Okay. Signal me, deputy administrator here. Alright. Thank you. We're gonna do a lot more listening than talking today, and, I think, hopefully, some validation. But one, I just wanna let you know we are not at our view because we have moved here and are transitioning through our construction schedule. This is really because we're meeting on a Tuesday. The county has chambers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So when that happens, just as a note, we have to find somewhere else to to meet. But thank you for being here tonight. We just wanted to wrap around on two of your previous conversations to the city
council strategic priorities as well as, some of the rules conversation you have. So just looking at your guidance as we bring these forward to you, that it meets your expectations. So first and foremost, I think the city vision, and all the strategic priorities, as well as the foundational principles, I thought the last time you all talked about this, there was a fairly strong amount of alignment. I'm just gonna go to the strategic priority slide, Jess. There's a fairly strong amount of alignment, within that space. And maybe the one open question, was really in this environmental stewardship area. And so we have the original language as well as some alternate language.
The original language really just focuses on our role in environmental stewardship as an organization. The alternate language kinda tries to pick up that conversation that the council had in terms of whether that extends into the community. So, maybe two things. One, there's alignment and agreement on the part of the council that all of those other items, the vision, foundational principles, and these strategic priorities, meet your expectations, and then which, environmental stewardship option you prefer. So I'll turn the conversation over to you for that. Why don't we start with, of the all of the other,
strategic priorities, besides, responsible environmental stewardship. Anything that folks want to add to those, councilman. I just have a question. In the report, there there's an additional strategic priority of robust public safety that's not in the slides. Can you Yeah. So we, if you go back to the foundational principle slide, Jess, we've really left robust public safety in the foundational principles. Okay. Yes. Any other, administrators, no? I just wanna point out on the other slide, I'm pretty sure it's reversed that the original language is the alternate language. So just hit that case if you want.
Okay. First. It's fine. I mean, they're both in there. It's just Option a or option b? Council member, Tomer? Yeah. The housing access to me is is just a general statement that we like housing. Before we had that, we wanted to have, homeownership, and this is basically the island housing. I think everybody agrees with that. That's important. You know, the Maxwell study says we're doing well with with, apartments. We are way, way behind in homeownership, and and I think that that that kind of waters that down. So I can maybe offer one piece of perspective here,
and I should have maybe, provided this context going into it. We're trying to get your broader priorities, and previously, you had affordable living. And within affordable living, you made your top goal owner occupied housing. Right? And we did that year to year to try to put definition and emphasis in in those areas. What we're working toward, and then we'll talk more about this in a moment, is let's identify what those strategic priorities are. And if housing access captures it or doesn't capture, I think that's what we're here to understand. Then we're gonna talk about what does housing access look like and mean to you.
And as the staff goes forward and develops an action plan, if you wanna anchor that in owner occupied affordable housing, I think that's the direction we're looking for. Then we would try to bring you back an action plan that had goals that and actions that try to accomplish that. Other thoughts on on that one. I I like range of housing types there. I think it keeps it open. And, council member Palmer, I don't know that the rest of us has seen the revised, Maxfield study. So I'm not sure if that goal is still as strong as it was in
the in the first, first, iteration of of the study. Well, it is and and I don't know why you haven't seen it. I'm sure they sent you. But to me, you talked about all types of housing for all to meet the needs of all residents. I don't know how you achieve that. Other thoughts? Council member Miller. I'll just add, when I think about housing access, I think about our, residents who are not necessarily permanent residents when they arrive and access to housing as an important piece. People who might be in situations, where they're not ready to buy a house and maybe don't even have a job
offer that's long enough to consider homeownership. And as we grow as a community, the Neve Planet grows, I I don't want us to lose focus on the variety of residents and types of people in our community and what their goals are. And so I like I like that housing access is broader. I think that within our action steps, I would wonder how we're focusing on homeownership as a component of housing access. But I would not be in favor of limiting the entire strategic priority to only homeownership. Will go to be true ten years from now? So I think the way that these are written is intended to be aspirational,
recognizing them that I have to get to some more specific steps and prioritize those steps based on resources and other things. So, definitely point more taken from Palmer about, like, how do you achieve that? But is it achievable maybe is another way considering it. And I think the framing for the strategic priorities, like, the lot high level was intended to be aspirational for a future state, realizing there's gonna be steps within that. So just maybe another also way of thinking about the strategic priorities. Doesn't mean it shouldn't change, but just priorities doesn't mean it shouldn't change, but just so. Council member Keane? So so my comments that we went from three strategic priorities to five,
and that's reasonable. I I I think I did hear most of these things in the session. I'm not kind of prioritizing all of them. The two that jump out at me is, like, driving action plans are the stewardship, the respond environmental stewardship and housing. I actually grouped together the other two economic resilience and inclusive growth management. I'm I'm actually struggling a little bit. Like, if I if I do the little test saver, it went to four or if it went to six, which one comes off, which one goes on. Those two still sort of bother me that they're similar. The other one I I wanna talk to is the transformational capital projects.
We sort of have it tucked at the bottom, but the idea of having this industry's priorities is, you know, making sure that when we go to these other action plans, we don't start just assuming those projects are done and start talking about what are we gonna be doing. So I I don't I don't like it visually down at the bottom. I I I don't wanna I don't wanna wordsmith and play games. Yeah. I don't wanna play games with that, but that's my input. The the the two real action ones are that idea of, like, housing. And I really do like not just the types, but promote policies that I think we have to be careful that we don't just
say our housing thing is a spending priority. It is a policy priority. Yeah. I would just acknowledge when you all align around this these strategic priorities, you're gonna get some great graphics and nothing will be at the bottom. They'll all it it, I I would just need to offer up on the economic resilience and inclusive growth management because I think that's gonna be something at some point, we're gonna bring new projects and we're gonna say, well, what fits into that category? And economic resilience is very much about, you know, how can we diversify the economy? So next week, you'll have an agenda item on the bio lab on that conversation that came out
of DMC. That would be the goal of, you know, investing in the life science economy, med tech, and and trying to see, like, what can we spin off for additional and different businesses in Rochester. Whereas, inclusive growth management, could be any number of things just in terms of, you know, how do we extend infrastructure out in the community, our equity in the built environment initiatives, anything in those spaces, you know, would align nicely, you know, in in a category like that. So maybe just to give you some reflections on what might land in each of those in today's projects, I think. Okay. Yep.
Thank you. Other thoughts? Question. One other question about inclusive growth management. I received a question later in the week last week after this had come out about asking were we leaving behind other aspects of affordability. And I I wonder if you read and if we read collectively in the inclusive growth management that part of that community need is accessible access to city amenities, to services like transportation that that are part of the affordability piece but not housing. And I think the deeper question was we're not leaving those priorities behind.
Right? Maybe I read them here and I just I'm curious if from the staff perspective, if they're here or if they're missing. Yeah. I think when we get to the next part of the conversation of hearing from your perspective, you know, what does success look like, what, you know, would bring these priorities to life. I think that's gonna be helpful for us to understand that. And if efficient land use and transit systems that can support new and future development, as part of that, you know, we would try to carry that forward in the action plans that we bring forward to them. Other thoughts. Are we ready to tackle responsible environmental stewardship?
I'll just say, you know, I would prefer that, it says original, but I think it was the alternative language. But it it also promotes responsible environmental action throughout the community. I think, you know, part of that is policy setting. What kind of policies do we have as the city and how policies aren't always just how city staff responds. It's how the community will respond as well. So I I like the broader, description. I also think it mixes well with our sustainability and resiliency committee and what they wanna do and do do, It moves them out of just doing things that focus on our city staff,
but also things that focus on the community. What are your thoughts? I I like the broader one as well. And I I think of city operations and, like, weatherization programs, which partly touch our view but partly touch gas usage, which is not a city operation, but is a benefit that ultimately lowers energy use and energy intensity in settings. And I I read those kind of programs and the alternate the the expanded version versus the limited city operations version. I would tend to agree, with council member Miller and mayor Norton on the
original language, the broader definition. It seems to make a lot of sense to me. I also think, it is imperative for us as a community, to reach out to, the members of our community to model, responsible, environmental stewardship, and and that seems to can't capture, more of that idea of modeling than the alternative language or the original language. However, we wanna talk. I'm not getting an answer. Yep. No. I I guess I looked at those coming in and expected that screw redo, and I think it does match some of the things we talked about.
Again, my my warning here to the group would be, it's not like by adding more to the strategic priorities that you have more investments in those things. In the same amount of investments, you just are diluting it more when and and your level of impact you can have on city operations is probably more dramatic than than what most people think. And by saying it's also the community now, I I don't think that means we're doubling our investment. We're just spreading it across more things. So As we go through So Kent Kent, just to clarify, did you did you kinda weigh in on those two?
No. I I said I I thought from our discussion from back in February, I would have thought the the thing that's written up in front of me as alternate language would end up covering it. We talked about a lot of programs in 2023 and 2024 that really were more of that idea of promote responsible environmental actions throughout the community. We talked about a lot of things like that. So I'm good with that language. My my point wasn't which one you choose. It's don't choose more to think that means they're gonna get more investment. It's the same amount of investment. Got it. I think council members I I just conscious that the staff wants to get a
read from the entire council because we can have this discussion now or we can have it when it comes to the regular city council meeting. So if we can have this discussion now, staff gets a sense of, you know, where where the majority of council members lie then where in which, any other council members. I tend to in looking at them and I've gone back and forth on both of these, and I'm hearing council member Keane and the mayor's, thoughts on really incorporating the sustainability committee.
I'm good with the what's currently called the alternate language. I think it's it's strong about talking about city operations, but then it kind of brings in, the community. So that's where I Can you speak up to the Sure. Partially because it came up during the week of, all of the participation that a few of us in the room were at is just reflecting back to the transformational projects. What I'm hearing is it's important for the team to remember regardless of what ends up in the strategic priorities that it is important to deliver as it is to,
like, engage, inspire, and consider what's best. Like, do not forget that we also have to deliver service and deliver projects while we're thinking about the future. And that, when I when I hear the alternate language for environmental stewardship, I'm also hearing, I guess, louder than something else that it how do we encourage the community to act as a community that your individual actions, like, the individual impact, whether that's through a city program or otherwise, is something that we should be inspiring people to consider part of,
like, be part of the civic movement, if you're so inclined. And then that becomes, like, a multiplier to what we might do in our own projects. So not at all. Not that that's all you would do, but that's kind of the discussion that I'm hearing. Thank you. I just add another question of funding and resources has come up. We also have taken initial steps, related to gas franchise fees. And I think about sort of the policy guidance that some of these provide and looking beyond just city operations. Also, perhaps provides very an opportunity to have discussion about funding sources,
including that one. And I also appreciate that within housing access, we're talking at the policy level and not just what are we investing in to create individual units of housing, but what are the policies that support additional housing access? And I'll just add. I I think if you look at, like, the Brazilian economic vibrancy, there too, it's not just city policy. It's working with local businesses just like we would work with our community to build the community that we want, not taking a call on government. We have our role for sure. As policy makers,
we have our role for sure. We also need a partner, and I think that's the language that we're seeing in several of these. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it's a good thing. Other thoughts on strategic priorities? So the next time we see these will be council member, can you observation. Just that we talked about, you know, affordable living and we had the housing stuff under there. When we went to foundation principles, we really didn't move affordable living. I think we have things like quality services and fiscal responsibility. I I I think they're covered there. But if if we could, yeah, spend it before I I I think the right thing to do is spend the
amount of time we're doing right now on on, strategic priorities. But I did wanna go back and remember when in the same discussions, these are foundational considered more like that rock prior to looking at the strategic priorities. Thank you. It's like a good way to think about these is this is the how you're gonna do things and the strategic priorities and what you're gonna do. And so just use that as a lens. And as we go through all the action planning, we're gonna talk about areas where we lead and clearly have a lot of agency, and then we'll talk about other areas where we partner and support,
you know, and encourage. It's just a different dimension. And you just have to understand sometimes, you know, we are, in a great place to effectuate change and other times is encouraging others to hopefully, you know, go the direction you want. You know, obviously, implicit decision making, you know, here's new quality services and let's move up again. This is a value. Like, everything we do, we want to, you know, be high quality. So I think, again, this is the how we're gonna do things and during the next quarter. Any thoughts on the foundational principles? Any further thoughts on the strategic priorities?
So, mister Perez, we will see these next on our regular council meeting agenda. Not, not the second, but the second meeting in June is when we would bring these forward for just overall endorsement, and then we will work on the action plan and bring that forward at a later date. Okay. First, we're gonna work on the action plan. First, we're gonna work on the action plan. Yeah. So and, again, this is really just initial, customer Miller talked about the natural gas franchise. We will get to that later. But if that's an area you want us to focus and work on, in that space,
you know, this is the kinds of things we wanna hear now. So we bring action plan forward to you that it aligns with, your your perspective. Of course, we have a great and talented team of staff members that are gonna try to take these and bring you forward, you know, and enrich your ideas as well as bring some nuance. If you wanna put through the first couple slides here, that'd be great. But we just wanted to go through each strategic priority and really hear your perspective on anything you wanna make sure we take into consideration as we advance an action plan. So again, economic resilience,
and this is about diversifying the local economy, making sure the the economy is resilient and, supporting a wide range of people. And so really just turn it over to you all for ideas in this space, that we can consider as we bring the action plan forward. I I I think the mayor said it perfectly. I think it's really about our role as leaders in the community and our tentacles connecting with the business in, in, infrastructure and looking for ways to partner,
throughout the community and beyond Rochester. And, so so anything we can do to facilitate that and, from the city role, or our roles as as individuals as well, I think, adds to that. So regional collaboration is a large partnership. Yeah. Now I'll just add, you know, one of the things a couple years ago that I brought forward as part of the budget, and we haven't really had funds for it, is really that focus on our on business. We have many, many cities across the country having either a small business or an economic development department.
