Okay, folks. I think we're gonna get started. Welcome to our, February 9 city council study session. We have two agenda items, better public meetings update, and then we have, city council rules and health procedure, discussion. And then, after that, we will have an executive session. We will go into Room 104 for that. So with the better public meetings update, I see our our, colleague, our consultant Nick on the line and,
I I I think I'll just turn it over to you, Nick, to give us, a report on all the good work that you and, many of us in this room and members of the community have contributed to. Great. Well, thanks so much for, having me, and, I'm delighted to give an update on the work that we've been doing for the past several months in the community. Just give me a second here to get going. So we're gonna talk a little bit about, better public meetings. And the objectives for today are to brief you all on the process to date,
and what we've done, talk a little bit about, the recommendations of the community, specifically, and then think and sort of hopefully tee us up, to sort of create a a shared framing for a leadership discussion on the next stages of of this work. So currently so we have about three stages of the process, to date. This is I would say we're roughly, let's say, one third of the way through the process. One third heading towards one, halfway through the process. So so far,
we've conducted a bunch of research. I'll talk a little bit about that. There's two presentations to the community. One I'll mention, great after, but I would consider this the second presentation of the findings to the community. And then after this, what we wanna do is iterate and implement some form of recommendation or plural recommendations. So this is what we did, a little bit of the research. We conducted 25, interviews with a a a good cross section of the community from within the government, boards and commissions, city council members, staff,
and then outside with residents, with, some grassroots groups, with non profits, and, local media as well. And then we implemented a community survey, and the survey was about was roughly four buckets of information, how the community, views community engagement, how the community views civic infrastructure, how the community thinks about, places and spaces, and digital, platforms and participation. Simultaneously, we and there's 58, responses to that survey. Simultaneously, you would should all be familiar with the scorecard. We have this,
civic engagement scorecard that was piloted, across your city council meetings, and that was just to provide a snapshot of, participants' experiences of the meeting to give us general sense of so how are people participating? What are they seeing that's that's good about the meetings? Where are the opportunities and what they would like to see change? And then some reflections on their their engagement with the community. And then we had a public forum on December 4, and there were roughly 41 people. And we had, a pretty constructive conversation about the,
things that work well, some of the challenges, and some of the opportunities that that they would like to see. Talk about that, in a moment. So that's, on the research. And maybe I can I don't know how we wanna do this? We pause for questions now, or maybe we can move through the presentation, and then you can ask questions maybe towards the end. That might be a little bit more efficient. What do you think? Yep. Nick, what I'll do is I will keep an eye on my colleagues and and, staff. And if there's a question, I will let you know. Sure.
And then they will ask their question. Happy to definitely answer any questions. Go on. Okay. So the outputs, the immediate outputs. And I don't know if it was part of your current council packet or this, but there is there is a set of there is a very brief memo of recommendations. So it's a it's a scoped five I think it's roughly five pages or so that talks just strictly about the recommendations, some of the thoughts around what those would look like, and then the sort of benefit to counsel on why you might wanna consider those.
Those are are not in a in a in a any particular order. I'll present a a similar frame of those, in in a moment. And then we have a full research report. So I do have the full research report, just some slight tweaks. But, if for for for those of you that want, you know, a little bit more nuanced information on how you sort of connect those recommendations to specific data and outputs. So, we have four sources of information that we're working towards, and that's, you know, the the community forum,
the scorecard, the community survey, and the interviews. And so it's a lot more detailed in in those regards. And so I thought having two separate, documents, one more high level and scoped, and then a more detailed report, to to sort of back up, you know, some of the things that were were were said. For the community forum, this was on December 4. It was great to visit your community. It was cold, but it was it was still nonetheless. The tunnel was was was pretty good, all things considered. 41 people. We did a little bit of a, research update, and then we broke out into roundtable conversations.
And we have a good set of information that came from from that as well. So I believe that was also shared, with the community. So one of the key things here is being transparent about, you know, the things that we've been talking about. And I think that's online. So all of the data points that were collected through our Mentimeter, it's a live poll, are available to the community. And that became, part of us thinking about the research as well. So I've been thinking, you know, you know, conducting this research, coming to the community, reflecting on what we've had with the community and refolding that back into the research.
So this is a really, iterative process so that you're familiar with your own co design, but, you know, you're all it's pretty much it's everything is almost all in your own words. So here is as a high level of what we've been learning, like, really high level. Like I said, like, there's a lot more detail in that memo and then even further detail in that research report, which, I'll be sharing with you all. So, what we learned. So what's working? There's very clearly across all of the data points a very strong civic pride and volunteer culture. This is noted,
throughout the community survey, and throughout the interviews. We know that, you know, some of the really deep involved, processes like co design, are are are really good and unique to your community. And that even your own council meetings are run if they're viewed by through the scorecard and through others, through other four sources of information that they come across as quite efficient and quite orderly and even, respectful. So that's definitely, to the credit. Some of the tensions that we've we've heard from the members of the public is
that participation could be quite high, but the perceived influence by them is rather low. So, you know, one stat here is, you know, it's unclear how input affects decisions, and you'll see sort of the through line. I'll I'll I'll carry this over next in the next slide, is thinking about the feedback loop and things like that. Some other another noted while, you know, these meetings are quite efficient as we know, especially when it comes to things like public meetings laws and the way that we operate agendas, the dialogue feels quite limited. So if there is a a lower end of feeling heard,
and I would say that this is quite consistent with a lot of other communities. This this this really is one of the big challenges. How do we how do we feel heard and make others pea feel feel heard effectively? What is the what what are the methods that we wanna do that? And that's one of the problems we're trying to solve for. And then some of the pathways can feel fragmented. What I mean by this is problem levels of fragmentation between boards and commissions and council, so the sort of through lines and throughputs between those and how you can sort of make better synergies and integration,
and then also from community into council. Right? And just thinking about better ways of connecting and creating connections. So if we wanna get more specifically into this, residents are highly engaged, but there's some of the confidence is lacking in the ways of how their ideas lead to any sort of meaningful outputs. And this, you know, does relate to how do we report back? How do we create a feedback loop? Right? So how is public input being used? There's some notes about, you know, engagement coming a little bit too late. But, of course, you know, as people that work in in the public sector,
there's all sorts of ways and means that you're trying to inform the public, and they come very late in the process. But, nonetheless, how do we start thinking about shaping decisions before, decisions are being made? I mentioned again here that commission and council meetings feel orderly but not necessarily deliberative or dialogic, and how do we make better meaningful exchanges? There is a noted, participation skew towards, repeat attendees. And, of course, I think it's important that, anybody that shows up, should be respected, and they were people that had the opportunity to fill out the scorecard,
for example. But we wanna expand that. You know, there is a very diverse community. There's a lot of more people in the community. How do we how do we think about including and involving more people and thinking about some of the barriers that that that, prevent them from doing this? Co design works, but how do we leverage this more? How do we perhaps think about making it more part of the mainstream process or scoping it? How do we think about being strategic with it? And then some, clarity on roles. So, how do we bake create create better clarity on roles for,
like, say, commission members? And how to or or or council members in the community, and how do we support each other in that in that way? So here's some of the the actions to strengthen engagement here. Now I wanna be really clear here that none of what I'm presenting is is like me. This is all community generated. That's why I I have everything backed up to the the larger report. So this is strictly, all from all community generated from the research and the public forum. And so, you know, we're really trying to focus and hone here because the the task that you all
set me up with was how can we enhance council leadership, in ways to improve civic engagement relationships and met and with members of the public. So here's nine, and it's they're not necessarily in a particular way, but I will say that I sort of I I I placed them almost as a sequence. If you wanna think of them in a way of sequencing good forms of public engagement. So, you know, if we wanna think about how we do these things, improving the timing and access accessibility of information. How do we get the word out?
How do we think about agendas earlier? How do we reduce those political barriers to participating? How do we engage earlier in the decision cycle? Possibly thinking about different hearings or different form study or work sessions as helping to shape decisions. Maybe thinking about evolving meeting formats and dialogue, different roundtable formats. And this is something that I shared, with at the public forum is that we we actually piloted through the Better Public Meetings in Boulder, Colorado, a a a a a revamped study session,
and it was quite successful. So and that was all within the balance of the open meetings laws. So how might different formats create and lend itself to feeling heard or better forms of engagement? Another theme is reinforcing safety, respect, and belonging. Obviously, we want people to feel respected and and safe in these spaces, and and and what are the various strategies we want to utilize for that? Another important one is thinking about how we make public input visible in different ways,
how we close the feedback loop as well. So it's one thing to sort of and one of the the, you know, the ways that I I tried to to showcase at the public forum was meant to meter different forms of live polling. And I know you've all experimented. You're all you'll have, you know for example, you might even have this meeting that's that's streaming live. So we're trying to think about different ways of being visible and accountable to the public. And what are all what are what are new ways? What are there any ways that are useful possibly that might enhance this? And, also, how can we think about closing the feedback loop after meetings?
We did hear about how we might wanna partner with youth a little bit more with newcomers and emerging leaders and what are the different pathways. You have a lot of good nonprofits in the community and a lot of people that are, that that we might wanna tap into. What are the different strategies we might wanna go and go, to to to access that sort of lived experience? And then I've mentioned strengthening the pathways to counsel. And so, you know, how might you want you know, think about your own government infrastructure. Are you creating the best sort of integration between council and the various boards and commissions to share information and utilizing the way
boards and commissions are, in the community as well and and vice versa? And another thing that I thought was, was quite, frequent to hear was from elected officials was establishing visibility in the community. And so I've heard that you all are quite more interested in attending public engagements that's run by the city, but also holding your own informal meetings. So what might that look like? How do we best create the conditions for outreach, so that people are aware of this and that they attended? And that, and, you know, and sort of building that sort of base for your own work to be,
to continue your work as representatives. And then last would be sustaining and scaling codesign, which I had mentioned. So the next steps, the way that I'm looking at this is we have this set of recommendations. We're here to have a conversation about this, and then we can take this back to reflect on everything that you talk about today and maybe come back with a little something a little bit more scope. But we wanna think about so what would we like out of this list of things if this is a good list to think about short term or long term objectives and goals?
Can we create a work plan across your schedules that's feasible? Implement and try something and just test it and and treat it like it's a pilot and learn from it and evaluate if it's good and where we might wanna go with that. So that's where I see the sort of next stages up here, and we're practically you know, we're still in the conversation phase of thinking about what we wanna do with this. But, hopefully, the the recommendations and the data is providing food for thought for you all on how, you know, you might,
you know, want to to move forward. And so I just as for you all to consider, I just had three questions. You know, and if I'm sure if you have questions for me, I'm happy to clarify it. But the questions I have for you all were really, where do you see the biggest opportunity from that list? You know, which recommendations feel actionable in the near term? And then what support would you need to advance any of these ideas? So yes, that's it for me. Great. Thanks, Nick. And to the other Nick, Council Member Miller.
Yeah. Thank you, Nick. Great presentation. I have a question about a piece I didn't hear and wonder where it did or didn't come up, and that's remote participation. People express, concerns or a barrier related to not being able to participate in council meetings, open comment, public hearings because it requires them to physically be here currently. Yes. So there was definitely, and I think that's touched upon. It's a good that's a good, a good note. This is touched upon, I think, more in the larger report, and maybe it's something that we can reflect in the recommendations.
But digital participation or asynchronous participation so, I mean, we might wanna think about this in different ways. Is this participating live and how we can, how we can garner public input during these processes? And what are the the challenges and barriers you have to work around, to do that? Or is it asynchronous? There are different, tools, to garner public input before meetings that you know, and different strategies to think about. And so that's a digital form of engagement, but it's it's asynchronous. It's not in real time or live.
