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At a City Council meeting in 2009 | Photo by current events via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
He warned them nearly nine months ago and last Tuesday, L.A. City Council President finally took them on his promise.
"We have an obligation to be here at 10 o'clock on meeting days," Garetti said about canceling the meeting around 10:20 a.m., when there still were not enough present members to legally conduct a meeting. "We leave the public waiting and it is the wrong message to send. It's a violation of our rules and we shouldn't ask the public to waste their time."
14 members were supposed to be present -- Jan Perry was excused -- and 10 are needed for a quorum. Those who didn't show were Janice Hahn, Bill Rosendahl, Tony Cardenas, Jose Huizar and Paul Koretz, according to the Daily Breeze. Rosendahl and Koretz said they were stuck in traffic.
"The council's lax attitude toward timeliness shows an implicit disrespect for the people the City Council is supposed to serve. It says to the men and women who take time off work, travel to City Hall and sit for hours waiting to speak to their city leaders, 'My time is more valuable than yours.' It's not," opined the Daily News in an editorial on Thursday. "Tardiness is but one symptom of a troubled political leadership.Yet, it's an easy place to start if L.A.'s leaders want to make city government more effective, more accountable and more responsive to people."
Although there wasn't a quorum at today's 10 a.m. meeting, it still began on time. On Fridays, the City Council begins meetings with presentations and proclamations.