We don't really have that here. Maybe we're not quite big enough to have it, but it certainly is something with all the growth that we're having. We have to focus on, for the reasons we have, the business forward strategy, for reasons that during the pandemic we got together. Right? So I think the city does have a role to play here. And as we're growing, I think it needs to be more of a focus of ours. So while we're not in the place, perhaps, right now to create a new budget, I could have appreciated the support from the city to to designate staff who kind
of wear that hat right now. And I think it's important that we continue to do that, that we have someone that the business community knows is there for them, and and consider, you know, where this might take us in the future. I don't think we're there yet. I don't I don't think we have the budget for it, you know, post pandemic and what have you. But I do think it's something we need to kind of How it would look. It's a pretty active conversation on the at the staff level. Like, what are the roles and responsibilities and how do we achieve alignment in terms of how we do economic development?
It's a very relational line of work. But at the same time, you know, we have a role as a city and how do we how do we execute well in that space and ensure that we have a whole city perspective. You know, we have great emphasis in certain folks in the downtown, and some people that have an emphasis greater than Rochester. You know, we also need to ensure that we have a Rochester focused perspective as well. And I think that's definitely something that's not a team's mind. Can you to that to that point, can you talk a little bit more, about our relationship as a city to REDI in particular and the other economic development
agencies out there. I know administrators don't do, I believe, sit on the REDI board. Yeah. So that's been kind of a change in my mind. So I guess, back on the last week, what's just one of the key things that you're talking about is how do you get more civic engagement around, like, economic mobility and economic resilience that is at sort of a community scale of Rochester. They're not the same community as any other community. We have an anchor institution, but we also have a lot of other things that would benefit both anchor institution
and others. So Ready, we have a contract with, we support Ready in general as, Rochester Area Economic Development, Inc. And, of course, they have investors. I'm an executive investor. We do provide some annual operating funds. We also have an agreement for them to, operate the, twenty thirteen sales tax that we're, dedicated towards development opportunities for base business. Those all have to come through the city council, and they have to meet state law for business subsidy, a pursuit of business subsidy if you're not gonna do any of those types of
things. So Rochester Air Economic Development Inc has a very specific role than the economic ecosystem, but then you have other providers. So the Small Business Development Center is now housed with REDI, and they provide their financial support. It used to be RCTC. Then you think, okay. Well, education has a role if we're talking about workforce development, which isn't something that we used to really focus on as a community, but it's come up a lot more over the last five or six years, not just in Rochester, but, it's challenging for some of our business community to actually get workforce, including for our senior institution or Mayo Clinic.
So then we get into the spectrum of not just workforce development, but how are we generating economic mobility? How do you connect different businesses? You have Collider also, that's the newer to the space of of academic development. Workforce development e does workforce development, but maybe in more traditional way than Collider is doing for a different type of sort of business and workforce development. So thinking about how all of those different groups from higher ed to and the new newer focus of Rochester Public Schools is really focused on those 66 steps to
being able to be prepared for a career, whatever that might look like for someone, which might be very different career than someone that's wanting to get their doctorate than it is for someone who's wanting to be in a skilled trades, which we have challenges hiring people for. So I would say, yes. We have all of these relationships. I don't know that they're really and this was sort of the economic the the prior strategic plan at a top level goal of organizing an economic strategy where we have all of these support players, but what niche role does each one play across a broad economic ecosystem and what
role, if any end up hearing, at least first part of this conversation, more of a role for how does the city organize and coordinate so that, all of there are a lot of different players beyond what I just mentioned are working in concert and not necessarily replicating, different tools or specific, areas of expertise. Right? Like, how do we, together as as more of a coordinated ecosystem, look at how we're elevating either some of the, foundational principles goals or your strategic priorities by maybe having a greater role to play
within a community of organizations that have very specific things that do really well, and and doing that in a way that says, what would be meaningful to the community? I was just maybe offer an analogy too. There's this ecosystem we have, and then where what's the city's role in that ecosystem? When we go build a building, at the end of the day, we can assign responsibility. We can contract for services for architectural construction management, but we're still the owner, and we still get to, you know, own the long term, you know, result of the building. And the same thing is true in economic development.
We still have an owner we need still need to have an owner's perspective on the development agreements we're executing, all the real estate interfacing we do on any number of different things, all the land use things, and how all that works together in a way for either us to have a successful or unsuccessful economic development strategy. So there still needs to be that city focused, organizationally focused network, that really is thinking about Rochester specifically as a whole. Other thoughts?
I'll just add, mate. Appreciate the administers, spring up collider because I think about how we're supporting people in our community who might not yet see themselves as business owners, but can become and I think of several success stories even in the downtown that started as pop ups, event based businesses who are now not the anchor institution of our downtown, but are important places in our downtown. We heard about many of them at a past council meeting with broad community support. So I wonder how that collider sort of incubator space gets some city,
I don't know, relational help to make sure that we understand barriers and are addressing barriers to people being able to start out in that first run. Along that, not only, that we understand the barriers that people are experiencing, but that those people experiencing those barriers know that they have resources to help them overcome those barriers. I'm thinking about minority owned businesses, in person. I guess I'll do more of an observation. And and and I have resilience. Again, I'm just reading it. We're putting new things up there, but we started with regional leadership and establishing things.
And this is one where I really consider as more let not in a leadership role, but more in a partnership thing where you've got, you know, any I'll I'll say an EDA like Randy or you've got an EDA like DMC, and an EDA like the the housing coalition. And those are the places we partner on that, as opposed to having that idea of, like, we're going to take the lead on this. So that's my more of an observation than Right. Yeah. I guess I would also say something that my problem is category is if we're
looking for a weak like, our slow season is our weekend in Rochester, and we've talked about that before about what our other at the moment, you know, how do we attract folks or keep people here. Like, we just had a experience Rochester meeting, today, and we will be doing some summer branding and ad campaigns. It's a little bit because of, a lot of the dollars going to operate the civic center. But, you know, even if two weekends a year, you keep somebody, like, don't go north from Minneapolis because they're coming south. Like, we did study down here, and it's raining up there,
this weekend. And we have all of this the music scene. Right? We were in the June about being the weirdest, but that's clickable. And so, what are the other things beyond the traditional base business? It's been a a huge focus that can, like, take the existing economy to the next level. And so when I think of resilience, I think of that as well, the existing businesses and how would we attract, you know, a next level or even your downtown housing changes the dynamics of what might be able to happen and what's the link isn't. Like, those are things that have an influence over the ease and access to getting to
different businesses to plan where they are. Or even having people living downtown has a huge impact on, like, what the economy they need to do to support that. That's another problem. Well, isn't that why you did the sports facility? It is. A huge part of life. That's the only reason for this. People also were interested in playing sports. But, like, it's part of why you would invest in something like that because we have 6,000 hotel rooms in Rochester that are less expensive and less for on the weekend than in most places. And I go back to the ready, discussion. To me,
they're doing a very good job for Rochester, and I'm not particularly sure why the city would need to step up. I mean, we have a nice problem that we're 2% unemployment. We have high wages. I mean and so I'm not particularly sure what more you want ready to do. They have on the same floor with all these different organizations working together, which I think is a huge help. And I was gonna say that that is a valuable, but they have a specific role that they play in economic development that they're very, very good at. And there are other organizations, as you mentioned, that are also in that building and seminar that also play specific roles that how
do you make sure all of those are important in the equation that's broader than each each. Okay. We have, Miller, Fredericks, and Amir. So I'll just I go ahead. I appreciate the ministers also bringing up Experience Rochester because they're meeting annual meeting before this year. They talked about the opportunities in the evening economy. I feel like we've grown some in that with music, with some of the downtown restaurants scene with other aspects of that. I think clearly, as we live music requires a permit, requires b,
requires other city policy influence about where it can happen and when and how much is it going to cost. How do we support those elements where we're already seeing growth? And I would also add, I think there's a great standard of the Med City Marathon and the Med City Gander having happened these past two weekends. And I've heard nothing but praise for staff working with both of those events to create dynamic routes that adapted to wherever the construction closures were. I think those are elements that we can build some events into the economy and
create Rochester as a view of the destination beyond just, weekday health care and ultimately, probably comes in alignment with the sports complex and other dynamics to that evening and weekend economy. So I think those are directionally how I think about this and opportunities. Thanks, president. A lot of our businesses that are gonna be trying to move into this town, start in this community. We're gonna come here for the traction of just already what our city has to offer. It's what brought me to this area. Just about twenty years ago is what this area had to offer in the business landscape. I think the most important thing we can look at when it comes to,
fostering dynamic economy is having it having the process to start up a business in this community be simple. People starting small business, for example, obviously, we see a lot of restaurants come. Unfortunately, you see a lot of restaurants go. You come in, you understand the restaurant business, you understand how to cook, you understand customer service, but you don't understand all of the steps you have to take to open a business in the community like Rochester where there is a lot of a lot of red tape. There's a lot of things to work through to get to that point where you
can open up. And to this run of the mill business owner, it's daunting. Okay? It's daunting. So and then the next step to that is even as a large corporation, making sure that they can come in and fluidly from the time, hey, I wanna open this business here to the time they open their doors. It's fluid. It's quick. The timing of that, just as they're looking at it and they can go to this city and their timeline start to finish is eight months, and here, it's two years. What are you gonna do? Okay. So those are those are really important things. There's a lot there there's a lot of businesses that wanna come to this area
naturally. I don't know if we need to go out and wave our flag and say, hey. Come here. Come here. Obviously, it's good to feel wanted and invited. But this is an attractive area to do business. It is. There's some things that that that you can't control that that obviously our taxes are very high. Why is rents high? Why are small businesses going on? There's a lot of things that go into it. Property values are high, rents high, so on and so on and so on. So there there's stuff that that Maybe try to characterize, like, a balanced regulatory environment. You know, you might have better words than me, Aaron? I'm just telling you really I'm just trying to talk to
yeah. Balance regulatory environment, fair regulatory environment. I mean, obviously, there's a reason. I'll just get it out there. But at the same time, how do we kind of, you know, create a good user experience as they go through our process? And here's the next step to that. Helping the business that are here grow. Helping them grow. Those are those are the ones that are really gonna take off. You know, look at Mayo's done since the start, obviously. Obviously. But there's a lot of other businesses that might still be here as growth and moving within their space would have been easier. We have had businesses leave because of that.
So it's important to help the ones we have grow while attracting new ones, you know. And that that's just that's just been my experience in the in the businesses and business owners that I've that I've spoken with. So effective business retention strategies and Yes. Go ahead. Does a great job. I'm I'm in agree with both with councilwoman Palmer. Reddy does a great job. They do a great job of of being that place where, hey, I'd like to start this. It's a good start to get you pointed in the right direction. You know? And there's a lot of great resources in this community.
I've never asked a business owner in this community to help me, and they've said no. There's great resources here if you just start asking around. There really is. So I'll add to this. I think some of the things that the last couple speakers have mentioned that we don't often think about that are part of our economic resilience, and that is our our interest, our willingness to do things like RDA does, to be able to support community events like Rochester Public Music does, so that we get that reputation as a place to go. That's part of retaining businesses and and residents that live here,
because they want a vibrant community. We have a great business you know, we have a great anchor institution, absolutely, but that's not everybody's world. There's a lot of other people who do the ancillary work, and they want reason to stay here too. So I'd say, you know, supporting our DA is one of the things that would fall under this. Supporting the city clerk's office and the work they do. I think we forget that the city clerk's office is where people go to get licenses, to where people go to get rules and regulations. And so that also falls under how can we make sure we're utilizing the city
clerk's office in a way that that, intersects with the business community, including workforce development, Inc, and ready and all those others so that there's alignment and people understand what the rules are that we set up. So I think then the city clerk's office does a lot of that with not all businesses, but with some. I also somebody mentioned w d WDI. They do a great job, and I think, you know, having the city be a little more actively involved in that organization wouldn't be a bad thing. And then this last one, which I've mentioned earlier this year,
again, it's not a direct business thing, but if we're not paying attention to what's happening in childcare, our business folks aren't going to be able to go to work. Right? Our men and women who are want to work aren't going to be able to if we don't have childcare. So I just keep putting that on the radar as part of our economic resilience is making sure really that the whole package. End of what? Alright. Other thoughts? And I just to add to from a a builder's standpoint, I know the city is working with builders and particularly builders that aren't used to
working in the Rochester environment and, getting a sense of, you know, what are some of those barriers and looking at streamlining our licensing and permitting. So a lot of work is happening in that space now, and I think just continuing that, type of work with, other types of business as well. And, Randy, they're actually more complimentary than our local folks are dealing with our city. I just I'm not sure people are aware of that, but but the people that come in from other states, other cities that do work elsewhere have far kind of things to say about our
community development department that our local people have. I think some of them, you know, have worked with the old and the new. Right? And they're still carrying around some of the old baggage. So And that's a narrative of every city. There's a couple of things in every city that I've ever worked in. That is one of them. The folks that are predominantly focused in one community, things more challenging than they need to be. In Rochester's case, people from outside, the talk about the national developers that are coming, looking at our market. It's very easy comparatively speaking to our neighbors in the North, etcetera. We're more complicated than our the small towns around us.