So I think that's a valid point. And, yeah, I'll have to to double check for sure to see how much was written on there, but it was it was part of it was part of the conversations that we did hear about that. Absolutely. Okay. Other thoughts? Mayor? Well, as I think back, just over my ten years here eight years. Maybe it just seems like ten. Eight years here. There were times when and and even looking back further into what the school board has done in the past where there are opportunities for a topic to come up and people to give input early on before that topic gets anywhere near a council
meeting. And and we could I know it's it takes people's time, but that's this is what we're here for is to give our time for the betterment of the city. And we used to do, council meetings every week. I mean, certain sessions every week even when we had the council meeting late at night. That was a long day. Not suggesting we necessarily go back to the exact same thing, but is there a way at the end of a, you know, meeting here where we're reaching the end of the day where we could be be available to stay longer and invite people in for some roundtable discussions
about issues that might come forward in, you know, in the next month or two where we could get that input. And it won't be so sterile that it's standing in front of a podium where you see people shaking and they're nervous, and it's not comfortable. And they have only two minutes to get everything in. And, you know, again, even if we have four minutes, we saw them go on and on. Right? It it it wasn't it still wasn't getting to a meaningful discussion with another person. And I think if we did round tables and let people, you know, come and sit down and talk and heard back from us and we responded to
them, people will understand that they are heard and that we're hearing from them early enough to utilize that information in that decision that might come in a week or two weeks or three weeks. So just, you know, wanting to know if if we could consider using these study sessions at the end of one, perhaps, as one way to pilot and see if something like that. If if it was well advertised and people knew there's three subjects we would be talking about, and they can bring their own subjects, frankly, if they want to. But, if if something like that would work,
use utilizing the schedule, we kind of already have it just expanding it, like, one time a month or something like that. So it was just something I've been thinking about is we're already here. Study sessions are less formal. Maybe there's a way. Council member Wall? Thank you. I am, probably most interested in hearing as many voices as I can from the community. And, that could be a hardware store owner or a student or a senior citizen or a nurse. And, trying to find opportunities, perhaps within wards, not necessarily so,
but perhaps within wards whereby we would have, the mechanics to invite people into a space where we could actually dialogue. I don't necessarily see much dialogue happening as we're debating a specific issue in front of a council at a voting meeting. But I think there could be considerable dialogue leading up to those meetings. Council Member Miller and I were part of a briefing this morning in which it was I think quite helpfully suggested that,
you know, maybe board members would like to take it upon themselves to within their wards, leading a discussion about a current need in our community. I think that at least I don't know how to make that happen in a way that will generate more than the three people who always talk to me in my ward, whether that's breakfast or coffees or telephone calls or emails. And the city probably has the muscle to be able to advertise those kinds of
things that would generate a larger group of people, 20 or 30 people who would show up at a specific place to why don't we talk about and then fill in the blank. I would be very excited about that. Come from my work. Thank you. Yeah. I was trying to go back to just the high level questions that where do you see the biggest opportunities is strength and trust. And I I think the one that I think of, and this is bigger picture, but we get input when we're at a project level, when we're down to the point of we're doing something. And I think input is much more valuable when you're trying to set policy.
The example I think of, and this is not easy, but, when we were going through the two years of unified development co design, We were trying to run meetings in the parks and run these other things and get input about, hey. These things will allow, other other sort of, step back functions and you'll have less public meetings. And we couldn't get anybody interested in coming and saying, what are you talking about? But when the project comes and now says, hey, this building can be right at the corner of your block, that's when people get excited and want to be there. And to me,
the problem is that's too late because the policy has been set, and we don't have an upcoming, public hearing, and and people are a little stunned. And I don't I I don't know how we find better ways to engage earlier. I I I don't mean to bring this up like here's a easy to do and let's do this because it's really hard. It's hard to, I I know Ryan Yeser and the team were trying to come up with ways of saying, you know, drawing pictures of what could happen on certain blocks. They had ice cream free in the parks. No. Nobody nobody came. But like I say again, when you divined East Center Street and you put a roundabout on the corner,
people go, woah, woah, wait a minute. That's on my block. And now you get the attention, but now you've had your engineers at 70% design already. Policy for us to start backing that out? So my my concern is finding ways to engage earlier. And I and I don't mean to say it lightly like it's let's handle that quickly. I do think our biggest risk with input right now, and it's been coming through our mail and other places is we have lost some trust or some connection with the community because of things like and I think of one as cost overrun. The other one I think of with RBU is we we blundered with some public
output to saying, like, hey, this is what's happening with rates. And there was an implication. It was because Mayo was doing all this development, and our rates were going up because of that. And that was just bad bad communication, and we've since done a lot of work to fix that. But those things break trust, and I think we have some of that right now. We also have this contention contentious project we've worked on with the sports complex where people right here on council, we've told diff we've told competing narratives of what we are trying to do. And again, I think it's caused a a break in trust with our community and those are
the things I think we really have to work on with community engagement. The the one thing that doesn't come out here, and I'm gonna bring it up, I I think we have to be careful like with co design. There is a clear implication that we wanna collaborate with you. Many cases we want input but we want input. We don't wanna collaborate. We don't wanna say here, you do it. But somehow our words sometimes imply that we do and I think we have to be careful with that. When when the city engineer is designing a street or talking about how an intersection is gonna work and somebody wants it different, that's important input from us.
But I I think we've created the environment where, no, they're gonna tell us not to do it and that's what we should do because we're the city council and we're listening to the residents. But I I think that's I think we need to be careful how we communicate it that we want input, but we don't wanna give up control of city intersections to let people decide where a stop sign should go and things like that. So, those are my input. They're not helpful for what exactly to design, but I think this is just a a complicated area of municipal government and hopefully we can work our way through it. Council member Palmer.
Yeah. I'll go off with Mr. Keane and kind of start with that. I think one of our problems that I've learned is that we need to start putting draft on our our stuff or 10% design. I'll give you an example on sixth Street where the old words is and the entry was going to be at 6th Avenue and now it's not going to be at 6th Avenue. And how people go and that was the picture I saw. That's what I saw. They didn't hear it's it's it's a concept for why it was changed. I go back to the sports complex. It was 10% design because that's the money we had.
Oh, no. No. It was in the store and that's what we're gonna build and that's what they saw. They could go backwards and they can say, well, here's a picture. Why didn't you do this? As far as as engaging with the public, and I think that the city council should have their own tent at, Rochester Fest and safe city nights and and work that. It doesn't have to be just that council person. It could be other ones. I think going to where the people are is far better than thinking that they're gonna come and see you. I'll do, meet me in the park or go to see me in the park and and I'll have a few people.
And sometimes you get different people, but they have to come see me. But if you go over where the people are, I think that would be a much better thing, to do. For me and my award the last seven years, we've sent out the newsletter every every December to say, hey. This is what's going on in the the community. That's what's coming up in the community. And that's one of the ways that I communicate with with with my award members. But I go back to this. Let's think about what events are happening in Rochester and could we have our own tent that we sit there with the table and a couple of chairs, lawn chairs, and and have a dialogue with people so they can come see us.
Council member Miller. I'll just say I agree with council member Palmer that having some city support to be more visible in the community feels very actionable. And I think the forward transfers, Rochester Trust, partnering with the major's office, who is often at events would be good ways to to go to where people are. I'll also just say, like, in the biggest opportunities in the near term, I think of this idea of closing the loop is an opportunity. We have open comment. People can submit written comments to the council. Sometimes we have an opportunity to take that up.
Sometimes that's a question for city staff. I don't know if that's a close the loop report, a report back at the next meeting, something that's available on the web page that feels actionable without a ton of resource. And I feel like in a way we have minutes of who speaks, and not every issue should receive a follow-up. Sometimes it is just a comment, but I feel like there are tangible issues within there, and I I don't always know either what's what's closed or not. And sometimes we get emails and sometimes So that would be really helpful, and I feel like that's a near term opportunity.
I'll also say I think we have a big near term opportunity that we have this technology upgrade in this, room. We have presenters now able to come and speak to us, address us through this technology. But we have not reopened, a virtual participation for comments, open comment or for public hearings. And I look at other organizations, school board, for example, that requires a request to come in. And it feels like we could set that up and make sure that we know what the topic that somebody wants to address us on, make it clear that we are inviting specific people and not broadly advertising a meeting
link that anybody could join. But trying to control it in a way that that that coming here physically at the right time to sign up is not a barrier to, addressing us. Does that feel like an opportunity with our investment in this room? Council member Fredericks. Yeah. I I feel like the city goes above and beyond to communicate with our community. I think it's our community's duty to be engaged in those processes earlier on than when it gets to the point where it's, hey, let's go time and construction time. We have seven different addresses in this community. Then I'm always,
I've always felt informed on what's going on around our different businesses and our properties, all the neighborhood meetings. We showed a good, measure of being thorough when the Center Street project, people that were affected by that said, hey, we didn't receive our cards. We pulled it back in. We made sure they got them. We did it right. We we're not gonna be perfect, but I I really do feel like we are doing a good job of communicating with our community and letting letting them know what's going on. And we have great department heads that make decisions on how roads are gonna look, what's best, and how often is there a whole bunch of uproar about what's going on and
they raise a whole bunch of I can't think of a better word than hell, but they raise a bunch bunch of cane about what's going on. Then all of a sudden the project's done five years later. Hey, this is a great project. This was really good. Well, that's why we pay professionals. And Dylan Dombrowski comes to mind a lot because he's very calm and proactive and he has a good idea how things need to work out and he sees the whole picture. And I just I think we do a good job of things. I think we as a community just need to be more engaged earlier on in the process. I would just echo and the kind of one of the biggest opportunities.
Engaging earlier in the decision cycle I think is key. I think we brought this up last year at at this time. I think we've done a better job in, in filling our study sessions with, issues that the public are engaged in. I think there's also something at the apex of engaging earlier in the process and establishing visibility in the community for our elected officials. Because if our elected officials,
those of us around this table, we're the ones that really get the pulse of the community and those issues that are going to be be, upper in the forefront of of our community's mind. And we as a city decision making body have to be more flexible and nimble and responsive to what the community is asking for for us. So in that glide path to decision making or bringing an issue forward to the
council, being having that flexibility. And I think in two very recent, occasions, we were able to be flexible at a our regular council meeting two two meetings ago where we knew the community was really hurting because of the, the, federal officers that have come to our community. And we said, this is not on our agenda, and we were able to work with our city staff and the mayor to hobble
together a presentation through the administrator's report and the the the mayor's report that looked like we were responsive. And then we were able to then follow that up two weeks later, and and so I think that is a model of the what as the world moves faster, we're going to have to be more responsive. And I think that that speaks to virtual, attendance, virtual input,
and establishing that visibility in the community, working with our, communications and community engagement team to incorporate the elected officials in those engagement opportunities. And then and then have the cycle where the elected officials say, this is an issue that's starting to percolate. Should we have some community engagement opportunities around around this issue? So those are the the the pieces that come to mind to me.
And I do, in our next discussion, have some proposals that maybe get a little more granular. So is there I just have two quick things. One is we do, downtown on Thursdays downtown have a booth. My office does as well as at all the safe city nights. And we can get a second table and have city council put on the front of it to to be at that as well. So if that's something you're interested in, council member Palmer mentioned that, we could do that and have a second table,
and it could, you know, just be the city's thing and have two separate areas. So that's something we could do. The only thing you have to the challenge there is, open meeting law and making sure that you would manage that somehow. So I think we could do that. And the second one is there's a digital program that we heard about, and for the life of me, I can't think what the name of it is, that, helps us invite people in our community to events by ward, by age, by whatever. There are ways to do that, and we don't currently do that. And it's something we might wanna look at where you could have,
you know you know, one of the wards wants to have an event and, you know, they could send an email out to everyone in their ward. Or we can have a citywide event and send it out to people or you could send it to just people 60 and over if it's a senior thing. There there's ways to do that, and we just don't have that capability yet. And several of us heard from this group, a year ago, and I've talked to them since. And it might be something we wanna look at just to be able to reach people because we know that's one of the hardest things that we have is getting people.
Council member Fager. Yeah. I have I have the pleasure of visiting with a lot of, constituents from all of our wards in this community. And the feedback that I get for anybody that is trying to reach their ward representative is positive. We're all assessable. We all have our emails out there, cell phones number numbers out there. We're easy to talk to. All of you guys are. Even if we're on different sides of some issues, we all get along. We all wanna reach back to people even when we don't wanna hear it. We do it. I have not heard otherwise. So we're very accessible that way.
And, I took mister Walls lead on this one. Showing up at your neighborhood informational meetings, it's a good way to talk to people. There's there's there's something right there. You know, maybe only one person shows up at it. Maybe there's plenty that do it, ones that are a little more, I don't know what you'd say. Contentious. Thank you. He has bigger words than me. But anyway Not awesome. That's a good way to to meet with people at different levels where they're comfortable to have that back and forth. The back and forth dialogue for each ward should kinda come to us in my opinion, and we should be the voice for our wards.
It's a lot easier to have a one on one conversation than it is to get in a group. And and then to me, also, if we have all this input coming in, holy buckets, how do you juggle it all and and take that input and put it into a workable plan. Council member Palmer. A couple of things. I would think a separate tent in area for us would be better. Then then that way, you can take it to your ward if you wanted to, or you could take it somewhere that says city council and and and we can see who has the most amount of time on your tent and and and work on that. I think that's good.
