An Open Letter to the San Juan Capistrano City Council about Recent Acrimony

The San Juan Capistrano Chamber of Commerce sent a letter today to the five city councilmen, seeking to broker a peace accord.

A number of events lately have cracked the strained-but-until-recently polite relations between the majority and minority council members. They include:

• An attempt to recall Councilman Sam Allevato
• A revealing of a vote that may or may not have taken place behind closed doors to eliminate news racks from City Hall
• A recent approval to spend $25,000 to investigate two councilmen for possible wrongdoings

Mayor John Taylor and Members of the Council:

On behalf of the San Juan Capistrano Chamber of Commerce, I am writing to convey our organization’s hope to avoid the political divisiveness that is threatening our city’s ability to provide for the needs of the residents and businesses.

Recalls, litigation and investigations will be extremely costly and detrimental to the City Council’s ability to govern this community.  With those distractions looming, our leadership will be unable to properly address the issues that are important to the taxpaying residents and businesses.  As such, we would like to propose that a special meeting be held to consider the following proposals aimed at restoring civility and community-focused leadership for the city.

Our goal is not to assign blame or pass judgments but to promote simple, collaborative solutions for a number of issues so that our City Council and staff can resume their focus on working to enhance the community.

With that in mind, we respectfully propose the following:

1. We ask that no sitting member of the council act as an attorney or otherwise provide legal advice or representation for any entity that is considering, pursuing or has filed legal action against the city. While the law may or may not allow this, we feel there is a conflict of interest and the needs of the community would be best served by establishing a clear line on this matter.
2. We feel that any policies the city adopts regarding the distribution of newspapers, newsletters, etc. should be conducted in public with input received from the community. We suggest the city conduct a survey of other municipalities that have adopted similar ordinances and (if the law allows) find one that, with minimal alteration, can be appropriately implemented here.
   
3. We urge all five members of the council to reconfirm their commitment to Brown Act compliance. The Brown Act protects the public’s need for government transparency and ensures that the council can appropriately work together when confidentiality is required. We recommend that all five members of the council participate in a Brown Act “training” of some kind by a professional in this field.
   
4. We ask that supporters of efforts to recall Councilman Sam Allevato end that process. Further, we would request that each member of the Council consider voting to formally oppose the effort. A special election will cost taxpayers $100,000 and distract our council and staff from important city business. 
   
5. We suggest that the City Council consider overturning its recent decision to pay $25,000 for an investigation of the conduct of its members.  With the major issues that prompted this investigation being (hopefully) resolved by the above recommendations, there would be no need for this time consuming, costly endeavor.
   

We recognize that this won’t solve all of our differences on a variety of complicated community issues. However, it will save our taxpayers $125,000, promote more community-focused decision making and foster a culture where the needs of the city are put ahead of our political differences. 

We sincerely appreciate your consideration and request your support for this approach.

Sincerely,