DANA POINT : City Council Repeals Curfew for Meetings

City Councilman Mike Eggers says he can see them coming: more of those late-night council meetings that have been known to extend to 3 a.m.

Eggers, a former newspaper editor with 25 years of council-watching to his credit, watched in dismay this week as three of his four fellow council members voted to repeal the 11 p.m. council meeting curfew.

“You have to be careful in council meetings if you don’t have a cutoff time,” Eggers said. “Councils tend to fill the space that is there. If you have one hour to vote on an item, it will take one hour. But if you have three hours, it will take three hours.”

The repeal came only five weeks after the council, which has been seeking a way to prevent its meetings from lasting into the wee hours of the night, voted to start the meetings earlier, at 5:30 p.m. instead of 7 p.m.

Councilwoman Eileen Krause cast the other dissenting vote.

“We just started with the earlier meetings. Why not give that a chance?” Krause said.

“My concern is that if it gets too late, we’re not at our best to make decisions. Which is worse: having someone come back another day or making a bad decision?”

Under the old rules, four of the council’s five members were required to approve continuing the meeting beyond the 11 p.m. deadline, a vote that had often occurred in the city’s young history.

But Mayor Bill Bamattre, who asked for the curfew repeal, said it was only for more flexibility.