{"id":2544,"date":"2012-04-10T10:52:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T17:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2017-01-06T20:49:59","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T04:49:59","slug":"closed-government-bunker-mentality-returns-to-pacific-grove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/closed-government-bunker-mentality-returns-to-pacific-grove\/","title":{"rendered":"Closed Government: Bunker Mentality Returns to Pacific Grove"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pacific<\/a>

Pacific Grove City Manager Tom Frutchey<\/p><\/div>Welcome to the Bad ol\u2019 Days of Closed Government with a Bunker Mentality in Pacific Grove.<\/p>\n

Current Pacific Grove City Manager Tom Frutchey takes every advantage of loopholes in the Open Meeting law (Brown Act) to avoid informing the public about important City activities.<\/p>\n

Today is Tuesday April 10, tomorrow is Wednesday April 11. <\/p>\n

Is there anything special going on at the City Council ?<\/p>\n

Not according to the official City website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ci.pg.ca.us\/citycouncil\/agmin.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

However tomorrow is a Highly important City Council meeting \u2013 where City Manager Tom Frutchey will be presenting a bunch of his important issues \u2013 primarily how to raise taxes on residents. <\/p>\n

By no coincidence City Manager Frutchey is the same person who makes almost every decision on Agendas; what is on it and whether an item goes at the start or the end (after you’ve probably left), and how an Agenda item is described – or made benignly obscure so you can’t figure out that it is important.<\/p>\n

Update: April 11, 2012. Finally on the city’s website there is an agenda claiming to be for today’s Continued City Council meeting<\/a>.
\nSadly, (and this should answer one question) it is NOT for the Council meeting, but for a different meeting taking place on Thursday. (Thanks to Esther T. for alerting us.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Q: How can an important City Council meeting not be on the city website? Isn’t that illegal?<\/p>\n

A: City Manager Tom Frutchey is getting away with it because the Open Meeting law (Brown Act) does not require reasonable notice of \u201cContinued Meetings\u201d \u2013 <\/p>\n

And the items on this \u201cContinued Meeting\u201d agenda are all continued from last week\u2019s Council meeting.<\/p>\n

Q: So how can one find out that the meeting is occurring and what\u2019s on the agenda?<\/p>\n

A: There MIGHT be a notice on the wall at City Hall. But who knows when it might show up?<\/p>\n

Q: And how can I read the packet materials?<\/p>\n

A: Go home and look up the city website for last week\u2019s meeting, then click on the agenda items with (hopefully) the same titles.<\/p>\n

Q: What if I forgot which items are on the agenda that is only on the City posting wall?<\/p>\n

A: Hey \u2013 the Open Meeting law doesn\u2019t require much of anything for a Continued meeting \u2013 “too bad for you.”<\/p>\n

(Hmmm . . . Could a scoundrel City Manager actually plan this by intentionally putting a bunch of important issues at the end of an agenda – so they would have to be continued to another meeting where normal advance notice is not required? Answer: Yes.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Commentary: This is a serious loophole in the Open Meeting law that Current Pacific Grove City Manager Tom Frutchey takes advantage of.<\/p>\n

This loophole needs repairs. Assemblyman Monning is the fellow to carry this legislation.<\/p>\n

You can call Bill at 649-2832<\/p>\n

But there’s More —<\/p>\n

City Manager Tom Frutchey has instituted another policy hostile to public participation: Holding regular “Special” meetings. Now every Council meeting has a “Special” meeting preceding it.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Special” meetings only need 24 hours notice – one-third of what regular meeting require.<\/p>\n

Bill can you please fix these loopholes?<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Bad ol\u2019 Days of Closed Government with a Bunker Mentality in Pacific Grove. Current Pacific Grove City Manager Tom Frutchey takes every advantage of loopholes in the Open Meeting law (Brown Act) to avoid informing the public … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,33,29,20,26],"tags":[158,155,156,157],"class_list":["post-2544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-acts","category-education","category-pacificgrove","category-public-participation","category-staffocracy","tag-brown-act","tag-continued-city-council","tag-open-meeting","tag-update-april"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2544"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3279,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions\/3279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1hope.org\/hopeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}