The Buellton City Council approved moving its meetings to Mondays from Thursdays in a 3-2 vote at last week’s meeting.
The meetings will now take place on the second and fourth Mondays of each month.
City Manager Scott Wolfe said the reason for the change is related to the “number of instances” of insufficient quorums at council meetings because of members frequently attending conferences, such as the City Leaders Summit and the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority.
Additionally, Wolfe said Monday meetings have a “slight benefit” for staff, given they have their staff meetings on Tuesday mornings and produce council meeting packets by Friday, which would give the following off week to allow council members to review the packet before the next meeting.
Councilman Hudson Hornick questioned whether staff had accounted for meetings missed for holidays as opposed to conferences. While Wolfe said the only holiday to directly clash with a Monday meeting would be Memorial Day, Councilman John Sanchez asked about holidays that take place over the weekend and in turn have the Monday off.
In response, Wolfe noted the Fourth of July being in the first week of July, therefore not conflicting with council meetings; however, he said “there may be others.”
Hornick raised additional concerns regarding public awareness. He argued that switching the meeting times may lead to less engagement from the public.
“The only concern I really have about this is public awareness. It’s hard enough to get public engagement. They know it’s been Thursdays for a long time. Changing it would just kind of throw a wrench [in it],” Hornick said. “I think that what we miss when we cancel [for] one or two conferences a year, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me.”
Councilwoman Elysia Lewis admitted that “selfishly, by Thursday of every week, I’m exhausted” and would prefer to hold meetings at the beginning of the week.
However, she said she shares the same concerns regarding public awareness and engagement.
Mayor David Silva said that in comparing cities in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura County, the majority of meetings take place at the beginning of the week and that “there’s a reason for that.”
“I think that this would get us better in alignment with the workflow of how every government agency is moving things along,” Silva said.
Silva also sits on the California Air Resources Board, which meets on the fourth Thursday of every month.
While Hornick posed starting the change in 2027 to match the next election cycle, Silva said he’d prefer to make the change now because of the lack of a second July meeting, meaning there’s a “baked-in 30-day notice.”
The resolution to change council meeting days was approved in a 3-2 vote. Hornick and Sanchez voted against the change, and Silva, Carla Mead and Lewis supported it.
The next Buellton City Council meeting is scheduled for Aug. 10.
Buellton council meetings will now take place during the same time as Solvang City Council meetings.
