Um let's go ahead and call the meeting to order.

Welcome everybody to our uh special council meeting today, May 27th, 2026.

I'm gonna go to call the meeting to order and pass it to Clementine for roll call and to share announcements with the public.

Councilmember Barber present.

Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Council Member Rash here.

Councilmember Smith.

Here.

And Mayor Williamson.

Here.

And public comment and participation information is provided on this meeting's agenda, which is online at monterey.gov slash agendas.

In person attendees, please keep your electronic devices and phones muted to prevent audio interference.

Consistent with the First Amendment and the Brown Act, individuals have the right to speak at public meetings, which includes the right to criticize or support city policies or actions.

The city encourages your uninhibited and robust feedback on public issues affecting the city.

And we thank you for participating.

Thank you, Clementine.

And with that, we'll go ahead and do the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'll ask Council McGarcia to kick us off.

Which stands under God.

Thank you, Gina.

All right.

And with that, we will get to our public appearance item.

Item one on the agenda is to review and provide guidance on council governance policy, agendizing process, and meeting efficiency.

With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh this was uh an agenda item that was requested by council, and staff has taken some time to do some analysis.

At this time, I'll turn it over to our assistant city manager Nat and also our city clerk, Clementine.

Thank you very much, City Manager Hall.

And good afternoon, mayor and council.

Uh, we are here this afternoon to uh to talk about uh the first item on today's agenda, which is the uh governance policy and specifically the process by which you all, members of the city council bring items forward for discussion and deliberation for a future agenda.

And uh also the second piece of this item will be to discuss different ways in which we can improve and enhance meeting efficiency within the within the city and the city council.

So uh Clementine and I will be tag teaming this presentation.

Uh she's done uh quite a bit of research on what some of the best practices are among local governments and cities and agencies throughout California.

And uh based on that research as well as looking and reviewing internally our current process, uh, what are ways in which we can maybe do things uh slightly different?

Uh what are option policy options for council as we look at uh variations to the agendizing process and then what are different ways in which we can uh maybe improve meeting efficiency.

And um, we'll start with the uh couple of slides here and uh bear with me just a moment while I pull up uh pull up the slides.

Hopefully, this comes up.

Uh here we go.

So the current policy.

Let's start with the policy and the current policy in under which uh council members may agendize new matters.

And uh it's a multi-step.

Okay, location has been turned off.

Thank you, Microsoft Edge.

Okay.

Um what we have here is uh a four-step process.

Um a current policy in governance uh states that uh council members are to submit a written request up to 350 words that outlines what the request to agenda is is about, and uh that provides uh staff and council an understanding on uh what that request is.

And then at the meeting under the section request to agendize, that's where the council member provides a three-minute or up to three-minute verbal report.

Council members can ask questions.

There's an opportunity for staff to provide feedback on uh potential timeline and time frame.

The public has an opportunity to provide input or ask questions, and then uh with two yes votes, the item gets agendized to a future meeting.

And so uh that's that's the current policy as it states now.

Um some of the benefits to the current policy is that uh it's transparent to the public but also transparent to council.

We see ahead of time, similar to the item that is after this, uh item number two.

Uh we have an understanding of what the what is being requested.

We can uh council can have a chance to discuss the scope, the time, and the priority.

Where does it prioritize among all the other priorities within the city?

It encouraged it also ensures that at least two members support agendizing the matter and not just one, but also doesn't require at this time uh having three members or more uh agendize uh support for to agendize the matter.

It also helps us as staff have a clearer understanding on the request before we begin the research.

Some of the challenges though we know and pain points we we call it for the current policy is that uh sometimes there's an unclear timeline for staff in terms of how do we and when we can deliver those approved items, and uh that's something that we know we can improve upon on our side.

Um there also is often we've observed a temptation to discuss the substance.

Not just should we agenda it in the future, but let's dig into the details of the policy, and then we can end up spending you know 20 30 minutes talking about the policy topic rather than saying let's agendize this for the future and then we can talk about it then.

Um it can also consume time in the discussion of the merits and public public comment.

So there is an alternative to the current process, and Clementine will discuss that.

Yes, so the alternate one alternative is that in the California government code, um, it does provide that a member of the legislative body can subject to rules or procedures.

So you could establish rules and procedures for this if you like, um, can take action to direct staff to place a matter of business on a future agenda.

Next slide, please.

And so some benefits of this would be it's spontaneous, it's less formal than our current policy.

Um the item can proceed more quickly due to no public comments.

Some possible issues would be if you wished to have that transparency for the public to comment, they would not be able to in this manner because there aren't public comments on the council comments section of the agenda.

Um it can also be tempting here for multiple members to start discussing the subject matter.

Um, one that we see is that it would be unclear to staff how much support there is for the item and how much work and time should be spent to deliver those approved items, and that staff, if it's a spontaneous topic being brought up, staff may not be fully prepared to answer questions on the feasibility or time frame if they didn't have time to know it was coming and to prepare for that item.

So uh just sharing kind of the flow of the two different options, uh, current policy.

First meeting, again, council reviews the written request.

You all vote to agendize if that's the case.

Uh if there's the two votes in favor, we bring it back for the second meeting, fully researched uh or or lightly researched, and council discusses and if needed, uh we bring back at a third meeting uh further documents for adoption.

Um if we go with the Brown Act policy, uh there's the council member would make the verbal request during council member comments, and then you can decide on whether that's just one or two or three as council member as uh Clementine mentioned.

And then the second meeting we'd bring forward that that what we would call an agenda report light, uh light agenda report.

Council has that initial discussion.

We can then come back at another meeting with the fully researched item, and then if needed, come back again uh for uh further adoption.

So there's just different ways of of doing it.

There's option again, current policy, brown act policy, uh, and uh, but it is a multi-step approach to either way, and uh uh staff believes that having the written request ahead of time does does help us through uh better understanding what the topic is, uh rather than just being brought up on the fly.

Uh so Clementine.

Yeah, so based on what I was seeing in the policies of some other California cities, we have a few proposals for ideas that we think may improve our current policy.

So A, which we do highly recommend, would be something that is coming to us from a few cities that I can think of where Palo Alto and COTATI are the ones off the top of my head, who require that the council member speak with the city manager prior to submitting their written request to kind of go over the subject matter of the request and ensure that it fits within the operational authority of the city and the existing budget as well as the adopted council priorities.

Then B would be for staff to have the opportunity to include timing and workload estimates in that little written report that comes with the written request in the agenda.

However, this wouldn't mean they would need to come to us a little earlier, sort of on the timeframe that staff reports come to come for review, which is two weeks prior to the meeting.

And we do highly recommend this one if you'd like to have more transparency up front about the impact and when it may come forward.

C would be to raise the approval threshold to the majority of the council, which could ensure broader council support before staff resources are committed.

That's something you could also do with the Brown Act policy, is um require a certain threshold for the council's agreement.

And we do highly recommend that one.

And then D, another option is that staff would provide quarterly status updates on all pending approved agenda items so that council can track the progress.

Very well said, Clementine, and I'll add that uh these are some of those best practices that uh we've seen that will help if if council so chooses to do so, us better balance what uh the expectations so that you know our goal as staff is to be responsive to all of you as our elected officials uh and also be transparent when it comes to uh a request and and the time frame so that uh there's clarity and also if a priority uh takes precedent over something else that is on the city staff work program, what uh what other projects might be delayed as a result of prioritizing this new item.

It helps provide that clarity, also allows uh you to utilize your role as a policymakers to engage with the chief executive of the city manager ahead of time as well.

And then so uh some other options for improvements when we talk about meeting efficiency outside of the agendizing process, and these are a variety of ideas that council can consider and discuss this afternoon.

Uh we have the opportunity to call special meetings as needed.

We have uh, for example, this special meeting uh date and time that is uh generally set for uh for as needed.

Uh we also have an option B here, which is to consolidate public comment on non-agendized matters into one portion of the meeting instead of two.

So right now we have public comments on items not on the agenda, both in the afternoon session at four, and then again at 7 p.m.

Most cities don't don't do that, they actually have just one time.

Uh so an option is knowing that uh folks may uh not be able to make the 4 p.m.

session, they can show up at 7 for that, and then it'll allow us to get through the 4 p.m.

session a little bit faster, potentially, and then allow for more of that closed session time.

Uh we could also, if council so chooses, begin regular meetings earlier at three.

