In a good way, attending a City Council meeting these late spring evenings is akin to sitting in the stands for a track and field meet.
Like the trains years ago, a Mayor Jim Clarke-run meeting operates efficiently. On time.
You almost can leave your car engine running.
The saggingly heavy agenda on Monday night threatened the all-time record finishing time of about 3 on a Tuesday morning.
Those were the days a decade ago when the Redevelopment Agency regularly was galloping through Council Chambers, and arguments over new building heights and locations were features of almost every meeting.
At Monday evening’s meeting, the Council – after sitting through a Closed Session with 9 items — was confronted with a whopping 24 Consent Calendar items (usually, but not always, shrug-and-go business), two public hearings, and four action items, three of which were laced with complexities.
Under earlier mayors, 2 o’clock would have been a well-guessed finishing hour.
Under time-sensitive Mayor Clarke, quitting time was advanced to a tidy 11:35.
Two of His Goals
In a nuanced way, the mayor drives his colleagues through even dense agendas without pausing for empty chatter.
He considers audience members, especially passionately involved ones, and tries to examine their agenda items earlier than others.
In his understated manner, the mayor was proud that 95 percent of audience members present for a single, focused item had their business finished by 8:45, a practice many hopes burgeons into a tradition.
