Two weeks from today, on November 4, while Seattle's political class gets drunk at election parties, 28 members of Mayor Ed Murray's Housing Affordability Committee will be having the time of their lives discussing linkage fees (minus the sideboob), microhousing, rent control, and a zillion other riveting facets of housing policies.

It's going to be awesome! They're totally not going to be distracted by election results streaming into their smartphones over the intertubes (perhaps co-chairs David Wertheimer, of the Gates Foundation, and Faith Pettis, of Pacifica Law group, will kindly ask them to turn those off).

Sound like a fun time? Want to participate in the meeting itself? Guess what? You can't! "The initial meetings of the advisory group will be private," says mayoral spokesperson Jason Kelly. "There will be an opportunity for the public to participate in open hearings as the process unfolds."

Okay! But if you're champing at the bit to vent about how your weird landlord raised your rent this year, well, those public meetings are yet to be scheduled. According to the mayor's office, there will be three of them some time in late November or early December, as well as a webpage designed to solicit citizen feedback.

And unlike with past stakeholder committees on the minimum wage and rideshare rules, the housing affordability committee's co-chairs will make themselves available to the press after each meeting, says Murray's communications director, Jeff Reading. Those availabilities are meant to "balance the need for a confidential and candid environment for stakeholders with public interest and desire to know what's going on," he says. That sounds like an improvement to the process. The Nov. 4 meeting takes place at City Hall.