Uh we've I I know many times this year uh we've uh we've shortened, we've gone so long on the afternoon session, right?

That uh closed session ends up being 15, 20, 30 minutes, which is not a lot of time, and then it pushes into the seven o'clock hour and then delays others to makes it makes it challenging.

So we could start earlier.

Uh also a lot of other cities, County Board of Supervisors does this, other municipalities.

They have closed sessions sometimes at during the day, they find a time uh to uh during the middle of the week, starting in the morning to have closed session at nine, say nine o'clock to ten or nine to eleven.

Uh that's an option.

We also uh know and value the various community groups that we recognize throughout the year, and uh this last this month we had the AAPI heritage month.

Uh some of these are ceremonial items, and if council so chooses to still recognize them, but uh maybe not as a regular item for a full presentation, moving some or all of those to uh consent agendas, which uh which the county board of supervisors and other councils sometimes do.

It can save shave off five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes uh as well.

And then another option too is to limit outside presentations.

We've received more requests this year than in prior years from outside groups that uh are great community partners.

Uh, just last meeting we had Montage Health here before that.

We had the Hopkins Marine Station, deliver a presentation.

All a great uh great community partners and organizations, those presentations do add up uh time.

We can include the written and pre-recorded video materials to council as part of a consent calendar if uh you also choose.

It's just one uh way to improve meeting efficiency or cut down on the amount of time these meetings can sometimes last, uh especially when you all start at four o'clock and sometimes those meetings go to 11 o'clock at night.

It's it's a long comes goes for a long long day.

So those are some of the options uh before you.

Again, uh summary of recommendations, the agendizing process.

Was this yours sometime?

Um, I can I'll cover this uh requiring again prior consultation with the city manager, requiring the staff impact estimate to be included with the written request so that we can provide that clarity to to all of you uh along with that request to agendize.

If you so choose, you can raise the approval to a majority vote.

Uh that uh is an option that some cities do before an item is brought forward, and then uh ensuring that we provide uh that quarterly status updates on pending items so you all uh know when we'll come back with the items that you've agreed to request to bring back uh for discussion and deliberation.

And again, on meeting efficiency, uh, we went through the list just a moment ago.

Special meetings, consolidating public comments, starting meetings earlier, holding closed sessions uh at a different time, ceremonial items on consent, and then limiting those outside presentations.

So that provides a summary, go ahead.

And before we move to the questions, I wanted to note that we will be bringing an item to you in two regular meetings that is related to the governance policy, but it's not on this.

I just don't want you to be surprised when you see it come forward.

It has to do with handling failures and disruptions of our Zoom technology, and it's uh required by the Brown Act for us to adopt a policy on that.

And we will take any questions on these.

Thank you both for the presentation and the work putting this together.

The collaboration with other jurisdictions as well to get us here.

So thank you for that.

Um opening up to the council for questions.

Please.

Uh thank you, Clementine and Nat for the uh presentation.

I have a few questions.

Um are any of these recommendations impacted by our city charter?

So in other words, would there have to be any charter amendments to make any of these changes?

No.

Okay.

Um so yeah, in terms of the uh staff recommendations A, B, C, and D that were shown earlier in the slide deck, um, and and and I understand this is council discretion, but for understanding better staff's recommendation, uh is staff recommending the adoption of all four A B, C and D or some or you could think of it like a menu, and you could take any of them that you like.

We like all of them, but um you they could all work all together, and they could also work it in any sort of assortment thereof.

Great, thank you.

Um, can you elaborate a little bit on um the item about calling special meetings as needed?

I mean, we already call special meetings, so can you elaborate on that?

Sure.

I think one thing we've noticed is that uh we can sometimes be very optimistic and uh thinking that we can get through, you know, four public appearance items in the afternoon and another two public hearings in the evening or three, and I think our estimates are historically on the staff side, uh, are a little off uh and maybe needing to uh put more items if they can wait and not be during a regular meeting, put it on the Wednesday meeting, call a special meeting, find another time if needed, might also help uh us reduce that pressure to get through so many items and then and then only have that 15-minute uh close session break.

So are we talking about um say like today?

Using this meeting time more effectively.

Right, got it, and or others if needed.

So potentially other Wednesdays in a month if if necessary, correct?

But it's certainly the one that we have on hold here, it's one that we uh, and as you've you've known, I think there were two or three meetings this month where we didn't even have uh a Wednesday's meet the Wednesday meeting.

Okay, thank you.

In your research, um, do you have any sense of what um scheduling meetings during work hours?

3 p.m., 9 a.m.

was mentioned.

What would that do to participation?

That subject isn't one I was looking at, not do you know?

Yeah.

From other cities?

No, I think and this is where the um closed session items often are discussed during that time uh in the 9 a.m.

And I the board of supervisors is another example, really interestingly, right?

County county boards of supervisors, they meet extra strictly during the day, and it does uh there's some pros in that uh advantages there during the day.

You have staff who uh provide that support uh throughout that uh that day, but folks do have to take time out if they're uh working during the full work hour to to make those meetings.

So if we start earlier at uh three or four, we we do try to find the items that are less controversial, and uh that's a current practice.

We find items that are maybe more routine in nature or uh or uh require other types of deliberation, maybe it's a public hearing item on a specific planning uh project that uh has certain stakeholders but not uh not uh controversial.

We try to do keep the more controversial items, the items where we want to have more as much public feedback as possible in the evening.

And we would continue to keep that in mind.

And and if I can add that's when my experience in other communities, if there are items that are of significant public interest, those items were moved to the evening or are times that are more friendly for people to participate.

But if it's routine items, um I've worked in cities that they've started earlier in the day and got through those, and that's saved that um kind of added up to efficiency for those cities.

Okay, thank you.

Um and I guess I'll just quickly just add here that another side to this is participation of the council as well, you know, in terms of um creating those opportunities for folks who want to serve to be able to do that even if they have uh full-time positions.

Um outside presentations, so if council expresses interest in hearing a specific outside presentation, how would that work in under these recommendations?

Under these uh recommendations.

There's a what we're recommending, one of the options, and it's just it's just it's not necessarily a staff recommendation, it's just one of the options to consider is having the outside group submit a written report, and then many of them often do uh their presentations they can put them on video that we link on the agenda, and then that way folks can watch the video.

Uh all of you as council members can, members of the public can, and uh just another way to understand the more about the nonprofit or the community partner.

Uh if the request is to have a community group like we had uh through Montage Health last last week, uh that was a request that directly came into the city manager's office.

We said let's uh go ahead and entertain that third community partner, uh, but we're not saying no, uh, but we're getting more requests, and that that is a fine line and a balance that we try to uh we try to make right now.

So so I guess where I'm getting at is uh if uh community group outside community group wants to make a presentation, first it would go on consent, and then from there the council could decide at a later date, bring them in for a presentation or it would be either or not not both, not a two-step process, but more of uh working with the city manager to identify is this a group that we'd like to have?

Uh is this a or is this one that maybe we can just have as a uh consent item?

I guess I'm wondering how that would work um in advance, right?

Like how would we know that there's a group?

We the council know that there's a group who wishes to make a presentation, and and how would city manager determine this presentation will go on consent, or this presentation will actually be done in public.

Yeah, so you you still have the same authority that you have now, even though something is on consent, you can pull it, and if there is a special presentation, you can pull it from consent and you know, through the mayor, they can provide a presentation.

So that's that's authority you already have.

Right.

Okay, I I think I get it.

Thank you.

Um actually uh those are all the questions I have.

Thank you.

Um I'd like to follow up on some of your points.

So if it's on consent on this if the ceremonial is on consent, then if we pull it, the the presenter has still had still will be preparing and be present unless unless we film them, right?

But possibly, yes.

But I think the that that is correct.

Um, the example I'll use is the Laguna Grande 50th anniversary that we recognized earlier this year.

It was uh Council Member Garcia, I think you you'd suggested that we bring forward the proclamation.

But the decision was made when we we all agreed, you know, important to recognize, but let's put it on consent, have it be a proclamation that's received under consent.

We didn't have a full presentation on it, but it was at least recognized on the agenda.

We also shared the proclamation with the Laguna Grande JPA.

Uh so there were other ways to, otherwise it would have been probably 20 minutes of our of our council meeting time to hear the presentation, update on the history of Laguna Grande, and then all the speakers behind it.

Uh it was I think Councilmember Garcia, you may have pulled it for just a brief comment and it was two minutes, and that was that was that.

