COSTA MESA : Mayor Cutting Off All-Night Meetings

No longer will City Council members see the sun rise as they leave their chambers after another notoriously long meeting begun the night before. The all-night vigils have come to an end.

Mayor Mary Hornbuckle has decided to stop meetings that threaten to go on forever after hearing complaints from council members tired of going to work with little or no sleep.

Under former Mayor Peter F. Buffa, council meetings, especially when controversial matters were on the agenda, lasted until as late as 5 a.m. Now, meetings begun at 6:30 p.m. every first and third Monday of the month will be continued the following evening to address leftover items.

With that threat looming, discussions were shorter at this week’s meeting. Council members finished shortly after midnight, went into executive session and concluded at 12:30 a.m.

“The last meeting when we went until 3 a.m. really convinced me that we should not do that,” Hornbuckle said.

Councilman Ed Glasgow made a habit of quietly leaving the chambers at midnight and became the target of a proposed ordinance to force council members to stay the entire time, but it was dropped.

The council has a reputation of allowing its meetings to run much longer than sessions of most other councils. At a recent meeting, a speaker told council members that he didn’t want to take too much of their time in case they wanted to rush home to catch a television show.

Buffa quipped: “The only television show this council rushes home to is the ‘Today’ show,” a morning program.