I do not support eliminating seats from the City Council.  Here are a few reasons why:​

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-The City Council is a volunteer position.  Reducing the number of council members will not  save us any money and will make the council less productive.  It will require more boards, commissions, and outside agency responsibilities for fewer, remaining volunteers, adding work and giving them less flexibility with their own obligations. 
 

-If long council meetings are the issue, let's remove the unnecessary topics and turn them over to the city manager and staff for resolution.  The council agendas need to be streamlined and only items that warrant a place on the agenda should be added.  I also believe the council meetings shouldn’t go past 10:00 PM  (I attended one that didn’t end until 11:24 PM).  This is not a transparent process as it keeps working families from being able to attend.  To reduce meeting lengths, I would support an additional meeting in months where the agenda is too full to be completed by 10:00 PM
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-Reducing the number of council members to five will result in additional delays and backlogs. We have seen times where the City Council had three people missing from a scheduled council meeting.  Had this been a five- person council, there wouldn’t have been a quorum and the meeting would have been postponed.  Additionally, the Brown Act limits each subcommittee of a five-person council to no more than two members. That puts an undue burden on a small group of people for all the research and reporting required. 
 

-Making the council smaller could lead to extremist wings taking over the city.  This looks like a power grab and I believe it is dangerous for the long-term health of our city.

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-Having less representation could lead to less diversity.  A diversity of opinions is always better and leads to more collaboration.  We need to find equitable solutions that work for more people.