Doing more of that can help reduce staff time.

So it sounds it really sounds like it wouldn't work for presentations, but it would work for um recognition.

Recognition.

Maybe it could work for a presentation.

So if I'm thinking about the montage presentation, and I you know, I think he spoke for seven minutes or so.

At least that's how much time we usually tell people, please try to limit your presentation to seven minutes.

Um maybe if that seven minutes were a video in the in the packet uh that you could click on and watch beforehand, then that saves that seven minutes, and even if you wanted to pull it from consent and ask him questions, those follow-up questions, um, you'd at least have saved the seven minutes.

I mean, so we would have watched it by clicking on in our own private preparations before the meeting.

That was what this idea involved.

Is that idea?

And the public would have access to that too.

And those who don't show up to the meeting can also click on the link and watch the video ahead of time.

We could ask that.

It's a it's more we're seeing more and more videos being produced by nonprofits and other community partners that provide an overview of what's happening and this would be an alternative.

What happened to the idea um from the mayor that I thought was a good one that we regularly have a third regular meeting, um which I think is attractive because the public gets more transparency, more notice, and um, what happened to that idea?

Yeah, I'll say that we have uh the current time that we reserve for the special meeting is essentially an open in a lot of ways that third uh meeting that is for special items.

We don't need that when as as needed.

Uh and um that way we're not having to issue cancellation notices if we don't uh schedule it, and then it allows us to uh focus on a few core items or have study sessions as needed.

So it's it's used as a flex uh type of meeting if we have it as a regular meeting and we call it every meeting.

We have to do the cancellation notices, we take public comments uh on items not on the agenda.

We also have an expectation that we're gonna have presentations or other items potentially on it that make the meeting less efficient.

Like today we were able to get straight into let's let's go straight into the item and talk about the topic.

Well, you you answered the question, I guess I'll opine on the answer during discussion, right?

Right, okay.

And I think that's it.

Uh I have comments, no questions, so I'll hold on.

Yeah, I'm I'm there's a lot here, but I want to ask um how much of the staff participated in determining under staff recommendations and come up with highly recommended, highly recommended, highly recommended and for consideration.

Um that's kind of unusual, but it's kind of front loaded that there's a preference by staff that the council consider this.

So I'd like to know what's the process staff determined to rank something as considerate and other things ranked as highly recommended.

So I think um the assistant city manager and city clerk worked closely with me in coming up with the recommendations.

There was a general discussion um with staff about how to create efficiencies in our council meetings, but I would say that uh it was consultation with the um staff input, but um closely monitored and the recommendations were developed um by the assistant city manager, city clerk, but supported by me.

And a lot of it, council member Smith, was that when I was finding out about all these different options, there were some that we didn't just based on our experience in meetings.

We thought that didn't seem like it necessarily jived with how you all conduct meetings.

Um so we were trying to find the ones that seemed to fit well with how things currently go in Monterey.

Okay.

Um were there anything other than A, B, C, and D, that fell off the consideration?

You can see everything that was on that original list in the attachment.

It used to be part of the report, and the report was getting too long, and we decided to keep it to the ones that we felt would fit in well.

But attachment one is the other um agendization or agendizing processes that I was looking at from other cities.

Okay, um, and I'm having a little bit of a computer issue here, it's not responding, but I would find that under the uh the city site.

Yes, it's not touching it.

It's not attached as a hyperlink here.

Not a hyperlink, it's part of the report.

Part of the report, yeah.

Okay, in case the public wants to see that they know where they can find it.

Okay, that's all the questions I have, but I have uh several comments, but looking forward to hearing from the public too.

Um, so I I guess one of the things that led me to request this to be agendized is uh the ambiguity around the time frame associated with um council members submitting an item to be agendized, and then when it actually gets agendized, and so um council member brought up when this discussion came up before that she had requested items two years ago, yeah.

A year ago, and um, or is it what was more than a year ago?

Well, more than a year ago, but not too last year.

It was last year, it was a year and a half.

It's March ago.

March.

Okay, a year and a couple months.

Um, and those items haven't been addressed.

And so I see that in the one of the proposals is maybe a quarterly update, but I guess I just wonder what's wrong with just establish is there an issue with just establishing a process that once it becomes clear to staff that once the agreed upon time frame, it's once we once staff recognizes that that time frame is gonna be blown past, that they just city manager maybe just provide that update and say, Hey, um, I I know we committed to X date and and we're requesting to have additional time for XYNZ reasons, and this let it be that, as opposed to needing a necessarily a quarterly update.

Right, and and um we can do this was a recommendation, and we can provide updates um more frequently than that.

Um, but when we get a request, a future agenda item request, there's a lot that goes into it.

I'm faced with um having to juggle the other city council priorities, um juggling um what uh the workload of of workers, you know, some of these reports and analysis, it takes significant time.

I I know that our staff sometimes make it seem easy, um, but it does take uh um uh a lot of time.

So it would be best to talk about that and allow us um to schedule and we can come to an agreement once we release the frequent um agenda schedule agenda calendar where we will put a placeholder for each of the future agenda items.

So there's no guessing or no mystery about when that is is to come to council.

I think that was a weakness probably in our process before.

Um, but we do need the flexibility.

I'm requesting the flexibility to be able to fit that within our work program, you know, and and I said this before, you know, the the idea of that iceberg council meetings only see about 15% of what staff actually does.

Um so there's 85% that is below the surface, and I need to be able to uh have the flexibility of adjusting that.

Um there are deadlines that we need to meet, um, statutory regulatory deadlines that have to fit within that timeline.

And the general public and the council may not know that, may not be aware of that.

So that's why we're asking for the flexibility.

Okay, okay.

I think I'm ready for the discussion as well.

So thank you for answering that.

Um, go ahead and open it up for public comment.

So for folks that are unaware, just to give a reminder, what we do is we identify the folks that want to speak for public comment at the beginning of the public comment period.

Once those folks are identified, only those folks will be able to speak.

So if you want to speak on this item, you have to identify yourself at the beginning of the public comment period, or you won't be able to speak.

So everybody has an opportunity.

Um I'll start with folks on Zoom.

You can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there.

I will check in the chamber.

Um as you can see, most folks are sitting up to the left of the podium, so I just ask you to do so if able and willing.

Um alternatively, you could just identify yourself by raising your hand.

All right, so I counting nine in the chamber.

Anybody else in the chamber want to speak on this item?

All right.

Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close it off in the chamber.

I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

And there's two on Zoom, we'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Thank you, Mayor.

Please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Council members.

Thank you, City Manager, attorney.

Um I've kind of been waiting for this moment here to kind of talk on these issues is a very important for our city.

Um consolidating the multi- when he gave his guidelines there.

I don't think it's right to consolidate the four o'clock and seven o'clock public speech times because um that will limit the free speech and also um I I almost feel like that would be a violation of like maybe a 14th amendment or fair and equal because some people can't be here.

And also um by eliminating the speech, there's a First Amendment violation, I believe.

And um, I I think in all fairness, the city needs to um allow people to be able to speak and um share and I encourage the community to um more often than not um join in on these meetings because a lot of important issues and trans transition timing right now is big steps in our city are um being promoted, and um it's very difficult when the cities come up with these ideas and changing rules and changing the functions.

Um I believe that the City of Monterey should probably um look at going to um I have a hard time with this charter city because the charter city runs like a monarchy, and I feel like in order to kind of have proper guidelines, you should probably consider going through Robert's rules of order and then probably look at um managing your time to the time points noted on the documents received.

A lot of times about a month ago, there was a gentleman, he said he you allowed him to have 15 minutes.

It was about 47 minutes or 52 minutes.

He got an extra like 35 minutes that was it wasn't um the timing wasn't reliable by your movable standards are really aren't set where the groundwork for the time frame.

The meeting, if it starts at four o'clock, start it at four o'clock.

If you have a break, it I mean just the doors at seven o'clock need to be opened.

You you always release um this option of change the times.

When you have it printed on a document, most businesses when they have a printed time to start.

Um that is a set time, and those doors need to be open at seven if you have a seven o'clock meeting.

It's very unfair for people that try to adjust to the guidelines, but you make them so flexible.

And I encourage the city to um continue to modify and work towards um the group effort to make this a better um understandable.

Um health and safety issues is a more important issue where you can consider who gets to choose.

My name is Charles Carter, and uh on the behest of councilman Smith, um, he called um uh people to talk about um an implementation of a crosswalk that's in the nature of military.

