City Hall Forgets to be Open and Transparent

City Hall is closed today and that’s a problem.

It’s a problem because the deadline has passed for City Council Vacancy applications and we don’t know what really happens next and by we I mean both applicants and the public. According to the city website there will be an applicant forum co-sponsored by the City of Fullerton and the Neighbors United for Fullerton on Monday, 29 January followed by a special meeting on Tuesday, 29 January. That’s all we know:

If you look at the NUFF Facebook page it tells us that this applicant forum will run from 6:45pm to 8:30pm.

That’s it.

What does that mean? Will there be a debate?  A meet and greet? Will people be able to pose questions of specific applicants or the group? Who will be moderating this event? What should the applicants plan to do, say or bring? As of today, NUFF’s website has not been updated to reflect the change to an applicant forum from the previous “Priorities for Fullerton” agenda and thus leaves us wondering.

The most we know is that the event is scheduled for 105 minutes to vet 25 applicants which basic math tells us is about 4 minutes per applicant if each one was just allowed to speak freely without time taken out for questions, moderation or standard event management.

So really plan to hear each person speak for 2 minutes if they’re lucky.

How will the NUFF forum play into Tuesday’s Council Special Meeting? Is City Staff or Council asking the questions on Monday and using that data Tuesday? Or is Monday just gloss for the citizens while the city council plans to run their own public hearing on Tuesday?

Will the council be announcing an appointee on Tuesday? Will they be interviewing people at this Special Meeting? Will applicants be asked questions or given a chance to speak outside of public comments?

Again, no idea.

Why no idea? Because the city has provided almost zero information on this process and the council has left things so open that anything could happen on Tuesday. This “Open and Transparent” process that we were promised by the council has been anything but. We know applicants are meeting with council members but not who with whom or where and when. My goal in being an applicant was to give you fine residents the inside scoop on how this would play out and as I suspected it is the antithesis of the openness that we were promised.

I have not received a single phone call or email about what happens next. Irrespective of my position on wanting a special election I should still be afforded the same information as any other applicant so this tells me nobody is being told anything.

And to circle back to why this is so ridiculous, City Hall is closed today so we won’t get any information until Monday, the day of the Nuff event and the day before the Special Meeting if we’re given information at that point. The corruption and/or incompetence was baked into the cake before this process was even started, hence the lobbying for and by prospective applicants *cough* Jan Flory *cough* before it even started.

I’ll keep you posted if anything changes but I’m guessing we’ll have a long weekend of behind the scenes wheeling and dealing with nothing given out for public consumption. So open. So Honest. So Transparent.

For full disclosure I have not spoken to or met with a single council member which should be pretty obvious as not a one would entertain me for council even were I serious. They aren’t even pretending very well at this point.