Yep. You know, when we're combined with default, there's certain regulatory things that apply that, you know, don't apply to smaller communities around us. But generally speaking, that is a very common narrative. And there's always opportunity to to do better. And there's things that can fall through the cracks and, you know, helping people navigate and have that ombuds person role is important as we get people, you know, through through the process. So it's a the other thing that every community is, you know, challenged with is there's not enough places to eat because they go to the same places all the time or whatever.
But, you know, there's a couple common things as you go in a different different, cities. Are we ready to move to housing access? Mhmm. Alright. Yeah. Second first name is the first. Any feedback you have on the housing access space? We've certainly heard, you know, emphasis on owner occupied housing. I think we can carry that forward here. I think that's still a great leading strategy. Production's an important part of the housing conversation. But what else would you like us to be thinking about in this space? Council member Miller. I'll just add. And and we have the AU program, at least on the federal funding side. We've had zero qualify or take that.
And I I wonder about how we evolve that program or consider alternatives if that's not creating ADUs. I think we can certainly put that in the list. And I I think I just wanna know. I don't know if we're gonna be able to debate out every topic No. Tonight. But, like, putting on the list, like, ADUs are certainly a viable strategy to increase housing on existing footprints. It's very efficient. And we also know that we have some things we have to just make decisions on. Do we wanna charge them the connection fees that we charge other houses or not, you know, to encourage that because it's pretty some of those fees can be fairly significant and,
you know, detriment to people wanting to move forward with the Navy. So those policy conversations to be had. Well, I think that that's a great point about where we're adding housing incrementally, where there's existing infrastructure versus where we're adding some housing and blocks that requires new infrastructure. It's like, what is the policy about those types? And I I also, would just highlight the opportunity to focus on the starter homes, which we often hear about as not existing anymore and those are increasing in price. And I think there's a supply issue there.
Right? And there's other money in the market that's converting those from owner occupancy or ownership to rentals. I I hear increasingly those kind of comments and I I just wonder with our homeownership creation program, which is getting good take up update product from builders, where we might think about the the starter home supports. Yeah. We're from smaller creative uses in those spaces, whether that's ADUs or cottage style developments or others, shared access where some of those other policies, make it harder to create smaller format housing that that is able to be sold.
What's going on with homeowners? Well, our ADU program has probably been six years that we've had or five years that we've had it. We've got a, program out there to give you a grant, and we've had no big fight on it. This romantic idea is not the solution that's gonna help out our housing issue. And and even today in the preview, there there's arguments up cities about ADUs and, somebody's pretty good on the end of now just because of the home. And so one of the things that ADUs that we made a decision not to do this is is to allow right now,
we require somebody to own the property and live in one of the units. Mhmm. And if we took that away, that would open up the ADU program. That would also affect your neighborhoods. And I don't know if city council is willing to go that step. But that'd be one step to help out the ADUs. One of the things we did do when we first started the ADUs was that we told them they had to run their separate sewer and water up to build a road, which is about a $30,000 cost. Now if it's safe, they could hook it up to the house, and use that, sewer and water. It's kinda like to do an addition to your house.
We don't make them run that new addition out to the city the second city. But that was easy. That took us two years to get that through. So ADUs is romantic, but I don't see it as being a problem or even solving this problem. Starter homes are are are something that we went down to 3,000 square foot lots, which I don't know how many that we've actually had go down to 3,000 square foot blocks. There's a lot of things you can do to do by close to our r two areas. We just don't see it. We don't see the market wanting that. And so I agree with mister Miller about about using smaller houses and how do
we do that as compact lots. One of the reasons we did was that OGs need a garage. Not everybody needs a garage for the frame control. May I Condos? Are we A lot of communities are adding a lot of condo communities. I haven't seen those, like, in mass quantities showing up here. So is there anything we can do to address that as one of the types of housing that might be of interest? As a third party question. You mean, like, vertical conflict? I've seen them. Yeah. Anytime. Just a different it's an alternative to,
you know, homeownership in the way we traditionally think about it. That might be a more Counseling over door. Wondering if it's time to, explore the possibility of creating policy to limit the number of short term rentals. Yeah. And there's a lot of layering to that. I know there is. What you can do Yep. Not just short term rentals, but, you know, rentals on certain geographic areas and all that. You might be pretty busy thinking about how we'll be able to manage I just Yeah. I it's a fair it's a fair conversation. We have seen, you know, a conversion
of single family homes to So it's kind of balancing a balancing that. There's also, you know, there's a lot of folks that are in a lot of house, that aren't making that transition to the next house or the next opportunity. So what options, you know, whether it's condos or still preserving the asset and the investment of a home, but, something that's, you know, better for the 55 and up, you know, during this. Now, again, double income no kids, but 4,000 square feet of house. Council Member Miller. I just add our logic tax policy to that.
I know that when we exceed a certain number of days to thirty or 31, then that no longer is charged. Is that, you know, an opportunity for us to It's appropriateness. Yeah. There's some state law that wraps around, you know, what kind of what's the, you know, what's the short term versus long term unit and subject to logic tax, but we can look into some of those things for sure. Do you remember following that? Well, my understanding condo says that the state of the solar rules and regulations are prevent them from being built in. So that's a a difficult part for us. I would not be in favor of of short term rentals or limiting them.
I think that's part of the market. There's a lot of people who are here on internships and here for three months that need to have that. They don't wanna sign up on a twelve month lease. And I think that that would be a a hindrance to our economic, viability to to have people not have to have a short term rental. I remember a couple of things that I heard just to see if you can hear me. Just get a reaction. I didn't hear it today, but I've heard it in other meetings. One of the things that came up during the housing coalition forum, was making sure that from a rental perspective that there's clarity within the list about
which rentals are 80 like, not accessible, but 88 accessible for and even maybe going further to what type of disability access custom search experience provides. So I don't know if that's something that resonates as being, like, more into considering I've also heard accessibility generally, like, like, an ADA version of accessibility brought out before the firm council. So I just assume that's not true. But I know the word, access is there, but it could be interpreted at that point. Other other issues folks wanna put on the housing access.
Yes. No. I just wanna comment on this thing that there is it it's an odd trade off heavy when you talk about the housing stock and then the hospitality. And you do have a crossover there when you start doing the the special, short term rentals. I know we treat short term rentals as residential, and that's sort of my question. Is it really residential or is it belong in the hospitality part, which we are not constrained on right now. I see a lot of our housing stock being taken out of housing and put into hospitality. And I and I think that's a valid thing for, from a policy perspective for us to look at in in the coming year.
We do register for at present time require registration or subject inspection to our rental standards. And but, again, point well taken. And and you've got you've got the conflict of reg regulatory things happening and then registration, which is sort of a licensing thing, which are the same things council member Fredericks would say are the problems with getting things going. It's it's all that sort of way to go on business. But I think in this case, I I think there is a valid community question of cars. A lot of the entry level housing being taken off the market in terms of
and and converted to non residential. I think just and and just taking off on a couple of key lines, it also can change the character of neighborhoods and blocks. And so I think from a city standpoint, valuable to have a clearer understanding, the geography of it. Can I ask the consider ADA guidelines? We always consider ADA guidelines as more than that. So can we change that language just so we know what we're talking about? It's almost like like we've had a seeding.
Yeah. Well And and I appreciate, administrator Zalem's question because I I've wondered, is this when we issue rental certificate or do an inspection, if it's additional criteria that we're capturing their stairs at the entrance, for multifamily buildings. Is there an automatic door opener? Where is the access? So it's clear what type of unit that is. And I I've heard similar concerns. I think at a broader level, we can take the the notion of and desire to increase accessibility or ensure accessibility
That's better to assess. In in housing, and and evaluate what kind of strategies. There's gonna be a lot of some dead ends there to be straight about it. Like, you know, there's certain, like, the building codes, the building code, and can you, you know, can you require above and beyond? But can you incentivize certain things in multifamily that be more accessible as you go through and provide tax and corporate financing? Well, I guess to that point, I mean, I I've heard from constituents who say that they inquire about an accessible unit that's listed as accessible, and it turns out upon, a tour that it's effectively
impossible for them to live. And, yeah, so having better information upfront as part of what we're capturing and what's provided rather than accessible or not, but accessible how. Yeah. There's the existing versus new and affordability versus accessibility. Like, there are certain policy things you have to have. Other issues on housing access. Let's move on to inclusive growth management. Again, I think there's a lot of this is, you know, land use Mostly focused. It's how we do infrastructure. You can think about it as when you're doing a street,
is it a complete street? I wanna take you back to, you know, your municipal consent conversation last week, but, like, this is the kind of stuff that fits into that category. In terms of how you do growth and development, and, you know, how you balance out all the various needs. So, I think you can you know, wide range of things that you can think about in this this area. Mayor? So one thing I think about is, it was a mayor's innovation project conference, and a gentleman kind of followed up with me afterward, out of a university in California. I can't remember which one it is. And it was about,
this inclusive growth management was about really understanding what what you have available to whom and where and making sure that you're not accidentally I think we've I actually think we've done a good job not to have this happen. Like, I think Sean can nod his head if he he would, that we have secured, housing rental housing in all of our quadrants. Right? We've made sure that we haven't just done it all Southeast or all Northwest. We've, you know, over the years I've been on the council, been pretty good about that. But what he did is he went in and looked at diversity,
income levels, all those things. And you can find areas where we start we can if we're not careful, we can start building pockets. And so, you know, using that as I don't you know, we don't necessarily need to talk to him, and I think Taryn has done they've looked at it in a different way, she said, but maybe really being purposeful in looking at that kind of documentation as we move ahead with apartment developments and whatever to just keep an eye on what we're doing to our city. Oh, council member again here. I appreciate the,
return to municipal consent conversation because the policy area or programming area that I I feel like we need to be thinking about is how do we manage travel demand, sort of programs or commuter programs to others. Are we working with Roccott? How are we working with Mayo Clinic and other businesses in the downtown to collaborate on commuting strategies, share parking models, and then thinking about transportation planning, I would also think about transportation operations. And if we get to the point of getting to RFP on our RPT operator,
I just got a a text message as we were starting this meeting that four routes in a row have been canceled today on one of the highest ridership routes. And so we don't have transportation options that are working for people. We will not meet our city goals. I would add also, balance between infill development and edge development. And do we have the right balance understanding the limitations that we may have when it comes to infrastructure capacity for whether it's infill or edge,
and do we do and from my perspective, if there is infrastructure needs and there's a question between edge development and infill, I wouldn't lean towards the infill. I think that that's also that policy. What are the hookup fees and where are they charged and at what rate? Renew versus existing if there's capacity. Just the policy of lines in the realm of the miller. How do you align policies the development? Administrative? Oh, go ahead. Yeah. But mine's for again, I'm just looking at this idea that we're gonna do actions. I'm not I can't tell if this is a strategic this isn't one of my
I I I'm fine with the idea that we can also have it under. But if this if the emphasis is on inclusive or growth management, I'm not sure what it is. But when I look at the things we're listing here, these are almost, they're not operational things, but they're just normal things that we have policies on. And I'm not sure what having them in the strategic priority says our land use policy has to change because of our infrastructure, charging has to change because of our municipal consent. I'm I'm actually struggling with what's what's going on here. I guess from my perspective council member,
I would say, and being one of the four new council members, I find this discussion extremely valuable because I'm understanding where my colleagues priorities are. And and in some cases, where my colleagues are very clear on what their priorities are or aren't. And that helps from from my perspective to understand the balance of this council. And so I think for all of us, we should be listening for that. I just I I think also I appreciate the, the difficulty of Jessica trying to take notes as we're having this conversation live.
And I what I heard in municipal consent was the the conversation we're having about travel demand management, commuter planning. And in land use policy, our comp plan is very clear that land use and transportation planning go in and in, but our community development department doesn't currently staff that way. It's more of land use. Road cog does transportation planning, but perhaps with a different framework than the city of Rochester's comp plan. So is there an opportunity that we better embed transportation planning into capability of community development. So those are some of the things I think about and how we're thinking about,
this is a strategic priority so that our infrastructure capacity is managed in a way that we don't have to expand capacity, but make it work dynamically for the system and the community that we live in. I also council member Palmer. I I wanna give time to council members. Well, I'm not particularly sure that this will get set needs to be up there. We we I think this is the first one that I recall in six years. So I don't know if that's a huge issue. My problem is with the infill is is we've asked for math,
we've asked where infill could occur. I've never seen anything that says these are available land. And so when you say infill, it depends on what you're talking about. You could infill out the 50 Fifth Street, Northwest, and we just did that with a bigger one project. Not a way to consider that to be infill. One of the things that people keep forgetting or at least I keep mentioning is in 2015, our housing our our median sales price of houses were down 41% compared to the the seven counties, area in the in the cities. They're 41% difference. We are now above
cost wise that they were up there. So we we're doing something wrong. In the last ten years, it had that much of an of an increase in your in your median sales price is is is pricing people out of of the market Rochester. Where that affects us as a city council is, if you have two people and one works in cities and one works down here, at 41% they're living in Rochester. If you're if if it's cheaper living in the cities with more to offer, you you you travel. You you know, the Rochester person that takes their paycheck and they take their talent out of Rochester.
