On February 2, 2010, the Fullerton City Council made two important decisions in favor of the voters of Fullerton: rotating the Mayor's position and keeping public comment at the beginning of the meeting.
Fullerton does not directly elect their Mayor, the City Council chooses one of the members to be Mayor for a one year term. This creates a problem for the voting public because they are not able to have a say in who will lead the city and set the agendas for the City Council meetings. The proposal brought forth gave the options of either changing to a directly elected Mayor or agreeing to a rotation schedule. Council agreed to move to a rotation schedule. Now, when the public votes, they know that any of the people they elect to council could be the Mayor and lead the city in the direction that person wants to go. The staff report is here Download 07 Mayor Selection Process
Also considered at the meeting was moving the public comment on non-agenda items from the beginning of the meeting to the end of the meeting. Comments on individual agenda items would not have been effected by this change. The item was pulled, which kept comment time at the beginning of the meeting. The public comment time at the beginning of the meeting is often used by the public to make Council aware of issues or problems that have not been discussed by Council. This time is also used to let Council know that something that was supposed to have been fixed or changed has not been fixed or changed, and gives Council a chance to correct the situation.
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