Oftentimes I will try to catch the evening replay of the day’s San Diego City Council meeting. Sometimes it’s the most entertaining thing on TV. The other night it was particularly funny, because District 7 San Diego City Councilmember Marti Emerald started talking about “transparency.”

Brian Peterson is the president of the Grantville Action Group.

This apparently is one of the goals of her tenure as a councilmember. Her vision, according to the District 7 Web site, is “a responsive and transparent city government.” It’s funny, though, to read this or hear her say it, because her office’s behavior, especially relating to the District 7 Advisory Council, could be better described as opaque.

At the last meeting of the Grantville Action Group, where Emerald was a no-show, we tried to get answers to these outstanding questions about the District 7 Advisory Council: where do they meet, when do they meet, are the meetings open to the public, and are they publicly noticed? To paraphrase Emerald’s stand-in, D-7 field rep Chris Pearson, the short answers are: don’t know, don’t know, no, and no.

To explain the two “don’t-knows,” Pearson told us that the D-7 Advisory Council is a “private, volunteer organization that is self-formed; they set their own agenda.” He could not tell us when or where their next meeting would be, because, “there is no set date or location,” he explained. He further said to us, “They are private citizens, who spontaneously came together, like this group,” meaning GAG. As such, they are not required to abide by the Brown Act, and that is why the general public is neither noticed nor invited.

Let’s dissect the layers of spin in these assertions.

First, to compare the D-7 Advisory Council to the Grantville Action Group, especially at one of GAG’s meetings, is absurd. The Grantville Action Group came together as a final reaction to Jim Madaffer’s District 7 council office and the city ignoring the will and desires of the community. After the presentation of the Grantville redevelopment “vision plans” in December of 2006, it was clear that Grantville was in the crosshairs for massive infill development (”smart growth”) and eminent domain. The Grantville businesses, and Grantville and Allied Gardens residents, did not want it, and they still don’t. It was clear that the elected officials were not going to pay attention to disparate individuals, but when faced with a large, organized group, they might. The citizens in this case were not, and still are not, affiliated with any political figure or elected official. In fact, they came together to fight back against aggressively meddlesome government in their community.

More by Brian: Beware of stakeholder committees | A third way for local politics | No courage found in Grantville Redevelopment | Save the bike lanes in the Birdland community

Second, to believe the D-7 Advisory Council is similar to GAG in this way, we would have to believe that the 34 members (or 20, depending on who’s counting), sensed pending disaster, put out the effort to identify and locate like-minded individuals, and formed their committee to help Councilmember Emerald. We would also have to believe that the District 7 council office took no part in this and, in fact, they welcomed the help, when it spontaneously appeared.

Fortunately, for those of us with short memories or who may be exceptionally gullible, I have an e-mail from the District 7 council office to me on this very subject. On Dec. 17 last year, Emerald’s Chief of Staff Xema Jacobson, wrote, “We are in the process of putting together our 7th District Advisory Committee that will serve the function of keeping Emerald up to date on happenings in the 7th District. If you and Linda [Mrs. Peterson] are interested in joining the 7th District Advisory Committee, please let me know and I will let Cynthia Harris of our office know to include you.”

If spontaneity originates in the District 7 office, then I guess it could be said that the District 7 Advisory Committee spontaneously formed.

Also, thanks to the local, conservative blog website SDRostra.com, we don’t have to suspend reason to believe that D-7’s Advisory Council/Committee sets its own agenda. One of their bloggers, who evidently knows someone on the Advisory Council/Committee, posted a copy of the agenda for their last meeting. The contact person is listed as District 7 field rep Cynthia Harris, and the document is signed by Emerald.

As one of the GAG members at the last meeting said of the D-7 Advisory Council/Committee, “This is the Marti Emerald advisory council. This is the special one; the one endorsed by Marti.” Pearson admitted Emerald has been to every one of their meetings. Some expressed concern that this is just another move on the part of the City to marginalize the elected planning groups. Now, in addition to selected “stakeholders committees,” we have selected “advisory councils.”

I’m guessing that after that GAG meeting Pearson underwent debriefing in the D-7 office, because the next afternoon I received an e-mail to clarify his statements the previous evening. He wrote, “Brian, I need to clarify my explanation of the Advisory Council…. Unfortunately, I was misinformed as to the nature of the Council and therefore repeated that misinformation to the GAG. The Advisory Council is made up of political supporters that Councilmember Emerald met during her 2008 campaign. It is not a public group, it’s [sic] meetings are not open and thus it is not governed by the Brown Act.” He signed off, “I hope that you embrace the fact that I made a misstatement and accept my correction.” I am still not sure what correction I am supposed to accept and for which misstatement, because the e-mail essentially restates what he said to us at the meeting. But now I wonder, though, was the e-mail written by the same District 7 field rep that was at our meeting?

Why Pearson, or one of his superiors, felt compelled to write me this non-clarification, we will never know. This much, however, is clear: Whatever they are paying Pearson to take the heat at public meetings for Emerald’s council office, there is no way it’s enough. So, Chris, at the next GAG meeting, have a beer on us. It’s the least we can do.

Brian Peterson is a local veterinarian and president of the Grantville Action Group. He can be reached at friarsroadvet@sbcglobal.net

Tags: grantville action group, jim madaffer, marti emerald, san diego district 7 advisory council, SDNN

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under A More Perfect Union. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Transparency is a joke for one San Diego councilmember - http://www.sdnn.com/?p=73726

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