Closed Meetings Shake Up Neighborhood Council

By Teresa Rochester

When neighborhood association leaders got wind last week that Jerry Rubin was planning to attend their meeting, they quickly changed locations from the city owned Ken Edward's Center to a privately owned social service agency.

For several months the group, called the Neighborhood Council, had met at the public facility and quietly closed the door behind them, excluding Chuck Allord, a founder of a fledgling neighborhood group, from joining the discussion.

This time, when Rubin arrived at the public facility, he was left holding a bag of Hershey's Kisses and staring at the only other person to show up -- his nemesis Allord.

The duet of complaints from Allord (who found the new meeting location) and Rubin (who didn't) had reached the ears of city officials. But no matter how loudly Rubin and Allord complain about what the Neighborhood Council did - meet behind closed doors - it was all perfectly legal.

"I've talked to elected officials and people in law, and private organizations have the right to hold private meetings," said Ellen Brennan, chair of South Beach Neighbors Association and a member of the Neighborhood Council, who withdrew her membership in the wake of this week's controversy. "I am hoping over time this whole big bruhaha will heal itself…The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot."

The council was formed after several false starts last winter. The group's guidelines state that the council's purpose is "to network and exchange information, to support each other, to address city-wide issues such as zoning and open space and possibly save money on printing." The council meets once a month, and the meeting's chairperson is rotated among the members.

Along with Brennan, the council includes representatives from Mid-City Neighbors, Ocean Park Community Organization, North of Montana Association, North-East Neighbors, Wilshire/Montana Neighborhood Association, Friends of Sunset Park, Pico Neighborhood Association and Downtown Area Resident's Association. The associations promote the interests and concerns of member residents in their geographically defined areas.

City officials, who have maintained a hands-off policy towards the Neighborhood Council and neighborhood associations, agree that the group is within its legal rights to hold closed meetings.

When questions arose over the fact that many of the neighborhood groups had received city funding in the form of matching grants, city spokesperson Judy Rambeau noted that the council itself does not receive city money and the city has no jurisdiction over the council. She added that a neighborhood association must conduct public meetings to receive a city grant.

"They meet independently of the city," said Rambeau, adding that she was taken aback by the whole to do. "They meet together once a month, which is good thing. They come to discuss all sorts of issues. Decisions are made by the individual groups. I think they really need to look at how they're doing this…The ironic thing is they're open to openness."

Rambeau said that while Ken Edward's Center is owned by the city and a popular location for public meetings, private groups also can meet there. Users mark whether their meetings will be open or closed on a reservation form. Rick Laudati, head of OPCO, said he has filled out the council's forms, marking the meetings as closed.

City Attorney Marsha Moutrie also said the Neighborhood Council is not in violation of the Brown Act, the state's open meeting law. The council does not fit the law's definitions of groups, such as city councils, city commissions and boards and state bodies, that must comply with the act.

"What's legal and what's advisable are different things," Moutrie said. "The Brown Act does not govern the group you're talking about."

Rubin stumbled across the Neighborhood Council's existence courtesy of a colleague. He said his interest was piqued and he wanted to learn more about the group, only to be turned away days before the meeting took place on Saturday, May 6. He then alerted the city's media outlets to the closed-door meeting.

"I would have loved to have been able to go," said Rubin, who added that several people have accused him of making of an issue out of this to forward his bid for a City Council seat in the upcoming November election, a charge he flatly denies. "I'd love to learn what they're doing, but it's a closed door meeting. I don't think that's fair. I'm a fan of openness."

Rubin also condemned the council's last minute change of location. Brennan, who chaired Saturday's meeting said she switched the location after learning there may be a physical confrontation with Rubin.

"It seemed to me to have a physical confrontation was counter-productive," said Brennan, a former member of the social service agency's board of directors. "When I gave the address, I told people to be careful about letting people know the address. Obviously, somebody violated that confidence, and it was very disturbing."

Allord argued that he was not let into the meetings because the council would not recognize his fledgling group, Neighbors for a Safe Santa Monica, because its boundaries fall within the borders of the Pico Neighborhood Association, a group Allord said doesn't represent his constituency's needs.

OPCO's Laudati said the council had given Allord's group a chance to join them, provided he turn in paper work documenting an elected board and members. Laudati said it was something Allord refused to do.

Allord was angry to learn that the meeting had been moved to a location within his neighborhood.

"The meeting Saturday was a slap in our face," said Allord. "How could they ignore us when we jumped through their hoops and then to run and hide in our neighborhood. It was a slap in the face with nails in the board."

Council members spent most of Saturday discussing whether or not the meetings should be more open. David Cole, president of Mid-City Neighbors, and Laudati said they would not oppose the meetings being more open, but Brennan said the group operates well and sees no need for change.

All three said that the question of openness has not been an issue in the past, since they all report the council's discussions at their public board meetings and the council does not make decisions.

"I think for the boards who have open meetings there was a sense there needed to be a space just to talk," said Laudati. "I think the context setting for this is really important. The setting up until now has been discussion-oriented. The way the OPCO bylaws are set up if there is a vote to open up the meetings, I'll have to vote yes."

"It's really just to network and to learn from each other," said Cole. "I personally don't have any qualms about it being open. Some people wanted that privacy. I generally don't say things I don't want heard."

"This started out as a conversation and it worked well as a conversation," said Brennan.

This year marks the first time in four years that neighborhood associations receive city funding. The past 12 months have seen a marked increase in the number of neighborhood groups. Over the next few weeks, The Lookout will chronicle the issues and trials facing these groups, which are charged with being the voice of the city's residents.