[Bboa-members] Financial projection spreadsheet on Berkeley Waterfront website

[Paul Kamen]

On 3/8/2006 at 7:04 AM Tom & Lori Jeremiason wrote:
>I am glad to see you have posted the email addresses on your personal web site. This is a good step, but I think one of the reasons that you are not hearing much is that up until now we have not had the ability to contact the Commission directly. 
Actually, I've had the Commissioners' individual contact info up on my website for years, easy targets of a google search. Not on the City's official site, though, and this seems to be policy for all Berkeley Commissions. Email to Commissioners is normally directed through the published contact info for the Commission Secretary (Cliff Marchetti), which means it gets included in the meeting packet where it can be delayed as much as a month (sometimes two months) before reaching the actual commissioners (and often gets lost in the noise if the agenda is a full one).  

This is a cumbersome way to communicate with your Commissioners, and when I was on the other side of the table lobbying the Commission I quickly learned how much more effective it is to send mail - paper or electronic - to each of the Commissioners individually. Some Commissioners don't want their addresses online, but it's public info and the City Clerk is always happy to give you a list of mailing addresses for the entire Commission. 
>The Waterfront Commission's Web Site does not contain contact information for the Commissioners or Staff.
Actually, the City website does have the contact info for staff, at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront/default.htm
>The Waterfront Commissions February meeting minutes have not been posted on the Web Site. The Finance Sub-Committee has agendas posted, but no minutes. 
The minutes aren't made public until they are corrected and approved by the Commission at the next meeting, so there is at least a one-month lag. Minutes form the long-term record, and they are not a good way to keep tabs on what the Commission is doing in real time. 

It would be much better if we could distribute the draft of the minutes in email the day after the meeting, and correct and approve them in email conference (with a public web echo) for timely posting to the web. But the Brown Act was written before email, and we're stuck with some old rules. See my web page on how I think the Brown Act needs to be overhauled if you're interested in this:

http://www.well.com/user/pk/waterfront/BrownAct.html
>We have brought this up before... It is very hard to make comments when we don't see what's going on or have the ability to contact you. 

Tom Jeremiason
You need to attend all the meetings and stay 'till the end. Or at least send a BBOA rep who can report back to the group. Unfortunately there's no other way to keep track of Commission activity, at least not until Brown Act is overhauled to allow better public access through electronic conferencing and publishing. 

Also, keep in mind that the Commission is not the marina management. The marina is run by City Staff, under the City Manager. The Council appoints the Commissioners as their representatives, and there is sometimes an adversarial relationship betwen Commission and Staff, just as there can be bewteen the City Manager and the Council. 
---------
Paul Kamen
Chair, Berkeley Waterfront Commission
510-540-7968  510-219-8106 (cell)
pk at well.com   www.BerkeleyWaterfront.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://colo1.sunsolver.com/pipermail/bboa-members/attachments/20060308/5cd35a06/attachment.htm