The Los Gatos Town Council voted at its Dec. 17 meeting to approve a system for excused and unexcused absences for town commissioners to allow them to attend to personal needs without being removed from their commissions.
The unanimous vote also set a two-hour limit on all commission meetings except for the planning and heritage preservation commissions and cancels all commission meetings during July–when the council usually also takes a recess–but allows for the possibility of a special meeting to be called during that month.
The changes came about as a result of questions raised earlier this year about the equity of meeting attendance requirements, which varied across each commission. It also raised questions about other policies, including a lack of flexibility for commission members who must miss meetings due to an illness.
Council members initially disagreed on the circumstances in which commission members could take excused absences. The proposed policy changes defined excused absences as only applying to a medical emergency, death or caregiving needs for a commissioner’s direct family, but Vice Mayor Rob Moore said just limiting the policy to direct family would be “a bit old-fashioned.”
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“I think that ‘family member or loved one’ would be better than dictating that it has to be a spouse, domestic partner, parent, child, sibling or dependent, because that excludes grandparents, girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends,” he said. “If any of those people in my life passed away or needed caregiving, I would want to be able to take care of them without having to think about other responsibilities.”
Moore and Mayor Matthew Hudes appeared to initially disagree on the change, expressing concern about how a commission could objectively evaluate a member’s request for an excused absence to care for a loved one.
But Moore’s proposal eventually passed unanimously, after Hudes said he was willing to give the changes a try.
“We’re not creating a legal document, and my goodness, we’re talking about attendance on a voluntary commission,” council member Maria Ristow said.