You know, people will check it out a lot. The the thing that the thing that I I I want to cautious about is the remote meeting participation and we had done that in the past and that becomes very tricky. A, you don't know who you're talking with. And number two, they can say anything they want. We had some very derogatory things said throughout The United States, derogatory things were said. So I'm happy we did that. I think we almost need to relook at how we do our open comment period and maybe not televise that anymore and have people not say to the show,
but come and talk to us. But I think that might be a different discussion that we have. I am disappointed though in this in the program that the community forum had 41 people at. If you're trying to outreach everybody in the community, 41 people doesn't bring many people. And in, my understanding from the participants that were there was that it was pretty much a set deal and in, they're the usual suspects that come to our meetings anyway. So, I don't know if we reached out and got other community members. Part of the problem of, for businesses is that they like to survey the people who show up.
You should really survey the people who aren't there and ask them why aren't you here and what can we do differently. And I think that goes back to us going out in community where people are and then engaging. Council member Miller. So I guess to to build on that and a comment that council member Palmer made earlier about sending out a newsletter and also what the mayor is mentioning. One, and this is a longer term item because it would have budget impact, but having some communication support to be able to more practically reach people, each of us can build
newsletter lists, perhaps managing emails, building social media presence, etcetera. But at some point, that doesn't allow us to practically reach out as the mayor was saying. If there's a a forward concert at Cascade Lake to be able to choose the radius around the park and let people know electronically, and that's one of the capabilities of the tool the mayor was talking about. But it also I mean, I appreciate council member Palmer's financial investment and mailing everybody in his ward and update once a year. But that is a financial cost that each of us have to take individually and
is not part of our current council support, for communications. And I feel like they're potentially good technology tools that would allow us to be in better conversation, build a relationship, make sure that people know who we are, and that when there are events happening, it isn't just the usual suspects. And, that's gonna take time, I think. But, but that's something I'd like to see how we might work toward, not as an immediate change, but being able to scale our our reach, so to speak. And I I feel like the scale of of impact is something that's come up a few times.
Also memorable. I do like, Palmer's deal about going where the people are because we do have trouble raising people. You asked about the 41. Actually, I sat at a table of five, and I knew, one person well and three others I had never met before. So, I was encouraged but but still there were only 41 of us there. And, many of those were connected to the city either elected or staff. And why weren't there a 141? Or I was at the one of the natural
gas franchise fee things in the library and I counted the and I believe besides my wife and me and people who were intimately connected to the project that is, the consultants or staff people. I think there were five people there. Now why in the world? Because I I thought that the city did a fairly decent job advertising that these, many along with additional opportunities upcoming. I thought the city did a pretty good job letting the community know that this
was going to happen and, you know, I don't I don't know what time it started. I'll say 05:00 or 04:30, and I kinda looked around the room. And I'm glad at least two or three more people came in because I wondered what where is the community? So maybe we've gotta go where they are. Although I still want to believe that if we had a pertinent topic and we had a tent set up for for a room reserved somewhere, I think I've got a great room in Ward 3, they'd let me use their spot. I think people would come when it's really a compelling
topic. Bingo. Council member King. Yeah. Appreciate hearing the different discussions. I'm trying to pretend I'm staff and what I'm gonna draw out of this discussion and what comes next. So I think it I'm trying to think it that way. But I'm gonna make a couple comments. One I'm not a consultant. On the, communications, support stuff. One of the key things for community input is surveys. And surveys, some of them are done kind of willy nilly, but the real professional ones, and we do one of these once a year and try to get that. I think it's important to make sure you do the the higher end plus or
minus 3%. But those are spendy things to do, and I think we as a city step up to do one. I believe it's once a year. I get worried about some of the other sort of, we should poll the community for something because, council member Cambria said once he thinks 72% of the people play in horseshoe leagues because the horseshoe league gets together and says we really have to all, you know, weigh in on this. And we can be manipulated through those numbers, but I think that communication support is important. The other idea that's coming up here is this idea of this, you know, all community outreach. And I've always applaud the mayor's office for being at,
you know, safe city nights or, Thursdays on first. But I I'm looking around here. Do we really have that commitment to start saying, yeah. This isn't just like the someone will open this up. This is work to do and and hours to be to be spent. So that's something that, the mayor's office has been good about doing. I tried to just go there and participate with that one and come and go. But now this when you start talking about this, this is committed time. So I'll just, I'll mention that. I I wanna bring up one other thing here, and and this is something we didn't talk about. It really wasn't in the scope of of, community engagement, but I I do think it comes down.
We have, three or four, probably more than I can think of. We've ped and bicycle, commission and tries to, in my view, consult or inform us of community needs. We have a historic preservation commission. We also have planning and zoning. And I feel like we've sort of, again, implied to them, we need you to tell us what to do. And in fact, that's not how it works. The the example of historic preservation, I found it that we have, as a council, have overrode their decisions more than we follow or overrode their recommendations more than we
follow them. And I think part of the problem we run into is the people that are drawn to be in that stuff, have us have, like, a high investment in this, and it probably isn't representative of what the communities is. And I think we have to be careful because I think we create some frustration with those boards that they're on there. They're doing the work. I think the sustainability group is getting there right now. They feel like, okay. We came here. Here's what you should do. And we're trying to represent the entire city, not just the, people that are really serious about this. So I I'm bringing it up as I think it creates some of that trust
problem. It creates some confusion. But that thing about, the community, being frustrated, I think some of it comes from us inviting input and then not following up on it. So I think it's some way to be careful with over time. Thank you, council member. I'll I'll I'll go to the next Oh, no. I I really appreciate, the last comment that, council member team just made because I think that's the largest problem is that we do invite folks to provide input, and we don't give any indication. I I think well, I'm gonna speak for myself. I do my best to make sure that they know that I've heard them,
but we don't have a formalized process to say we are actually hearing you, until it gets to a a really hot button issue. And then it it is almost perceived that we're reactive in the in the in the messages that we're hearing. So I'm interested in, I appreciate all the comments. I I I think, it is a both end situation going to people as well as inviting people to come have dialogues with us. You know, I've met many people who are afraid to have a one on one conversation with me,
but if there's a group of 10 people who wanna talk about something, they'll invite me to that conversation, because there's strength in numbers and some anonymity in in numbers that there it just isn't present in one on one conversations. Right? So I think it's a both end. But I'm I'm really interested in in figuring out mechanisms to invite people, to provide input, for me to communicate to people on a larger scale what's going on, sharing with them my thought process about issues, and and allowing feedback for that to happen and and and shape direction and and
form possibilities. I'm concerned at times that if if we wanna be informed by board and commissions meetings, then we have to navigate a a two and a half hour recording that sometimes is not very intelligible to listen to the dialogue about how they're shaping recommendations to us. So I'm interested in a more meaningful, summary of those those discussions so I can get a higher level view or a more informed perspective about their deliberations and why they're bringing forth recommendations.
But I think overall, I'm just more interested in in exploring mechanism and mechanisms and experimenting with things to see what actually works and what doesn't before discounting anything. Thank you, council member Doherty. I was just going to add on boards and commissions. And I think council member Doreen made some really good points about being able to make that information digestible to council members because I look at boards and commissions, in particular the ones that the council member Keane mentioned as a,
process of bringing in more information. So you get a deeper dive into the issues. It's not necessarily looking at their recommendation as a recommendation, but as input into our decision making and at a more granular level. But, at a higher level, I think there is value in getting that board and commission information in a better format so that it is usable to us. Us. I do. And speaking of it because I used to serve on planning and zoning,
but I think we're able to get through a lot of our planning and zoning public hearings very quickly because of the pre work that planning and zoning has done to bring that to us, that they've been vetted a lot of those questions. So it's not a rubber stamp, but it is, it is helping us with our ultimate decision making. So with that, council member, Pearlman. I'm gonna go off of kind of what's been said is that when I first got involved with stuff, it was with the Olsa County Environmental Commission.
And when you went down and you were interviewed by the county commissioners, you had to tell them what you why you should be picked and I respect because I'm just a regular person. And I think there's some value to having regular people and not advocates or not people who have, oh, I'm all for this, I'm all for that. I think some of the communication problem we have is is that we set this expectation that I'm gonna be on this commission. When I'm on this commission, I'm gonna tell the city council what to do. That's not what we do. And and I would prefer us as a city council to ask them a question,
say, hey, look at this issue, look at the gas fee, look at some other issue, come back to us with some thought process that you have. But I think at the end of it, our job is to balance. And part of that balance is between finances and goals and other things. And I think some commissions just think that we're just going to take what they have at face value. And it's a bigger picture that we're looking at. And I think we need to let them know that, yes, we respect what they do, but it's it's gotta go through almost a meat grinder to get to the end.
Mayor? Yeah. And I I just wanna be clear. People are picked because they apply. Yes. But we interview them, and they are just your neighbors. They are regular people. There are a few advocates in a particular in one big one or two committees. They're just people on the street that and often they'll be, you know Mayo sends it out to the Mayo staff when they see these post dates. It's a Mayo employee. A lot of them seem to be intact for some reason. But I wanna get involved in the community. That, you know, I wanna serve on a committee. And they list three,
and I interview them for one of the three. And they're not all advocates just for one particular topic. So I just wanna be real clear about that. We shouldn't have this this feeling that everybody on every committee is just somehow wedded to that committee. They're wedded to community service, many of them, and that's why they and there are a couple exceptions. There's always someone who loves the topic they're in, but it's not that that's not the the rule. It's more the exception. Thank you, mayor. I well said. I I couldn't agree with you more. Nick,
any closing thoughts? Where do we go from here from a better public meetings standpoint, the work that you're doing? Well, I think, you know, some really great points here. And, you know, one thing that we should do is, you know, the the group that's been meeting regularly put our heads together to think a little bit about the themes that you all talk about. I'm hearing, you know, different types of mechanisms for inviting input, ways to communicate out, how to do community engagements within the community,
and different and rewards or different sort of festivals and events, digital forms of participation. So I think let's let's digest a little bit of this, think a little bit more about how this align with the the other input, and and maybe what we can do is come up with something, that's shareable. But I think as immediate steps, just, you know, as as a group, think through, you know, some of the stuff a little bit more and, start thinking towards, you know, what what sort of actions that we would like to take and and and experiment with, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for all the work you've done so far, and looking forward to continuing to work with you. Yeah. My pleasure. It's been great. We are gonna move on to, our next topic, which I think dealt with deals quite nicely with the previous discussion, city council rules of procedure and code of contact conduct review. And administrator Zelens, are you taking the lead on this one? I will facilitate the PowerPoint. How about that? I know there will probably be a lot of leads on this one,
but aren't we? But we did try to set the table a little bit so that you could have Not everyone wants to talk about every sentence of the rules of procedure and code of conduct, but often some similar themes come up there. Good discretion, that I think helps to frame some of, the policy considerations for why do you even have a council rules of procedure? Code of conduct. I don't know where I point to this. Do I point to this? Oh, there we go. Or maybe you do it. So just something to kind of ground us in, things to think about as you're considering the council rules of procedure and code of conduct.
Is there anything that could be clarified? Is there something that's unclear to you? Is there something that, you feel like could enhance how the staff is working with you, or, help your decision making? And how do these things work in concert with the charter and, the code of ethics, the ethics ordinance that you have. So just things to be thinking about. Also important is the purpose. There is the broader purpose of why do we have a council code of conduct and rules and procedures in the first place. They really are supposed to be your norms for how you expect each other to show up and how you can expect the, staff to show up and deliver information to you.
Trying to provide some clarity and goals and expectations, focus our time and resources on the things that you've all, agreed on are important and that we're trying to have all of our teams aligned towards, making sure that our team can be confident in how they're operating and the, norms that they have for their day to day operations and not moving outside of those. And then, just making sure that we can be transparent and try to have good governance, through having those shared processes. Even when we have hard topics, shared processes can help us get through the hard topic. Well,
maybe clunkily, but Robert's rules can be helpful in the clunky get through of a hard topic, which are in your council rules of procedure and code of conduct. Just a few other things to think about, highlights from the charter that you can, go to if you're really bored. The legislative authority, the council, you have regular meetings. We talked about that during setting the calendar. You technically only have town one, but you can have more. The council authority, things that are prohibited can't be a staff member and a council member. So you are a council member or an mayor. You're not a staff member, but we try to work as a team.