And I and I I think that that's huge. That's in in ten years, forty one percent difference. Mhmm. And pardon me? But we're growing. Right? Minneapolis is landlocked. They're not growing. We're growing. Well, that's a seven county area. Yeah. I I think that there is an important part of the that particular discussion to think about is, you know, I'm from Twin Cities, but family in Twin Cities. There are certain areas where the values are either very stable or declining as well, and you have to almost think about what are the communities like Rochester and the Twin Cities and how have their values evolve over time versus taking it as a
seven county aggregate. I'd also say what the point I wanna make is, you you don't have to be perfect here. Jess doesn't have to be perfect here. I'm sure she's gonna turn this into, like, she's gonna load all of your audio into AI and they'll kick out an action plan and she said, it'll work. Well, I think we're really just looking for the no. She's really gonna do that. I know that. But, like, the we're really looking for the essence of your conversation here. So you don't have to have the perfect strategy if you want us to think about infill development or if you want us to think about transportation planning or if I wanna record wanna record affordable housing.
We just wanna hear that, and we're gonna then take that and try to actually put definitive strategies and goals to it. Council member Fredericks. Not to state the obvious, council member Palmer, but I'm an advocate for all avenues of home housing, whether it be manufactured home park, affordable apartments, cheap apartments, mid range, high range condos, all the way up to your high dollar homes, which we have plenty of in this community as well. Right now, I I do feel it's a simple supply demand issue that we have in making it easy just like we already talked about,
making it easy for builders to build whatever it is they're doing or manufactured home, developments, whatever that is. Help them streamline that, get that done, get ahead of supply. And when the market gets satisfied or all of a sudden we're seeing it turn into a buyer's market because we have availability of all different avenues, you'll see the prices stabilize and or maybe go down. Not the greatest for people trying to sell, great for people trying to move in and,
you know, over move out of whatever they're living at the current time and into something maybe to better fit their family or situation. So I just think right now, it's a simple supply demand thing, and it's driving the prices of everything up. And hang on. That's number one. Just, add separate from this discussion, but I think related and what I read into the the description is making sure that we don't forget community needs and we ask the community what those needs are over time. So I I mean, our national community survey consistently shows public engagement as one of our lowest scoring,
the higher value elements. And so are we building in that co design, surveying, other ways that we're hearing from the community and making sure that these programs and city resources were in alignment with expectations and needs? I'll go back to what mister Miller was saying about travel demand management. And I think that's really important part of this is if I can get rid of one car, I can save $9,000 a year in cost. And I think, you know, with with the rapid bus, I think today this is an opportunity to see that now. It won't be here in two more years,
but that's a that's one of those things that would be a a cost saving for most people. I was just thinking back to confirm. You're talking about, like, economic or science. I think this is both management and hard to discern, and I think some of your conversation, depending on where you live or where your business is, these concepts fall in one or the other, and they probably fall in both places, but it depends on where you live and where your business is. So I also think of, like, your parking conversations that are coming up as part of both economic resilience, but also this growth management depending on if you're,
you know, mostly down counter or you're mostly a commuter to down counter. And then I also just to the point of civic engagement, it would be interesting to know relative to the discussion about economic resilience. You know, there's a lot of new things you can do depending on the zoning you live in and where your house is from your home, but maybe consider that, you know, home occupation business anymore. You may even be able to, What are the missing things that might exist that people don't even know they could already do it, not even have to. All in a separate building. Are we ready to move on to to,
council member? Sorry. I, just one last thing. I don't know if this is the right spot to put it, but I've been thinking a lot about, our our townships as well as our county commissioners. And then this is, the spot where we need to, do a little, collaborative work or repair some broken trust. I think you got yeah. It could go a lot I think the job is not saying the work. But it could be even an expertise or transformation space because if we collaborate well, we'll execute well, and so it's a good point of opening a place for that. Alright. Moving on to responsible environmental stewardship.
I'll just maybe preface this. So, obviously, this used to be a through, foundational principle. You've seen a lot of energy in this space. We have big goals, whether it's our 02/1930, you know, with greenhouse gas emission goals in this space. We're looking for feedback on, you know, what success looks like here. I think the normal things you hear about are, you know, in the transportation and building space that we talk about greenhouse gas reduction, if you can have have some effective strategies in those areas. Those are, you know, will bring that to life. Acknowledge council member Miller brought up the natural gas franchise fee, conversation that at some point may make his way to the council that could,
into a longer term conversation, but could provide funding in this space. So we'll, you know, obviously queue that up for you. I'm just gonna mention it just right. This comes from a former and just but, you know, one thing we have sort of tackled and discussed in the past in this, and it'll be helpful for us to understand if you wanna see this on the list, Aerophilus, who's organized garbage collection. I've got passion in that space. I told you, right? I'm just trying to be a distillery here. But again, you know, there's certain things with that particular item. If that's a tough and no goal conversation,
like, let's speak up list. We don't need to bring it forward. It's tough. It is complicated. People value choice in that conversation, and there's collective opportunity and impact you can make by making that decision. So it's it's a it's a balancing act for you. Council member Palmer. Since you brought it up, about five years ago, am I right? And maybe a little more now. We did a survey, a scientific survey that we mailed out to people and 92% of the people said they liked the choice of garbage collection. And, a long time ago, the county decided that they're going to do the same thing.
That was the worst public hearing I've ever seen. If you could ask past county commissioners, they thought they're gonna get charged valid. People like their choice. They would like to be able to call to get a lower price, and there's absolutely no reason to to to touch them other than the fact that you want to. But but I'll forewarn you, it's a an ugly conversation. And I I would just say, I think it's worth studying because I do hear also about the impact of multiple trash collectors on our roads and the impact that may that may have on our
infrastructure. Council member Miller. I'll just say I I lived in a community that was in the process of not moving to a municipal collection service, but because they already had a municipal collection service, we're able to add organics, yard waste as an additional service. And I think as we think about the value add and what we expect as a community to the county is thinking about yard waste and municipal and and compost household options. And I wonder if there's an avenue to council member Doring's question too in the prior point of working on a strategy and understanding some of the logistics and opportunities.
And this is a study. I've also tended to pay less in garbage collection fees when there was a municipal offering than this choose your home where the rates go up and then you it's somebody coming and knocking on your door and offering a lower rate and you switch and switch out the cans. So I think I wonder how the question was written. I don't doubt the scientific survey, but I've also learned that depending on how I ask a question, I might get a different answer. Council member Palmer? You can also look at Saint Paul and that when they went to a single use and it's been,
not well received and not well used. And now they need to drop using compost and new yard waste because they can't keep up with it. So, it's not far from us that it's it has not been successful in Singapore. Council Member, can you Yeah. I understand the debate here. But for the purposes of this meeting, if you're gonna have this sort of, strategic priority, it sounds like it belongs on the list. And whether it gets goes anywhere, I'm I'm not sure. Could you review past that or something? Yep. I'm gonna add, one that I've always talked about and it is, some kind of dashboard on what our our key environmental priorities,
whether it's, lowering emissions, waste, water, and, and community community engagement in it. And and something that as a council, we can then have staff bring to us and say, we are making this kind of progress on or as a council, we can say this this is how much we want to, when it comes to city vehicles, reduce emissions by blank percent and by the year twenty twenty thirty five.
And then we can see the progress that we're making on our technologies. Other other thoughts? I'll come over to her. Is the air quality, system operational, and is there a public dashboard for that? We're getting an update in June, I think. Okay. But Yes. Probably not a good environment. Okay. Did you have a system the two different systems? Yep. I I'm aware. I just didn't I just didn't know if it was publicly available information. That's the goal. Yep. That's the goal. So I'm happy to have that. Mayor? I'll just add, you have the RPU twenty thirty.
You may ask her to stop her call, but you may have already covered it. But I think the both RPU and the city can start thinking about, even though it's in the future, start thinking about what happens and what kind of are we going to, you know, produce some of our own? Are we gonna do more geothermal in this community? Are we going to do and we are doing some, obviously, but there are a few for the public works building that we learned about. And solar, which we are building we're building solar ready. Right? Are we gonna start moving in that direction, and is it through our view our view? Is it through us? I just hope we continue to have those robust discussions about,
how we how we move ahead as a city. So that's UV power generation. Anything else on, environmental stewardship? I would love to do a study, if possible, about the banning of single engine plastic bags. Alright. Moving on to transformational capital projects. I think, like, there's many projects we have. We all know about them. I think this is the SQL language and any other perspective you wanna offer up in this space, but some of this is systems and execution and focus. So the one of my,
motivations for this is it's, when I look at I mean, I think we have more public projects, and then there's private projects going on there depending on public execution with them. And, worst case scenario is we're sitting around nine months from now and a year from now saying we're behind a year on this because or we and what do we need to do strategically so that doesn't happen? And I don't know if that's the attention of of of this group that we need to, you know, along with being a policy board, we've gotta take more and put more emphasis on making sure we stay on track,
and how can we do that. The concern is when you have the other strategic priorities, you're gonna make those. You're gonna have other things coming up. You're gonna be saying, like, what every need will be, what can we do to get this on the agenda? And I think that the soft thing that happens underneath that is resources start getting moved around and, and we start losing track of the things that, in my view, are most important over the next four years. So if there's something and and I don't wanna get into, like I mean, I could give ideas like, okay. Let's have a a reporting track as part of the of,
on our major projects on where they're at and what the next check mark is, but I don't wanna be so prescriptive. I just want the staff to know that it's important to this group that we don't fall behind it. Maybe that should be what we talk about as performance fights on this, but that these this is really part of the performance plan for the next couple of years. That that's my perspective. I I just wanna emphasize, you know, the point. The whole reason we do this work is, you know, we can't do everything and we wanna do some things very well. And we have some things that started eight years ago,
and we're now getting to the point of execution and trying to deliver well and execute well. And so, you know, I think that's a challenge across, you know, any number of years is to sustain the momentum and continue to, you know, generate that, you know, of moving forward. So I think that's Part of this is we bring an action plan back. We want it to be an action plan that lives within the resources, particularly both people and financial. I think this also is, you know, predicated a little bit on the idea that, like, when we give you a budget, you want some fidelity in that, and we wanna make sure that what we represent from the prop you know,
to the public is something that we can accomplish. And so, I think there's a number of things we'll try to hit when we bring this one forward. To, council member Keane's point, should we bring definition to what transformational capital projects we're talking about? Is it a defined number? I think all of us can list, you know, there's link, there's Sixth Street Bridge, there's our our, work with Unbound, there's others. But I think they have a shared understanding as to what those transformational
capital projects are. And then I fully agree with council member Keane on then having, you know, reporting some kind of tracking for those projects, whether it's, you know, as a part of a council meeting or in our our weekly updates or whatnot. Mayor. Yeah. And so a couple things here. One is, I think it was a year ago, I asked Cindy Steinhauser, woah. We're taking on a lot of stuff. What's our what's our, like, plan to make sure we can implement all these?
And she's a really nice job putting up, like, a Gantt chart. And so I know she's done some of that work, but I and I don't wanna add extra work. I think that's kind of what Patrick was getting at. And yet, you know, we have a even beyond the things that you're talking about, we have other things that we do in the city every day, whether it be the roads Northwest or the sidewalks Southeast or you know, there's all that other stuff that goes on there too. Besides the they're all transformational for to a neighborhood. Right? If your streets are getting done,
that's transformational in your neighborhood. So I think to kind of think about the whole range of things that we do as a city, and, you know, I'm not asking necessarily for you to document every single thing that we do, but we do need to understand, to Patrick's point, I think, every new idea that comes up, and and I've I've sort of said this to Aaron and some of the others folks. We can't keep asking the state and federal government for more. We have not that we shouldn't be thinking about the future, we should, but we have our hands full for the next ten years. And so let's be judicious about the things we ask for.
For instance, for our next project, let's have it be something that makes a project we're already working on cheaper or better. You know? So to to Aaron's comment, how can we do what we're gonna do, which is a lot, to the highest quality and for the best outcomes from our city and not keep piling on? I think we just we just have to use real care there, or our staff will all be. Because they're overwhelmed. And you're just bringing the zones. I also think of this as, again, the overlay of the, foundational principles of, like, social equity and so I I guess one thing that I it's not,
like, listed there, but just for perspective of having those foundational or the foundational principles is, like, this isn't much about mindset of employees that every time they touch right away, whether they work, whether it's water line, electric, wastewater, stormwater, thermal gutter, or another agency, I'm reporting. Like, ideally, we have, like, a consistency of, like, that business forward community forward experience, but and we have coordination, and we're coming along on that with our CIP. Right? Like, everyone has their own CIP, but, like,
the CIP touches right away across the city. So thinking about cutting once and some of those types of things are as important because if you're driving across the city, you're touching a project, and it's gonna transform your day depending on what where you're trying to go. So as much as it does say, you know, major investments, I guess I still would apply the foundational principles of the quality services and, and those kinds of things. And there is a a mindset and organizational, like, how we're resourcing our organization to have that consistent experience.
