All right.

Welcome to our uh April 8th study session for Edmund City Council, beginning here at 3 p.m.

And we have council members uh Chen, myself, Council President, Councilmember Nan, Councilmember Payne, and Councilmember Olsen here at this time.

So possibly a few more will join us later.

So we will get started.

And our first item of business is Robert's rules of order presentation.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I wanted to start with first off, thank you for giving me the time to review this topic.

Before I dive into Robert's rules, I did want to mention briefly the I'm sure everyone saw the agenda, and at the bottom you'll see that items for future consent piece.

That is something that we've briefly touched on.

Council President wanted me to bring that up again today, just to kind of point to its purpose, what it's what it looks like, what it's for, uh, and that kind of thing.

So though the items that are appear under that section of the agenda are intended to be non-controversial items, things that are routine and are expected to easily get uh to consent and that don't require council discussion or time.

And so um there they get placed there, that counts as their first touch, and then they can move right on over to a consent agenda after that.

Uh the intent is that when council gets the agendas and they see those items on there, um you if there are any questions, you can send those to staff and we can have a staff member uh present for the meeting, the study session, and to answer those questions if needed.

Um I just wanted to go over that really quick.

Um, second, uh I wanted to say I gave myself 15 minutes for this presentation.

I think I may go a bit over, but for the sake of time, I will request that if there are any questions that they go either into an email to me afterwards or um we save them for the end.

So if if there's anything super urgent, feel free to interrupt me.

But otherwise, if we can hold those till the end, that would be great.

Um, and so now with that, I'm gonna go ahead and jump in.

Right.

Let me share my screen so you can actually see it.

All right, are we all able to see that?

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

So um I was asked to provide a brief overview on Robert's rules.

Um, because the actual rule book is over 700 pages and we only have, like I said, 15, 20 minutes.

I'm gonna focus only on motions for the day.

If that's we can go over more later.

I can again, I can answer any questions, but for now, just motions.

So Robert's rules is one of the most widely used guides for how city councils govern their meetings.

Um the the purpose of having rules and guidelines is to give council an authority and a framework to back up their method of decision making.

There are hundreds of topics that do get covered in Robert's rules.

Uh, like I said, it's over 700 pages long, um, the version that we have adopted.

But today I'm just going to focus on motions.

So I like to think of it in in a lot of I go in a lot of abstract directions, but if council is a legislative body, then the motions get to be the legislative arms and legs.

Um they can move the council's agenda forward, but they can also move it backwards or sideways.

Uh council members are usually free to make motions.

There are some exceptions, but uh that can make things really interesting, especially as the motions become more complex.

Um a few types of the motions are the main motion, which is uh made with clear language and intent when no other motion is on the floor.

Um it can be used to, among other things, adopt an ordinance, direct staff work, or add an item um to a future agenda.

Uh you can have a subsidiary motion.

So these are motions that follow a main motion with the intent to modify or reschedule it in some way.

A few examples, but this is not an exhaustive list are motions to amend, motions to postpone, and motions to limit or extend limits of debate, such as limiting each each council member's debate time to two minutes each.

Um, just as one example.

Uh their bring back motions.

So a motion to reintroduce or reconsider a past item or decision.

So motions like this often have a very specific circumstance and criteria that they need to meet to be valid.

For example, the motion to reconsider a previous motion must be moved during the same meeting at which the original vote was taken, and can only be made by a member who voted on the prevailing side, either the ayes or the nays, depending on how the vote went.

This is to prevent repeat considerations by members who disagree with the outcome.

Um and similarly, a motion to take uh to take from the table may only be made during the same or next regular meeting.

If it's not taken from the table by then, it dies.

What's also important to remember is that when a motion is on the floor, the only discussion should be related to the to that motion.

For example, if there's a motion on the floor to adopt an ordinance about, say car tabs, the discussion cannot then turn to whether the city should look into shrinking or expanding its borders or something like that.

So before a topic or an item can be considered, step one should always be a motion.

In other words, members should not, members of the council should not begin a discussion before a motion has been made.

Explanations as to why a member will be supporting their own motion should not be incorporated into the motion.

And we'll get into that a little bit more the next slide.

But the motion should be clear and include no commentary or opinion.

Following that, the motion should be uh can be seconded by another member who wants it to be considered.