The conflict of interest portion of the charter, and I think you'll navigate that. So these aren't things that are called out directly in your council rules of procedure, but the spirit of them are, within the council rules of procedure, just written in legalese, which only one of us kinda interpret, to the fullest extent of the law. So why do we have this? A glide path. A chart for a glide path. Ultimately, and you discussed this earlier, on getting engaged with the community at the policy level, it's hard to engage at the policy level. It's not always clear to people,
what does it mean to update your land development manual? Land development manual is not common conversation at the dinner table for most people unless they're sitting behind me. And, so, you know, keeping the council at the highest level possible as much as possible and setting that policy through the strategic goals, the priority action items and that oversight for projects, etcetera, so that the day to day work can happen in delivering, the operations of the city, whether that is major projects or making sure that everything keeps flowing smoothly as much
as possible every day, for the different services that we provide. So, there are a lot of things in your council rules of procedure, but it talks about meeting structure, the time of meetings, and the manner of the meetings. Again, sometimes those adjust, but, really, we try to keep them as, as regimented as possible so people know what to expect. But it also talks about the, presiding officer. We try to make sure that Randy never beat us anything. And so, you know, those kinds of things. But the order of business and the flow of the meeting, those kinds of things. But it's also important to note, and you've done this before,
that the rule rules are made to be broken. And the way that you do that is by assessing your rules. So five of you, can approve a change to your council rules of procedure for until they change again. Or in immediacy of a meeting, you can change your rules because maybe they don't work for the topic that you're talking about, but five of you have to agree that it doesn't work that way. So we've made some changes, over the years. The most recent, was the presenting officer designation. So, this group of folks, made that change to instead of having it be very prescriptive about the month and
your award aligning with it to having, the council president designate that, and then you just are aware. So there sometimes it's gotten more prescriptive, and sometimes it's gotten less prescriptive. But, again, it really depends on the city council. So maybe the first thing that we've talked about before and talked about since is remarks and debate. And I think at least according to the to Nick b, I always say, the community thinks you're doing a great job at your remarks and debate, except maybe they're not as clear about how you've taken their input when you're having remarks and debate.
But we do have, council rules, so, norms that you have established or your predecessors have established on how, you expect to treat each other when you're on the dais. Those have been important at certain times and some of you have, called each other on that, which is a good example of who decides if the rules are being applied as intended. That is him. So that could be very uncomfortable, but also they do provide you something to point back to, if things aren't going well. And of course, there's also the code of conduct.
So that's also trying to establish some of those, roles, expectations, norms, that isn't just proposal. It also helps, our staff to understand, like, maybe we're veering a little bit far into the weeds on something with an individual, and that really would require a policy change from council in order to, to do our work differently in this space. And it just gives them a little bit of cover, for lack of a better word, to be able to point to that because rarely in my career has it ever been intentional that something has skewed very far, a foul of existing policy. But it can be hard to answer questions from the community members that if you
don't love that they have to clear their sidewalk or snow or things of that nature. Right? But depending on on how it's addressed, it can be challenging. One thing I'll point out here is seating water. We may expect a little bit of a tweak to seating water. The dais here coming, next week. One of your members has, would be very valuable for them to be closer to the ramp. So that would be even a question for now. There's two great ideas brought up by teammates. One was you just reverse one through six to one through six, which would mean that, council member Keane would get to sit next to me,
and I'll get sit next to sit next to him. The other idea involved the same thing except lesson you have to move, which would be council member Doherty and council member Keane would just switch. Either way, you will get to sit next to me. So those are things that are established in your rules. But for reasons that, you know, are sometimes just better for all of us, we need to adjust them for a period of time. The clerk will still call you in order unless you change that. But those are that's just something to be aware of coming into next week. Either one of you or all of you would would change. And do you want all of well,
all of you but one? Would you rather all just flip flop and get a whole different, view of the world or gentleman's agreement? I could just I mean, I'm good either way. I get to switch it. And this is an example of flexibility, in your rules. So just wanted to point that out because it's on there. And, There's others that since council member wall I mean, council member King weighed in, I I think Yeah. Just for Dan and Patrick. Perfect. Others feel the same way? Doesn't have Yeah. That's me. Okay. It may be easier for the community too.
Well, Michael Can you get along with Dan there? No. I'm I'm just wondering if I should take on the the persona of of council member Keane since I'm saying that it's something. I think it should be a surprise. What does that mean? So just something to be aware of. And so, again, all of these are really good to try to have clarity in the meeting so you You don't have surprises, where we where we can manage it. It does talk about, the travel policy within your councilor's and procedure. That is adjusted from time to time, those kinds of things. So, it's very granular and very hand on me to determine what part of the council
rules of con the code of conduct and rules of procedure. So placing items on the business, meeting agenda, a topic that has come up before. And I think it's important to note this is related to a council rule procedure that tries to focus our staff time on the strategic priorities that the city council has established and, funded in the budget. So, it's really related to the other code of conduct that talks about not spending more than thirty minutes on a topic. And we don't, like, time it just in case you were wondering.
But I think we know the difference between thirty minutes and multiple meetings about, like, a a policy or a topic that the council hasn't provided direction on. But we do have, the the meeting that's scheduled. We try to also get feedback from you. I think this has been working well, but I don't know how you're feeling about it to make sure you all have the same information as much as possible when questions are asked, sometimes of all review by the same people, and getting that back to the council as well as pulling items. I don't think we've really had challenges with that, but,
I think that's been a positive change since the start. Yeah. We also have the council initiated action, and so this is where it's trying to align with the, you know, not going back and forth on new ideas. But there is a a process for the city council to request something to be on the agenda because the initial intent of this is then to provide direction to staff to work on something and come back. That's not always how the council initiated actions have either come forward or the motion that has come with them. So just acknowledge there's been some friction with that occasionally on council,
but, the intent is to be able to review it and have a good sense of how much time that might take and whether or not we might need to re repriorities reprioritize other work. It does not prohibit you from putting something on the agenda and asking for approval at that time. But, of course, most people don't like to be surprised with an idea a few days before they're expected to vote on it. So, felt important to highlight this. I think you've got to lose the procedure and keep going. Any questions or comments? Any thoughts so far? Additional thoughts?
Well, for mine, you you have the the mayor's request doesn't require a second, and those have not typically been done at the table since I've been here. Those have been done working with the administrator and giving it to you and not going through a formal process at the table. So just to clarify, there's, like that's Yeah. And those are just the way that I've approached that is just having enough time to make sure it could be on the agenda, and then I place it as close to a council initiated action as possible, which is reports and recommendation. Not to have any judgment of it, but just so that the city council can be aware that it might it's it's
not necessarily something that was in the work plan. Doesn't mean it shouldn't pass, but up to you to discuss that. So I, so I see the CIA. I would rather characterize it as not friction, but kind of an evolution. I mean, we've had some resolutions that have come through that process. And I don't know if folks have an issue with that. I think this is the vehicle that we have as council members to bring issues forward. I did have a clarifying question on other business.
And so if council members bring up other business, and I do know that, most council members, if there is other business, we will get a heads up Monday by noon, and there will be other business and what the topic is. I don't and, Allison, I'm not sure if you share what that is or I I know I I don't know if we share it with everybody on on the council. If it is provided to me, I share it. Yes. Okay. So my question is, so other business comes up and there's a topic.
Can we take a vote on that or should it be as we've done in the in the previous meeting where we did head nods? And I'm okay managing either, but I wasn't quite sure if we could actually take a motion and a second to approve a project under other business. I think it depends, like, on the the what you were referencing. I think you could have done. And I think the question is, do people leave the head nod the same way?
Well, it has the committee then notified that a topic is coming up even and they they don't and that would be my concern. And I can go ahead. Take a stab at it, council president. Maybe just a a few thoughts. There's nothing that precludes you currently from taking a vote, doing a motion and taking a vote. Some of you have, I think, been part of discussions in the past when we've sort of debated whether we could better define what is permissible and what's not permissible in other business and we've kind
of struggled with that a little bit. But I think what we've talked about at times in the past, and just haven't really codified yet because there might be some downsides to codifying it. Yes you you could do a motion and a vote. Yes there's been talk at times about questions of the spirit of open meeting law or maybe even more than the spirit getting close to the technicalities of open meeting law. If it is a substantive topic that's coming up and really hasn't been broadcast to the community, that's a little bit more of a challenge.
Of course, it's an art of defining what is substantive or not. If there were questions about that, I would try to give you guidance but it's not gonna be a black and white answer either. But that open meeting more question, there's been times when there's been debate about whether you should spend money through some action, as part of the other business conversation. Is that sort of a marker of the hesitant to spend the money on the fly through other business?
And what was the third item? I think just to just to the extent that, again, maybe reflecting on the substance piece to the extent that you are, surprising, either the public or your colleagues, through that discussion. It can be sensitive as well. Thank you. Cross my robot. Sorry. I am going to have some difficulty because Todd? Yeah. I did wanna go back just to the council initiated action, and I think the question in front of us is do we need more formal rules? I know last week after we did,
I I would say one council initiated action, but two different votes. I got some quick pushback from my peers saying you misused the process. That should there's no way the staff only spent twenty minutes or thirty minutes on this and that kind of stuff. So, I mean, do we have these should we, like, more formalize the rules or does the nature of, real time government require some flexibility in there to react to what's going on in the community? And I again, I I could I could do a couple of things here. I could say, what is the appetite for tightening up council initiated actions to only deal with staff
time to do something going into the future as opposed and then it would not allow a resolution or would not allow the spending of money. It would allow an analysis of that that would come back at another time, which was, I believe, the original council initiated action. So I I'm mentioning it high level here. I'm not proposing it, but I don't know if there's any appetite for that. I I'm I'm probably one, like, more cringey about council initiate actions than any of my peers, because I do view it as we're off the beaten path. But there are times that you should be off the beaten path depending on what's
going on in the community. The other one I guess I'll bring up too on this. We have the thing with pulling, or not pulling items. That's you can do it individually. But a council initiate action requires a second. But it doesn't, like, limit you to two or four per calendar year. And as an example, I'm thinking of the football games where, would it ever get just so outrageous that someone's doing counseling action all the time to almost, like, muff up how your console runs. And should whether is there any value in it? I I don't see any need for it right now,
but what our rules really are are keeping us from getting into trouble in the future. So I I don't know if I'm looking for my staff or my peers to react to that or if there's any reason you shouldn't do this because from the legal side. I'm just, I have had feedback. Well, I've I've had interaction with staff that says, like, we gotta get our arms around council initiated actions or else we're going to we're gonna legislate through council initiated action, which is not something we wanna do. Okay. Council member, cover it. Well, the the reason for them, to start with is my understanding is is that instead of one person telling the
staff what to do and spending time and or money, then you had another person and then it would come to the council and the council would discuss it. And then this council would have four votes to say yes or no or or it gets tweaked during that time. One of the reasons I like that is that you can at least get the idea out there that this is coming to the to the, city council, and you can ask some people or get some public input into it. I didn't ever have seen it that the money was an issue or the, subject matter was the issue. It was just as a city council to bring it to us. Otherwise,
there's really no way for us to say, I'm hearing from the community, this is an important subject, this is what we need to change. And there's really no way for us to do that. And I think that that's why that's there and why I like it. I'll go back to suspending or go back to other business. I think from a constructive perspective, it has been the policy that we've done whether or not it's written or not, that we not vote on that. If you want to vote on it, you could have it be your rule and then at that night, you could say suspend the rules that's available.
And and I think that there are items that might be, important to suspend the rules during that time to to do that. Because I I think that that one, the staff have no idea what you're talking about. Number two, I have no idea if if I'm another council person sitting there and not be able to to understand what the issues are. And the one that we just had, it's interesting because it was during a lawsuit. We didn't really know what kind of lawsuit we're gonna join. So, again, if you read today, you understand that the governor can't do anything unless he declares a peacetime emergency.
Well, that wasn't added to it. And then I don't think anybody Subject to dishonest. You had the I'm sorry. I don't mean to correct you, Sean. You're talking about two different things. Mhmm. The there was the join the lawsuit. That was one thing. What you're talking about was the order to put a moratorium on on, even if you'd like. Yep. And and so and so when you see the action thing that that you have to have Yes. It it has to go to governor and he has to declare a peace to emergency, which is he is not probably going to do. I don't think anybody here wants that to happen. But, you know, go go and I'm sorry to mix it both up,
but, the the one that we did pass, I have no idea what we passed. It was not written. It was not shown to us. It was not in the packet. We had no public input to it whatsoever. And and a lot of times, when we get our packet on Wednesday afternoon, I read it. Thursday, I send it out to people and say, what's going on here? What do you think? I ask questions of the staff. And if it just appears on Monday night at the end of the meeting, that makes it really difficult to make a decision. Well, just gonna clarify, I I was a second on that CIA, and it was the alternative action, action, was to, to provide a friend of the court,
brief to, to that case. So it was it was previewed in, in the RCA. Never clear. That's why we Not very clear. That is to be debated. Oh, okay. I've got, member Fredericks, and then I have council member Miller and then the mayor. Okay. To build on that a little bit, I process a little slower than maybe some of the people on the council. I'll be the first to admit that I don't like to make decisions hasty or quickly. I like to take our time and make a good, well vetted decision. That, what what happened last week, I don't need to go over that again.