We all right to talk about that.

I apologize, sir.

This uh public comment period is specifically on the item that staff just presented on.

Okay, so that's the next item on the agenda.

You can come back up then and speak on it, unless you have something to speak on this agenda item.

No, I don't.

Okay, yeah, you can come up on the next item.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mayor members of the council require President Monterey.

On the items related to agendizing things, I think A, B, and D are great.

C I have a major issue with the advantage uh you switch to having to have three council members.

What you've ineffectually done is prohibited a minority view on the council from ever being able to put an item on the agenda.

The beauty of having two is at least it's more than just one person's wild idea or whatever, there's the second person's willing to support it.

Second you start making it a majority, it now opens up whether that would happen or not is is to be seen, but it opens up the potential that a minority view on a council will never have a chance to put an agenda item on of their interest.

Dealing with the the second part of all the discussions and the items like the idea of putting the presentations and uh the other things on the consent agenda.

I think it's great.

I mean, I've sat in a lot of council meetings, having to wait quite a while waiting through uh watching presentations while they're interesting and all the rest, you've got a lot of public waiting to speak on an issue that's of concern to them.

Eliminating one of the two public comment sessions, I think is self-defeating.

Because by s by saying that everyone could potentially come on the evening, great.

So we eliminate the early one.

All you've done is shifted what would have been done on the early one to the evening agenda and made the evening agenda go longer.

Uh the ability to have it early, you will get rid of some of those public comments that people want to make where they're able to make it, they're able to come, it's done, it's off, and it's not just making your evening session longer.

And tends to be the evening session that is the challenge that runs late, not the early session.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor Williamson and council members.

I understand the need to improve the policy for placing an item on the council agenda given the time constraints on council as well as city staff.

The current council referrals practice is very transparent to the public and gives staff time to research and understand the scope of each council request.

In the case of an urgent request to fast track any agenda item, it would be understandable to require a majority of the council to approve that request.

However, I urge council to reject staff's recommendation to change the requirement that all agenda items be approved by majority of council.

There are four districts within our city, and this requirement could disenfranchise a district's request if the majority, three members of the council, decide to consistently vote as a block.

Voters have seen the desire to have a voting block on this council before.

As noted in the May 9th, 2024 Coast Weekly, Mayor Williamson, along with Councilman Garcia and a council candidate, wanted to run as a slate of electors with their goal set towards steering the city in a direction of their choosing.

That candidate and the concept of a slate were defeated at the ballot box.

By adopting this and the staff recommendation of requiring a majority of council to approve any item placed on the agenda, this is the same scenario.

Three council members directing the entire city agenda is not an open and transparent process, nor is it representative of the different needs of each district.

Please retain the current council referral policy to agendize an item and look at other methods to improve meeting efficiency, such as moving ceremonial items to the consent calendar and discuss alternatives to the meeting schedule and times.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'll uh be referring to the staff report on page four in the first staff recommendation section where it has A, B, C and D under A.

I agree uh with the first sentence in that recommendation.

However, I'm a bit confused in the second sentence that says if the request exceeds these limitations, it will be deferred to the next budget year for budget discussions.

But in the previous sentence, it talks about things like operational authority and existing staff priorities.

So please clarify that uh with regard to the second sentence, it is only referring to the if there's a budgetary issue there, because it doesn't read that way.

Um I agree with uh recommendation B in that section.

Uh under C, I highly disagree with uh, as other speakers have said, about the idea of having three members of the council uh have to approve an agenda item, and I won't reiterate what the previous speakers have talked about because I I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Uh in the second staff recommendation section, there's additional, there's ABCDE and F.

Referring to B, which is the consolidation of opportunities for the public to comment, as other speakers have said, I too disagree with this.

That is going to be very stifling for public speech.

Um I think it it it's only fair to the public to have the two times.

So if the goal is to speed up meetings, and I say this in all due respect to staff.

I was a staff member, I've been there, I can empathize with staff 100%.

But what I hear oftentimes is a recapitulation of what's already in the staff report.

Fourteen minutes was spent on this item by staff, and I have to say I learned nothing new in the staff presentation from what I'd already read.

I was once taught in a city lesson, a city uh uh educational session, don't repeat what's in the staff report.

Elucidate, elaborate on what's in there, but people can read.

So just expect people, all of you should be doing your homework before you get here, as should the public.

So I think you could cut down quite a bit in your staff presentations, and just summarize what's in the staff report, or if something needs to be nuanced, do that.

But don't just read what's already in the report.

Thank you very much.

Hello, Chrissy.

Hi, I'm attorney Catherine Chin.

I was a litigator for 40 years.

But I've spent the last six years advising the skyline forest safety committee.

Our issue, as you know, all of you know this, except I believe you probably haven't, and we haven't met.

Congratulations.

Nice to meet you.

Um, I'm here because we've been on your agenda for six years now.

This is our sixth year, and the good news is all of us agree that this intersection is dangerous, and all of us agree that Caltrans has decided it's dangerous and they want to repair it.

Now, at the last city council meeting, members of our committee sat here through the entire meeting and never got a chance to address the current issue.

So you can get on this agenda, but whether you're going to be hurt or not is a different story.

And in our particular case, your time is of the essence.

In that intersection, people are being maimed and hurt and dying.

And the surgeons who repair and keep those people alive all live in Skyline Forest.

And all of them have given declarations to our committee, and you've had them for six years now.

They want to retire, and the new surgeons moving in cannot afford to live in Skyline Forest.

So you're losing your five minutes that surgeon needs to get to the hospital to repair it.

So you have no choice now but to fix the intersection.

And that is something you've done a marvelous job of supporting us in.

And a year ago in June, the money was approved to pay for the study for Caltrans.

We don't know what happened to that money.

It's been one year.

So I don't know getting on the agenda is of that much value if nobody in the city can do anything after the decision is made.

But thank you, Jean, for being our representative and helping us get on this agenda.

Hi, I'm Meredith Tibby.

Would you mind just pulling that mic down for us?

Sure.

Sorry.

My husband always my voice is too soft.

I'm a retired teacher living on Forest Rise, which is the farthest end of Skyline Forest near the hospital.

And so we hear the accidents at that intersection regularly.

Often they don't make it into the local newspaper, but they're definitely there in the police records.

We have made many specific recommendations, and I'd like to just read a few.

Lengthen the center turn lane that is used by left-turning vehicles onto Highway 68 from Skyline Forest Drive.

Program a five to ten second delay on the westbound stoplight at the hospital to allow more time for vehicles making left turns.

Now, one thing that they have done is to hold the light and given giving us a little bit more of a window to safely get out.

But if they did what was done at the intersection of Highway One and Carmel Valley Road and made it a no right turn on red, that would definitely give us a much safer way of turning.

So these and other thoughts are ones that I'd really like to see, and so would all our neighbors.

Yes, Ty.

Sorry, I was scratching my head.

I apologize there.

You're entitled.

Hi, my name is Robin Domiter, and I also live in Skyline, and I've also been involved in the safety committee for Skyline Forest and Highway 68.

And it's uh almost six years now.

We've been working on this, uh we did get it agendized, and we got money approved to have a safety study done at that intersection, and which was a year ago, and it's just kind of drifted off into never never land.

I don't know how you get anything done through the city.

I've come to several meetings.

Other people in our community and that are on the committee have come uh to talk.

I've we've done everything the city required us to do.

We had a survey, ninety-seven percent responded to the survey about the sir the safety there.

Out of that, 90% all agreed it has to be fixed.

I don't know what else the city needs to do to realize that they have a problem up there.

I'm ready to give up, but I want to tell you I don't go away.

So I'm not gonna give up.

And Gene Rash has been very, very helpful.

But like I said, if you if there's a way to get on your agenda and have this thing finished, I would like to know.

It's very upsetting.

I get these emails all the time that says, Oh, come to the city council meeting, become involved, know what's going on.

I do.

Do I know what's going on?

I don't.

So I'm asking the city to agendize that intersection as soon as possible because there are accidents out there all the time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members, and city staff.

My name is Adam Pinterest.

Uh I'm very appreciative that we're having this discussion.

I think it's important.

I first started as a government affairs director for the Monterey County Association of Realtors in 2022, and it was later that year that I began asking the Monterey City Council and among other jurisdictions to begin reviewing tree ordinances to update out-of-date uh local laws that were causing issues for local residents for homeowners when it came to uh getting their insurance renewed or getting their insurance rates reduced uh marginally if they can.

