Letter: City council backs down?

While the agenda of the Special Meeting of the Half Moon Bay City Council read "Discussion regarding sale of [the Community Park site]", faced with a room full of citizens largely opposed to the sale of the Community Park site, those members of the City Council who apparently had been pushing for this result backed down.  In fact, at one point, it seemed there was even some question as to where the agenda had come from and who had called the meeting.  It was revisionist city management at its best.  At one point, even Mayor Patridge stated that she had not come to the meeting to sell the park site, which really raises the question as to what this meeting was supposed to be about.

While the meeting turned for a while on the subject of releasing the original due diligence report on the purchase of the Community Park site, even that seemed to be more a way out of discussing, frankly, what was the only agenda item - the sale of the Community Park site.  It appears that this report will probably be released in its entirety, with several council members alluding to the redacted content as not that controversial.  It was also put on the record that the content had been redacted by city staff, including the city attorney, and then approved by the city council - so no great conspiracy there.

In a mark of dedication, the group of us who filed green sheets to speak to this subject at the special meeting had to wait until after 7pm (2 hours later) to finally have our say.  My own words being delayed by City Manager Raines’ too lengthy apology for the special meeting notice not going on the website and a slew of other protocol missteps.  We were at least rewarded with a fine ceremony for the swearing in of our new police chief Don O’Keefe including nice refreshments.