Council member Paul went a little bit. I did feel in the dark a bit, or not a bit, a lot a bit on the on a few of the things I got brought up last minute. Okay? I don't like that. I like to be have things thought through and make a good sound decision, not an emotional decision. When we make emotional decisions, I'm gonna say more often than not we're screwing up. So I like to have a well vetted thought through decision with input from our constituents because that's who we're we're, voted in to represent. So I just I really wanna be careful making hasty quick decisions.
I felt like there's a couple of things I could I'd not feel like a couple of things got bought up on the fly last week. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. And I was forced to vote on it and without being able to hear what people had to say. And it's just not it puts a person in position that I don't like to be in. I wanna make a good educated decision. Council member Miller. So just some thoughts on the CIA process. With the form, it requests a title and a brief description of action. I wonder if there is not a way to request a suggested motion because in
our RCAs, when those are presented to us, there's a requested action. Oftentimes, it is the the motion that is end up made. And I I can think of times in the last year where the description that was in the packet and the item as presented did not feel cohesive to me. I wonder if there's a way to tighten that up so that it is clear what the action requested is by the two council members initiating the council initiated action. And I I would like to see that because I think it gives us a clear place to start. And then if it deviates from that written,
requested action, it's clear how an amendment might change the action rather than describing it one way on this in your comment and then seeing a different text description in the packet. I would love to see some typing of that, but otherwise, I also, you know and this is just a technical issue, but in the last couple of packets, when I pull up the CIA, it ends up giving me a blank form. And I like, in the meeting about the compassionate city, when I click the item, it's just a blank form. And I've had that happen a couple of times.
So I don't know. Maybe that's just my version of the software. Council member Keane? Yeah. I I just take bring this back to the council initiated action process. So there does seem to be some appetite that we should limit what we can do with the council initiated action. And I would I would suggest it would be back to direct staff to bring something back as opposed to, spend money or take an action that night. And you could always suspend your rules to do that. And and the point here would be if we made this in our rules, that would take a five to two, which I'd be comfortable with.
Mhmm. Mayor? So yes to council member Ferguson. Yes to, council member Keane. And and there's a lot of agreement here, actually. I'm I think what administration hears through the CIA is that there's things that council cares about and wants to hear about that aren't on the agenda. That's the messaging that you're giving her. And, and I think we need to have a process for that. And it needs but it needs to give her the guidance that that you all say this is a subject we want you to bring back because this is important.
And so I like the idea of the two step process as opposed to trying to have something thrown before you, either policy or spending, and we have done both, where it's like, I've just spent how much today on what? I don't know anything about this, and it's it's on the fly. And it does it can be emotional for sure. So I I I think the exception, and I like this conversation, that if it is something that is an emergency, that it has to be done now for whatever reason, the council can vote to suspend the rules and make it an emergency.
It still makes it a hard vote, but at least five of you have said, this is gonna be a hard vote, and and it's either on policy or spending that we haven't planned on. But because of the timeliness or what's just happened, we have to do it. Right? Still not comfortable, but with, you know, taking five of you slows down the process and but still allows that opportunity. So I I do like that, and I think there have been, in my opinion, too many CIAs that have been used. I think we're just getting to the point where we want something on an agenda, and so we've been seeing too many of them.
And I would like and, you know, I say this administration. Is there a way to have you hearing from people and understanding that isn't a CIA? If you hear from two or three or four people that an issue is, like, hanging out there, does that ever give you pause to say, I wonder if we shouldn't talk about it in a study session? I would say 95% of the time that is actually what happens. And it's the rare the rare occurrence where something comes up and doesn't align with strategic like our strategic plan or something that we're already working on or,
is taking something out of, order, for lack of a better word, of of things that the staff is prioritizing and spending time on or is going to say, yeah, we better have a different another study session on that or briefing or something like that because there's needs to be more clarity going into the meeting. So I'd say most of the time that. But then there are those times where a council member really wants to bring a topic to you and, that can, create challenges. And I would just also offer that it is really important. I think adjusting the form is helpful. And, of course, the spirit of the form is that you fill it out.
So whatever amount of context you can provide to your colleagues, we try to have the cover summary, the, the spirit of using acronyms RCA, requested council action. The summary sheet, we're just trying to provide you context, basic context of what we think the implications of that might be. But it really is expected in the spirit of your rules that the council member and their second is describing to their colleagues in that form what they're trying to accomplish. There's sometimes when you have a brief meeting with staff beforehand, but it's harder to have it be a brief meeting,
the more fleshed out sometimes versus the the ask to talk about a topic and have staff bring something back. So that just becomes maybe a little bit of the challenge that we have in trying to navigate it. But there's not a perfect answer. No. But study sessions are a way even if you only set thirty minutes for it or whatever it is, a short topic. At least it gives everybody a chance to get a little information about it before they make a decision about whether they wanna support it or not. And that is maybe a good point for all of you to be here to
hear. There is an actual rationale to the calendar item that's on your study sessions. It's not just there for me to remind you what calendar item or my for myself with the next, calendar item is for the study session. It is an opportunity. If you look at the calendar and you see something not on there that you expected or, it's a vehicle for you to ask, hey. When is this other are we not gonna have a study session about? I don't know. I'll use I'll use a fun topic quick, please. This year or I feel like it's important that we talk about that. Like, it is an opportunity with your colleagues to talk about that and for us to
formally say, yeah, we should look at probably updating something. Or, actually, the title that you read here is that topic, and we call this something else. So so that is a vehicle for that and not to belabor other business, but that is also an opportunity to say, you know, we heard from someone during open comment, and I think it would be really helpful if you came back with, you know, a memo to staff where we wanna have a study session on that. Those, again, happen rarely, but I do think those are important ways for you to have a feedback loop for stuff that feels important to address even if it's not in real time,
but it's in bringing it back, at another time where you'll spend your time on it. So just things to think about. I I just I I wanna just emphasize that point because I and just to be clear, the administrator puts together our agenda. We do not have oversight over our own agenda. And, I think that we in certainly in my tenure, as in a year, I think the city administrator is very flexible to respond to us as council members
on those, agenda items and study session, topics. I think last year, we had more study sessions on the the sports complex because we were responding to our community needs. But I do think that we have to think about that being nimble and flexible in an ever changing world where our constituents are wanting us to be responsive quickly. And so we have to find that balance on on those things.
But I did want to say to my colleagues that it's incumbent upon all of us to push that agenda when we hear from our constituents. I just there's more in your presentation, isn't there? So I'll let you keep continue. We put the longer ones in the middle, part of the construction of the agenda. So this is related. So direction to staff. So we do try to be humble when we can, but we also try to, you know, hold the line where there's a policy item that maybe would be adjusting. And I think we've done a a good job of that together,
request for information. So we do try to keep those as narrow as possible. If it's something that's gonna require a lot of work, then we would probably recommend a council initiated action. Again, those are rare. Usually, it's something that we're already working on and you just wanna better understand it. And then interaction with staff and just making sure, you know, we try to be polite on the diets to our staff as well. They're working hard. They don't always get it exactly the way every single one of you wants it perfectly, but it's not the luck of trying. So, but, again, I think I've seen this go quite well, I think,
with, over the last year. And so just wanted to point it out here. It is related to that, trying to have the day to day operations with the day to day operations and not have people feel like they're not sure when they should say yes or say no. Then remote participation. We talked about this last time. This is where I believe I handed off to mister Semmercrag so you don't hear me drum, but it's a surprise to him because I didn't tell him I was going to do that. The state law did change in May. We haven't really had, too much of this, and it seemed like there was not a lot of support to have this happen
a lot for with your colleagues. It changes the dynamic of the meeting, but curious on your feedback or if you have any thoughts. I would just echo certain some of that same reflection. I think you may recall, when we briefly talked about this previously, it was probably around July or August, anticipating the upcoming change to to state statute shifting from a three times per year exception to appear remotely for either military service or health reasons. And that's combined,
three times combined, to essentially an unlimited model under the under state law. And I think what we heard, what our discussion was at the time was, as city administrator, reflected, sort of a resistance to to going that direction. And we have kind of carried forward that sense, from from you, not only with the city council of course, but, I think there is a belief and understanding that this would would be the model for all other boards and commissions for the city. So you can consider that as you,
have some more discussion today. If you think that that is necessary, I would say otherwise the rules as written are under the old law and that's okay. They can stay that way. We can be more restrictive than what the state law, allows. So happy to talk through, some of that either more than a legal perspective or practicality or otherwise. Council member Miller. Yeah. I've just raised the issue of, like, in March, the mayor and I will be at the National League of Cities Congressional City Conference.
There is a regular city council meeting that happens that Monday evening. And I wonder if there's a way to keep it restrictive, but if we're even considering if you're on official city travel, be able to sit remotely. I I will maybe unless you wanna answer. I I think you could do that now if you did so in that location that would be publicly accessible. So if you're, like, in the business center of the hotel. Okay. My true. Okay. Yes. That's accurate. And notice with the because I I I guess this is where I I would feel that we could be more in alignment with the flexibility of the new state
law that if I am sitting in a hotel room, not in a lobby, it's much easier to manage background noise, comments, other incidents happening in a public place. I would be in favor of making that flexible change. Now in the past, when I've attended just if I've been traveling to a conference and I sit in, I don't even think about trying to participate. I don't think about right Mhmm. My conversation because if you have to be in a public place, you're often in a place that's noisy. Mhmm. And to open that up and have all that background noise during the middle of
the meeting is not would not be positive. Council member Frederic. What would be the reason you couldn't be in a private space? You could stay focused on what's going on in front of you. You don't have a distraction to the people that are listening on this end. What would be the what would be the issue with that? Well, if I understand your question correctly, currently the the law allows somebody to appear from a remote location as long as it's public. Right? So that that's currently what the law allows. It doesn't allow you to appear from a remote location that is private. And as That's what I'm asking.
Why is you so we can't that's not an option. Period? Unless Unless you expand the exceptions. That's what I'm asking. Why is that a rule? Why is that a thing? I think the concept of the rule before it was changed last May by the state legislature was that you wanted to do your you should be able to be viewed by the public, not just in private, in your location. The other thing that is in the law is you do need to be visible to everyone. You like, everyone has to be able to see and hear you. So it was probably more challenging before we had teams, etcetera, to meet some of those provisions and being able to see and hear you.
And so it was the concept, right or wrong, was if you were in a public location, someone could come and find you and participate in your part of the meeting in the public location that you're at. If you went to a library, if you went to I'm not saying most people would do that. But, technically, even if you were out of state, but for some people, if they were in state, for some reason, they had a back to back meetings or something. Well, to finish with that then, if we have an important vote on the date that, council member Miller is gone, it's important he get he's able to vote on that. It just seems to make sense to me that he can listen,
give his input, vote. That just makes sense to me. I don't I don't understand why that would be a thing. Council member Palmer. I'm sure you wanna hear my comments. Of course. I mean, it might be a a goofy idea, but if he's in Room 100, could he say he's in Room 100? And if somebody knocks on the door and says I wanna watch he said, I mean, I mean, they're likely going to him being in a different state that somebody from Rochester wants to listen to what mister Miller's gonna say. Seems a little odd. Yes. That that that that is an option.
I mean, could could could That is an option to to set up a public space that in theory is public that is unlikely to be disturbed. So just to clarify, under the new statute, we could make that kind of tweak where we can have a council member participate fully in a space that doesn't necessarily have to be public. Yes. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. I would be in favor of that. That was gonna be my that was gonna be my point. I mean, I I said it said differently.
