[Note from BenIndy: For information on how to register your support or opposition to the changes described below, scroll to the end.]
BenIndy Editorial, Thursday, May 2, 2024
This Tuesday, May 7, at 6 pm, Benicia City Council will vote on revisions to the city’s campaign ordinances and public engagement policies that were proposed by council and city staff in late 2023.
While community members have supported some of the proposed changes, especially those that tighten loopholes in fair political practices, other proposed revisions – including some from city staff– have faced criticism for their potential to limit meaningful public engagement in governance.
Now, Benicia residents are calling on the community to write, call and show up to oppose to two revisions proposed by staff but not supported by Benicia’s Open Government Commission (OGC):
Amend the City’s Municipal Code to align with state law pertaining to the time to respond to public records act request; and
Decrease the amount of time public speakers may address a City public body in open session from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
City Council requested Open Government Commission review in late 2023
Benicia’s Open Government Commission was created in 2005 to enhance openness, accountability, and public participation in local government after community complaints and external investigations exposed deficiencies in those areas. At the time, the charges laid against City Council included unreasonable delays or outright refusal to provide public records upon request, failures to appropriately notice the public on meeting content and scheduling, agenda misinformation, and more. By establishing the ordinance, the city sought to foster a stronger connection between government officials and residents, promoting a more informed and engaged community.
Prompted by growing concerns about fairness, false statements and digital image manipulation in local elections, City Council tasked the OGC in late 2023 to review and develop recommendations for providing Benicia’s political landscape with guardrails to defend against such misleading tactics. The OGC was also charged to consider several changes proposed by city staff, including updating public records requests and public comment policies to reduce strain on staff.
Some changes to fair political practices code in Benicia elections
After deliberations were stalled several months by quorum and staffing issues, the OGC opted to introduce a few of its recommendations through suggested updates to Benicia’s Voluntary Code of Fair Campaign Practices.
The OGC’s first recommendation to address false and manipulated media via the Voluntary Code would simply align Benicia with California state law, and not much more, but the impulse was welcomed by some city residents.
However, the OGC did not address important questions about enforcement functionality or meaningful remedy for violations, instead punting the responsibility back to the City Clerk, who could immediately inform any candidate and/or political action committee (PAC) about complaints and post said complaint(s) and any rebuttal(s) on the City’s website.
An example of a 2020 campaign ad that some residents claim includes digitally manipulated images and misleading statements.
Additionally, although the OGC discussed how to make campaign regulations in Benicia more “objective” and enforceable, the commission asserted that the complexity of navigating First Amendment privileges or procuring third-party fact-checking services was beyond its scope.
Finally, the OGC considered whether to maintain or discontinue its mandated Candidate Forum before local elections, ultimately voting to keep the forum but adjusting which day it may fall on during the week.
Concerns about public access to information
Benicia city staff also had an opportunity to suggest changes to Benicia’s open government regulations through the OGC’s review process. These revisions were met with more pushback from the OGC than City Council’s requests.
To boost public participation, city staff proposed refining a rule that allows a presiding officer at public meetings to request groups with similar views to appoint a spokesperson and adjust their speaking times for efficiency. However, the OGC suggested that for items with many speakers, a presiding officer should simply encourage groups to appoint a spokesperson by referencing the relevant section of the ordinance.
Staff also requested Benicia’s deadline for response to public records requests be adjusted to the state-mandated 10-day requirement instead of the current 3-day or 5-day requirement, depending on the type of records sought. The OGC concurred with city staff’s suggestion, recommending that the city’s response time to public records act be changed to 10 days.
However, some Benicia residents disagree with extending the deadline.
“Rapid response to public information request is essential for local democracy, because local government operates faster than county or state,” one Benicia resident pointed out. “If Benicia City Council meets twice a month and a decision is dependent on a public records request, responsive documents should be available to the public as quickly as possible so decision makers can meet important deadlines, if necessary. Ten days doesn’t allow for that.”
Public speaking time under threat, confusion about recommendations
Perhaps most controversially, city staff has pushed for a reduction in public comment speaking time at meetings from 5 minutes to 3, claiming it would make meetings more efficient and likely increase public participation. The OGC declined to recommend city staff’s proposed speaking time reduction, citing public pushback and no compelling evidence that shorter speaking times could improve meeting outcomes.
“Cutting the public’s time to be heard by a whopping 40%, especially without any data backing that decision, is a bad look,” one resident said, commending the OGC for not recommending the cutback. “Benicia should consider itself lucky to have engaged citizens, not be looking for ways to get them to pipe down.”