Because people are not gonna differentiate who's doing that project. Yeah. And and I I I wanna differentiate, at at least in my mind, the difference between we're always doing things versus there's something unique going on in the next couple years. Yeah. And yes. We were and We got a lot of them. And we're not yeah. We're not we didn't do something that we're gonna, like, we asked the streets or we're gonna not do Yeah. We're we've been talking about the projects. They're all the visible ones, but look at all the stuff out of the water treatment plant right now. Pretty soon, we're gonna be building the North Park Park,
district or park and rec facility. These are huge underheaps. And some of those that they're internal and they fall behind, it's unfortunate, but it's not like government failure. Link going out and and, like, going out two years long is government failure. Sixth Street Bridge Project is getting started and then having some sort of reset on it is is failure. Local government failure. Other thoughts? Can I ask that a question? Go ahead. So council member Keene, I I appreciate that spec perspective. So what about a broken public transportation system?
Is that a government failure? And then when do we address that? I mean, so that's a transform transformational system that is not functioning now. Right. It's the operation side versus the capital side. And there we've dealt with these before and, yeah, it is something that I think we do need to make sure it gets the attention, but how that happens is a different thing. So that's but but yeah. That's a that's a but, again, it's different. It's a service we're providing. It it would be similar to saying, like, you know, like city services with police or or the library is gonna be closed now on
Sundays because of something. That's a that's a a failure rate. We those are operational things. This what I'm talking about now is more of these bigger things that you set out to do and and not get done. The thing up in the cities with this, a lot of the train lines. I mean, it's it's terrible. And it's and it it just sets in with people. It says, yeah. That's just the way they are. And and it does it does worry me when you start when you start talking about, oh, we have to get everyone's input and everything. And that's not how private enterprise works. When they set up to do something, they'll And that's not my intention.
If that was it. Okay. I don't think we have to get it. No. No. And I but I I do think it's important and and that's why I'm kind of harping on this is that this this council and I'm not sure if this whole council this is just me, but I am really concerned about that over the next that that we start getting into things like, oh, yeah. We're we're, you know, we're in somebody's way here and we promise to be up. So it's gonna take six more months. I I think we though those should be those would be considered by me as failures. That's all. Thank you for that clarification. Yeah. And I wanna be careful. I mean, I know I'm I bring this up.
I I think it's shared here, but I I'm going you have a voice again. Yeah. No. I think and and I I think it's, it is worthy of being on the list given the five to seven years that we are currently be under. And, I think I am bringing a shared understanding as to what those capital transformational capital projects are, and then our role on keeping them moving forward, I think, will, will put us all on. So anything else on this one?
Wrap up comments? Yeah. So our next step again is to get this first phase in front of you at the second meeting in June, and then we'll continue to work on the action plan and we bring that forward. Certainly, also use this as an opportunity to further engage, you know, with your stakeholders and constituents around what they think, you know, would ultimately bring this, you know, the plan to life. And, we're certainly happy to receive, you know, that feedback as we as we move along. But, really appreciate the conversation. I think this is really good, for you all just to kind of give some perspective on what success might look
like here and what expectations. I mean, this is a lot about expectations. And so appreciate you for being with us today. Alright. We'll take a oh, go ahead. Just just a final thought, Eric, as we talk about general notes, because it's come up a couple times but data tracking dashboards, having key performance measures. Because I feel like in many ways, we took, some strategic priorities that were very broad, could have covered a lot of things, particularly in their their language. We'd make them more specific, and I I wonder if there's not also an opportunity to have specific performance measures that we're tracking on these strategic priorities as we've we've got to work into them.
Part of the action planning process. So we will try to say, what are I mean, again, if you do everything, you've done nothing. So what are the if housing is number of owner occupied units constructed in 2025, that would be an indicator there. Yeah. And whatever but maybe two or three for each, not too many. No. I I don't wanna create new new, like, staff positions just to track the data on the strategic priorities. But what's the impact? But just making sure that we're tracking at a high level on are we on target? We need to
have a study session. Right. Good point. We will take a seven minute break and come back for rule rules and code of conduct. Alright. Next is council rules and code of conduct and, I'll let, administer as long as it kinda kick us off on this. Sure. Thank you, council president, council members, to make sure I'm projecting. So if you can't hear me, give me one of these. And I will try to make sure I see it, or just say I can't hear you. Okay. I will I'll talk louder. So the what you have listed here,
there's two slides. I think it's about five things that we heard when you had had your initial discussion about the council rules and procedure and code of conduct. So wanted to kind of bring this back for round two for refinement. Obviously, we heard some other things as well, but these were things that generated some more additional conversation from counsel in your last study session. So looking at the this idea of whether or not you will have a strong interest, or more discussion about adjusting the open comment period from two to three minutes. Also, if you did that, is adding to one minute sufficient,
or would you wanna talk about something different? The presiding officer and whether or not, the current rotation based on month, so January and July being four one. And, you know, obviously, all of these options are open to further requirement, from council or complete change. You know, something more informal with the council president would appoint, and I think the mayor has some things to share about this as well. For situations where both the council president and the mayor have, that provides a different amount of opportunity for the person that that board that month.
And then the lead rotation. I don't actually recall when this came up during the honest discussion. I recall it coming up a couple years ago, but whether or not there's an interest in always keeping the Ward 1 Through 6 with the council president voting last or if there's, some cities also do a, rotation, like, a different list every single week. Not saying you should do that, but, I think there's sky's limit up on what you could do or you could keep it how it is. So Yeah. And then there's a couple more more. Why don't you just state your previewing since morning? So one of the things that we've been talking about also as well that came
up that I think council president had mentioned is, like, agenda timing and a glide path for, making sure that we utilize all of our tools with council goals prepared for especially the big decisions, but understanding better when something's gonna be study session, and then whatever it falls on your voting agenda, when there may be different multiple study sessions, engagement pathway, as well as, better utilizing reports and recommendations. So this is sort of the glide path discussion synthesized. And then an emerging issue. So not everything made it through the legislature, but one of the things they did,
is changes to, the remote voting opportunity. And so I think this is probably a I don't know. Unless there's a whole lot of alignment, probably not to be decided in any upcoming immediate rules changes. But do you have any thoughts about whether you wanna adjust your rules to have more opportunity for a little participation, whether that's for the members of this group? I mean, unlimited could create some unique dynamics that don't currently exist, but we have the joy of experiencing during COVID. And then, whether or not from a public participation perspective,
you wanna expand that as well. Currently, people can ask for an accommodation. But and currently, we can vote remotely, but it's real you need to have a medical condition, and there's limit and there's limitations three times per year even if you had some medical situation going on regardless of what that might be. So hasn't been done with Denver? I guess, technically, that's changed, but, just something to be thinking about and how how might you leave your benefit or not benefit if you make some changes to, more remote,
joining. And I would say, in general, that would be challenging to do until you have your upgrade chambers as well or to do effectively. So Okay. Why don't we go back through the issues that we heard at our last, study session on this and, and just take them one at a time and get thoughts from folks. Open comment period, two minutes. Moving into the three minutes minutes, I think, from what I recall, council member Miller, this was your proposal. Would there be more to add to it? Rochester Public Schools, their school board meetings is three minutes.
I have had the opportunity to attend. I've seen that work well for speakers, particularly students. And I think of other community members who are frequently, rushing, especially in those last few seconds, and I wonder if there's an opportunity that three minutes still gets us to this goal of twenty ish minutes of open comment as the maximum. But provides people a little grace and not having a perfectly polished set of remarks that makes a five point two minutes. The one thing that I would add if we do move ahead with the three minutes is that we do have the the requirement that it be twenty minutes total.
And if we, currently, if we have 10 speakers and they're perfectly on time, we have twenty minutes. If we have 10 speakers under three minutes, that's thirty minutes. So I would suggest in tandem with any change to the per speaker time limit that we increase the time so that I, as the presiding officer, don't have to ask the council for to suspend the rules to get all speakers in. So other thoughts?
Council member, Fredericks. Yes. I'm in favor of staying at two minutes because, one of our, president Schubert's favorite words is concise. I like them to stay concise, and I wanna hear from more people, not less people. I wanna hear from I wanna hear from 10 people for two minutes versus only hearing from, you know, five or whatever you can hear from her. Do the math for me, Randy. Thank you for being inside, council member brethren. So we have Palmer, Keane, and, the quiet guy here. Well, so,
council member for calling. I I I like the two minutes. I I think if you did three minutes, there's still gonna be rushing at the end of it. I think anything that I'm not seeing it being a a detriment of people telling us really what they wanna say It makes it concise, which I think is good for them and it's good for us. They can still email us. They can still talk to us individually. I think in public, if you go to three minutes, they're just gonna be rushing at the end anymore. So council member Keane. Yeah. I I guess I would I I actually thought more publicly that the idea that
we're expanding it is a good, like, indication to the public. So I I was looking to support this. I don't understand the twenty one minutes total, but I I guess I would agree with you, president, Schubert, that if we do that, we should probably make it a thirty minute total if we go to three minutes. Council member, well So when I, first joined the council, it was four minutes. And, we had all kinds of people who wanted to talk. And I'd say every other time, we were, passing, suspending our rules Yeah. So that we can give more people more time. We changed it to two minutes,
which would seem to indicate more people could talk, and it's ironed itself out. And I've since we've not even one time, gone over the twenty minutes. So I wonder if it's just, ironing itself out. I'm not three minutes is fine with me. I think any argument we make from two to three minutes, we can make from three to four minutes. Sure. You know, can you get your point across in two minutes? I hope so. I just don't think it's an issue, currently. We only have about two or three or four people who are signing up,
each week. So, I'm pretty ambivalent toward it, but I can support it. Council member Miller? Just a question. When it was four minutes, was it also still when you joined that people could speak at every meeting and not just once a month? No. Just once a month. Just once a month. Alright. Okay. Any other thoughts on this? I guess I'm I guess I'm with, council member Wall. I kinda go back and forth. I think three minutes giving another minute to members of the public, I'm okay with. I do
agree that you can be concise in two minutes, and I I get a sense that people are pretty concise. I think they make their point in two minutes. But if if we're giving an extra minute, I'm fine with it. I I I find it interesting watching our open comment period where they're two minutes, But then when we do have a public hearing and it's five minutes and they're speaking on a very specific topic, they're that five minutes goes pretty quickly from my standpoint in watching them.
So I think maybe the three minute to five minute balance between the two, I think, might be fine. Any other thoughts on this? Maybe Well, I'll just add, Brooke Carlson and myself, and I don't remember if it was Mark Tine at the time. Greg Greg Wright, perhaps. Our tri government meeting was where this topic came up, and we did make the recommendation for two minutes, because the county was two minutes. That was kind of ultimately where we went. And I thought the school had done two that they stuck with. They had three. The school the difference the school did is they don't televise them.
We've chosen not to do that. So, you know, we're not a % aligned with the schools, and we don't often have children speaking before the council. The schools do a lot because it's a school district and kids are the schools. So I guess I kinda felt like we took the big move. We we made the change. And a year later, we're we're revisiting it. And if there were have been problems, I would have said, okay. But there haven't been any. So I guess I feel like we're looking to solve something that's not really a problem. So I I guess I'd say stick with two minutes for another year and see
how it goes. And if it doesn't work and we hear complaints, besides the fact that we just made the change, that was a complaint. Right? Whether it'd be three minutes or two minutes. But I think once we made the change, it's gone relatively well. So I just I have a related question. So currently, we only have open comment period for those that are present physically. And, they can request to do their open comment virtually if they need, like, for the comment. And I don't we don't, like, have a complex word where it's for whether you need accommodation or not.
So we're not hearing from remote. If they requested in advance, we In advance. So in advance is the change that we saw and that's limited the the remote. And we have a pretty negative situation with the remote. Yes. Many, many cities have had because of the ability to Less than perfection. I think I just have a question about that too because I was thinking about remote participation. And even in state legislative committees, they have remote participation, but they have to sign up ahead of time. Right?
