TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
Mark Danaj, City Manager
FROM:
Liza Tamura, City Clerk
Quinn M. Barrow, City Attorney
SUBJECT:Title
Revised City Council Meeting Management Rules (City Clerk Tamura).
ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 16-0049
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council adopt Resolution No. 16-0049 revising City Council meeting management rules to provide greater opportunities for public comment.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
There are no fiscal implications associated with the recommended action.
BACKGROUND:
At the June 21, 2016 Regular City Council meeting, City Council directed staff to return with a revised resolution regarding the meeting management rules for City Council meetings.
DISCUSSION
As shown in the Legislative Digest, the resolution has the following changes:
1. Council meetings must end by 11:30 p.m.
2. The public may speak for up to three minutes per matter, up to a total of six minutes if a speaker wants to comment on more than one matter.
3. With respect to non-public hearing agenda items, speakers may provide their comments during “Public Comment” or at the time the agenda item is being considered.
4. With respect to public hearing agenda items, speakers will be encouraged to speak during the public hearing, if they want their comments to be included in the record of the public hearing.
5. The time at which councilmembers may remove items from the consent calendar for individual consideration will be at the “Approval of the Agenda.”
Please note that with respect to item 5 above, the Council directed that the time to remove items from the consent calendar should be done at the beginning of the consent calendar, not at the time the council considers approving or modifying the agenda. However, staff feels that pulling items from the consent calendar at the time of “Approval of the Agenda,” such as other cities do, provides notice to the public at the earliest opportunity so that members of the public know at the beginning of the meeting that a consent calendar item will be individually considered and, if they wish to comment on any item pulled, they can allocate time to provide comments on that item at the time the item is considered. If the Council agrees with this change, it may also want to consider directing staff to add language to the “Public Comments” section to inform the public that the time to comment on items on the consent calendar that have not been pulled is during “Public Comments.”
With the exception of item 5, staff thinks it captured each directed change. The Resolution can be modified in the event there was other direction.
LEGAL REVIEW
The City Attorney has approved the attached resolution as to form.
Attachment:
1. Draft Resolution No. 16-0049