious matter to Councilmember Don
Brann, whose doctorate dissertation topic
centered on the topic of meeting length.
Rule of thumb: Four-plus hours running late
into the night, not so ideal. Former Mayor
Eric Busch famously noted on more than
one occasion that after a couple of hours,
decision-makers begin to experience diminishing
returns in effectiveness. Staying fresh
and sharp are paramount when faced with
the difficult prospect of setting policy for
thousands of constituents.
With that in mind, the goal to keep meeting
length within reason while maximizing
Council and staff productivity became priorities
earlier this year. In April, the Council
voted to start its regular meetings an hour
earlier – kicking off at 6 p.m. instead of the
historical 7 p.m. The preceding closed sessions
and interviews and appointments for
committees, commissions and boards moved
from 5 p.m. to 4 p.m. The objective, according
to the staff report, was to “look at ways
to be more efficient with the community’s,
Council’s and staff’s time.” The 6 p.m. start
is also in line with other South Bay cities as
well as many municipalities across the state.
Since the earlier start went into effect,
meetings have generally ended before 9 p.m.,
allowing those involved to get some shut-eye
at a decent hour. However, the Council and
staff also implemented additional changes
to the agenda itself to simplify the process.
One of those, “Approval of Agenda Order,”
is new. “The City Clerk [Tracy Weaver]
surveyed other South Bay cities and several
do something like this,” City Manager Scott
Mitnick explained. “She suggested the language
we now use. I have also used a similar
format in other organizations.”
Another notable recent revision was to move
the consent calendar to the front of the meeting,
just after the beginning presentations,
when in the past it came up after major
discussion items. “This was done to be in
line with where most California cities place
the consent calendar,” Mitnick noted. “This
allows for more efficient use of staff, consultant
and resident/interested party members’
time by placing routine consent items at the
beginning of the City Council agenda. This
way, these individuals don’t have to wait
through public hearings, staff presentations
and other lengthy reports before their more
routine consent calendar items are acted on.”
As a general rule, the bulk – or sometimes
all – of the consent agenda gets automatic
approval from the Council without discussion.
Sometimes, members will “pull” a consent
item to provide further clarification and/or
invite additional discussion before the vote.
And once in a blue moon, one of those
items dominates the meeting. As example,
the just-approved changes to the Raytheon
South Campus project – part of the consent
calendar as a second reading scheduled for
adoption -- prompted over an hour of Council
discourse. Those scenarios are few and far
between, though.
Another significant change implemented
by staff in August to further reduce meeting
length only lasted a month before being
scrapped. A decision to remove the second
public comment period at the end of meetings
ultimately didn’t sit well with the Council
members. Starting next week, citizens will
See City Council, page 10
Friday
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Saturday
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Sunday
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