But despite the OGC explicitly declining to change the speaking time limits, the recommendation from city staff still appears in the City Council meeting packet for May 7 under the headline, “OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL (City Attorney’s Office),” causing confusion about which recommendations are coming from city staff and which are coming from the OGC, causing opponents to the change to cry foul.
Residents complained that the relevant agenda item, titled “OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL,” does not clearly and explicitly indicate which recommendations are from staff and which are not in the final presentation of proposed revisions.
“It needs to be clearer,” a resident said. “The way it is written, it is very unclear who is recommending what, and why, and I find that very troubling in an already very complicated discussion about open government.”
Benicia resident Mike Caplan announced the opening of the Benicia Farmer’s Market at the April 16 City Council meeting, leaving the podium after speaking for 40 seconds. Some Benicia residents say the city would be wrong to limit speaking time, especially when most speakers don’t use the full 5 minutes. | Still from April 16, 2024 Benicia City meeting recording.
Open government norms in review
Although the OGC’s proposed revisions to Benicia’s Voluntary Code of Fair Campaign Practices are fine and welcome, the commission fell short of not just devising, but also envisioning a better system to fend off repeat offenders who use misleading or otherwise unfair campaign tactics to exercise outsized influence in our small town elections. Some cities work with their open government commissions to produce mailers and email blasts warning voters of deceptive campaign practices, for just one example of an effective city commission–led response to unfair campaign practices.
Meanwhile, City Council’s decisions on these recommendations this Tuesday will be another signal of how City Council will balance which burdens on city staff are necessary for open, local governance, and which can be dropped to save resources. What shakes out of this meeting will, in essence, show us how City Council will weigh the necessity of economy (Benicia is, after all, experiencing a budget crisis) against the necessity of providing services, including meaningful public participation opportunities, to its community.
This meeting therefore merits careful watching, and perhaps active participation, on the part of Benicia citizens. More information about how to support or oppose these changes is below.
Call to action
The full list of what appear to be staff recommendations under the OGC banner is below and available here:
This document is titled “OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL,” but several of the recommendations in this list do not reflect OGC direction. | From page 9 of the City of Benicia Full Agenda Packet for May 7 meeting.
Benicia activists are asking the community to call, write or show up on Tuesday to oppose changes to:
(2) Amend the City’s Municipal Code to align with state law pertaining to the time to respond to public records act request; and (3) Decrease the amount of time public speakers may address a City public body in open session form 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
If you care about public participation in Benicia one way or the other, there are several ways to get involved, and most of them are quick and easy. Learn more below.
How to write and email a public comment
If you would like to make your opinion on the topic of the proposed revisions known to City Council, members of the public may provide public comment via email to the City Clerk by email at lwolfe@ci.benicia.ca.us. Any comment submitted to the City Clerk should indicate to which item of the agenda the comment relates. (THE PROPOSED REVISIONS ARE IN AGENDA ITEM 22.C – OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL (City Attorney’s Office).)
– Comments received by 2:00 pm on the day of the meeting will be electronically forwarded to the City Council and posted on the City’s website.
– Comments received after 2:00 pm, but before the start time of the meeting will be electronically forwarded to the City Council but will not be posted on the City’s website.
In your email, put the item number in your subject line (e.g., “Public comment re. Item 22.C”).
In your email body, share why you support or oppose the changes.
How to view the meeting and/or make a live public comment
You can participate in the meeting in one of four ways:
1) Attend in person at Council Chambers
2) Cable T.V. Broadcast – Check with your cable provider for your local government broadcast channel.
3) Livestream online at www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas
4) Zoom Meeting (link below)
Use participant option to “raise hand” during the public comment period for the item you wish to speak on. Please note, your electronic device must have microphone capability. Once unmuted, you will have up to 5 minutes to speak.
Dial in with phone:
Before the start of the item you wish to comment on, call any of the numbers below. If one is busy, try the next one.
1 669 900 9128
1 346 248 7799
1 253 215 8782
1 646 558 8656
1 301 715 8592
1 312 626 6799
• Enter the meeting ID number: 885 0804 7557(*please note this is an updated ID number*.)
Say the item you wish to speak on. (AGAIN, THE PROPOSED CHANGES ARE IN ITEM 22.C.)
Once unmuted, you will have up to 5 minutes to speak.
Enter password: 449303
When prompted for a Participant ID, press #.
Press *9 on your phone to “raise your hand” when the Mayor calls for public comment.
