The Oakley City Council, for tomorrow night (May 10, 2022), agenda contains an item (5.2) that would egregiously alter City Council minutes. The minutes would consist of a brief statement of how the vote went for an item. The minutes would replace the highly professional detailed notes that the City Clerk, Libby Vreonis, publishes.
The City Staff report indicates that there are videos of the meetings to which people can refer to ascertain the discourse the council pursued regarding a specific council action. Unfortunately, prior meeting videos have been removed and destroyed. The action occurred because the City is only required to retain videos for eighteen months. The new policy would allow for the loss of any formal record of meetings after eighteen months.
The approval of the item would negate the transparency the City has attempted to develop over the last two years. Recent events have established that during past years, the lack of transparency of the City Council and City Staff had an enormous negative impact on the City and City Hall staff. The City needs those detailed minutes.
A vote of no is required to ensure the ongoing development of transparency of the Oakley City government. Below is an article from the East Bay Times detailing one of the past events to which I refer.
https://fullerforoakley.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/capallettistory.pdf
George Fuller, MPA, MA
City Councilmember, City of Oakley, CA
