Lack of Democratic Processes in Newark

Some time ago the city moved the comments section on non-agenda items to the end of the meeting. It seems that the few minute time limit had not been successful in keeping unpopular comments out of the meetings. Unfortunately, unpopular comments are important in a Republic.

It is very clear that the public meetings are simply a show for the public. For years on end, the council lacks a single dissenting vote on any issue at any meeting. Obviously, they have been prepped by staff, and informally met beforehand to determine the issues. The Brown Act does not approve of such behavior.

Cities that have relied too heavily on staff, and lacked council members who investigated for themselves have found themselves in various forms of trouble. In fact, the phenomenon is so well known that more than one doctoral dissertation has covered the fact. Generally cronyism and subsidies tend to creep in until someone gets caught lining their own nest.

According to one academic researcher I spoke with, Newark has several factors that make it prone to issues in city government - an apparent overreliance on staff and private informal sessions, and a low education level among the general public. The general public in such cases tends to not question authority figures, does not delve deeply into policy, and assumes that a pleasant personality means honesty and competence. This means that the public fails in their watchdog responsibilities. Newark ranks 492nd among California cities for percentage of the population with a Bachelor's degree. (Fremont is 249th, Union City is 265th, Milpitas is 290th - we do outrank Hayward at 567th.) The statistic are worse for higher levels of education.