Nevada City Halts Important Public Input at City Council Meetings

Pulling agenda items for further discussion or questions at the beginning of city council meetings has always been an important component of transparency in government, but is no more for Nevada City.

Sad day for Nevada City, CA. The current Mayor, Fernandez, supports shutting down public participation during city council meetings. The public was aghast during the last city council meeting when they found out they could no longer pull agenda items for discussion. This is an important component of public input and oversight, and this current council and mayor don't think it is important any longer; such a reflection of the current government these days.

THIS does not represent the Nevada City that I knew. But THAT Nevada City is obviously no longer.

Suddenly not allowing the public to pull items from the consent agenda for discussion caught members of the audience off guard Wednesday evening.

"Mayor Daniela Fernández informed the members of the public that although this courtesy has been allowed in the past, having a member of the public ask to pull an item from the consent agenda, is out of line with the written directions for the official meeting and the handling of consent items.

“It’s something that we’ve offered in the past,” Fernández said. “A community member does not have the authority to pull a consent item. It’s no longer available to the public.”

“I go to a lot of public meetings in all of our jurisdictions, and this is the first I have ever heard that the public can not pull an item from the consent calendar,” Gazmon said. “So perhaps I missed that in the Nevada City Process? I guess I did.”

Former City Council Member Strawser stated,

“People have to be aware of the agenda ahead of time and they need to know that they should contact a council member who will consider pulling the item on their behalf.”

Say what?

So, let me get this straight: a concerned member of the public can only participate in pulling an agenda item for further discussion (or to ask a clarifying question) if they had time to read the agenda beforehand and then had time to hunt down a city council member, many of which never return their calls, and convince them to pull an agenda item for discussion on their behalf…? Do I have that right?

Seriously. Ever since Covid struck, representative government has hit an all-time low. This is just another blow to representative government.