I would like our rules of conduct to align with state law, and I think my I think I'm hearing consensus that we would do that. I but I will say, like, this isn't free. Having remote people really screws up your meeting. I mean, all these votes that everyone does, like, I I will They will all have to be a role They're all role and I mean, through COVID, this was a pain. Mhmm. And so don't don't think of this as free, but I think it is important. So I heard two things. I heard make it be what state law says, but I heard the original being narrow it to be the things we already allow
or for official if you're traveling for official public business. So not like I decide to go on travel. I mean, I'm just hearing two different Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me, I I my main point I was gonna make is align our rules of operation to align with what state law would allow here. And then have someone gone every single meeting. And well, I think that means three isn't there some limits three times? Not if you go forward to state law. So that's what Yeah. I think there's still a desire to limit it somewhat, but be more expansive than current. Okay. Just to
just to kind of there's two lines. Council member Keane spoke to aligning completely with the, statute. I was speaking more to the narrow tweak, of of public business and not being in a public place And sticking with our expectation that members are here. Yeah. And and I like that except for that remove military or personal, which gets to the point where if you're the and that's where the language that,
council member, Miller suggested, which is if you're at a city approved function, that that would allow you to do that as well. So it's you would have to add that component too. So you'll bring something back to us when we vote on this. You get you have the spirit council member, Miller. Go ahead. I I guess just one final comment. Obviously, this would apply to both, regular meetings and study sessions, but in study sessions, we would not vote. No. Right. And I'll I'll just mention that, the last time that I was traveling, I missed a study session where we discussed,
legislative priorities. And to the point of the other earlier discussion of, surprises because I wasn't able to participate remotely, I brought an item through council initiated action. And so I'll just mention that. I I think, that the timing of meetings for remote participation is less of an impact for study sessions. And perhaps we consider, more flexible remote participation in that setting just to make sure that we all give input and we don't have as much surprise. And I don't know if people feel like that's a more a place for greater flexibility.
Plus, I'm in favor of maybe a little bit more flexibility on with study sessions because there is not a vote, with a priority in person if you can. Are there any other, people like that? We can do head nods this time. Okay. And maybe just encourage a little bit of additional discussion, which standard would carry forward to the other boards and commissions? Would it be the more narrow city travel or would it be more expanded for other boards or commissions?
Council member Miller. To answer that question, I I wonder if we might consider a different standard of a limiting number of times that someone is available to are able to participate remotely for a year. And I'm curious the mayor's thoughts on this because I know that she's had to, replace people because of attendance. And I I will just recognize that I I met with the board commission member earlier today who was telling me that they're adopting and worries that they might not be able to continue on that board because of the requirement to be in person
today. I wonder if we might consider a number of remote participant opportunities because my understanding is they would be voting quite infrequently, and the number of votes per meeting would be much more limited than what our meetings would be. So if you ask for my opinion, can I answer? Go ahead. I would just say, I I think there are some boards and commissions where I think of planning and zoning where you really need to be there, that that would be a difficult one for something like that. But I think if we did limit to a couple times a year,
you know, people are gone a couple times a year anyway. And if they were gone, they are willing to sit down on a meeting because it was important and there was a boat there, we'd have a problem. But when you have a vote where the you you have a meeting where you do have to vote on something that's coming before the council, it's, a, it's vital that you have a quorum. And so that's nice, but it also means to council of president Schubank, it would mean roll calls. So I I think we wanna do it infrequently, but having some leniency makes sense. We do limit it. K. Moving on. Did you get an answer?
We'll we'll make it up. Yeah. Go ahead. Bring something. No. We'll bring something to you. You can always adjust it or tell us to do it slightly differently when it comes to your brain. So, I mean, it could be iterative. Okay. Something. I do notice that in this setting, we are becoming more and more relaxed as the as the time passes on. So we aren't thinking anything. No. I mean, I think from what we heard, we can bring you some options. Mhmm. So, this is not technically in your council rules of procedure and code of conduct, but it was something that,
the city council had, taken action on in December 2023 about a process formalizing a process for, legislative advocacy and outreach for letters of support, for reviewing to ensure that it aligns with, the council's adopted legislative work, state or federal legislative priorities. So providing it here context is what we've been doing prior but also since December 2023. It could be incorporated into your council as a procedure or could remain as the standalone motion from December will go away.
Thoughts? Well, I have I have strong feelings about this one because it got broad, significantly over the last couple of years. I went back and looked at policies and it it this letter writing thing and the mayor writing a letter really was targeted on legislation, and it kinda got broadened to anything I do. I had to have three signatures, which is not the case. There are times when there are letters with National League of Cities or US Conference of Mayors that are different than letters we write for our local legislative agenda. And so we need you know, I'm hoping you can see the flexibility on some of that.
And I use what we do in our city as our guide. But getting three signatures for those kinds of things doesn't make sense and they're often very, they're done very quickly. So it does say it's preferred. It's not required. So just so you know, this has been a little bit of an issue, and partly because it was brought into grants that were like, a community member asked for a grant for, the Bush Foundation. Right? Had nothing to do with legislative. It was just something that they were doing that would support things that we would
want in our city, and the mayor's office would often write letters. And that got a little confused through the process. I think we've worked through it over time, but just I just wanted to put that out there that I don't have any thoughts about it. Council member Palmer? Well, I think the conflict would come to me. We have a mayor having her statement and then you have the city council has voted on it, which then makes it part of the city's, legislative process. And I think when you have two different people or bodies trying to tell somebody what they think is is wrong.
And so if if if we sit here as these the phrase marches won, you you may not win that that that vote, but it becomes the policy of the city and that's the policy that we follow. And I think, you know, for me, I would change the word to require, that that it be done that way. Otherwise, you confuse people that, oh, the city wants this where we and I've talked about it or voted on. My letters only say mayor and our mayor letterhead offices. And the charter just gives me guidance as well.
Other others wanna weigh in on this council member team? Yeah. Again, I I I do like what the council member Palmer says. You wanna be careful that the city doesn't appear to have two different positions. And I I I I've heard different things that something's about, you know, getting grants and another things about legislative priorities. I mean, as far as signing on to things that the council of mayors has something and you can sign on to somebody else's thing, I think that makes sense because you're just signing on as the mayor. You're not signing on as the city. But I I also understand the confusion comes up when something comes and says,
that using the terms like we support your actions here on the mayor's letterhead. It looks like the city supports it, and I think we have got to be very careful with any sort of conflicts like that. Yeah. And does that does that cover it, or does it then do we need I mean, I think the intent of this is that we review it. Right? So what we were also applying for a Bush Foundation grant, we are. But, like, trying to make sure that there's alignment there, I think, is the fear of what what was happening. Mhmm. And for staff to feel like they could do that with some amount of legislative
intent, because I don't think the intent is to squelch something, just to have to show that alignment. And I think what the mayor had described last week, my weeks are running together now, about signing on where those processes she's mentioning for, like, US conference of ours, they have very specific process, which is different even than your letters. It's more that you Mhmm. Because they're it's very curated within their system, and they know what it means, to do that. So it's a little bit different than maybe a broader, grant. And we review those just to make sure it's not something that it runs a foul of something that we're trying to do with rarely would it happen,
but it could happen, rarely we're also applying for something. Or when do you say no? You say yes to one, do you have to say yes to all, or do you end up with competing grants for either from organizations, that are not the city that are within the city limits applying for similar grant funds, and does that actually diminish their value? So we just try to talk through those kinds of things. Council member Miller. I'll just say I I prefer to stay more within the idea of, legislative priorities advocacy, not broader, you know, our roles as individuals. I mean, I think there's a reason that we haven't adopted set of legislative priorities that we've
agreed on and those should maintain the council. But I think we're gonna either have it everything or specify that. I I do feel like there's some flexibility here. And maybe I might be hiding on with what you're you're saying. I think anyone has the ability. Any of you have the ability to have your own individual city council member hat on. It's it's more so how you do that. Right? I'm speaking on behalf of myself. The city council hasn't taken action on this. Or even saying I'm speaking as an individual council member, we haven't taken action or I'm explaining why I disagree with this.
So it's not necessarily that you can or can't, but it's how you do it, I think. It's always the you know, how you make sure you stay Mhmm. Righteous with your colleagues and make sure that there's clarity about alignment. So it's always about usually about the spirit of and how. That's what I would I I would echo what the administrator Zell said and, council member Miller as well. That as long as there's we're we're looking at the spirit and the mayor's office and the city administrator is in alignment as far as knowing,
if the mayor is writing a letter in support of a project that sharing that so that if there is any misalignment or we are doing something from a city standpoint that, is in that same space that we know what the right hand and the left hand is are doing. I think you would agree. I send them to you and say I'm I've been asked for a letter for this and I'm gonna write one. And I send it and they're like, yeah. No problem. And sometimes then Americans say, oh, we have a good bookkeeping.
I mean, there's, like, two ways that this can work well. Right? Because sometimes it's probably not something we should do, and we wanna be able to provide a reason too. Great. Next slide. Go ahead. Travel training, your favorite. So the budget did increase this year back to the three twenty twenty six levels. What we have been doing was a process from, 2022 and 2024. So, having you each have a a portion of the travel and training dollars that you manage and anything that goes over or doesn't align with the policy or it's free
for travel, has to come to the city council. There are other ways to do this. You could say at the beginning of the year, these are the things that I wanna do, estimate the cost, and you could, decide as a council to approve that. Not everyone is going to have the same amount of travel and training depending on the constraints of their life outside of being a council member. But this has been the process that we followed. I think it's gone fairly well. It but it does sometimes lends itself to someone, was hoping to do two things in a year that involved a little bit more travel. They needed to come over to the council,
and that can be tricky or feel awkward. So there's more than one way to do it, and just curious if you have any feedback. Or I'll I'll speak because I think this came to an awkward place last year. I wonder if there's a way to consider something like the CIA where, you know, something comes up, you could approach another council member who has budget, and they say, hey. Sure. Yeah. That that makes sense. So it could come to the council, but with a recommendation of reallocating budget more specifically that way. I I mean,
in the sense that this is in my understanding intention to be training for the council as a whole and making sure that we're effective in our roles. I think that that I would trust my colleagues to consider how they may or may not support the overall work of the council that way. Council member Keane. Yeah. I I mean, I think this is just a necessary thing that we have to do to have a budget and then, I mean, this idea of breaking it down to this level. As far as how to manage exceptions, I I saw we had a couple last year and we managed them through.
So the I don't think this policy restricted us any big way. I I have a gripe that this is called the travel and training. Council member Wahl is gonna go up to, League of Minnesota City's day on the hill next month. Mhmm. And it's gonna look like he's spending money for no apparent reason because it's in his budget. And to me, that that's something where he's going to represent our city and it shouldn't look like he's going off on r and r. But this whole way we manage this makes it feel that way. And I'm I'm a little bothered by that. I I don't know a good way around it.
I go to something like representing the city at the, Chamber of Commerce thing the other day, and and I'm spending money. But where what I think I'm doing is trying to represent the city and bring bring back these different things to it. So that that's more of just a burr in my saddle with this stuff. I don't see any problem that we need to take this. Councilmember Miller ran into a thing last year, Councilmember Dorn did. They wrote something up. We approved it. I I think it's working. Yeah. I would agree with council member team travel or training.
I took an online class that came out of this. I didn't go anywhere but my kitchen. The training. And it was it's so professional development or being more descriptive as to what the point is. I don't wanna not be transparent about that there can be travel involved, but being more descriptive as to why we're doing that. Council member Frederick. Do we have do we have a sheet that just lays out what that exactly looks like? What it is? What it covers? There is in the official travel policy.
It does describe, that for out of state travel, the things that are preapproved ended up and in state travel is approved. But to your point, this is really coming from the title of the object code in in our financial framework. Yeah. But it could be we could further describe it as, and I think it's actually called, training travel and other other business meetings. But typically, we reserve a very small amount of other business meetings for, if we have food at something like this. So we could flush out more than it's for the official it says for official city business. It's just more of a question for transparency.
In the actual organizational policy, so we could add that to your council rules or procedure if I want clarity. K. Thank you. Moving on. You were close. Residence engagement opportunities. So some of this came up during your pet better public meetings. So, if there's, definitely sounded like there's a desire to increase engagement with, residents outside of public meetings. I think the challenge here is balancing when you're you know, how do we curate this in a way of who you are speaking with the voice of the city, especially during election season? How do you do that in a way that is, respectful of your colleagues, respectful of those who might be running against you,
and all of those things are important to have, like, the spirit of why we're there and we could curate something like that. Also has been some discussion of and desire to have, dedicated spaces maybe a little bit more friendly to a, one on one dialogue or a few on one dialogue for open office hours, and, that smaller, environment. So we're just curious about and and, again, the opportunity for residents that might not be able to be here but wanna meet with you outside of the public meeting. So an opportunity just to discuss that. Well, I I will take on, both the,
engagement increased opportunities for engagement both here at city hall as well as out in the community. I think we've had a lot of discussion about code in the community, and I do wanna see more of that. I like the tent idea. I do also like the idea of looking at potential budget for communications from that standpoint as well. I also think that having a presence for the city council in city hall,
a stronger presence is important. I I know that speaking for myself, I if there was a presence here, I would look to having open office hours and, and then having the opportunity for individuals to meet with me at city hall or as council member Doreen mentioned, larger groups to to meet with, myself or our colleagues. I see it it kinda from the open office hours idea as it's up to
each of us if how much we want to lean into that space. But if we could have a visible space with, electronic board that says, council president Schubert will be here Wednesday, you know, noon to three. Council member blank, council and we then have that presence in City Hall. And then and then we as council members have the opportunity to, take use that and be present in in City Hall.