They're they're vetted, add to the list, and give it an order. And I wonder if there's something that there was a recent comment of public hearing about other speakers who would have spoken before or have to be there in person in conflicts. But I just wonder about that, especially as we're thinking about this emerging issue, How do we contemplate Like, publicizing that or anything? Publicizing it, developing a process, making it clear what the rubric is for remote participation. If we have a process, I mean, it's on every single agenda that talks about the public hearing process,
like the the whole it's like a whole page of bullet points of how you can different ways that you can provide your input, which and then we provide the written comments on people who write in and we put that all, and then we add it to the minutes of the packet. So from a staff perspective, I think we have a process. I'm not sure that I don't know if people are reading that or or publicizing it in the agenda. Maybe there's a different way to let you know. Okay. Anything else on, over the comment period? Alright. Let's move on to for the rotate rotating,
based on month or, mayor who made this, proposal council president appoints. Mayor, additional Yeah. Comments on this? When I first became mayor, that was the process that we we went through as a council president. What if the council president was gonna be gone, they appointed. We changed that to the rotating basis, I think, my first year here. Before you. Yeah. It was before you. So it was, that for right before the pandemic hit, actually, I think. Where where it interfaces with my office is if I'm gone, then the council president automatically becomes
the mayor Acting mayor. Acting mayor. Thank you. It's like pro chairman or something. The acting mayor. And I guess I would say, as the mayor, it feels it feels like there should be a little bit more thought about who is going to be acting mayor. It's not just who's who's next in line, if you will. And so I would prefer to be able to work with the council president should he be gone to say, you know, maybe he'll appoint someone to run the meeting, and I would appoint someone with his appointment. He would make it, but I I could ask to him to be acting mayor,
while I'm gone. And I will just say the other thing to remember is when there are rules were written back in the dark ages, there was no technology. There is very little that a mayor can't do, including signing documents if you wanna travel, if you can travel with the work computer, well, remotely. We are available on cell phone all the time. We are available on email. None of those things were around when the rules were initially written, our our policy. So it it isn't a huge burden necessarily, but there are some times where you have to speak or you have to,
you know, to do something. So I would like to be able to work with the council president on that. So I think we're tagging up two separate functions. Fair. And maybe staff can give us a is the presiding officer the also acting mayor when the council president is out of town, or is that a different line of decision making? I believe the ordinance says it's the council president. So whoever is the acting council president,
that was our interpretation of it in the past, then became the acting mayor. Okay. Well, they took that up. I know we're ready. Yeah. Council member Fredericks. Thanks, president Schubert. Question. So mayor Norton, can't be present at the meeting, but she could make herself available to to be available electronically. Is that an option? Yeah. Like, she could just remotely be involved in the meeting? Like, is that an option even? I did that one time, but I was not allowed to speak. It might be different than that. But if you go to the next slide,
there's this pending who's the true government legislation that allows for that. It also is a little bit clunky. I mean, let's be real. Like, hybrid meetings are clunky despite having the technology available. I think what the mayor is talking about though isn't the actual consummating. It's all the other things that happen. Right. I understand that. But I'm just talking pertaining to this. So let's say president Schubert has to be gone for the week, but he wants participate in the meeting. He can't just act as president virtually. We just can't have him on. He can't act virtually. That's not part of the way we do things. That's what I'm asking.
Under current law, you cannot do that. Okay. Alright. And then either the two either of the two, options, option one or two, I I would be comfortable with either one. I personally did not run for city council to be president. I ran to be representative of Ward 4. I'm not interested in being president. I think he does a good job and there's other people in this room I think would do a great job. I don't feel, you know, cast aside if I'm not, you know, if I don't get to be council president once during the year. So, I'm open to either of those options. Council member Paul Bernhardt.
Well, a couple of things. One one I think I think it's important that people do become the presiding officer because it's not an easy job. It's not like being a city council mayor. If a tornado or a huge flood came through, then acting mayor. If a tornado or a huge flood came through, then then you would have to do something with your city administrator.
But being the acting mayor is not a job that we do anything. So That is not true. Well, it was when I was. I didn't think he had his back. He got working. So but anyway, that's my due sense. But I I think it's good to have it be switched. Council member King. Yeah. I actually had some, peers that that was sort of, like, the worst time for them to be to have to do that, lead thing, and I it was just their time in the barrel by our process. I like option one up here. I actually am not so much a fan of option two with council annually appoints.
If you think about the logistics of that, I like the idea of the council president in absence would would do it. And I I just think that's a cleaner way to do this, and I just put that method if we make a change. I guess from my perspective, I am taking that I currently occupy that role now. I think I agree with council member Keane that if, for example, the council president were out of town, and, council member, Palmer happened to have that month and he happens to be out of town that
same day, then who makes that decision? And so I I guess I look at option one and say, the council president appoints the presiding officer and then the council can ratify that. Or if they don't like the cons the the chosen presiding officer, they can ask their first order of business appoint someone else, I guess. Okay. That's a point of order. No, mister Sanchez. I I didn't understand it that way. The the this to me would have been more of it's June 20,
and you're gonna be gone June or July 1 or July 8. You would approach someone to do it. Yeah. It wouldn't be ratified through the Hill Council. That that's what I that's my understanding of what we're talking about. It your your explanation threw me off because it sounds like you need to know long enough advance to get it on a council agenda. I I I didn't see that. Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree with you, council member. I guess was leaving the option open Okay. That if because it is the entire That makes the decisions. So leaving that I I I agree with mister King.
I think number one makes sense to me and and if we do it with the mayor, if she get a point where she wants to be fine with me also. I don't even know if that's in our rules of operation or that's that just gets caught up between two places. Yeah. That makes sense. Councilman, are you ready to add something? Maybe. Just sorting through the the different options and we were just reviewing the the charter language that informed the rules to begin with. It really the charter language does contemplate the council as a body making the decision of who the Mhmm. Who the replacement is for the president or vice versa,
potentially, both the mayor and the and the president are gone. So it really does tend to contemplate a larger a decision by the larger body and maybe as a logistical matter that is more feasible for for us to work with, to know who really is, the acting president, the acting mayor, and to have I guess I'll just add I'm I'm not sure how to phrase it in terms of that interpretation of the charger. But to council member Frederic's point, in providing an opt out, if that's not a role that an individual council member wants to serve throughout the
year. Maybe that's also a mechanism that gets closer to option one. Because I see option one as council president approving approaches someone. They have the ability to say yes or no. It's not an appoint I mean, it's an appointment, but it is a conversation. And it's flexible to other people's availability. But, again, within the charter language, perhaps there's also an opt out. I have something. Council member for Can it be as simple as he makes a recommendation? We just vote on it? Mhmm. I think it can. Just up at the end. Yes. We're we're we're we're in we need to have the body together in order to
do that. And there to that point, there were circumstances in the past few years where where the individual that was set by rule chose to not, and as a counsel, I think in a pretty smooth fashion, made a recommendation, and that person took over. And in the case where you become incapacitated, like, at 05:45, what we would do is refer to your council rules, which is for Jamie, if if you come up with something that works for this, then you would basically start the meeting. The immediate thing that you would do is to you need to suspend the rules,
and then you would be appointed in person. But maybe you called in fifteen minutes or, hopefully, you're not voting for that. Where I called and say Okay. Member's friend rapes. Alright. Council member Palmer. I guess if he make the president makes a judgment and says this is what we're going to do, if none of the city council members say anything, it's the way we we handle it. And so if I don't like what the council president says, then I would make a motion to get a second to say, I challenge that decision. Am I correct on that?
That's true. So if he decided that that that mister Fredericks is gonna be his go to guy, and and mister Fredericks gets there and starts, If we don't like it, we can always make the motion to say no. But if we don't say anything John. If we don't say anything, it becomes what what what the president said. Is that correct? So my question is, can they do that now? They don't like what I'm doing. No. We can't. No. Our rules now have the process in our rules of operation. And I thought the attorney was telling us we really can't use option one without
some sort of formality to it. Can I can I offer a suggestion for how you might be able to use option one through other business? I mean, what it says here is Mhmm. The challenge we have is this is also the merger, which talks about during the absence of the mayor, it is the at large council number. But then it goes on to say or the person identified by the council, and then it goes on to say you can't, like, read the whole charter in order to know what it says. The council member, it learns all of the selected council member serving as.
But when it talks about the selected member earlier on, it says as appointed by the council. And then further, it goes on to say that at your annual meeting, you're gonna set an order of succession. So I think you if by establishing the rules, which is another section of the charter, it says you can establish your rules. If your rule was that the council, the at large member was to say that and or that and the mayor was to identify, one way of doing that, because usually you have an advanced notice is to say, during other business, you could say this is the person I'm appointing, and that would be an opportunity for a silent enthusiast kind of a thing.
Prospero call nurse and he wants to talk to me if we have more talk about, about that appointment. So I don't know if that's legal. That seems like it would be the spirit of the charter, but I don't know if it Is it the spirit of the charter, or is it a paper trail for decisions that are made? It's both. I think we get I think there's a sense of where the council wants to go with this. So that's kind of, attorneys, Keep it simple and legal. Good. That's not I was gonna say that. Make it illegal. Alright. Moving on to,
voting rotation, and I'm not I'm not sure who brought this up. Council member Palmer. This is a this is a bugaboo line. It has been for about six years. And I listened to the twenty eighth meeting twice, and this was never brought up. So I don't remember it. I don't remember how how did this get on this list? I'm done. I don't know. And and so the the argument against doing anything differently is is that we have a seniority system and and and mister Keane is number one, so he gets the highest seniority. And then it goes to Palmer at number five.
Where that might make a difference to you is if you're in Ward 2, you have more seniority than ward four, which means you have more seniority than ward six. It's not done by sea. No. Just on my board order. I I I council member call. Yeah. I don't know where it got on here, but I again, I'll I'll give you the, you know, before the 2019 rules were made that status in ward order, it used to be sat in alphabetical order and used to be voted that way. There was a discussion in 2023 to say we should change this to sit by,
like and I can't remember seniority, but then it would change the voting order. But they're actually be two separate things. You can talk about seating order and then voting. And and I think you can separate them. Right now, we have them. It's the same. Mhmm. I I didn't bring some I I don't have a problem with it. But I've been told it's not good to have the same voting order all the time when you're doing the and it was a much bigger thing when we were all remote or when we were doing everything was a roll call vote. But, I I if anything, I I'm more concerned back in the time. I was more concerned about the seating order than I was about the voting order.
I'm taking that personally. Well, it it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be, but it was I don't know if you remember this, but it I I think it was alphabetical, but other places do it by seniority out from the from the center. Council member, Frederick. I like the way it is. Mayor, did you have did you waive the vision? I'm just surprised we're even discussing this, to be honest. I think the way it came up was that someone asked me a question that was not about this, and I used it as an example of ways that other city council rules were. But that's the only thing I could think because I don't I do remember it
coming up, like, two years ago. I actually think that it actually helps the community to know word one, word two, word three, word four, do an order. I don't know. Okay. I I don't see a lot of cash into this one, so let's move on to the next one, which is, okay. So this is, this is a compilation of all of the things that I talked about at the at our study session. I'm really good with, how we've condensed this. The really key objective that I was looking for was,
to on those high impact issues that we have, six to eight a year, that, that we see that that project at either a study session, a week before it hits our regular council meeting or at on reports and recommendations two weeks before we have to actually make, the decision. It gives us an opportunity to to, to deliberate on the issue and to, for staff to hear our issues,
concerns, and to, modify the the, the item if if need be. It also, gives the public an additional week of hearing about the issue and, then we as their representatives can, can, have that feedback in our decision making. So I'm I'm very comfortable with working with staff to make sure that those high impact issues are, on our study session or council,
reports and recommendations. Two weeks or at the very longest, a month before our time to vote on it. The one question that I do have on it is currently in our rules and guidelines, the, city administrator sets the agenda. So making sure that we as a council are aware of those high impact issues and when they're coming up so that we then can make sure that they are, on that study session of reports and recommendations.
So with that, council member, Paul? We've talked about this, but for me, if we have a study session and then our packet's out on Wednesday and then Monday we vote on it, that makes it a little hard to get everybody's concentric or input into it. I think we have a steady session and the city council says we'd like to have the decision two meetings from now. I think that that would be helpful. That way, gives us that time to to to get input from other community members on what we wanna do. So why would the division is give study session?
Somebody says this is the report issue. Skip the next meeting. I could go to the next meeting. You said that, I don't know if that's workable for you. I mean, I think this is gonna be an imperfect system. We're gonna try hard because there's eight different ideas of what the most important item is. If you could ask that during the study session. Oh, yeah. We can council member Wahl. I think we've actually done that fairly frequently. For instance, Aaron said, we're not gonna have this back for years and months. Let's continue to fund the after that. I think it's great sense.
Sure. Council member Miller. I just said, it it does seem like at least with the study session calendar, we get a preview of what's coming when. And I hear that in some ways with the community as well. So it's not a surprise on Wednesday what's going to be voted on on Monday. Just how do we build an additional lead time? I mean, whether it's one meeting, two meetings. I I'm okay with an imperfect system where we try something to build in a little more lead time. And it seems like issues are often already projected for certain meeting dates, that staff tell us,
but it's not always clear. It's from a maybe from a topic, but also from some of the specifics of that. Knowing what's coming, what the decision is, make sure we have time to get input, make sure that it's time it gets picked up by media, particularly for the significant ones. I won't add in any attempt to define significant. I think of the apple tree and radish image that we were given as many but Yeah. No. You're not. Other other thoughts on this. I I agree. I I'm okay with the imperfect system,
and I think there also maybe issues, that there is a hard deadline that staff has to back it up and say, you know, we can't really have this two meetings from now. It has to be ten days. And I think I think that's something we can just work through as a as an admin. So Yeah. I I guess I would maybe just offer. I take that also as, like, a communication, like, challenge not challenge, but, like, the good kind of challenge, challenge to achieve. That when we have report recommendation or a study session,
like, make sure we have a slide that says, like, maybe where we've been and where where we think future trajectory of something is going, because then it helps to, you know, you have something to go back to to show people. Like, a, maybe this wasn't even you know, might be the first study session, but we had a bunch of community engagement or some other things, or it's related to this other topic that we've talked about 10 times. This is the next step. So kind of connecting the decisions through through time. Like, I think we've talked about that too. So and we can also make sure that the team is considering that about how
we're you know, other forms of communication and letting folks know when these have shifted or, maybe we anticipated a bid coming to you. And then we got the bids and we're like, there's no way we could bring that to them. Don't have to wait until the agenda item for you to know that information. I also do like that that you listed out the boards and commissions because with those, that's what we're getting. I mean, any any of us can go to planning and zoning, HBC, or any of these other meetings and get that preview.
