TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Bruce Moe, City Manager
FROM:
Liza Tamura, City Clerk
Quinn Barrow, City Attorney
George Gabriel, Management Analyst
SUBJECT:Title
Consideration of Resolution No. 18-0028 Amending the City’s Meeting Management Resolution to Clarify the Public Comment Rules During City Council Meetings (City Clerk Tamura).
ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 18-0028
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
The ad-hoc Meeting Management Subcommittee and staff recommend that the City Council adopt Resolution No. 18-0028 amending and restating the Rules of Order for the conduct of City Council meetings.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
No fiscal implications associated with the recommended action.
BACKGROUND:
Public comment rules are established by the City’s Rules of Order for the conduct of City Council meetings and City Council Resolution. The resolution is typically referred to as the “Meeting Management” resolution. The City Council has periodically refined the Meeting Management Resolution to serve the dual goals of allowing the public ample opportunity to speak and efficiently conducting City Council meetings.
At the October 17, 2017 City Council meeting, Councilmember Montgomery and then Mayor Lesser requested that the Meeting Management Resolution be revisited for the purpose of discussing whether a person may speak twice on the same item (once during public comment and then later during the meeting when the Council considers a specific item).
At the December 19, 2017 City Council meeting, City Council directed staff to amend the meeting management resolution with concise language clarifying that that speakers may talk for up to three minutes during Public Comment, up to three minutes during Public Hearing items, and up to two minutes during General Business items. Additionally, Councilmember Hersman and Councilmember Lesser were appointed to simplify the language in the proposed resolution to be more concise.
DISCUSSION:
Pursuant to City Council direction, the following changes to the Meeting Management Resolution have been drafted:
As shown on the attached Legislative Digest, the proposed revisions are:
1. Deletion of Subsection B of Section 3.
a. For the most part, Subsection 3B was redundant. Other parts of the Resolution repeated the language in more concise language. Specifically, language was placed in Section 4 regarding public hearings, community organization announcements, and Public Comment.
2. Clarified time restrictions within Public Comment, Public Hearing, and General Business sections of agenda.
a. Language was added directly following each subsection that states the time restrictions. This template is repeated for the public hearing and general business sections.
3. Added Mayoral discretion to public comment opportunity sections of the agenda.
a. The resolution states at all public opportunity sections, “Unless a majority of the Council objects, the Mayor may provide to speakers more or less time to speak.”
In addition, the Subcommittee: (a) updated citations; (b) updated the Resolution to conform with the current Council meeting agenda; (c) cleaned up language; and (d) reconciled differences between the Resolution and the Agenda to make them consistent. In addition, there were other non-substantive changes not reflected in the Legislative Digest.
Staff recommends the City Council adopt Resolution No. 18-0028 amending and restating the rules of order for the conduct of City Council meetings.
LEGAL REVIEW
The City Attorney has reviewed this report and opined that the procedural rules in the draft Resolution fully comply with the Brown Act and exceed the minimum requirements of the Brown Act.
Attachments:
1. Resolution No. 18-0028
2. Resolution No. 18-0028 (Legislative Digest)