Council member Palmer. Don't we have the opportunity to reserve a room on 2nd Or 3rd Floor to to have a meeting and and schedule that? You do. I think the question is whether or not that's sufficient for people. Is that the atmosphere that you're looking for, or are you looking for more of a permanent presence? And then that's a question I can't answer for you. Well, could we have a room on the 2nd Or 3rd Floor and just say that's the council? We do. You have one on the 3rd Floor. I don't know that it's as conducive in the layout for having, you know, a when you have desks around the edge Building,
you could reweigh that out if folks were interested in that. There could be we could repurpose some space on the 1st Floor. I think dedicating a room that's already a meeting room, we do sometimes have challenges, not every day, with meeting room space and dedicating that. So we do have a room, it's intended to be more drop in space. It could be modified to be something that's more or if there's a desire for something to And maybe I can explain how I'm seeing this. So you walk through city hall. You see Mayor's Office.
You see city administration. You see city attorney. Public, parks and rec. Human resources. We are the key decision makers in the city. We do not have that kind of presence in the city hall for the seven of us to engage with, our stakeholders, our our residents. So that's that's when I say present, that's that's what I'm referring to. Council president. I think that makes a great deal more sense for the council president than it
makes sense perhaps for ward members. Most of you know where I meet with most ward members on the Northwest Side. I think I've met with most of you in in that particular place. They're more likely to meet with me there or on the Northwest Side than come down here and pay for parking. So it's it would make little sense, I think, for Ward 3, unless we expect a lot of drop in traffic. Council member Keane. Yeah. Again, I've been at this a little longer. My first couple years, there was no office space. There was a thing back in 2021 to start having some sort of office space,
but it's very rarely if ever used. And I know we have space now up on the 3rd Floor. I probably get to it once every couple of weeks, but I think I'm the only one. So I I don't know how much this would get used, but I up to this point, I didn't I don't see it in the high demand. I think the point that, there's times that I'm up at the desist in the North Side, and I just go in and use conference rooms. And, I I just kind of just do on the fly. I think I think what council president Schubert is looking for is more not not just about an office place,
but a visible presence in city hall. And I I again, I I know the mayor's office is very visible and things over the door, but it's also a a manned office probably mostly before of what whenever city hall's open. And I don't know if we've had anything like that with. Words there are that it's reception. So whether someone's in an office elsewhere or they've reserved a meeting room, that that is the place that they would go to say to check-in, but that may or may not be sufficient for the council. I'm not hearing a lot of support to change a lot, but maybe maybe there's also not super a lot of concern if we were gonna
adjust the existing office space. Or I would support the president's, desire for space and time. Council member Miller was out of the room. I I don't know if newer council members have an interest in having more dedicated space, more use of of to opportunity to have not only engagement in the community, but engagement and presence in City Hall. Any other feedback? You want me to go first? No problem. You should go for my birthday.
Sure thing. Very sufficient to me on the Southeast Side. I haven't had any issues. I've had I've had zero people request to meet me at City Hall. So I meet with people, at my place of business and the coffee shops and honestly wherever they wanna meet. I meet right at their house sometimes. So I'll just say I I I agree, but I have been asked by people in the community asking for a meeting who assume that we have office space at City Hall. And I say, well, we sort of have a room with a lot of desks that it's not great for meetings.
So I I understand. And I think particularly for the citywide role of the council president, it makes sense. I I wouldn't be opposed to having the option to use it. I don't know that I initially would plan to set up every week office hours, but I like having the option that we think about how we have a visible presence in city hall where people many people in the community assume we we already are at some point during the weeks. Could that 3rd Floor room be fixed up better so it looked more like an office? And then we check-in at a desk and then we say,
yes. You know, come to me too. He's in Room 306. So we'll call him and come down and get you. So it's not just desks and it's a wall. What what I've never been in the office. I forgot we had a great show. It's not exciting. It's not exciting. It's not exciting. Could we I'll just throw this out there and is is with the preceptor for the mayor and the city council. We could we did the signing there. I kinda like to have a little bit of security because y'all don't know who you're meeting with sometimes. It would be nice if you could go through that secure place and have somebody else around in case you're having a problem.
You know, the city attorney's office has that, but Park Rec has that where if you had a problem, we can we can get you out of there. And so that kinda worries me to be up in the 3rd Floor, kinda lonely up there and having somebody, come become unglued or hostile with you. That was something we talked about. Sounds like I'm the only one gonna be there. So This is a definite concern that I would have if I like, so we did there is a space in the 1st Floor HR area, which I think any people would not go all the way up. They might go to clerk and then the most prominent in city hall is the
city clerk's front desk. Right? It's like a window. And so we were looking at a space that's to the side of HR. So there is there are people around 95% of the time, and so that might be an option where it's more functional table, situation. But there's also someone there most of the times. And we would probably get a panic button, and we should probably have a panic button upstairs. Although, unless you double swipe, you're locked in there. No one can get to you unless they have a badge on the 3rd Floor. So, I mean, I think some of those things are I I would not disagree with you that
could be I just just and I you don't have to belabor the the topic, but I do think as we move forward, as we, you know, are become a growing community, there and it it's less about the space. I think, you know, in the the old adage, if you build it, they will come. But that we as the, council has presence in the building, going forward. And and whether that presence is, you know, a couple offices or one office that the president and council members use,
conference space, just thinking thinking long term about, a growing city where a council council members are the key decision making bodies. And that's kind of where I ultimately land as well. You know, we we're talking we've spent a long time talking about public engagement earlier and I've you know, to get us out and more well known in the community so people will engage us, I think, having having a a more permanent or a more prominent presence in city hall might
be helpful for that. I I would feel more comfortable, meeting with folks with other people around. I generally have those meetings in coffee shops myself, but my professional life has also taught me never to be in a room with just one other person. So or without anyone else knowing that that is happening. So, I like the idea of someone having to check-in somewhere to have a meeting with me if we're having a one on one dialogue if it's not in a coffee shop. And and I would try office hours here at City Hall effects. Yeah. Something we wanna pilot or try to do and,
you know, I'd sign up for that. And I think I'm gonna sign that says something. I think it's easier to do. Yeah. Any more on this page here? This slide? I found you're to a repeat on Apollo Phenix, which I think it sounded like Nick and the team were gonna regroup and come back. But I guess the the bigger question would be, did you miss anything really burning within your council rules of procedure and code of conduct that you wanted to talk about, that you're unclear about, or that you want more clear? So I just have a question about the better public meeting. So say in the next two months,
while we wait for recommendations to come back, I wanna try to pilot a town hall in Ward 6, and there is a monetary output for doing that. Right? So wrecking space. Do we have a mechanism currently where I can approach the city and say I need $50 to rent a space? Or is that on me as an individual council member to rent that space? We do not currently have that process, and I think that is a great point of part of the challenge. I would say I don't think it's something that can't be overcome is how do
you do that in a way that is cognizant that that's property tax dollars that are happening and is it, you know, is that is it inappropriate? It's a question. Is there an appropriate use of public funds to have a certain but what we've when we've had this discussion before, the question is how do we do this in a way that isn't the balances you as an individual council member representing your views and an extension of the broader elected body trying to get feedback on things that all of your colleagues will also be having feedback on.
So I guess my current answer is we don't have a process for that and I always like to look to my left. If you if you go there. Only that and I I think this was touched on previously. Really just the same question of delineation between individual council members, representing their individual views, advocacy positions, etcetera. Of course, at different times of the year that will become a more sensitive topic or in campaign season versus others. And that balance can be tricky and really is the pitfall,
of attempting to provide that kind of opportunity. Now I think there have been offshoots of that discussion of utilizing city space, in in other in other parts of the community, other away from city hall and appropriate ways to do that. So there can be alternatives. Yeah. Sort of like booking a room. Right? Like, if there's this booking or a few or one of the community rooms that needs to I mean, I think we could come up with a process for that that identified the places because they wouldn't arguably cost money depending on when it's being utilized because if the
building isn't already open, then it could be challenging to to do that. But I think there's outside of the very specific question options. Yeah. No. I think that might be valuable. Okay. Council member Miller? Not on this topic, but I I'm curious about another topic, just voting order, which came up in our last discussion of this. And just having a rotational model, there are twelve months in the year. We have two meetings per month. There are six of us, plus the council president. I wonder if folks are interested at all in rotating the voting order on January
through June, repeating one through six. Council member? I'm not. But I'll go back to mister Doreen's question and that would be, I I think if it's appropriate to do something of that for for, gatherings for for city council members, we could kind of come up with that. I personally paid for it myself. I personally, I'm a chamber member, I pay for any chamber event I go to, but that's my own decision. I don't see that there's anything wrong with somebody saying, I need to rent this room and it's for city council stuff. And I trust everybody here to make that decision of what city council versus campaigning,
which we all have to be honest about. But I'll go back here. No, I think the way we do our boarding is fantastic and the way it should stay. Any other thoughts on, council member Ramirez' question? I Yep. Go ahead. Yeah. I again, I don't know what the right order is. I I wouldn't wanna try to, you know, say this is what we should do. But I actually do think it's probably better to have some sort of rotation whether it be, you know, across the different meetings and just changing or across the different months. I I don't know. I have no problem with it staying the same,
but I'm but looking at it, it probably there probably is some benefits in in that in not having the council president being the last vote on every vote or not having, you know, something like that. So I think there is some benefits to it. So Council member I I guess if I can clarify. So currently, the numbers are arbitrary. We always start on roll call votes with council member Keane. My proposal would be that we have January 1 through June 6 where that council member is the first vote, and then that continues in order. And then with the council president.
And then so July would return to council member Keane through me. August, I would start in with council member Keane before council president Schubert to rotate by month, have it predictable. And that would obviously only be on roll call votes and just verify Just to clarify, are you you're keeping the council president's idea. Okay. We're supposed to have no problem with it. Council member Fredericks. I like her most senior leader going first. I like it the way it is. Well, to speak to actually council member, Fredericks, I I do think there are other models where they do go by seniority.
Mhmm. And that that's kind of the other typical model. But We won't call it to where. Yeah. In there. We will have to find out the seniority between council member Keane and council member one more time. In the case, I had a made you see the lower lowest award. And that was in the rules of those were in the rules that may may have been dropped out somewhere over the years. But Yeah. That's yes. Okay. So so the question, mister Miller, is what are you trying to fix? It's a great great question. Yeah. And I would say when we discussed other that this council has discussed numbering of
things that don't necessarily have numeric significance, Just equitably rotating who gets to go first, who gets to go last. There are more difficult votes than others. And being on the earlier side of where these are, it's it can be unclear where the votes are going. Whereas when it gets to vote five of seven, you have a much clearer perspective of where where the button. And I would like to suggest that we share who gets to go first. Alright. Council member I think it's very important we always vote on merit and what we're
gonna vote for the reasons we're gonna vote. We should never let what other council members are voting sway us. Okay. Are we done with this topic? It's a problem. I've got a couple that I I'm just gonna throw up here. And they come from better public meeting, our discussion there and just, as as we've moved along and had greater public engagement. And one is, I want my colleagues to think about, the possibility of adding public comments to study sessions at the end of study sessions
so that we all have opportunity to see the two or three, informational items that we're, gaining knowledge on. We ask questions of staff on that topic. And if we do have members of the public at the study session, then we have a, just like we do with our regular meetings, a twenty minute public comment period for members of the public to say, hey. I think this and that about those topics. So I think it just opens up the the community engagement just one additional step
more. So don't know what council members have thoughts on that? Well, I I Go ahead. I don't like it for a couple of reasons. One of them, if somebody wants to read the packet and get a hold of me ahead of time, I'm more than willing to do that. It's a listening session basically, and and for us, you could have the end of the meeting be, two more hours longer if you have 35 people who wanna show up and and and talk. And and so for me, that that's a difficult difficult part to do that. Mayor Norton? Yeah. I just I don't think it has to be going to a mic for two
minutes. I think it could be council members sitting at tables and letting people come and sit down and talk to us. It doesn't it doesn't have to be the way we've done it before. And I think that's one of the things I'm hoping we can talk with Nick with over the next month about what have other cities done that has have worked well. What about this idea versus this idea and and hope we can come back with ideas. I think this is one we should brainstorm. I don't know if that's the exact Yep. Way to Yeah. I happen or not. I think the objective is Try something. More engagement.
