SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Clerk Amasses ABCs of Official Lingo

City business is becoming more user-friendly, now that the city clerk’s office has compiled a list of guidelines and definitions to help the public decipher complicated government lingo.

Starting this week, the list will be attached to every City Council agenda, said City Clerk Mary Ann Hanover.

The guidelines cover two sides of a single page. One side offers advice on how and when the public may speak during a council meeting. The other side deciphers an alphabet soup of initials associated with planning documents.

It also gives the reader government-oriented definitions that sometimes alter the common meaning of words.

For example, the guide sheet tells the reader that “resolution” is not something you promise yourself on New Year’s Day, but rather a formal expression of council opinion. A “motion” is not a physical movement; it is a proposal for a vote.

“We want to try to make things understandable to the public,” Hanover said. “It’s only fair.

“Who really knows what a closed session is?” she added, noting the long list of obscure words spoken by bureaucrats. “We could talk for a month and nobody would know what we were saying.”