Any member of the public who needs accommodations should email City Clerk Lisa Wolfe at lwolfe@ci.benicia.ca.us, who will use her best efforts to provide as much accessibility as possible while also maintaining public safety.
It’s been a long time since a tent was simply a tent. Today, it almost certainly represents an issue, a problem, a population with which society would prefer not to contend.
The tents are unseemly. They need to be. They’re flimsy structures staked on uneven ground surrounded by the stately architecture of the academy, capitalism and power. Their flapping scrims of nylon and plastic clutter up the landscape and serve as a rebuke to the grandiosities of polite society. The tents shame countries, cities and individuals for their failures even when the voices of the activists fall silent, when the chanting stops and the sun sets. The tents are still there.
Most recently, tents have become fundamental to the pro-Palestinian encampments constructed in college yards and on plazas from New York to California. In the nation’s capital, an encampment has taken root on the campus of George Washington University, where a few dozen tents have been pitched on the street and in the courtyard. All of it encompasses a one-block span of downtown Washington over which police officers keep watch with modest interest rather than alarm.
The asphalt has been colorfully chalked with mantras about Palestinian liberation and small placards abound. “Full cease-fire in Gaza now!” “Will you free my Palestine?” “Dismantle the war machine.” A statue of George Washington has been graffitied with accusations of genocide along with the university’s culpability. The life-size sculpture has also been draped in Palestinian flags, its neck wrapped in a kaffiyeh.
But it’s the tents that take up the space. Their presence is a constant, ringing reminder of unrest and anger even when the student activists type quietly on their laptops or softly sing that “Palestine needs our love” or listen in silence as the evening’s schedule is ticked off over a bullhorn. An activist lists their demands for everyone to hear, which mostly means the folks watching and listening and holding microphones and cameras. He doesn’t mention the hostages being held by Hamas. But he wants the university to divest from “all corporate ties to the Zionist state of Israel” and to cancel all trips to “occupied Palestine” for research or study abroad.
Among many things, the use of the word “Zionist” sets off alarms for the many different people who hear it. Is it pure antisemitism? Or is it an attack on the Israeli government, whose senior leaders have expressed concern that the International Criminal Court will issue arrest warrants for them? Is it an assault on the right of Israel to exist? Or is it a demand that it not continue to exist within its current contours and constructs with the Palestinian people?
Tents set up by pro-Palestinian activists at GWU. | Shawn Thew / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock.
For some college presidents, there seems to be a belief that by ripping away the tents and clearing the courtyards, they are also expunging any hate and hurt from their campus — as if antisemitism lives in these makeshift shelters and not in the heart. They demand that the protests be polite, convenient and perfect, or in the words of Princeton University’s president, that the protests adhere to “time, place and manner” regulations. They call police to make arrests. They suspend students and declare them trespassers on their own campus. But the very meaning of a protest is to disrupt the status quo, to bring thoughtless momentum to a halt, to underscore precisely how imperfect the world really is.
On college campuses, the tents represent one of many truths. In addition to the savagery of Hamas on Oct. 7, along with the cruel holding of hostages, alongside the shames of antisemitism and Islamaphobia, Palestinian civilians are being killed by the thousands.
The tents are always telling us something that we don’t want to hear.
The tents of the homeless fill parks, clutter walkways and sprout in the shadow of freeway overpasses. So leaders of western states across the political divide have gone to the Supreme Court to have those tents declared illegal. Under current law, they can’t just summarily clear the tents if those who are living in them have nowhere else to go, if there are no beds at a shelter in their city. Officials in Grants Pass, Ore., don’t want homeless camps on their streets or in their parks. But asking the Supreme Court to allow them to remove the tents doesn’t remove the problem; it doesn’t make a weak social safety net any stronger.
The activists who settled into New York’s Zuccotti Park back in 2011 drew attention to income inequality, joblessness and the outsize political influence of financial firms. Occupy Wall Street spread from Manhattan across the country and around the world. The protesters marched and rallied but mostly what they were remembered for was rolling out their sleeping bags and setting up tented tarps and creating their own little squatters camp in the midst of capitalism’s Emerald City. They werebelittled as jealous of the success of others, as anti-capitalist and as vaguely un-American.
Under a freeway overpass hundreds of people live in a homeless encampment under a freeway overpass in San Diego in 2023. | Melina Mara / The Washington Post.
In the midst of a city where money is considered the great equalizer, the men and women who slept outside under bright blue tarps through rain, wind and even a nor’easter were an insistent reminder of a society turned ugly and heartless for a cash payout.
