The Richmond City Council will begin testing an earlier meeting start time Tuesday, although it hasn’t yet voted on changing its meeting time ordinance.
The council on Tuesday discussed starting an hour and a half earlier, at 5 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m., but had to be corrected by the city attorney because it didn’t realize that changing meeting times requires changing an ordinance — which requires a vote and cannot be done over email and/or the consent calendar.
The goal appears to be finishing earlier, as 14 of the 26 regularly scheduled meetings in 2024 ended after the 11 p.m. end time set by the ordinance, according to a Richmondside review of city council meeting minutes.
Currently, the open-to-the-public portion of the council meetings start at 6:30 p.m., according to the city council rules of procedure. (The council typically holds a closed-to-the-public session at 5 p.m. to discuss topics such as lawsuits or personnel issues.) Neighboring cities — such as Pinole, El Cerrito and San Pablo — all start their public sessions at 6 p.m.
If you go
WHAT: Richmond City Council meeting
WHEN: 5 p.m., Tue. March 4
WHERE: 440 Civic Center Plaza or watch live on KCRT or via Zoom.
MORE INFO: See the agenda.
The schedule change was first publicly mentioned by City Manager Shasa Curl during her report at the Feb. 18 council meeting. It was then put on the Feb. 25 agenda by District 2 council member Cesar Zepeda. The idea is to test the new start time for six months.
Zepeda said during Tuesday’s meeting that he put the item on the agenda so it could be publicly discussed because it was initially “done over email.”
“Over email we gave direction to (city clerk) Miss (Pam) Christian to say we all can show up earlier, and then she said everyone said ‘yes,’ ” he said. “It wasn’t on the agenda technically.”
According to the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, legislative bodies are prohibited from using email to discuss, deliberate, or take action on matters of agency business because forwarding and replying to emails can result in what is known as a “serial meeting.” The Brown Act applies to all electronic communications, including email, texts, and social media. Elected bodies are advised to avoid emailing all members and are told not to use email “to deliberate collectively about information outside of a meeting.”
Richmondside has submitted a public records request for the emails about the proposed schedule change.
City Attorney David Alshire — who was not at the Feb. 18 meeting — said that meeting schedule changes, both start and end times, require passing a resolution which he suggested should be voted on at the March 4 meeting. Mayor Eduardo Martinez, however, stated that he believes that changing meeting times do not have to be voted on.
The council members on Tuesday seemed confused about what happened Feb. 18, with some council members saying the time change was approved as part of the consent calendar, which consists of a number of routine business that can be approved by the council all at once without discussions about individual items. Zepeda said it was not, after reviewing that meeting’s agenda during the Tuesday discussion.
Aleshire told the council that to start earlier on March 4 it would have to declare that meeting a “special meeting,” which requires giving the public a 24-hour notice. It’s unclear whether the council plans to do this, but its March 4 agenda, which was posted on Friday, lists the new meeting time.
Aleshire’s office was contacted by Richmondside for comment on whether the fact that this was discussed by email constitutes a Brown Act violation but did not respond as of publication time.
Council discusses how time change will impact public participation
Zepeda pointed out that the council chambers on Tuesday were initially filled at the start of the meeting but only four attendees were left by the time the rescheduling idea was discussed at around 10 p.m.
Historically, Richmond’s city council meetings have stretched late into the night, often past the 11 p.m. end time. According to city council procedure rules, if a meeting continues past 11 p.m., 11:30 p.m. then becomes the firm end-time, unless the council approves to suspend that rule by a two-thirds vote.
“Do we end the meetings early so that way people can participate more?” Zepeda added. “Do we start earlier? But then people who are at work would not be able to join. What is the right answer? A (six-month) pilot is great but maybe having that discussion to make sure that we really get somewhere closer to having more public participation.”
Cordell Hindler, a Park Plaza resident who consistently attends council meetings, said he believes that starting at 5 p.m. is too early for working residents and city staff.
“I’m thinking what was the point behind this?” Hindler said, addressing the council during the public comment session. “Other cities around us start their meetings at 6 p.m. and end their meetings at 8 p.m. easily.”
Zepeda said the motivation was to allow city staff to finish before midnight. He also floated the idea of making a firm end time at 11 p.m. and moving unfinished business to the next scheduled meeting.
Newly elected District 5 council member Sue Wilson said the council’s lack of data on the work schedules of constituents makes the decision “challenging.”
Wilson said she tried to research what percentage of Americans work a traditional 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job and said that it was between 25% and 30%, though she did not cite the source for these statistics.
It is unclear how many Americans still work a traditional 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau’s American Time Use Survey. The last survey to publish data on weekday work schedules for American Workers was in 2018 — two years before the pandemic, which popularized remote work. According to that data, about 68% of wage and salary workers in 2018 said they worked Monday through Friday though they did not specify their working hours.
“This means that your guess is as good as mine for the 70% of Americans that are not clocking out at 5,” Wilson said.
Council member Doria Robinson was supportive of a firm ending time of 11 p.m. and suggested setting time limits on public presentations and council discussions. Currently, the council’s rules and procedures allow five minutes for council members to ask questions about an item, though the enforcement of this is left to the mayor’s discretion.
“Right now we give people any amount of time. There is no clock,” Robinson said. “I honestly do believe that if people are given (a limit) and understand what their limit is ahead of time that they can present efficiently, effectively and concisely.”
