Dear Elected Officials: Go back into the office
Former ALCO Superintendent rips her successor; Agenda Notes for ALCO, Oakland
We are near the end of the pandemic era. State and county officials have wiped away masking restrictions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is poised to remove restrictions for indoor masking even for unvaccinated people. In Alameda County, the fight against Covid-19 is a rousing success. Not only is roughly 80 percent of the county fully vaccinated, but a large number have also received a booster shot. We’re at the point when if you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. It's cool, but it’s time to move on.
Normalcy might mean living with Covid-19, but the ambivalence seen by a large number of local elected officials in the East Bay for returning to the council dais is worrisome. The reasons for not doing what is really their only job—attending council meetings and casting votes—are nearly gone. It’s time to go back to the office and face your constituents and your colleagues.
Last week, San Leandro Mayor Pauline Russo Cutter told me the reason she believes her council colleagues have acted so belligerently over the past two years is because of the lack of face-to-face interactions. There are pockets of clear resistance from elected officials who have simply gotten too cozy with the idea of attending public meetings in their own home. There’s no traveling involved and you can simply turn off your video and do what you please. Multi-tasking during meetings is one common pleasure several councilmembers have told me about over the past two years.
But being there, while not physically being there is corrosive. Following the 2020 elections there’s a whole new generation of first-time elected officials who have never experienced addressing a council chambers full of their constituents, let alone the sound of the fury of an angry public speaker. Hearing that invective at virtual meeting is one thing. Looking eye-to-eye with that speakers and feeling the anger is a whole other thing. Virtual candidates forums need to end, too. I don’t believe any of the candidates in the current 20th Assembly District race have uttered a single impromptu sentence. We all see your eyes reading off a script!
I’m here to alert you that an alarming number of elected officials are not only preferring the ease of doing their job at home in perpetuity, they are also breaking the law while doing it.
Prior to the pandemic, there was a strict ban on elected officials using their cellphones, iPads, and laptops during public meetings. The biggest fear being they were either communicating with outside sources, perhaps stakeholders involved in the agenda item being discussed, or worse, chatting with their colleagues, and risking violation of the Brown Act.
Over the past two years, I’ve had elected officials tell me their colleagues routinely used the private chat on Zoom to coordinate council votes during the actual discussion. Similarly, one elected official in the East Bay was caught chatting about an agenda item. The chat was accidentally seen by the public when they attempted to share their screen with the Zoom meeting.
Virtual meetings were once a necessity that involved weighing the risks of a deadly virus versus keeping local governments in full operation. Today, fairness and transparency in local government greatly outweighs those past risks. Back go to the office and I’ll meet you there from the second row of your council chambers.
MORE IN THIS ISSUE: Indoor Fundraising Returns | Election 2022: Sheila Jordan Rules | Wahab’s Big Endorsement | Rep. Lee calls Putin A “War Criminal” | Agenda Notes for Alameda County Board of Supes, Oakland |
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