And that is open to the public, and it is the same proposal that will come to us. So, one that I would consider adding would be the the DNC state board, as a as another one that we wouldn't necessarily have to have. Mhmm. I'll just get a preview of money. Council member, King. Kind of a logistics question. I I see this topic here, and I I think I understand the discussion and sort of the malleable parts of
it, like what's significant and the timing. But is there a section in our rules that talk about agenda setting? I I didn't think they're Kind of. I just saw this detailed. Yeah. Because when you listed all those things, I can't think of another place where that stuff is in our rules or that I've, like, absorbed and internalized. I I think the agenda I mean, just the higher level concept that we don't have agenda, like, authority to put something on. That's what the council initiated actions are. But this is a matter of this is us giving or or setting our rules
for staff to follow, but I didn't think there's a section like that right now. Maybe there is. I when I was referring to agenda setting, I think there is a line in there that agendas will be set by the city administrator. I think there there's something to that order. And and how to distribute it by a certain point like lead time. Yeah. Right. I I would just observe it. I think you're you're both right. In some respects, this really isn't a rules conversation. You know, I still appreciate Yep.
Your guidance and my aspiration. Okay. That's all I got. Mayor? I'll just add, a question. It's something to think about. You've specifically called out certain boards, and most of those boards are boards that have a higher authority with the exception of the music board, which does not. And there are other boards like, citizens advisory on transit that also have decisions run by them as community members. So I wonder if it if it should say significant items that are not previously reviewed by a
city board or commission, and you could do a such as if you want. But I I I think we need to be cognizant that some of those are statutory, and that's one thing. Music board is not statutory nor nor is citizens advisory and transit and on and on and on. And I I so I guess I was a little curious as to how these ones got selected, when we have others that hear proposals by the city, and that we either should just make a comment that if it's been heard by a citizens committee, maybe it doesn't need this.
But if it hasn't, then that's a different story. Alright. Oh, council member Miller. I appreciate the conversation. I would add it that I think of them as the ones that do have some statutory authority to be a step in our policy generation. I I think it's an interesting question about how we interact and hear from the music board. Mhmm. Citizens and I do. But the other ones. Right? Just the ones that don't have a step in our Yep. In our process. I think some of it is that they haven't been taking the step because I
think most of these require an annual report to counsel. Mhmm. Might not. We have to get time over. And so even if it's submitting that, you know, and it's something that you review on consent, probably we can get better at doing that. Like, what is their view of would you get that from that fixed commission? Mhmm. That's because we try to be simple and legal. And so I'm gonna submit what was in the work. I think some of that came from actually was generated from the discussion the last time. But looking at the actual language here, it does talk about generally it's really talking about the business agenda.
And so I think there's opportunities. I think the way this will work well, because I don't know that you can articulate it well in language in the council rules is between other business, your feedback during items of study session and or report and recommendation or or elsewhere. And the the calendar the study session calendar item, like, it's not on there just to so I guess talk one more time. Like, it serves a purpose of, like, creating a space for the city council to say, hey. I don't see anything on the city extension calendar about this.
Like, is that a topic that's gonna come up? So, like, that two way communication and engagement of utilizing the different parts of your agenda to be able to get some, you know yes. That's this one's this is the this is the radish I assume the radish ones are one significant ones. Quick versus longer term. So, I mean, it it it is helpful, like, to know, hey. This is on my mind. I'm concerned. I think this is coming in a year and a half, and that's gonna, like, be here in half a minute if we don't start getting feedback from the council
about what their concerns are. I'm just gonna restate. Not all of these boards are created equal, and there are other boards who make decisions who are not listed. And I think we should be very careful. Sure. And music for one shouldn't be honored at all because you can make arguments on some of the others that have more of a statutory decision making thing. But, otherwise, put them all or, you know, anything that goes by a board. So I'm just I'm gonna be a little picky about that, but I don't think we should ask people to work and then somehow in this document saying these ones are important and the other ones aren't because I don't think
that's the message we wanna send. I guess what I'm saying, I don't think this is gonna end up in your document. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. I I guess I would like to see it in some fashion, whether it doesn't have the but I I think I think given the fact that we've had two discussions on it, I think and and the objective is that you have significant items. And I I think we're all clear on understanding what those significant items may or
may not be and our role as council members to ensure that staff knows that we think this coming up in six months or two months or three weeks is a significant item. But I I would like to see it reflected somewhere in there. Other thoughts? I guess I'm curious to express agreement because I I heard different points of view about it being an indictment, but you also have a charter language to contend with with this. So depending on how it's written,
Like, your council rules or procedures do not talk about, like, what goes to study session or not, like, currently. And, technically, if it's in there and someone doesn't agree, they can do a point of order and we'll just suspend the rules and, like, say it shouldn't have been on there in the first place or it should have or I'm not saying that would happen to those people. But Okay. A question. Is study sessions in our rules and guidelines? It's in there, but it doesn't talk about setting the agenda at all. It talks about that you'll I mean, I mean,
it seems reasonable that the council would have some desires to have certain items hurt. I mean, that seems like a reasonable request. How you get to that is your council initiated action process. Generally, it's big enough because, otherwise, we're running around doing multiple different things. And then when it gets you and it's fully fleshed, I mean, I'll just bring up the bad word again. Organics, depending on how that comes forward, like, feel real uncomfortable for council and can actually like, if the art of the meeting isn't considered in the topic I mean,
all it says about post about council study sessions is council study session meetings will be available to the public by the city's official livestream and or the city's YouTube channel. So it's being broadcast. The session's posted. When it gets to the it's really talking about because your charter talks about that you have to have business needs. It talks about when those are. It talks about setting the agenda. Those like, it's in the actual charter of the city. I wonder if it sorry. Go ahead. If this might not fit somewhere between two dot zero three a about the business
agenda for each meeting will be generated if it doesn't include a set point of I mean, it's gonna be very general language. We can put some data there, and then you'll have to believe that that's what we're at. Yeah. And and when in my understanding of significant items, our items that are already generated by projects that are happening within the staff and they are they would naturally be on our regular council meeting agenda, but they have significant impact.
Recent example would be the regional sports Center that came on our agenda on Wednesday. We made a decision the following Monday. That would be a significant item that, that public greater public input or or a longer glide path to that decision. And I just picked that one as an example. So it's it's not new items that two or more council members are trying to put on an agenda.
It's items that are already being generated. Council member, can you Yeah. I mean, I think we do have, I think council president Schubert is trying to bring up, an issue, but I'm not sure how it packages into our rules and code of conduct. It doesn't appear that we really wanna have a rule. I think we're giving input to the staff that we want more lead time, but we're really not in a point where we're gonna make it a rule as opposed to, we wanna make sure there's some sort of cadence to decision making, that that that the public's aware of.
And I think that I think that should be good enough for us. The alternative approach would be that if something appears on the Wednesday agenda, it's more disruptive, but there could be a threshold to postponing. I mean, like, there's all kinds of ways you can see this called continuing an item. Yeah. Right. But I agree that that's disruptive. I I'm also okay with a more imperfect process where we figure out more lead time. Don't necessarily write it as a rule today. Let's see how it works. Maybe part of the council member Miller's point.
Yes. Certainly, as this conversation has evolved, an option always is to consider continuation by putting off a decision. And that may be a complicated conversation for us to have on the dice where we're giving you the input of well, actually, you can't do it because there's legal issues or these are the downfalls of the lang and we can talk that through and you can make a decision. There's always that option. And yes, it it would just be very challenging to to put this into a structure that would
be helpful and meaningful, partly because that example of a complex decision that maybe felt like it was rushed in some manner was imperfect. You would have liked more time. That was maybe an example of five different reasons that made it come to you in a way that it did. Like, there were ongoing negotiations. We had matters under contract that we didn't have an ability to delay. We didn't know for sure what to present to you three weeks ahead of time in order to better inform that decision.
And it's just tricky with a mix of these maybe significant decisions trying to find that sweet spot of enough information and information to be able to present to you, what's going to come before you in three weeks, and try to get additional public input versus all of the things that are often happening in this last one, two, three weeks prior to an important decision. There's a few other complications as well, just things like quasi traditional decisions, of course, can't be sort of previewed and then through a study session.
Just a few other complications. Mayor. I'll just say I mean, it seems like the issue here is the council is trying to tell the staff that they would like to have more discussion earlier about things that are happening in the city, more knowledge in advance, more time to inform the community. Those are reasonable requests. And and and whether you need to write it down or not or whether you have it be in if you know something's boiling, then you ask for it to be put on the next agenda and have a vote during other business or whatever is you probably can.
That might be a way to make manage it too. But I think, Michael, the problem that we run into is some of what you started covering, which is the decision comes before the council. And they're not ready to make a decision or they're uncomfortable, and the staff have come up with this grand solution. Right? They were like, well, that's okay, but we'd like to make some tweaks. And we're told, no. You have to make a decision today because of all the things that you were naming, and there's no and and there's not a possibility of being able to say, I'd like to continue it. And that's I think that's the downside of just using continuation as the sole solution,
maybe one. But if it's something that's timely Yeah. No. I'm not saying we wouldn't try to do this. I'm just saying No. I'm just saying. And I'm rules that take care of that. Right. I I I understand. I I think, staff understands the spirit of what we're looking for, and I think, I think in reading the council council members, I think there is a strong, majority that does wanna see us move in this direction. I find for it not to be in rules, I think we we've got the spirit of it. But to the mayor's point,
I think there is a culture on the council of not ableing, not continuing. And and it really takes a lot to be able to do that. So I also understand that it's gonna take a little more kind of backing up by the staff to get to determine what these are. I trust, our staff that, you you in consultation with all seven, eight of us, that you will know what those are and there'll be some give and take.
But, I think I think being able to get those previews, I think is good on smooth things and get greater public input of a healthier, more robust dialogue from the, the body here and a better product that we can more ex expediently, pass when it finally comes to making that final decision. So I'm comfortable with where we're at if that Others are. Before we go to emerging issue,
can are there any other rules and codes of conduct that were discussed at the last study session or others that folks wanna bring up today. Council member Ward? Yes. I had mentioned one that, didn't make the cut, and that was a reconsideration of, the appointments to, council members to, boards. Just didn't make it into that list. So I'd be interested in that list. And, is putting council members on boards? I think the appointment process. I I think We're not boards and commissions,
but No. And or maybe, staff can clearly address the dialogue. I think the dialogue from what I understood being a new council member, I I I had the the process that we have in place now, which is the the, council president makes recommendations and the the, the board or the the council then, approves those or doesn't approve those. And, what changed to that where you I I don't recall his his Yeah.
I think that I said something to the effect of, I thought that we pace placed the, board president in a difficult position, right off the bat first meeting. And, there were some difficult decisions And, the previous iteration of the appointment process, would have, negated that, uncertainty. And, we I think we would have moved forward a little bit more expediently and without the hiccups that we have. Council member And so I had an old policy and I read it and then and then it said how we we did our our trivia silence.
