By Matthew Hirsch

The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Nov. 23 rejected a proposal to limit its public hearings to 30 minutes, a move task force chair Garrett Jenkins said would have helped meetings run more efficiently and increase accessibility to the public. The task force already sets aside a half hour to hear citizen complaints, but the complaint hearings routinely exceed the time limit, sometimes by an hour or more.

The rule change would have shortened the length of the monthly meetings, which begin at 4 p.m. and carry on well into the evening. But the task force dropped the proposal without a vote for lack of support.

"We were not sent here to watch our watches," task force member Doug Comstock said at the meeting. Comstock said it's more important to thoroughly investigate and resolve sunshine complaints. Slapping time constraints on public hearings, he said, would be counterproductive.

Later in the meeting the task force fell one vote short of the margin needed to penalize the San Francisco Public Library for its handling of library watchdog Peter Warfield's latest flurry of requests for information about workplace injuries at the library. Task force members David Pilpel, Heather Sterner, and Jenkins sided with the library, but new task force member Rosalina Contreras-Rosado – the potential deciding vote – had to leave before the votes were cast.

E-mail Matthew Hirsch at matthew@sfbg.com.