And for more than 30 years, there was a lone tent in Lafayette Square, across from the White House. To be fair, it was really just a facsimile of a tent — an enormous umbrella and pieces of plastic sheeting — because actual tents are illegal. It was a singular place where a woman sat 24-hour vigil — aided by those who relieved her — in protest of nuclear proliferation. Concepción Picciotto was the woman who grew old sitting in that makeshift tent, handing out leaflets to advance her cause, being ignored, ridiculed and admired. She carried on until her death in 2016 because her cause proved just as stubborn as she was.
The tents house the people we don’t want to see. These humble structures that sit low in the valleys between skyscrapers and monuments, remind us of inequality, of the unpredictability of unfairness, of the ways in which capitalism and the American Dream don’t work. They represent one immoral truth out of many.
And whether leaders criminalize them, bulldoze them or ridicule them doesn’t matter. The problems endure because the problem is never the tent.
Several demonstrators at UCLA’s camp’s destruction defied orders to disperse, armed with only hard hats and umbrellas. | Getty Images.
Months before becoming the first public official to endorse California Forever, Vacaville Vice Mayor Greg Ritchie filed two “Doing Business As” names for his home loan company, Citizens Financial.
The real estate license for Ritchie, who endorsed the project on Tuesday, indicates that he filed “California Forever Home Loans” and “California Forever Homes” as DBAs for his business in January of this year. A website URL registered as www.californiaforeverhomeloans.com exists, but now redirects to a message from Ritchie.
Documentation of the DBAs, as well as criticism of Ritchie’s decision to file them, surfaced on social media Tuesday evening, intensifying pre-existing backlash toward the vice mayor’s decision to announce support for the development company.
Ritchie said he filed the DBAs in January because he believes in the project’s goals and thinks it will have a positive impact on Solano County. While he said he “wholeheartedly understood” some of the concerns and frustration about the issue, he said his business will be interested in helping people access the downpayment assistance that California Forever has promised to provide.
“I want to make one thing crystal clear — neither my company nor myself have any economic relationship or interest in California Forever,” Ritchie wrote on the site. “I have also not received any donations or political contributions for my endorsement. My endorsement was given purely based on my professional and personal belief that this is a good project that will help thousands of Solano families reach the dream of homeownership.”
A major concern for Ritchie is the lack of affordable housing options available to Travis Air Force Base service members in the immediate area around the base, and he believes California Forever’s new community could go a long way to solving that issue for Solano County.
This is not the first time that Ritchie has faced backlash over a DBA. He faced criticism over his “The Badge’s Broker” DBA during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. He said at that time, he refused to remove the DBA because he did not want to play into tribalism.
“I chose to take the road less traveled and go down that road and stay strong,” he said.
Ritchie said he is particularly excited about the downpayment assistance that the plan could provide. Citizens Financial connects people to funding for downpayment regularly, Ritchie said, and he looks forward to helping more people if the initiative is passed. He described the lack of access to capital for a downpayment as the “Achilles Heel” of housing in California and described himself as a subject matter expert in providing that funding.
“I have proved myself for over a decade that whoever works for my company, they actually care,” he said.
Ritchie noted that refusing to provide home loans based on where someone would be living is illegal under federal law.
“Like many Solano County small business owners, Greg Ritchie sees the potential of the East Solano Plan to help the thousands of working families who are struggling to purchase their own homes,” California Forever Campaign Manager Matt Rodriguez said. “His endorsement is solely based on the merits of the East Solano Plan and we greatly appreciate his support.”
Rodriguez said he was disappointed by the “bullying” of fellow Solano County residents and business owners he has seen toward those who support the initiative. As the campaign moves forward, he said he hopes for “collaborative and respectful dialogue.”
“We look forward to more folks learning about the Homes For All guarantee of $400 million in downpayment assistance and how it can meaningfully improve the wellbeing of this great community,” he said.
[Note from BenIndy Contributor Roger Straw – I was a student protester during the anti-Vietnam-war movement, a young professional during the anti-apartheid movement in the U.S., and a protester here in Benicia against George W. Bush’s trumped up war against Iraq. War is almost NEVER a way to peace. Will Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza and the failure of Israel’s government to move toward a two-state solution generate the next massive peace movement here and around the world? Maybe so, maybe rightly so. Bernie Sanders made a good point this week, defending activists against charges of antisemitism – see below. The world is crying out for innocents in Gaza who are starving and whose homes, hospitals and cities are in ruins. The death count is now over 34,000! The United States MUST stand up to the Israeli Prime Minister, and I would encourage all of us to join in the widespread call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire. Yes, of course the hostages must be freed. And yes, Bibi, I am not an anti-Semite. – Roger]
US senator says Israeli prime minister is using antisemitism to distract attention from ‘extremist and racist government’ policies
Bernie Sanders speaks with reporters on 23 April 2024. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
Bernie Sanders has hit back fiercely at Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli prime minister’s claim that US universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany.
