P&D Goes Underground

As of this morning, only 1 of the last 8 scheduled meetings of the City Council Planning & Development Committee ("P&D") has its minutes published on the City website where they are normally listed. While the P&D meetings are open to the public,

and usually televised, the majority of citizens neither attend nor see the broadcasts, and rely on the minutes (and sometimes transcripts) for a record of what transpired, such as the May 7 meeting three months ago, for which no minutes appear.

Presumably developers and applicants for variances also are interested in the record of what transpired.

Other meetings for which no minutes or transcripts appear are those scheduled for April 28, May 12, May 27, June 9, June 23, and July 28. The minutes for July 14 are published and posted.

At each meeting, the minutes for the previous meeting are approved. So these documents must exist. And no doubt any citizen can get a copy by trucking over to City Hall and requesting, and waiting, for one. But the whole point of website posting is to make such a trip unnecessary.

Does anyone know why the website gap? Especially with the City in the midst of so much planning? Did the staffer responsible take early retirement?

There is another meeting of the Committee tonight at 6:30. Perhaps this question can be answered then.

Forums:

I had a pleasant response from a City staffer who confirmed some backlog, urged that there was no intent to hide anything, and vowed to get the page up to date. I have no reason to disbelieve her. The minutes for 7/28 have now been added, but the three-month gap between 4/8 and 7/14 still exists. Anyone in CSNA interested in going over to the Civic Center and getting a physical copy? It would be nice to have these before the Downtown Plan is discussed next.