When did the minimum become sufficient?

Twice in one week, the Half Moon Bay City Council held important special meetings on the Pilarcitos Creek park site with the absolute legal minimum notice. They posted an agenda on the side of City Hall 24 hours before the meeting was to be held. There are two important issues here—the timing and the location of the notice.

To quote the Half Moon Bay Review, writing about an earlier city council:

Why not post notice of meetings where someone might actually see it? Does the city have something to hide?
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The answers, respectively, are that we don’t know and that we don’t think so.

There is another possible explanation. You can’t really hide anything by holding a snap public meeting, but you can keep the amount of public participation to a minimum. And you may be able to cloud the record. MCTV was unable to tape either special meeting, and Coastsider came close to missing them as well.

And let’s be clear: posting the agenda to the city’s web site—the digital equivalent of the bulletin board on the side of city hall—is also insufficient.  The County Coastside Water District emails meeting notices to anyone who asks to be put on the list.  On June 8, I received a email from CCWD about a special meeting to be held on June 12.

In the meantime, be sure to stop by the city hall parking lot after 5 every evening. You might miss something if you don’t.