Bill Fulton, smart growth expert and a City Council member in Ventura, California, recounts a marathon eight hour city council meeting and two controversial land use projects the council approves.
"By this time it was well after 9 [P.M.]. And we still had two long items left. The first was a neighbor's appeal of a proposed lot split on the cul-de-sac at the end of Mound Avenue ... [and] the most important item of the evening -- the appeal of the Planning Commission's approval of the so-called "Hertel-Cabrillo" project east of Wells Road just north of Highway 126."
...
"Why do City Council meetings last until the bars close? Because Council agendas are put together in a kind of mysterious and decentralized way -- the city manager, the city attorney, and each of us all have the power to put things on the agenda. And because we aren't always the best judges of how things are going to go down."
...
"I think we had an obligation to all those people -- to tell them what we thought about what we said, why we disagreed with them, and why we voted in favor of the project. At a time when we could articulate our thoughts coherently, and at a time when they could hear them coherently. Rather than approve the project without comment at 2:15 a.m."
FULL STORY: Making Public Policy At 2:15 A.M.
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