In a video posted on X, the progressive senator from Vermont – who is Jewish – accused Netanyahu of “insult[ing] the intelligence of the American people” by using antisemitism to distract attention from the policies of his “extremist and racist government” in the military offensive in Gaza.
“No Mr Netanyahu, it is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that, in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed over 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 78,000, 70% of whom are women and children,” Sanders said.
The two-and-a-half minute video listed a catalogue of further consequences of the war in the Palestinian coastal territory, including the destruction of infrastructure, hospitals, universities and schools, along with the killing of more than 400 health workers.
Sanders, who sponsored an unsuccessful Senate bill in January to make US aid to Israel conditional on its observance of human rights and international law, said Netanyahu’s government had unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, causing “thousands of children [to] face malnutrition and famine”.
In a blistering conclusion, he said: “Mr Netanyahu, antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people.
“But please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal policies of your extremist and racist government. … It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions.”
Mr. Netanyahu, antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to millions.
Do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government.
Sanders’ comments were a riposte to a video posted on social media by Netanyahu in which he waded in to protests sweeping American university campuses and claimed not enough was being done to combat a “horrific” rise in antisemitism.
“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” Netanyahu said. “They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.
“It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally, but that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now fortunately, state, federal and local officials, many of them, have responded differently. But there has to be more.”
Netanyahu’s comments came against the backdrop of police deployments to break up pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and numerous other US campuses. In some universities, faculty members have been arrested, including the chair of the philosophy department and a professor of English and Indigenous studies at Emory University in Atlanta.
Jewish students have reported feeling threatened by the protests and heated atmosphere that followed Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, resulting in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of more than 200 others.
Videos posted on social media have depicted anti-Israel protesters shouting “go back to Poland” and “go back to Belarus”, apparently at Jewish students. A congressional hearing earlier in April into a reported upsurge of antisemitism at Columbia heard allegations that Jewish students had been subjected to taunts of “F the Jews”.
Last October’s attack triggered an overwhelming and continuing Israeli military response that has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza – and led to a burgeoning humanitarian disaster, accompanied by accusations that Israel is committing “genocide”.
In his video, Netanyahu said Israel was being “falsely accused” of genocide and called it part of an “antisemitic surge”.
“Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists who hide behind civilians,” he said. “Yet it is Israel that is falsely accused of genocide. Israel that is falsely accused of starvation and sundry war crimes. It’s all one big libel.
“But that’s not new. We’ve seen in history that antisemitic attacks were always preceded by vilification and slander.”
The Joe Biden White House, while resisting pressure to condition or limit weapon supplies to Israel, has voiced frustration over its resistance to allowing more humanitarian aid freely into Gaza and roundly criticised the recent strikes that killed seven workers from celebrity chef Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen charity.
Protests on campuses across the US continued on Saturday, with some protesting student bodies and universities locked in a standoff that saw demonstrators vowing to keep their movements going at the same time as college authorities moved to close down the encampments.
Police in riot gear cleared protest tents on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston, while students shouted and jeered at them, the Associated Press reported. The university said the protest had been “infiltrated by professional organisers” with no connection to the institution, while some demonstrators had used antisemitic slurs.
The picture of campus antisemitism run amok was lent further credence by Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and ex-US treasury secretary, who accused authorities at his former university of failing to act decisively against protesters occupying Harvard Yard.
“This is the predictable culmination of the Harvard Corporation’s failure to effectively address issues of prejudice and breakdowns of order on our campus,” he posted on X. “There can be no question that Harvard is practicing an ongoing double standard on discrimination between racism, misogyny and antisemitism.”
His comments provoked a sharp response from critics of Israel. “Your efforts to portray student demonstrators challenging Israel’s genocidal actions as ‘antisemitic’ are cheap & disingenuous,” wrote Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn). “These students should be commended for their courage & compassion, risking suspension & smears (like yours), to fight the most heinous crimes underway in Gaza.”
See earlier posts about the Israeli/Hamas war on BenIndy:
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