So uh having the experience of asking since 2022, and that really that conversation took until this year to to get around to uh, you know, yeah, things take time in government.

I get that, and I I spend a lot of time telling my members and my constituents that sometimes they just need to be patient and continue expressing themselves.

Uh but the flip side of that is that constituents and residents, not just in Monterey but all over the peninsula to expect a certain kind of accountability and transparency, and that's also part of this important discussion.

So I think it's a great idea to have some sort of ongoing way of checking in for transparency, knowing being aware of okay, what has sat on the wayside for a significant period of time uh that we really owe getting around to that uh while still maintaining the flexibility.

If a if a really urgent issue comes up, then the council has to deal with that.

And in that regard, I I do think it sounds probably like a bad idea to tie your own hands by assigning specific target timetables, right?

They inevitably those are gonna have to shift at least some of the times.

But I think the public would have faith in you that you would address these issues in a timely manner as long as there was transparency of how long has a request been waiting, right?

Just so that you can see it publicly, they can see it publicly, it's all out in the open.

So I I I think those would be important components to building and growing the public faith in the process and and as you've seen today, some of the assuaging some of the frustrations that some people have by things taking so long.

The one point of the recommendations and the discussion so far that I would disagree with is under Section C.

Uh if it requires three people to put something on the council, then why even have a meeting, right?

At that point, the public is just getting the message that your decisions are predetermined that you shouldn't even need to have this conversation because three people have already decided what they think about a subject.

So I I would strongly uh urge you to not adopt that change because I think that's highly problematic for building on the trust of your constituents.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we'll go to our callers on Zoom.

Yes, we've got Lori.

Laura, you can go ahead.

Uh good evening, Mayor Council.

Um, I just first want to say for Zoom callers.

Uh I know Clementine mentioned uh a meeting coming up and two meetings about the media and our the Zoom meeting so far has been horrible.

It sounds worse than a skipping record, like we're getting maybe every other word that everybody's saying.

So it's really been hard to follow.

So I just want to flag that.

I did email Clementine, not sure if she checks, but just want you to know that you can fiddle maybe in the background.

And now I'm getting an echo, but hopefully that goes away.

Um, okay, so on this topic, um, while a few of the changes are palatable, like many others have uh spoken before, uh, I strongly oppose to a few of the proposed governance changes, and especially the proposal um requiring the majority vote.

Uh, that Adam Pinteritz and require and a number of others talked about um before even agendizing public discussion.

So under the current system, no council member can act alone, and it already takes two elected officials, and I think that's that's perfect.

But the majority still controls the final outcome.

So there's no harm in just bringing forward a discussion and being able to discuss it.

Um it's about controlling what topics ever reach public is how it's coming off to me.

And under these district election, especially that matters even more because each council member represents thousands of residents in distinct neighborhoods, requiring a majority vote simply to place an item on a future agenda alone allows that majority block to suppress minority viewpoints before the public even gets to hear it.

And this goes for possibly, you know, if the council flips, then that minority will be in the same situation.

So I don't think that's good.

It's not transparency, it's gatekeeping, and notably Monterey neighboring neighborhoods here and cities in the Monterey Peninsula, the majority of them allow individual council members to bring forward an item, or at most two members, but very few, only one or two require a majority.

So I I don't think we want to go down that road.

Uh we keep carrying this phrase meeting efficiency, but the elephant in the room is that the meeting efficiency is largely really determined by how meetings are chaired and managed, and the create these decisively long meetings because of Zoom callers or residents speaking for one or two minutes.

Um this is a democratic process.

We want to keep it that way.

So I think it, you know, instead of looking inward at the dais management, we're now proposing to narrow our opportunities, which I don't think is a good idea.

So it I just think it's best if we don't go down that road.

So I'll just end there because I'm about out of time.

Thank you.

And our other speaker is Esther.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Um obviously, you know, one of the complaints that has uh generated this is the meetings are going very long.

And part of the reason these meetings are going longer than ever is because we have record public engagement.

Previous city councils have never generated the the level of public engagement that we have had in the last couple of years.

Also, with that, I will say that I'm grateful that this council has allowed Zoom to be part of our city council meetings because many jurisdictions have gotten rid of it, therefore limiting public engagement.

So that's an important thing that I don't want to see go away.

However, many people want to complain about the meetings are going long, the goal of every elected official should be to keep encouraging public engagement.

That said, I will say that there is probably not a single jurisdiction, district or neighborhood that hasn't had something that they wanted agendized and have been trying to get agendized forever.

I know the skyline one is the one that's getting a lot of attention because you guys tend to show up.

The Laguna Grande problem we have over here has to do with the city border being a mess.

That conversation has been going on twice as long as the skyline conversation.

It is also a public safety problem with concerning fire and police.

So I think that's something that should be considered is prioritizing items on the agenda that are asked that you guys are asked to address to anything that involves public safety to be given priority over some of the other things that get on the agenda, including presentations from nonprofits.

For all the reasons given already.

Um I'm not sure if it's possible.

I will tell you that one comment that I hear very often from people who do attend and or call in is public comment really having go to go on before we hear any comments from the council, isn't really productive to the people making the public comments because we're just making comments without knowing where you guys are coming from.

So after that, we don't have an opportunity to voice our our opinions or comments, and then you guys vote, and the and it's done.

So anyway, to close, I appreciate all the time and effort you guys are putting into this, and we do need to be flexible and change, but not all change is necessarily great.

Thank you.

Thank you to all of our public commenters.

We're gonna go ahead and take a break while we try to figure out the tech issues and make sure that folks can hear us online.

So just give us a second while we figure that out.

How do we give us a hug All right.

Thank you everybody for your patience.

While we figured that out, my understanding is that the technology is now working.

It was an issue with folks on Zoom.

So we'll go ahead and start the meeting up again.

Um I'm gonna pass it to the city manager.

Dante, if you could share, um, I don't know if there's any status update on the highway 68.

There's been a couple of comments specifically related to that um that item that was requested to be agendized.

If you could just provide us an update if if any, um that would be much appreciated.

Yes, and I I just got an email from our public works director.

Um, and if our public works director can uh come up and share any details that she would like.

I'm sorry, I'm I'm not uh up to speed on this issue.

Um, but uh staff with a little bit more history could probably provide some context.

So yes, I was just looking at the email and uh I have to pull it up real quick.

So we um Caltrans in the middle kind of changed the rules of the game a little bit.

And so what happened is they now require what's called an ISOP, which is an interesting um um sorry, the word.

Anyway, so it it used to be an ICE, which was uh intersection control evaluation, so it was something a little bit more simple.

It was something that we could do with $30,000, which is what we initially had asked for.

And it was something a little bit straightforward.

So they did change the requirements, and so at that time I went to the previous city manager and I asked for direction because at the time we did not have enough money in our in our professional services, and we were talking about Caltrans going back and forth, and it possibly costing upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, depending on the level of detail that Caltrans required.

So at the time I was given direction to, and I believe um I asked him to update uh Council Member Rash on that, that we had that on hold, and we would work with Caltrans and TAMSE to request that that be on a TAMC corridor safety study for Highway 68.

We also did check with Caltrans that they added that delay at the signal.

And I think that the no right turn in red is a good idea that we'll approach Caltrans again.

We had talked to Caltrans about putting speed um radar signs there, and Caltrans said no that they were not gonna do it.

Sorry, I'm getting uh signal that maybe we're going outside of the far field.

No, I tried.

Thank you for that though.

Um and I I guess maybe in in in a short way, just to kind of bring it back here a little bit, what does it look like for this item to come back?

To come back.

Yeah.

If it needs it to the council.

Yeah.

Let me talk with staff.

Um, and we can definitely provide an update and and um potentially a future agenda item list.

But I just need to get abreast of of the issues, um, and I can report back to council.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, Andrew, for cutting you off there.

Um, and and if I recall correctly, um, there are two other items that were requested to be agendized that it's a little bit of obscure.

And and the ones that I recall is the no smoking ban um in multifamily residential.

Um, and then there was a request also for um discussing council benefits.

Um, and so I guess I would just ask the same on those just so that we can get get a sense of what that is, and maybe through this discussion, we can loop that into whatever that process looks like.

Um, so thank you.

Thank you, Dante, um, for that.

With that, we'll open it up to the council for deliberation.

Dr.

