Yaroslavsky bristles at criticism over his public comments plan

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky isn't a fan of the coverage of his proposal to cut back on the amount of time wasted listening to the same gadflies at Board of Supervisors meetings. And he really didn't care for the Los Angeles Times story about it this past weekend. From his blog:

Unfortunately, much of that discussion has lacked balance, context and, at times, accuracy, thus serving mostly to misinform people about what I’d hoped to achieve upon becoming the board’s chairman in December. As a result, the prevailing narrative has become this: we on the Board of Supervisors believe that when it comes to our meetings, the public should be neither seen nor heard.

The most recent example of this was a lengthy story in Saturday’s Los Angeles Times. Appearing on the front page, it flatly and wrongly asserted that I think “members of the public talk too much” and mischaracterized fundamental elements of the proposal. Inexplicably, I was never asked for my comment, even though the piece was aimed squarely at me. Had I been asked to do so, readers would have come away with a fuller understanding of the issue.

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Take it from me, you can’t trust everything you read.