The city of Beaumont voted to approve amendments to the city charter to be on the ballot for a special election in November during its Aug. 15 meeting.
Beaumont Enterprise
Courtney Pedersen, Staff writer
Why this matters: Beaumont community members will have fewer opportunities to address their City Council in 2024.
A local city council will meet nearly half as often this year.
During its Tuesday meeting, the Beaumont City Council approved a 2024 meeting schedule in which it meets largely bi-weekly — down almost half to previous years' weekly meetings. The calendar was approved 5-2, with Ward III Council member Audwin Samuel and Ward IV Council member Chris Durio voting against.
The move to decrease the meetings' frequency comes after a recent charter change that longer requires council meetings to be held weekly. Community members in November voted 85.24% in support of a proposition, which amended the charter to say “The Council hold such monthly meetings as necessary to efficiently conduct the affairs of the City” rather than “shall meet at regular meetings each week unless postponed for valid reasons.”
The council in February will start meeting at 1:30 p.m. the first and third Tuesday of each month, with a 5:30 p.m. meeting on the fifth Tuesday if applicable. The last meeting of this month will be held on Jan. 23.
At-Large Council member AJ Turner expressed concern that the new schedule has a few meetings the day before or after a city holiday, including Feb. 20 after President’s Day, June 18 before Juneteenth and Sept. 3 after Labor Day.
“I just want council to consider we have staff that have to prepare for these meetings and holidays they often take off,” Turner said. “I think this is opportunity to kind of show a little appreciation to our staff, so they can be better prepared for our meetings. So, my recommendation was to move the Feb. 20 meeting, which is the day after to Feb. 27 the following week.”
Beaumont City Manager Kenneth Williams thanked Turner for his concern, but mentioned that council has new and easy way to prepare agendas.
“In the past, we’ve stayed away from days before or after (holidays) for council meetings,” Williams said. “Now we have a new agenda preparation system, which allows us to get it done quicker and easier and it takes less planning than it did in the past. It does impact if someone’s traveling the day before or after for sure but (with this new automated agenda system), we can get it done in a matter of hours now.”
Ward III Council member Audwin Samuel also expressed concern about getting community members out to the meetings if they’re at varying times.
“I can understand we don’t need to have a meeting just to have a meeting, but, for some people, the knowledge of just getting into the habit of knowing when there’s a council meeting would be to their benefit,” Samuel said. “It’s not for our convenience, we’ve had come to meetings before Christmas, after Christmas, other holidays, so for me that comes with the territory. So, it’s what’s best to get the most people here and if people don’t know, is this one of those days that they don’t have a meeting?”