The residents of Manhattan Beach need to recognize the recent and continued hypocrisy of the Manhattan Beach City Council’s so-called commitment to open government, in this instance by deceptive measures to gag the voices of residents.

Specifically, under the guise of improving meeting management, the City Council this month passed measures reinforcing its prior actions to silence opposition (e.g. via limiting residents to one three-minute comment by grouping numerous policy issues under one agenda item). In addition, in act of cowardice, it reneged on a commitment to allow public comment on policy decisions made at its meetings prior to their conclusion.

Further, the Council failed to address strengthening required speech protections under California’s open government law, the Brown Act, but rather trampled the spirit of this law to silence speech and redress of grievances. It also passed a protocol for implementing California’s Public Records Act on access to information but omitted a specific deadline for obtaining requested documents.

It has been nearly 100 days since the Daily Breeze editorial, “MB needs to better manage its meetings,” chided the Council on problems that still remain – late meetings; postponing of agenda items; lack of transparency; and how “council members themselves contribute to the interminable length of the meetings by each making extensive remarks before every vote.”

The measures to silence residents is antithetical to addressing the real source of these problems, namely, the City Council’s failure to address its deficiencies in holding itself accountable to policymaking roles and responsibilities; and, holding the city manager and staff accountable for policy implementation.

As the Daily Breeze stated, “Manhattan Beach is a first-class city. It deserves first-class meeting management,” not practices that “actually work against open government by dissuading regular citizens from attending.”