Barber.

Um, so I can appreciate um this item even being brought up because I know even when I first started council, that was something that I asked about, and it was very ambiguous as far as not only the process but the timeline.

So it it it needed this clarification to be brought up.

Um I I like the status update.

I think that's a good way, kind of like what you're just doing right now to be able to keep up with what has been uh agendized and approved to be agendized, where it is, what happened, um, knowing that we're gonna have emergencies, knowing we're gonna have time, um, items like the housing element and things like that that are gonna come up.

So I think having an idea about that, I like that part.

Um additionally, I think talking with the city manager prior to having the written request is good because then you get an idea really from just from the city manager of what uh that looks like for the staff to bring forth, right?

What kind of workload without getting technical being able to know what that looks like, um and also how that aligns with what we have for that that year operationally and for goals.

We did the uh exercise that Nat had us do at the beginning of the year before, where we said what was important, what we wanted to get to, but also we would combine that with what we're already working on.

Staff is already working on, like uh Dante was saying, we're only only seeing 15% here.

We're not seeing the other 85% that they're working on.

So I like that item of talking with him to get an idea of where that would land.

I also like the written piece because it keeps it very transparent and it keeps um uh it it uh the transparency there for everybody so people can see exactly what's being agendized.

It's not orally.

Um I I also agree that the two vote should stay in place uh for the very reasons that were already named.

I'm not gonna go into that.

Um I don't agree with the nine AM time.

Uh I feel that that is um I feel like it's not equitable for working people who want to be a part of that piece, um, because the county supervisors are full-time salary people, so that is their job.

They're going to their job.

So that's a lot different than when you have a part what we call quote unquote part-time city council and mayor.

Um also uh what was the last thing you see?

Oh, the last thing is for us.

Um I think I think we need to make sure that when we say request agenda, that we are making sure that we understand that it's not a discussion of the actual item.

You know, I think a lot of times we get into the detail of the item, and you know, you have everything lined up and you got, you know, I think we have to understand that it's to say, hey, is this worth us discussing right now, or even if it's something we discuss later, you know, yes or no, not the detail of the the, you know, whether it's qualified or whether you agree with it, because it's not a matter of whether you agree with it at that point, it's a matter of should this be discussed.

And I think uh the staff brought that up in their presentation, and thank you for that presentation because it did bring other things out.

I mean, you have some basic things like that, but it did bring those other piece of doubt that we're talking about what that looks like because that could take up uh 30 minutes by itself.

If we're not staying on on task of what that says in front of us.

But I know when I'm in other uh business meetings or even uh bigger meetings, they're very task oriented to make sure that we're staying on task so we get more things done and more efficiency.

So I would think that we would have to have something to make sure that we either doing a request for agenda, I think, that we time ourselves of something needs to happen there to make sure we're staying on task and not derailing going in a different uh type of way and making sure that we stay on task for whatever it is that we're saying whether we're gonna want to discuss it or whether we don't want to discuss it.

That's kind of where I stand on all of those.

Okay.

Who'd like to go next?

I know, please.

Yeah.

Um, so I want to jump in to echo what um Dr.

Barber was going through.

I want to start first with um the consideration uh staff recommendations um improve the current process, and it's on uh packet page seven.

It talks about uh call special meetings as needed to more effectively bring forward business items.

I don't think we've ever said no, we don't want to do that.

So I think that's that's an obvious, and we've always held our last Wednesday for a closed session or for study session, but we've always been willing to to do a special meeting like we're doing tonight uh to catch stuff that had to get pulled or things that are timely.

So um I don't think any of us have ever protested beyond uh every other Tuesday and a Wednesday, and we've we've had um several of those examples.

So I would say, yeah, absolutely.

Uh consolidating opportunities for public comments.

I'm not a favor in favor of um trying to crunch it and require one particular meeting over another for public comments.

I think though that's one of the the unique things about Monterey is it might be more work, it might not be as efficient as we would like, but at its root, the public should always have access to their government.

And this is where it happens in this historical place in the city of Monterey.

We have an opportunity to reach the mayor and the four council members, and it happens at four o'clock and it happens again at seven o'clock.

So I I don't see any reason to try and uh force that.

And I think one of our speakers even pointed out if you cut off the four o'clock, that's just gonna make more on at seven o'clock.

So the same people are gonna figure out how to approach us and how to talk to us, and I don't think we can manipulate and try and force that to be either the afternoon only or the uh evening only.

I think that we need to uh continue doing that.

And that's one of the things I've most treasured about the fact that the city of Monterey's residents or visitors or anyone who wants to address us has access to us at the time frames of four and seven.

Um, not in favor of starting the meetings uh any earlier, um, although if we needed to start it at three o'clock on occasion because there's some special reason, I'm always available for that.

Um I would not be interested in moving it to a daytime nine o'clock because well, and Dr.

Barber covered it.

Um there are other council members that do that for other cities that are maybe larger that uh maybe they're full-time paid, but we're not uh many of us on this council are still working, and that would certainly be a deterrent for future council members uh where they would be considering to run.

But if they can't appear because they're working, that really defeats the purpose of having a balanced council of folks that have an opportunity to work.

Maybe they're younger.

Um we never would want to re-rule out an opportunity for them to actually participate in being a council member.

So I think it needs to slide towards the the three o'clock as a special time or four o'clock as a routine.

Not in favor of moving this to uh, you know, at nine o'clock in the morning and and I work and that would be very difficult for me as well.

Uh ceremony uh ceremonial items, item E, National Heritage Months, the examples given, and I agree.

I think that that could move many of them to the consent calendar, and then if there's significance where one of the council members or the mayor feels like uh we want to dive into it a little bit and give a little bit more recognition, then we would simply just pull it.

But I think as a routine uh presentations, recognition should as a uh norm be placed on the consent uh instead of uh having presentations.

That by itself probably would save 20 minutes on almost every every council meeting.

Um, see, F is the reduce the or eliminate request for presentations.

I think that's almost um, I'd like to leave a little bit of a slice of um difference to or in deference to staff, the mayor, and council members when we know that it's important that we should be able to still find time to be able to do that on occasion, but not every council meeting where it winds up being uh we have you know four or five presentations and it consumes too much time.

I love the fact that we do that for our military.

I love the fact that we did that just a few months ago for Red Cross, and there are many examples where we do that, and I think those are very valuable times, but I don't want to eliminate them all together, but I think we still need to have a little bit of discretion that lies with those that set the agenda, and that's the city manager, the mayor, the vice mayor, with the assistant city manager in the council with uh also meets um with the attorney and the clerk.

I think that's the time to have those conversations.

So I wouldn't want to say all the time eliminate it, but I think there's times when we still need to have those presentations.

Um I want to go to the other list that was the staff recommendations approving the current policy.

Um I can live with a, um, you know, which is the getting the request to ensure the proposed business items fit in.

I think this is a moving, it's always moving.

It depends on what's coming, what time of year.

Um, if the matter is urgent, um, I think that the city council member can always request that, but ultimately it is up to the city manager to figure out the timing of whether or not it's statutory and needs to be fast tracked.

So um I just think that that's kind of a agenda setting item.

Um, you know, it's it says if a majority of the council agrees to move forward with an urgent resource heavy item, staff will return at a later meeting with with reprioritization plan for the council.

And I think that's what we do now is we get an agenda item that we decide we vote through the governance policy.

It really is ultimately to the city manager to work on the work plan, the timeliness and the staff support.

Um, and I think that the city manager is tasked with knowing what needs to be fast tracked, what needs to get in front of the council for the timeliness of the decisions, and sometimes we're gonna have council meetings that are going to be loaded, and that's when the mayor has to decide is that a three-minute or is that a two-minute public response?

Um, so I think that comes to discretion.

Um, I I've got no problem with that.

Um I think that it's if staff is saying that they need more time to be able to prioritize, then we should be able to give them that time.

Estimates given by staff are targets alone, and and it if 60 days, sometimes these items have to come back in 60 days, but usually the city manager is in a position to be able to verbalize the speed with which it can come back.

And Dante already has been very good at that.

Uh changing the approval recommendation from two members to three.

Many of the speakers here tonight, and Dr.

Barber echoed it.

I don't want to do anything that um marginalizes a minority on a council, and with the districts, the thought of having four districts, and potentially two of those members of districts, would then, if we went with the preferred the highly recommended and said three to get something agendized, would simply mean that we are taking two districts and telling them that those representatives have no voice, no representation, and can never bring a minority item forward if the majority says two is not enough, the three are gonna say no.

