Morro Bay city engineer was kicked off councilmember’s town hall. Why? | Opinion

When Morro Bay City Councilmember Jeff Eckles sponsored a town hall meeting on Zoom last week, he intended it to be for constituents — not city staff.

Except, city engineer Cindy Cecil never got the memo. That’s because there wasn’t one; Eckles did not specify that the meeting was closed to city staff.

When Cecil raised the hand emoji on Zoom — indicating she wanted comment — Eckles kicked her out of the meeting.

“The town halls were hosted by me to create a forum for an elected representative to offer transparency and accountability directly to constituents and to hear directly from constituents with their concerns and issues,” Eckles said in an email to The Tribune Editorial Board. “It was not intended to be a staff meeting nor include staff presentations, so recognizing staff at the town hall was inappropriate.”

It’s understandable to want to devote the meeting to public comment and questions. That’s what a town hall is all about.

But treating a city staff member in such a dismissive way was rude. Cecil — who attended the meeting on her own time — is a city resident and had every right to be there. And her expertise, had she been allowed to share it, could have helped inform the conversation.

If anything, she deserved Eckles’ thanks for attending.

Morro Bay roundabout

The controversial roundabout project planned on Highway 41 — a project Eckles voted against — was the hot topic of discussion when Cecil was kicked off.

She told us she had intended to respond to Eckles’ claims that he had not been presented with alternatives to the roundabout.

“He said that he was never offered options. .... He was only offered the roundabout,” she said.

That was not the case, Cecil said. Every councilmember had been given information on the alternatives, and she wanted to point that out.

It sounds like she wanted to offer a point of clarification — not a presentation — but because the meeting was not recorded, we don’t know exactly what was said.

That’s unfortunate. Recording a Zoom meeting is easy to do and would have been helpful for anyone unable to attend.

Eckles didn’t want city engineer to be ‘endlessly waiting’

The far bigger mistake, though, was booting someone out of a meeting without a word of explanation.

Here’s Eckles’ rationale: “When I saw Cindy Cecil’s (electronic) hand raised in the meeting, I recognized her name as our city engineer and dismissed her from the meeting so she would not be endlessly waiting to be recognized. Had I been contacted beforehand by staff requesting to present, I could have shared this information then to avoid any misunderstanding.”

Now he views it differently.

“In hindsight, it might have been better to acknowledge her at the time and let her know the above information and continue the meeting that way. In any event, it was not the appropriate venue for staff presentations,” he said via email.

Or here’s an idea: Had her comments verged into lengthy, “presentation” territory, Eckles could have politely requested that she wrap it up.

Brown Act did not apply

Had this been a regular City Council meeting, Eckles’ behavior never would have been allowed.

Under the Brown Act — California’s open meeting law — audience members at a virtual meeting can be dismissed only if they are disrupting the session, and then only after they have been issued a warning. (The same rule is in effect for in-person meetings.)

However, that applies only when a quorum is present, which means meetings with just one or two councilmembers are exempt.

Still, in the interest of fairness, it’s not a bad guideline to follow at any meeting that includes public comment.

While town halls are valuable events both for the public and elected officials, they can backfire if participants believe they were handled improperly.

Just look at what happened when Sen. Adam Schiff neglected to ensure that students would be represented at the town hall he recently held at Cuesta College. Students complained, and Schiff issued an apology.

Apologizing to the city engineer may be something for Councilmember Jeff Eckles to consider — if he hasn’t issued one already.