Council member Keith? Yeah. I I guess coming into the first session today on the I mean, I mean, I'm open to any sort of ideas of that. But that one's interesting to me to have it at the end of the meeting because you're really asking for the investment of sitting through our meeting to do that, which is, you know, that that there's there's a cost to that. Yes. Well and but but I'll well, I wanna kind of grow off that too. I know that right now our public hearings are 99% driven off what the law requires us to do.
We can have public hearings when we think it's appropriate and just and I don't mean just up here deciding, but if something's going on and looks like this is going on, we can make a recommendation and have a public hearing. I believe that's in our not not so much in our rules per se, but public hearings, as long as they're noticed and and you put them out and do it, you can do it. I think right now we've fallen into the trap of only doing them when the law requires them. And I think if if we ever did see that as an opportunity to make
an outreach to say, yeah. This is something that people are clever about. It gets you out of the two minute open comment, and it makes it more of a, like a, what do they call it, noted or or posted meeting. And I I think we could do a little more engagement that way. Other thoughts on that? I've got, one more on and I think that also speaks to our our agenda. I think we right now, the, city clerk and city administrator pulls together our agenda. And, the public hearings are there because statutorily,
we have to have public hearings. So if there is a topic that we want public hearings to happen on, unless we bring it up at the dais, how do we get that to our administrative administrative team that's pulling together the agenda. So back to a original question that I had earlier, I think that we should consider some kind of, check and balance from the elected officials to that agenda setting process.
So that and then I have another piece that's, that, speaks to the glide path that we have. We all know that we get our agendas the Wednesday before our Monday meetings. And I would like to see council members get a copy of the draft agenda that is, in city, the city administration process so that we have as decision makers a glide path to the issues that we're going to be making decisions on
at least ten days before. So that we can then start engaging We actually have the agenda ten days before. Yeah. So that is Well, there is a draft agenda that's being built. And there are topic issues. And I've gotten briefings on those at least on a Monday for seven days before or so I think I think to speak to the glide path to decision making, I think council member access to those, agenda items,
I think is is something that we should, consider as well. Council Member Palmer. I think to your first point and that is during our study session, we could ask the question is a study session or would a would a, open commentary would be necessary. Who would we like to have that? I think that might be one of those items that you could say, yeah, this is important to us. Let let's do that. To to the second question you have, I'm not in favor of that for a couple of reasons. Which one? There were two there. There was The first one was oversight of the agenda or seeing the agenda.
The oversight of the agenda or or seeing it because I go back to my my my dilemma with drafts and my dilemma with with with, people seems to have stuff. And this would have to be public knowledge that all this is what we're kind of thinking of. But why did it fall off? Or where where is this at? Or it it gets confusing. Oh, jeez. This issue is coming up. I gotta go to this meeting and they don't go any further. So I'm happy with the Wednesdays, and I think that that's enough for me. But that's my opinion. Other thoughts? Clarification. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. No problem. Is the idea of sending to the council make it a public document?
Short answer, yes. I believe. Yeah. I I don't think we can share out a draft that is I mean, that's exactly the request is to share out a draft. So, I I think we're in the murky places here with this. So I I'm gonna kind of follow-up to, council member Keane's line of questioning. So is the Friday update a public document as well then? Technically, yes. If people would share it with others, I don't think the intent is to share it as far as mine. But, yeah, it definitely opens itself up to being requested.
So then to and let me let me talk about the intent. We curate it in assumptions that you're getting the information and you might be sharing it. The intent of the of the draft agenda, access to the draft agenda is a longer glide path for council members to see what issues are what items are going to be addressed a week ahead of time, ten days ahead of time. And so, I know that we we do staff has access to items that are percolating up.
And the the objective is that we know what's coming up. We then can, engage with stakeholders, members of the public sooner than the Wednesday to Monday time frame that, issues come up. So if there is another vehicle to to bring greater clarity to those issues that are on that glide path to us, I'd be interested in staff, sharing that.
Council member Miller. And I'm curious about that too. Not necessarily the the week to week items, but there are some larger items that go to planning and zoning. And then it's a known date when it would come to council, but it wouldn't be on the agenda. Is there an in between similar to how we have the study section schedule of items that are in process and their target meeting dates? Or what are because, again, in the developed process is probably a good example of this. There are checkpoints, and I would I know I've received notices too saying there's a public hearing coming
up, and that notice comes before the agenda is published. And maybe this is a very niche area, so I'm I'm curious too. But maybe how many agenda items that are a month or two out? I wish I could I wish I knew that. Yeah. So I guess what I would say is there's not it will not be like us. I think we can come with the spirit of what the desire is and and the desire to provide more clarity, the challenges, the agenda. We have so much happening in the agenda that it is difficult to know,
especially if it's one offs, what's going to be on your agenda until the cutoff date is now Mondays at noon. So that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't even know if the full agenda is the full agenda until Monday at noon, and then I still sometimes get questions about, hey. Can I put that on the agenda? I missed the deadline. And we're trying to be flexible and adaptable. And, and is there a way to forecast? I think that's what you're asking. Forecast what might be coming in a way that's clear, especially for bigger items that are going to maybe require a little bit more political tips, if you will, or, you know, might be more challenging for your ward or for,
different parts of the population. So I think we could think about how we do that. And to be honest with you, we probably need a better internal process as well. The one that you raised, council member Miller, is probably I'll use the word easiest, which I rarely use, but that's because community planning and zoning does, or it has, like, a cadence to it, Sure. Generally, and so there's usually a better idea of when something's probably gonna be before you in order to meet shop clocks in order to, meet development requirements. Some of the other ones get a little bit more challenging, and then some of the the departments who rarely are on the agenda sometimes have
to ask each time how they do it because they're on there once or twice a year. So Council member Doreen. Yeah. Just to to chime in, a few the few times that I've been taken off guard that something is on the agenda, has been from developers calling me saying you're deciding this in a week, and I'm like, oh, okay. I had no idea, which makes me look bad, but I also just think makes us look bad. So, I mean, heads up in kind of those processes where someone's going to come present to the council and is reaching out to me as an individual council member to to wanna
set up a meeting to kind of pre brief me. I would like to know that they might have they might do that. Does that make sense? Yes. And we should probably also let you know whether or not we think you should meet with them based on the decision that you're making or whether it's quasi judicial. But because they generally won't tell you that. Right. So yeah. Council member Keith. Yeah. Again, I'm I'm hearing some of these things right now and some of the request for this. It's kind of deep. I I know there's people that I work with that had access to this because there is some public data in,
like in where these permits are done and all that stuff. I I I think the better request or the more efficient request for running the city of Rochester would not be be this stuff to be sent and sent, but would be training for us so that if we wanted to find this, how we would do it. That'd be awesome. And I just to kinda wrap this up, and I I know we're we're close to time. I've got an issue. Oh, you have more? Not on this topic. So wrap that topic. Okay. So the topics that I brought up, I think it it really speaks to as things move quicker in our society,
we do need to be able to be more responsive to, to residents. And and as council member Doring said, we wanna be prepared, for for those issues. But we also want to have the time to reach out to our constituents and get their feedback as well. So, so, think to the spirit of that objective as you move forward on that. Mayor Norton and then Thanks. Well, so as we prepare for this, we're talking about rules of procedures and operation. We also have a parallel document that is similar but not the same for boards
and commissions. I've been talking with, our attorney, Michael Spampler Craig, about this a little bit. There are a couple items in there, that I I would like to have to change, and I would like to bring it back to you guys through it can either be a consent agenda or a a voting thing. They're minor tweaks. One of them, just has to do with attendance for boards and commissions, and our language says that each member of an at the advisory board and commission need to report to the mayor the name of any board member who's failed to show up for the attendance requirements. Well, I do not need nine count commission members tattling on other commission members.
We need just the chair or the the staff rep. So I would like to change that language rather than each member to the staff or chair. We also have an issue with term limits, and this has actually been brought to us by, board and commission members where it says they're limited to no more than six consecutive years or two consecutive terms, whichever is longer. And we need to add the word two full consecutive terms because some people come on for a year of someone's thing, and it's going to be then two full terms.
So they will actually serve seven years, and we have allowed that historically in the city when they finish up one term and then serve two full terms. So those are the two big changes. There is there are a couple, like, put a period and add a capital and create two sentences other than one, and I would like to remove, the term ad hoc meetings and make some changes to the to and just move the language up. So they're minor technical changes. They're not controversial. And the only one that I would ask for a head nod on, if we can do that, is everybody else in the city council,
our thing says two minutes. Theirs says four. We did never change theirs. If you have if you wanna parallel ours, it would change to two. If you don't care, knowing that during their meeting, they could make the change at a particular meeting if they wanted to. But the the the fallback would be four currently or if I parallel yours, it's two that just got missed. So that's the only one that I could use, like, a head nod if you wanna stick with four. I mean, I'm raising that. Councilman, I would I'd like to see it just be put on the consent agenda.
You want four or two? Two minutes. All of it. Public comments. I've just turned the whole thing on. Like four two. Okay. Two. Two parallel the city Are they asking for two? That was my question. They haven't asked. These are just things that that one hasn't asked. It's just a difference and we tried paralleling. So it would be for It's a good idea. Similarity. Okay. Other thoughts on the two four two? I I would say two with the understanding that it parallels the council. Yeah. And so should we make a change that in the future, let's suggest a change for for the commission. Council member two?
Yeah. Just on again, I've gone through these before. This is we're doing our our, like, code of conduct and rules of operations. And I think it's, I I actually am surprised that we had as many changes we have. Because if I look back in the last year, I I think our operations has gone really well. As far as our public meetings. I think our level of discourse is really good compared to councils in the past. And again, just the way we kind of work through different things, I think has been good. So again, I I know there's things with council initiate action. There's things with other businesses. It's good that we review that,
but we're not in this sort of thing saying, like, this has to change because this isn't working. And and I I I'm kinda proud of that. Second, I think there are some things though in our meetings that I think we as a council probably need a little more training on. One is there's different orders of what our our, motions are, and, you know, like, what supersedes something else and we've had a little trouble with motion to suspend versus something else. But the one that I think I have the most trouble with is this idea of point of order and what that means in our meeting and how it's adjudicated. And I think it would be good for us to to spend some time on
that. My bad timing of bringing this up right now, but this other business, I mean, I I turned to the staff and say anything you can do to get away from this nodding of heads, which feels like, an informal way of taking an informal vote that then becomes something someone says happened at a meeting. I I really don't want us to be doing that in our formal meeting. It just feels wrong. Any other thoughts? And I I echo council member Keane's thoughts on, just the the culture that we have as a council and a staff. And, the the,
the proposal that I made are it's I think a lot of them, we move the culture, we move that we build the trust and respect that we have with each other and we're able to, to be flexible. But I still wanna push the envelope on that, increasing transparency, increasing public engagement. One quick item, just back to the mayor sorting through on the model rules question and she and I will just need to talk through some of this. We've had this concept of sort of unified or consistent or,
model the rules for all the boards and commissions and just a little hiccup that we've run into at times is that some of our ordinances for our boards and commissions and our charters where they give them the authority to set their rules, not all of them. And they need to create that list and see exactly what that looks like. But, we'll just we can talk through that a little bit more. Alright. Anything else on this topic? Calendar and then Study sessions before we could practice the calendar being the tool. So on your next,
study session, we have the historic district public realm plan and action plan and API update. So that is forthcoming in February. There was one thing that I believe that we were gonna add to March 9, so just for awareness. There is a thing that you may not be aware of yet, but it is called the spongy moth. It's an invasive species in Minnesota. And so you will likely be having an update from, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture just on some of the remediation that they are looking at doing in Southeast Minnesota. So it didn't make it onto this list,
mostly for the public. We wanna make sure they're aware of a wonderful opportunity to write an article about that. Coming up here in the near term. I believe it was the night that we were thinking that we would do that, based on some of their timing for, public outreach. In addition to that, there is the supporting transformation update and the housing crew update on the March 9. Alright. Mister Skidler Craig, could you take, take us into executive session? Yes, mister president. Consistent with the posted agenda,
we will move into, closed session pursuant to Minnesota statutes 13 b point zero five, subdivision three c three. Consider the purchase price of the property identified as parcel identification number 643521082745. We will, we will recess to 01:04 in, ten minutes. Thank you. Thank you.