Starting Jan. 6 Chula Vista City Council meetings will start at 4 p.m., two hours later than previously scheduled.
The plan is for council to hold special orders of the day and discuss the consent calendar from 4 to 6 p.m., with public comment, business items, hearings and items pulled from the consent calendar beginning at 6 p.m.
Council members unanimously approved the time change Tuesday after much discussion.
Mayor Mary Casillas Salas said in her time as a councilwoman she had heard complaints from residents about not being able to make it to council meetings that were scheduled in the middle of the day
“I’ve gotten so many emails over the past two years that I’ve returned to the council saying that the time of the council meetings was not a good way to involve the public and there’s been a lot of requests that we move the meetings back to a start time of 6 p.m.,” she said.
Salas proposed a 5 p.m. start for all council meetings but that was changed when other councilmembers voiced their concerns. She also suggested to limit presentations for special orders to 10 minutes.
Newly appointed Deputy Mayor Pamela Bensoussan remembered the toll late nights would take on families.
“Sometimes the items they wanted to speak on didn’t come up until 9, 10 o’clock in the evening,” Bensoussan said.
“So the idea of starting at a time that is convenient for everybody sometimes doesn’t always work out if the item that people want to speak to are here several hours later.”
During former mayor Cheryl Cox’s first term she had council meetings start at 4 p.m. before permanently moving them to 2 p.m. Tuesday.
