The Monterey City Council will consider changes to the appointment processes of several boards and commissions in addition potentially consolidating boards in this week’s meeting.
During last week’s meeting, the council reviewed a staff report requesting guidance on three issues: revamping the appointments process for boards, commissions and committees, merging the Architectural Review Committee with the Planning Commission, and combining the Historic Preservation Commission with the Museums and Cultural Arts Commission.
The current system, where the mayor conducts interviews and nominates appointees, while the full council formally appoints them, has drawn criticism for its lack of transparency. Council members requested a wider, more public process, advocating for interviews conducted by multiple council members and open to the public.
City staff will present the council with multiple options including having a mixed subcommittee, individual council member nominations and leaving the process as is.
Council members are expected to direct staff on which appointment process and consolidation strategies they favor. Following that, city staff’s will create revised governance policies or draft ordinances that will be brought back for a final vote.
The council is also poised to issue a formal apology to the Indigenous residents of Dutra Street and their descendants, acknowledging the city’s role in historic injustices, including forced displacement and erasure of cultural heritage.
The resolution, continued from the June 3 council meeting, comes after extensive staff research into the city’s legacy of development-driven displacements — most notably the 1959 construction of the Monterey Police and Fire Public Safety Complex on land previously inhabited by a tight-knit Indigenous community.
“This proclamation is a long-overdue recognition of the harm caused to the original stewards of this land,” said Brian Edwards, the city’s Library and Museums Director, in the staff report.
For centuries, Indigenous tribes like the Rumsen and Esselen lived and thrived in the Monterey Peninsula. But their history has often been sidelined.
According to city research, the Dutra Street neighborhood — once home to families of Indigenous and Californio descent — was a living cultural site until the city approved Measure A in 1956. That vote authorized the use of $350,000 in bond funds to acquire the land for the new civic center. By 1959, homes were demolished, residents were displaced without alternative housing and the communal village was effectively erased. Compensation varied widely, with no regard for the cultural or communal value of the land.
The Monterey City Council will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday, at Monterey City Hall, 580 Pacific St. The meeting can be streamed online and via Zoom at https://monterey-org.zoomgov.com/j/1607729333.
