denounced the ruling<\/a>. They want to ask the state Supreme Court to override the appellate decision. But any such attempt must be approved by a council majority.<\/p>\nNormally, those decisions are in \u201cclosed session\u201d meetings where the council can discuss the status of lawsuits without publicly disclosing information that could benefit opposing parties and potentially harm taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Normally, I respect those protections. But our elected officials must never use the closed session process to inhibit the public\u2019s ability to fully participate in an important policy issue.<\/p>\n
Given the city\u2019s regrettable habit of misleading voters, any decision to appeal the height limit ruling is not strictly a \u201clegal\u201d issue. It\u2019s undeniably a political and policy issue. To the fullest extent possible, it should be discussed and decided with full public participation.<\/p>\n
While reporting on this matter, I sent the city attorney several generic and procedural questions about the closed session and appeals process. Her staff members responded by sending me links to the Rules of Council and the state Public Meetings Act (which I already had). They also told me they were \u201cprohibited by the City Charter from giving legal advice to anyone but our client, the City of San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n
Providing answers to my procedural questions would in no way constitute giving me \u201clegal advice.\u201d Attorneys I consulted agreed, and a former public information officer for a district attorney told me she would \u201calways talk (publicly) about process in legal cases, because there\u2019s not much else you can talk about. It\u2019s media training 101 for PIOs.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I asked Council President Joe LaCava and the Mayor\u2019s Office for help. But I knew better than to expect an answer, much less the courtesy of a reply.<\/p>\n
The Gloria administration has created a two-tiered \u201ccaste\u201d system of information sharing \u2014 the \u201cfavored\u201d and the \u201cloathsome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who generally support the mayor and council majority\u2019s position on development and budget issues \u2014 including the Building Industry Association, the Chamber of Commerce, Circulate San Diego and YIMBY Dems \u2014 are in the \u201cfavored\u201d caste. A phone call or email from a political ally, lobbyist, campaign contributor or friendly reporter generates instant information and answers.<\/p>\n
Those of us who have the temerity to publicly criticize or even question the mayor and council\u2019s positions on a range of issues \u2014 destructive high-density development, the bait-and-switch trash fees and exorbitant parking fees \u2014 are in the \u201cloathsome\u201d caste. Our inquiries end up in the circular file.<\/p>\n
I never received an acknowledgement of my email from the Mayor\u2019s Office. My repeated inquiries to the council president\u2019s office did finally generate a return phone call from his chief of staff. But our polite conversation yielded no substantial information about the closed session process.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the issue of a possible appeal to the state Supreme Court took an interesting twist. The item was placed on the Nov. 3 closed session agenda \u2014 but someone removed it before the meeting, with no explanation.<\/p>\n
I attended the meeting anyway, hoping for answers. I tried to ask about the Midway\/Pacific Highway height limit issue during public comment on the closed session agenda, but LaCava refused to let me speak.<\/p>\n
The issue is now on Tuesday\u2019s closed session agenda<\/a>.\u00a0I\u2019ll be there again to ask for basic information about this important issue.\u00a0I hope others who care about open government will join me.<\/p>\nKrueger is a freelance writer, editor and community activist. He lives in Talmadge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An informed public is the basis of good government. But when elected officials deliberately erect barriers to civic…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":378711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,11890,1269,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-378710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-commentary","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115549042534661217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}