The Moreno Valley City Council last week voted to start its closed session meetings half an hour earlier, though the change will not take effect until after a formal vote at a future council meeting.
“We need direction from the council regarding whether any changes should be made to the starting times of the closed sessions, special presentation and/or the open sessions of our regular meetings,” City Attorney Steve Quintanilla said. “If there’s a decision made to make any changes to the starting times, we will bring back the appropriate resolution to make the appropriate changes to our local rules.”
Currently, the council meets for a regular meeting on the first and third Tuesday of every month at 6 p.m. with regular closed session meetings held the same days at 4:30 p.m. followed by special presentations at 5:30 p.m.
“I think that we need to give ourselves more time for closed sessions,” Councilmember Elena Baca-Santa Cruz said. “I feel rushed when we have special presentations at 5:30 [p.m.] and we have more than one item.”
Baca-Santa Cruz suggested the council not only start closed sessions half an hour earlier at 4:30 p.m., but also delay the special presentations to 6 p.m. and go straight from that into the regular council meetings.
“That would give us a full two hours, not that we would need it every time, but if we did need it, then we could take the time,” she said. “Because I understand that we need to post our meeting time, but I would really like to have more time to discuss closed session items, if needed.”
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Councilmember Ed Delgado said he agreed with Baca-Santa Cruz about starting closed sessions earlier, adding that a lot of the items coming before the council recently during closed sessions would benefit from having more time to deliberate without feeling like the council has to rush to be done in time for the special presentations.
“These items that we’re bringing up in closed session are very important and very important to the city,” he said. “And because of our time constraints, we get it done, but we feel a little rushed to get it done.”
However, the two differed on whether it was necessary to push back the start time of the special presentations to 6 p.m., something Mayor Pro Tem Cheylynda Barnard was staunchly against.
“One reason I would like to leave [special presentations] at 5:30 [p.m.] is because I also do want to respect when we do have people come and do or accept awards or presentations,” she said. “Oftentimes, many of them are coming at the end of their workday, or when parents are coming with their children, they are trying to, you know, get their children here, do what they need to do, and then get them back home.”
Ultimately, the council voted 3-1 to start closed sessions half an hour earlier, at 4 p.m., and keep the current schedule for both special presentations and the regular city council meetings with Baca-Santa Cruz voting against.
Before the change can go into effect, the council will have to adopt a resolution amending its local procedures for meeting schedules.
A full recording of the Oct. 15 meeting can be found here on the city’s YouTube channel.
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