Monday night, March 2, the Development Oversight Commission (DOC) will hold their monthly meeting and the proposal to eliminate the Design Review Commission will be on their agenda (see agenda here: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/meetings/commissions/development-oversight/2008/DOC_Agenda_3-2-09.cfm). This article will examine this agenda item and a few others of interest to the Neighborhood Efficiency, Accountability and Transparency (NEAT) Coalition (http://tinyurl.com/cdjkyy). The DOC rarely has attendance of the citizenry of Sacramento at their meetings and would likely benefit from voices and advice of the community and neighborhoods. Please consider spending a couple hours with

 A huge win for open government and citizen participation! At their meeting yesterday, the City Council sent a clear message that the community still has a place in the City’s development oversight and that any possible changes to those processes will be fully vetted and discussed in a public forum. Facing an agenda item to provide direction to begin work on a Development Oversight Commission (DOC) recommended ordinance to eliminate the Design Review Commission and move most development approval decision-making to the staff level, four heroic council-members demanded that in our quest for efficient government we do not infringe on the rights of our citizens to participate in our public i