So the three in the majority would have the ability to carve out and say the majority rules and those two districts would be left out, and their citizens therefore would be left out.

So I I think that it needs to stay as it is now with the two um affirming votes uh through the governance policy.

And the other one was uh nine for consideration requiring the status updates on pending approval.

I mean, the previous city manager would do that on occasion.

I think if the city manager is saying that he wants like a quarterly carve out where there's maybe more time, that makes sense.

Like he said, there's eighty-five percent of what we don't do that don't see, and we have 15% that comes in front of us, but I think that the city manager is saying quarterly works for him, and so I would say that that's kind of what I'd like to do.

Sorry, I had to go so long.

No, you're good.

If you're gonna excuse me.

Also, just go down the list.

Um, and I'll start with the uh ABCD options.

Um I think that uh re requiring that uh council member consult with city manager makes sense.

Uh this is uh collaborative process I see.

Um council and staff working together to move things forward.

So that to me makes perfect perfect sense.

Um B requiring staff to provide an estimate on time and impact.

I think that is uh a key item that that I'm happy to see.

Um I think our process in the past has been um pretty pretty loose, pretty flexible in that items come up and then um we we try to figure out then what the timing uh is for for those items.

So I think a more intentional process where the item is identified and then um key timing for for each step, I think that would be helpful.

Uh C change the approval requirement uh from two members.

So this one I think I'd like a little bit more uh clarity on because um I I mean I agree the it makes sense to um find the support of a second council member to move things forward, but if we're um retaining that process, um do we even need to get uh a second council member support?

And and really what I'm thinking about here is is the efficiency of the process.

So I'll find a buddy and then um try to get it on the agenda to then have it agendized.

Um if I already know that I have the support, why go through that process, um, and if the goal really is to um bring items to council for discussion, um then maybe would it be uh appropriate for the council member, a council member to um just express that desire and then have it be brought in front of council to decide whether or not it's agendized.

So can I get maybe a little bit more clarity in terms of why go with three?

Yeah, so um, and thank you, Christy, for reminding me to mention this is that since um like for any other item, a quorum of the council is three of you, and so for example, to not have a brown act violation before a meeting, you wouldn't be able to do the daisy chain meeting where people pass along their thoughts on the matter between three different council members.

If you're keeping this one with a quorum of two gets to decide, then you would not be able to talk about these items with any other council members before the meeting because then you the two of you who could be the two votes, could have already known how each other known how each other was going to vote and could already have that decision basically made.

You were even mentioning if you were to talk to a buddy, if you had the um the requirement for three, you would still be able to talk to another council member without crossing over that quorum threshold.

Right now with two, you would not be able to discuss it with other council members before the meeting.

And and the other point um on that, I agree with everything Clementine just said, but my experience in other cities, we're we're all stewards of public money and public time, our time is public money.

And um, do we, um, does a majority of the council believe that whatever item it is warrants us reprioritizing and spending staff time on it.

Um, and so in cities that I've worked in, that was just a checkpoint.

Could I ask a follow-up question just because I I'm not sure if I understood the question, but also the answer.

I'm gonna give a scenario just to try to see if it makes sense.

So if we were to say, would it be a problem if we were to say that let's say I reach out to Gene and about um an item that I think we could align on, and she agrees that it could be agendized, we take that to Dante and ask Dante to put that on the agenda.

That's the process that we establish it.

Is that a problem based off what you just shared?

That's my understanding because there would then be already the minimum vote required would already be agreeing on the item.

The minimum vote required, because right now there's a minimum vote of two.

Yeah, but like let's say we say instead of as opposed to the current process, we eliminate that, and then the process is hey, if two council members decide that they want to agendize something, they just simply go to the city manager about it.

There's no there's no other requirement that it takes two votes to get something agendized because there's no voting, all they're doing is just going to this city manager and saying, Hey, A plus B wants this on the agenda, let's agendize it.

We're not voting on the item, we're asking it to be agendized.

It doesn't even mean that I support it.

I just I want it to be raised forward so that the council can discuss it.

So I'm I'm guessing I'm a little bit confused in regards to where the vote issue is occurring.

I think if you wanted to implement what you're proposing right now, it would just be under council comments where you would say, I would like to agendize this, and the council policy can say one other council member can concur, and then it's put on.

Um then you don't have to worry about it.

But the current policy requires two votes, and then it comes to the meet at the meeting, right?

Um, so if by chance you talk with someone before that meeting, you talk to Gene before the meeting, hey, I'm gonna put this on the agenda, I'm gonna ask for it, and she's like, I think that's a great idea.

Well, then you've already decided, and then this exercise of uh whether or not to agendize is sort of already determined and outside of public view.

So that that's the risk with our current process.

So you just have to be very cautious and not speak to another person about it.

Um, yeah, yeah.

100%.

Okay.

Um so can I uh can I make my comments?

Sorry, sorry, I think Gino, you're not still was still going here.

Uh if I could just pull a little bit more on on the string, yeah, I think there's an element of this that makes sense as it relates to um A, which is like talking to the city manager, getting a good sense, like, is it even something that needs to be agendized by council?

So if we were to do that, and let's say Gene and I go to Dante and talk to him about this, and Dante's like, uh, you guys may want to think about requesting that be agendized.

Okay.

So then we go to the next council meeting and we say during council comments, hey, or Jean might go first, and she says, Hey, I want to have this item agendized.

And I say, Hey, I want that agendized too.

If that is the process that we established, is that okay?

I think there'd be a better process because you'd already be predetermining the matter, or there would be no need for it to even if it only requires two votes and the two of you already decided before the rest of the council even hears what you're talking about, or I think the part what I'm getting lost in this conversation is the word vote.

Nobody's vote, like there's no official vote.

There's nothing that's been voted on.

So we're let's say we're resetting the process.

There's no process currently in place.

Let's completely forget the process that currently exists.

The possibilities of what could be.

So Gene and I are just having a conversation.

This is a good this is a good thing to agendize.

Not saying how we would vote on it, but like we just want to have a tough conversation.

So there's no vote, there's no vote that occurs.

But are you are you saying it becomes a quasi-vote, I guess essentially, if we're agreeing that an item becomes agendized together outside of a council meeting?

At some point there's a vote to put it on an agenda, right?

Um, I I'm I'm really not going to be able to do that.

I don't want to I don't Gino finish.

Yeah, let me talk.

Let me I'll come back at the end with mine.

I'll let Gino finish and then and then we'll go through.

Yeah, no, and thank you for that.

I mean, I'm I'm also I think having the same struggle here, and and really what for me what it comes down to is if we continue the current process of just needing two votes, how do we eliminate one step from the current process?

Or is it even possible?

And what would that be?

So that would be the alternative that staff put forward, which the government code allows under council comments during a regular meeting.

Any council member can say, I would like to agendize this.

And it's not a brown act violation for the rest of you to engage in a discussion of whether or not to agendize something.

You don't have to have a pre-staff report and two votes and all of that.

It can happen on the fly at a meeting, and then whatever your policy dictates, whether you get the support of one council member in addition to yourself, whether it's just yourself or whether it's a majority, you can establish that ahead of time.

Um so there the assumption is that I during council comments will say I want to uh agendize A, B, and C.

The assumption is that prior to that meeting, I haven't spoken to anybody else about that item.

Um I would say it would depend on ultimately what the council decides, right?

So you could have it be a single council member can ask for something to be put on, and it could be put on.

Then it doesn't it doesn't matter if you've talked to someone else.

So uh it um, and so she she is right.

You you already have that ability during council comments to request future agenda items.

It it is not ideal, you know, although it's your right because it doesn't give the benefit of, you know, maybe there's something staff has already been working on.

Maybe there's some information that you don't know that would rectify what you're requesting.

Um, and so that's why our recommendation is let's let's collaboratively talk about this first, right?

And establish this process move forward.

So uh just um because several things have been shared now.

So sort of for my own clarity, so you're suggesting that um at any point, either during a meeting or outside, I have an item that I'd like to have agendized.

The process that you're recommending is come to you first, talk about it, and then decide from there, um, how to move forward with agendizing if that if that's an option.

So, who would make that decision to agendize?

So it would be a collaborative um conversation between council members and myself.

Um you have um two options after that.

You can go the process um that Chrissy was mentioning, council comments, put something in agenda.

