The October 3, 2023, meeting of the city council was rather unusual in that several staff proposed items were rejected but not by unanimous decision in every case.  Action started when Councilman Thom Bogue pulled a $33,000 gate project from the consent calendar.  Bogue provided photos of the gate in question, a gate guarding farmland used for overflow purposes at the sewer plant south of town but across the street from the actual sewer plant, and those looked quite different from what was described in the staff report.

Supposedly this thirty-year-old gate was rusting and sagging while the barbed wire south of the gate also was in need of repair.  In the photos, the wire was taut, and the gate showed only minimal rust at its apex.

Mayor Steve Bird argued for replacing the gate but didn’t explain how an electronic gate with codes given to various agencies would not be accessible or controlled once those codes were given out.  According to Bird, other police agencies needed entry capabilities to access the police shooting range on that property.  The only problem with this logic is the range is not on this property but on the sewer plant acreage instead.  All of this failed to change the mayor’s mind as he still voted in favor of replacing the gate.

The next item also raised concern from Bogue.  This was a passed first reading of an ordinance designed to raise city manager Jim Lindley’s purchasing authority from $25,000 to $100,000 without council approval.  Lindley’s explanation of expediency for “pass through” payments to developers carried some weight as this was the only part of this ordinance which could find support.

Perhaps it was a member of the public pointing out that the $33,000 for the electronic gate would have been a done deal with this ordinance in place.  Other updates to certain State codes were postponed by this action.  Councilman Kevin Johnson expressed his concern about “feeling uneasy” given input from his constituents.  The final vote was to allow only the pass through amounts up to $100,000 and it passed 3 to 2 with Bird and Ernest again dissenting as they had done over the gate.

A final item was on eliminating Zoom participation by the public and only allowing staff to participate remotely.  While teleconferencing rules are still intact for councilmen, this only allows the public to participate at the same location from where the council person is calling in.

Reference was made to a Sacramento council meeting where alleged Neo Nazis had called in to disrupt the meeting.  Research by the Informer’s staff found that the Central Valley town of Ceres, where Dixon’s city attorney’s firm also is employed, experienced something similar.  However, in Dixon, the city clerk controls when a speaker may speak, and the mayor has the ability to stop a person if he or she is off topic or not speaking on something within the purview of the city council to act.  Neither the mayor or the city council as a body has the ability to prevent speech which they find offensive or objectionable.

As Dixon has not experienced any problems in this regard, the attempt at eliminating Zoom was again rejected unanimously.  This is the second such attempt.  The first time the city attorney had concerns about cost and participation.  Councilman Jim Ernest stated that since they were trying to encourage people to participate, this would be the wrong action to take.