Council Punts on Push to Change Its Meeting Night

• 2010 Members Will Get to Decide

BY BILL KOENEKER

An attempt to change the day of the Malibu City Council meeting from Monday to Tuesday was put on hold this week, when a majority of the council agreed to allow the newly formed council in April to decide.
“I withdraw the motion,” said Councilmember Sharon Barovsky, when she realized she did not have three votes for the proposal.
The two-week-old proposal had been debated in the local press and some of the council members characterized the argument as the needs of the staff versus the needs of the local media.
City Manager Jim Thorsen said it was a good change that would help the staff and the city would profit from it. Other staffers and department heads also voiced support for the proposed change.
Barovsky said the local media’s perceived aversion to the change had more to do with the newspaper business model than getting the information out in a timely manner.
The council member also noted there were other media where people interested in the business of the city could turn for “unfiltered” news of the city. “
Barovsky added that she was surprised by how asking for a discussion of the proposal “irritated everybody.
She also insisted she had not talked to Joan House about the matter, as the meeting day of the city planning commission was changed to Tuesday to accommodate House when she was tapped to serve on the panel. There is speculation that House may run again for a council seat and if she is elected, she will not want to meet on Monday nights for reasons that have reportedly never been made public, although some have asked what is so important that it trumps municipal scheduling.
Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich brushed aside the argument that having extra time on Monday would allow the staff and council members to respond to eleventh-hour correspondence. “The stuff will come up on Tuesday. I don’t see a compelling argument. What is more important?” asked Conley Ulich, who said if the argument was characterized as the needs of the staff versus the needs of the press, “I don’t see that tipping [the scale].”
Conley Ulich then noted she had talked to Joan House. “I did talk to her about this,” she said. Conley Ulich added she thought the most compelling reason for not doing anything was that the proposal had come up so close to the election in April.
“Let’s look at this after the election. If somebody can’t meet on Monday, then they can switch it to Tuesday,” she said.
Councilmember Jefferson Wagner said he saw no reason to change the meeting day and said he wanted kept the way it is.
Councilmember John Sibert, who would have become the swing vote, said, “I am reluctant to support the change now. After the election, let that city council make the decision. Leave it the way it is.”
Earlier in the evening, without discussion, the council approved a $67,000 contract with Fiona Hutton & Associates, a public relations firm to provide consulting services and press releases.
They initially entered into an agreement with Hutton in July, 2009 and the agreement is an extension of the contract.
The public relations firm has written a number of news releases for the city about the hot button items including Legacy Park, water quality programs and other issues.
Hutton has outlined a plan for how the city needs to tell its side of the story such as pending legal battle over Legacy Park and the ongoing struggle with the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
In other action, the council agreed to put off having the city manager sign a new agreement with Los Angeles County for animal care and control services.
Some council members said they had gotten calls from Sherman Baylin who had asked for the continuance. They said the message did not explain why, but council members were willing to do so.
When Mayor Andy Stern commented that he and Barovsky would be off the council in April because of term limits, he and view preservation task force chair Sam Hall Kaplan got into a shouting match and Stern repeatedly tried to keep the floor.