And it got changed, and I went back to listen to the meeting that we had in this room, and nobody spoke about it. And so somehow, that section got changed. And so that's the reason I didn't know anything about it. And and just briefly, the way we did it in the past was you go by seniority and you go, one through seven or six, and then you go from six back to one to get your first choice, your second choice, your third choice to fill in your committees. That just seemed to need to be a a better system than just saying,
you know, the council president picked these people and why. And you go, wow. It makes it more difficult. So to me, the old way of doing it is is you go from scenery one through six back to back up to, you know, over And just to clarify, council member, that change was made by the previous council. Correct? It it was, but not not a disc there was no discussion about it. It was almost kinda like our our discussion about There was discussion in this room. I don't wanna negate you. No. There was there was not. I I I deliberately got back to listen,
and there was no discussion about it. So there was on the twenty eighth when you said you're refusing how to do it. Okay. The twenty eighth. But not not the two years ago. What happened, and that's just the point of what it is, we had a very difficult meeting that wanted we're just wanting to get what we wanted done done and removed. Okay. So currently currently, the process is that the council president makes recommendations. There are some guidelines, but it's it's shifting using those rankings and then presenting it to the council to,
to make any changes or and, and council member, while I it I was not in any difficult even though that was a meeting. I was fine with the decision that the council made. Is there interest in changing the process that we currently have? Yeah. I would have interest in revisiting the, process prior to '23. I would also. Just Okay. Clarification. I I know I've heard the same thing council member Palmer talked about with the seniority things. I'm not sure if those were council rules versus conventions in the way things were
done. There so there was an actual council rule. I would not say that it was written in a way that was as digestible as what was put into the packet for the prior discussion on April 28. But the way that it worked before, I think that actually changed in 2021. I don't think it was 2023. But it was removed, but it doesn't matter because it changed. Remove it what was removed was appointment by rotation of council member. And this was, like, this made words, like, on top of page before. Removed appointment by rotation of council members by years of service,
and this is where it gets confusing. And reverse order for the next rotation until all positions are filled. So I'm not picture the interpretation of what that means, but up to the council. And then and then from there, priority was given to the lower numbered board if members had years of equal service. So there's a lot of different things that needed to come into play. I mean, one could argue that that means that, I mean, if you have a I'm not saying this is what what happened, but, like, based on how it was written,
you might say, like, if everybody picked four, if you have a council of four new people, that none of those people are appointed to anything. But Especially if there are more shifts. So but but still, that recommendation comes to council, and you could have had this similar but different discussion if people visit, like, the rotation and the pics. I mean, it doesn't negate that the city council still is the final Yeah. Body that's acting on it. But it used to be appointment by so you would be saying, like, I want something, but you'd have to prioritize the wants of the members that have based on their
years of service. And then and then again, not exactly sure what this meant, but but the next rotation so is it the next like, if you pick the three people that have seniority, I assume this means the next rotation, like, is they don't get their number two, then you go in reverse or I guess that's where I'm not exactly sure how that got applied. The reverse or the next rotation until all positions are filled. I don't know exactly what that means, but that's what was written in more words than that. And then if there's a tie, like, say, here's a service,
then the lower word. So capture that one every time. Yes. So Yes. Just to clarify, so if under that system, it is incumbent upon the council president to to give you that mechanism Yes. And then bring a slate forward, and then the council can do what? They can. This work. Yeah. Okay. So Well, the president would consider the, ranking offered by Loubeth. And if there was a conflict, then would go to, the system.
I can read it. I got it right in front of me if anybody wants to hear the exact words. And I'm not I don't actually care what you do. Let I just I just literally don't know what what it means when it says the next rotation is reverse order until I don't I've never had to apply that order. I guess my interpretation of that, the way that it was done, I believe in the past was you went from highest seniority down to numbers of number six, and then you went from number six to five, four, three, two, and went back up. So that so that you get your best chance at getting even more.
Where the difficulty becomes then is let's just assume three people wanted to the RPU board. Now now who gets the RPU board? It would be the number one seniority person. And then you would go down so if it were me, you'd take my second one, which might be something different, and then it go down that way. And, I mean, you might have been uncomfortable on on the first day, but it was uncomfortable for for people who didn't want to to to rework it. So and there was some difficulty with that. So I just think having a system that works better is and that's why I
brought up the previous this meeting. The four of you who got elected to the three of you, the second word, fourth word, and sixth word is how the scenario works. Fair or not? But that's that's how that works. So I I guess if we are gonna discuss it, then we're discussing, you know, how much seniority should have in those decisions. And I think a council that has had a shift of four new members four years ago and now four year now this year,
and you have a majority of new council members, I wonder weighing seniority so strongly is what we want as a city, I guess. And that I'm I'm not saying, but council member will. I'll I'll choose to use a different word. I'll use experience as opposed to similar. That's someone who will serve Patrick probably doesn't want to use his name, but someone who will serve well in our view, I think that experience serves us very well. Quite apart from senior. I might pick on the city council, but in the legislature, there are horrific Yeah.
Council or or chairs, and they only get it because they have been there forever, and they are in act at running meetings and making decisions. And so it can go either way. I'm not I'm not talking about anybody any of you know. Well, some of you have been around a lot of mine, but not name at all. Council member, can you So I am kinda surprised this is coming up because I was still looking at the the key thing to me is however you get to that meeting, the council still decide okay. Still has the ability to decide. So we're just talking about how we get into the room.
And it is yes. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to that. I I my view is that, in the way the rules read to me, it says the presiding officer will nominate or or and the counsel will decide. So how we get there to me is secondary to that key thing about of, you know, that we decide through at through consensus slash majority. And and I appreciate that council member Keane and I also appreciate the transparency,
council member Wall that that may have been difficult for some members of the body. But, to council member Keane's point, we got to the place where this entire council decided this these are our appointments, and I think we moved moved on very respectfully to, to to that. And so The system worked. In in my view, the system worked. Well, that's a lot of this. I mean, I I think, I mean, not to pick on mayor Norton,
but thinking also our county commission. People come into this role with different public experience and other experience. I I think the system can work and did, and we can have more flexibility under a simpler survey, help the president organize a slate of nomination, play coordination, and then bring us to the meeting and then we have discussion. I think locking us into one order, reverse it. It was like we're we're perhaps adding rules that don't allow us ultimately flexibility in considering
everybody's qualifications and experience. And we can then ultimately have that discussion at the end at the meeting. Do you want me to put this in while we two things that I'm not sure if you decide, but that's what the meeting's for. So extend the conversation about confidence to decide. But in this case, your council rules require five of the seven of you agree. So the Seymour goes with the two minute, three minute. And I heard if if we bring three minute, there needs to be thirty minutes, not twenty one. And so we'll see where that lands in your actual vote,
and then I'm I guess I'm not even really hearing more people that want me to put this on, but this is the art and the science of significant. Right. I'm not only hearing two people, so I just why I didn't make it way to hear. Interest. Is is anyone else want to speak on the appointment process? Like Process work work, like you said, worked itself out this year. I don't see a reason to change it. I see. Alright. I think thank you for being transparent, Council Member Wall. I I see what you see.
Alright. Anything else that, rules and guidelines? I'll just add. I I did look it up because I was curious about the accommodation and comment. And our open comment participation sheet says, currently, virtual participation is not available. The public hearing one says, currently, no virtual participation is available. So if there is an accommodation process to engage, I just I I would love for that to be clear in those documents what options there are because that's how they graph your view. In the packet or where It I was looking at the meeting, pack until I pulled it up.
I think there's a document that we have this ever looks like that we just need to add or Okay. Well, in the, like, guidelines, if you look up the packet and and you look at open meeting, open comment or public hearing, it both say currently no virtual participation. It doesn't mention anything of the combination. It's not. Why I saw one. I did online. So it might be in a separate place Yeah. In the in the packet language. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And and this is probably not rules and procedures, but I think to the mayor mentioning the other boards and commissions that would love to know how we best interact and hear from I think about the municipal consent
process. I think there are reports and commissions that maybe were even engaged, and that was unclear to me how that recommendation or their perspective was even represented in their service to the community. And I I just wanna honor the work that our board and commission members do and just make sure that we hear from them in appropriate ways. So, seeing any other, it council member? Yeah. And this isn't for, editing right now, but just in this discussion. Coming into COVID and getting out of COVID, COVID, we had done some major changes to our meeting things, and that's part of our rules,
regular meetings, study sessions, things like that. In 2023, I think we really did cut back in a a lot of the amount of time that we did meet with, two study sessions a month and two business meetings. I guess I'm I'm just mentioning that because from my perspective or my arc of six years, we used to be together as a council. I mean, the range of three to four hours more per month. It's something we've gotten away from, and I'm just pointing out it might be fine. It's probably, our time is probably more,
better used tightly. But at the same time, there is less time being used, and those are things that are controlled within our views. So just heads up to my peers that that's something that used to be different. It seems to be working the way it is right now, but I've also heard things about, like, that we haven't had enough time to ruminate on certain things. So I I just bring it up as because it is part of that same document with the rules. I'll start on that. I I think I I agree with you, council council member Keane. I think it seems to be working well now, but, I appreciate you sharing that for as as we ramp up and as the city
runs on all cylinders and we as council members want to have that time and we also wanna have our, our members of the public to be able to keep up with us. It's something to think about as far as do we need more time. I'll just say I I appreciate that this meeting was added because I I don't think we have time in our study sessions upcoming to have a three hour discussion about rule of procedures. So I I like the flexibility whether that gets added as a guaranteed initial one.
But we've also had some fairly full study sessions recently where we've had to cut topics where there was perhaps more active discussion to move on to the next. So I don't wanna suggest something on a new schedule today, but I just agree with my colleagues' comments. Right. Yes. And you and it would be helpful to if we aren't even if we aren't changing anything, like, it's hard to get this group and or the presenters together on like, we kinda all hold our Monday. It's like and I know that part of the change with people,
it was challenging to, like, have two different maybe bones in your brain, like, 03:30. Like, is there is Monday an option? And if it is an option, is earlier, like, maybe it's not at 03:30. Maybe it's morning. Take a break. Being here junior, council meeting. So Monday, I think, is a great day to have it and a terrible day to have it. But to try to actually get the people in the room that have the eight voices at the table and the people that need to present the item is challenging. If it's almost any other day than Monday or if we're adding it ad hoc,
I think it's less challenging to add it to a Monday. But it presents a different challenge, you know, for council sometimes of being in two modes. So not that I I don't need an answer today, but, like, be thinking about, like, is there a time on a Monday if we were because the intent of changing that, we said we still could add back, you know, a 03:30 on Monday. And if it's for one item, maybe that's fine. But if it's a three hours discussion, you have your council meeting starting already. So we were incapacitated because you were in a different meeting that everyone else was
in. So it's that would just be if you could put your thinking caps on about that. I mean, we haven't been able to make today work. There's, like, no day that works for all of you to be here until, I think, August, maybe, or I wanna get to so emerging issue, is this something that we should kind of parking lot until the governor signs it and we see it, and then there will be some kind of changes that will be proposed to our rules and guidelines, that, incorporates this new statute.
Is that I mean, parking lot, a lot I mean, it could be a total parking lot. Like, if you don't wanna if you have any feedback, I think we would be grateful for it because having especially from a council perspective, like, your ability to join remotely and participate changes your need. We've answered that. Council member, Farmer. So so the question is is is the government let's assume the government signs it. Does it mean we have to do that? It doesn't. It means our rules we have to say we want to do that. Is that correct? You couldn't be more strict than what you can't be. Company number one. I I would be,
reticent to, open up, remote participation. We've had a recent case in Minnesota, a county commissioner who, of diminishing ability, who is, remotely coming into the meetings with the health care center. And they go into a lawsuit with his wife and him. I think there's another one a couple of years ago, city council member, which I've spent four to five months in Arizona. I I just need to ask him for mischief. Council member Keane. Yeah. I again, I'm glad to hear that, you know, we can be more restrictive. I I guess I wasn't sure when I had myself on.
I watched this debate at League of Minnesota cities, and it really is in support of these smaller cities that have five person council and one or two that go away in the winter, and they really couldn't do business. It was it was a logistics mess for them. But I think, I think from our perspective, I think we wanna put some restrictions on it, you know, number of times it could happen, reasons why it would happen, just to keep it to be to the, you know, that, you know, you know, so if we have 26 business meetings in a year, if it happened three times,
that would probably be okay, but much more. I I believe and maybe attorney Spindler, Craig, I mean, if someone's removed, do we have to do everything roll call? Yes. Yeah. I mean, these are the kind of things that just and and, you know, you might think, well, we already do a lot. We do, like, one fifty of our votes right now is a roll call. Right. If if and you start doing all those, it's just gonna drag you out. It's very inefficient, never mind for the council, but any public trying to, watch or try to participate, it's very attractive. Mhmm. Hard to do. Councilman? I'm just gonna add I think within reason,
I think this additional flexibility is great. I mean, not having to notice the public location, right, where someone is seems common sense. I'll I'll be away. I'll miss the the first meeting in August for the travel. We don't have that. I don't know what's going to be on that agenda, but if there's something that's very important. Right? I think there are reasons that we could have limited structure for remote participation when appropriate. If that seems like a very straightforward agenda, I will gladly, you know, be away. But I think it's it just depends on the context.
I think having, you know, somewhere in the three or fewer options during the year where you can join remotely for for important issues. And participate. And participate. Yes. And that's not per person. It's if we had it three times a year on a council, that would be enough. Yeah. Just three times. Sure. Yes. That's why I saw you pursue. Yeah. Yeah. I when when he just said three times, I thought, oh, no. I don't know. Howard, but I just wanna contemplating. Right. Mayor? Well, I was just gonna say, there have been times when an item comes up that I appreciate being able to weigh in on.
I do not have a vote. And so should I be able to participate remotely, other than just in listening mode, it would not require a vote. Just briefly, that, usually, we can be more restrictive on a mix of items. This one might be a little bit interesting. There just may be some LMC review, and some additional things that maybe haven't been completely thought through as to what this would look like, could look like, should look like, and whether that can be modified by your rules.
So, partly to your original question, yes, I think, when if it's signed, when it's signed, we will have some problems that we need to do. It may involve rules adjustment. We'll for sure rule adjustments. Alright. Anything else? Our next study session The next study session is UBC downtown parking and parking developer assistance policies are two sort of similar but different discussions about parking. And then, between '25, legislative session updates. So closer. So on the twenty third,
you have the audit. Oh, six thirty days. Yeah. And then the budget updates, on so more information about the CIG and, that's part of your budget and then outside agencies a little bit more deeper dive into the outside agencies. Okay. And then the budget Alright. Any anything else? If not, we are adjourned.