Fullerton’s Committees and Commissions. What Are They Good For?

Well, the answer to that question depends on who you are and what you want.

Last Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council agenda featured an item to modify some of the current roster of committees and commissions. The idea was to schedule fewer meetings for some, get rid of “at-large” members in others and in one case, the Active Transportation Committee, roll it into the Transportation and Circulation Committee. The Planning Commission was to be expanded to seven members by adding two at-large members.

Naturally, the true nature of these committees and what they actually accomplish was not part of the discussion.

Almost no city committees are legally necessary according to State law – except, I believe, Library Boards and Planning Commissions. The rest are there, presumably, to give the public a chance to contribute to the charming swindle known as participatory government. This is almost always a fiction, as anybody who has spent any time watching these shows, knows. The committees are little better than rubber stamps.

City staff likes committees because it gives them a chance to build momentum behind one of their pet projects – to create an aura of inevitability about this or that. It’s an opportunity to go to the City Council and explain the unanimous support for their item. And if, perchance, a committee shows a little independence then their ideas and their votes are mere suggestions with no legal standing.

Some of the bureaucratic enthusiasm for committees must have waned a bit when Fullerton went to direct Council appointments a few years back. Previously choices were made by review panels made up of council and committee members who could be relied on to pick “sound” people, that is, folks who could be trusted not to rock the proverbial boat.

In the olden days staff liked larger committees. The reasoning seemed to be that the more members you had the more impotent the commission really was.

City Council members like to put friends and allies on committees, and, in the case of the Planning Commission, maybe even someone moving up in Fullerton’s political arena. This is how you build a political machine: you help people, they help you. It used to be that if there was an annoying member of the public, an irritant at Council meetings, he or she might just be shut up by being put on a committee, becoming part of the team, so to speak. It worked shockingly often.

Committee members who are not impatient with bureaucratic doubletalk like to be on committees, especially if they can sit up on the dais in the City Council chamber. It makes them feel good about things, an ego boost.

Of course the public is completely unaware or even interested in committee meetings which are almost always held in empty rooms.

Since almost everybody seems to like the current set-up, why the proposed alterations? The staff report referred to economies, efficiencies, and such-like. The verbiage didn’t sound very heart-felt or persuasive and the reader gets the impression of a top down diktat from Mayor Fred Jung to clean things up.

In the end most of the proposed reductions to five directly appointed members of certain commissions was approved, which is basically a smart move. The inconsistent proposal to increase the Planning Commission membership to seven (actually the way it used to be) failed. The motion to keep it the way it is passed 3-2 with Fred Jung and Jamie Valencia voting no.

On a side note, Fullerton Boohoo was at the meeting to display their unhappiness. Why not? The altar of probity, the Fullerton Observer had tried to stir up opposition earlier with one of their editorial/news mishmashes. The funniest part of this effort was to explain that these committees help keep staff “accountable,” an obvious misdirection from the Kennedy Sisters who have never cared about staff accountability before.

Whether or not the changes would have saved anybody time or money is debatable. What is not debatable is that these footling committees are there to look like public participation is going on, when it hardly ever is.