It doesn't give us a lot of time, it's it's kind of surprising a little bit to staff, or you can go through the process that um or establishing the council's rules that guide the agenda setting process.

You you really have both that are available to you.

Okay.

I I think I'm still uh working through that, but I'll move on to the other points and happy to hear from the rest.

Um what point was that?

I don't even remember.

Uh C.

Okay, thank you.

Uh so for D uh require that status updates, yes.

Um I think that would be very very helpful.

Uh in terms of meeting efficiency, um, calling special meetings, yes, um, consolidate opportunities for public comments.

Um I I think uh, I mean for me it's always a great opportunity, or the more opportunity there is for the public to um you know raise their voices, great.

In terms of efficiency, um, I don't know to what extent, but I have seen uh sometimes the public is confused.

Should I make a public comment at four or at seven?

Would which which one?

Uh I don't know if that's really a big segment of our uh audience.

Uh, but that would be the only reason why I would consider uh consolidating maybe to the evening so that it's more available for folks after work.

Um start meetings earlier.

I think that would be a challenge, so uh not fully uh supporting that identify an alternative meeting uh time, 9 a.m.

I think that's even uh more challenging.

Um moving ceremonial items, yes, makes sense, and uh reducing or eliminating requests uh for presentations.

I I shared that earlier that uh if there's uh and I think I we're in agreement with council member Smith if there's opportunity at times to bring in uh outside groups that um I think could share more detailed information that's of interest to our residents, I think that would be beneficial.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The process we have can still work and still work well.

I I really like the idea of talking with the city manager.

I think that's efficient.

I think it brings him into leadership that I would like the city manager to be part of.

Having said that, we're also into a new era of districting, and I think what we're seeing is that council members need to represent their districts.

I mean, we represent the whole city, but our constituents come to us with these very specific and unique needs, and we have to make space for that.

We just have to hear them, and we have to do these things.

So we've got to figure this out.

The way um what I'm hearing is we could always do the Brown Act verbal request at council comments.

What we have can work.

Um I never talked with anybody ever about my five agenda items.

I actually uh I appreciated all the support.

I still want to continue that support, but that was not important to me.

It was important for my community to hear that when I campaigned, I heard them and I was willing to bring it to discussion.

And I agree that there's some sensitivity if it's two votes that a Brown Act violation could occur.

Um, but but the but the purpose of it is to show your community that you're listening and that you're caring and that you're gonna fight for these things.

So we have to somehow keep making space for that.

Um I really appreciated Daniel's comments that um we need to keep public comments both at four and at seven and Martha's uh points.

Um, and you used the word disenfranchisement and and part of what I'm saying where we have to recognize that this districting is is really important and it can feel like disenfranchising so and that's the feeling I've had for 15 months um on these issues that are so meaningful to my constituents I could start earlier I understand why some can't um I could do closed session at another time um Daniel hit it on the head um the four o'clock has to start at four o'clock the seven o'clock has to start at seven we need to open the doors that needs to be the primary priority and that's respect for staff respect for the public and then sec you know thirdly respect for us there should be nothing that is more important than that and and the way we do our meetings is up to the five of us to be more efficient and then and and actually a lot of it lands on you because you're our mayor and you're managing it and we can do this.

It just we need to say less um I still like the idea of extra regular sessions and and I'm very un I'm actually very uncomfortable being casual about special sessions because the public wants more transparency they want more notice they want to be able to study these items and we've gotten into a lot of trouble that we're gonna be facing in the next discussion about not having procedures ready not not understanding some of the things that we put on under calling it special or um study and it should have been a regular meeting so I would I would rather add on a third meeting in the month and and still keep the potential for a study session when we had something like we're doing now I'm fine with rearranging ceremonial to consent.

And I said it all thank you.

Okay I I'm still in a head space of not understanding why the need to agendize an item to only require one vote um if that can be done to help eliminate a step um and so I think I would just like to push on that a little bit more.

In fact I I almost would want to make a recommendation tonight that we we move forward with that if there's an issue with it staff can bring it back to us but to me at the very least and I'm just talking through this so in trying to move things along and recognizing the concern where we're we oftentimes start navigating into a space of debating the issue as opposed to debating whether or not we want to agendize it my inclination is to say well after the council member who's raised it presents it maybe we go straight to public comment come bring it back to the council and I just check do a quick check in with the council no discussion no debate and just say does at least one council member support this and then we and then that's it we don't need to do a vote we don't need to do anything.

We have the two that have identified and we move on from it to me that's what we should do at the very least but it doesn't make what's the purpose of that if I could reach out to a council member who I know that will probably highly likely support it have that conversation with the city manager beforehand.

So I think that step is good.

So recommendation A, I think that's solid.

Have that conversation, but then just simply come to the council meeting and during council comments say, hey, um, talk to council member smith.

Uh or or this is the issue I want to support.

When it gets to council member smith, he says, hey, I support that that item and and it moves forward to to be agendized, um, as opposed to having a whole separate agenda item to then go to public comment to then have it come back.

It just like trying to create efficiency.

The piece where I appreciate around what Gene was saying is this idea around being able to fight for like showing the community that I'm fighting for what I campaigned on, what I promised them, and I in trying to recognize that, um, which I understand would be eliminated through this process that I'm recommending.

There's nothing that precludes a council member from saying, Hey, during public comments, look, I I requested to push this forward, council member decides to change their mind at this point.

This is this is council comment.

So anybody could change their mind, but I'm still pushing forward.

You're still able to make that fight without having a whole thing agendized to then be agendized.

So I'm just trying to eliminate that.

And that I'm I am going to um try to make that recommendation.

So let me try, let me try to try to go through my list.

Um, meeting frequency.

Uh Council Member Rush, I I appreciate your support for the idea of adding uh an extra meeting.

I completely recognize that this is going to be the most burdensome for staff because it's it's more work.

It's going to be constant preparing for agendas over and over again.

Maybe this is an opportunity for us to re-engage on the conversation around boards, commissions, and committees, and there's our space to consolidate to how help staff manage their workload a little bit.

Um, but I'd much rather I think the challenge that I have with saying that we're gonna push it to a special council meeting is this is exactly what we talked about when Hans was city manager, and it it never really happened.

We tried it, and but the challenge is trying to find time for all five council members to make the meeting it just it becomes administratively burdensome.

And so if we had that predetermined date and everybody knew that that's when the meeting is, if we need to cancel it, to me, the cancellation notice is overall net.

My assumption is it's net easier than trying to coordinate a special meeting.

And yeah, I I think the public and for the council and staff to for everybody to have kind of an awareness of what's to come.

Um, it's easier to pull back than it is to try to push something forward, is just the experience that I found.

Um the presentations, I just think we need I don't think we can need to figure this out tonight, but I think we need to somehow establish some kind of process that's created to determine when is it appropriate for one group to present over another.

It doesn't have to be something super complicated, it could be something that council member Smith just alluded to, where it's the mayor, city manager, vice mayor, uh assistant city manager, however that's determined, but I do think it's important to have some kind of criteria so that it's clear so that if one group doesn't get to do it, it's they don't feel like, well, am I not part of the cool club kind of thing?

So I think kind of some standard in regards to what that looks like, like it's related to city business, it's you know, I I don't want to go too far down that path right now, but I think we just need to kind of work that a little bit.

Um I just wanted to make a comment, or I can't remember who made this comment earlier around staff presentations.

Um I think today was different because we're in a special meeting, the topic was specifically focused on this item.

Um, but we have been working this in the background, and I'll just share this with the public.

There's in my mind, there's three main sections that create meetings.

There's staff presentations, there's council questions and comments and debate, and there's public comment.

Um, and I think we've done the first and the third, we we've kind of gotten as efficient as we can, worked really hard with staff, and and if you've noticed for folks that have come to regular council meetings, oftentimes staff doesn't even have a slide presentation anymore because they're just getting up there doing a quick presentation.

I oh, I think it was Tom.

Recognizing that everybody should have done their homework.

If they really care about that issue, you're gonna read the staff presentation.

So I do think kind of maybe reinforcing the message, we need to keep that in mind as we're moving forward with presentations, and again, I think we're doing a lot better of a job than we used to.

Um for public comment, we've created a process where sometimes it gets reduced down to two minutes or a minute and a half.

I think that's the smallest that we've ever gone.

And sometimes we get pushback about that, and I think rightfully so, because this is the public's opportunity to share with the council in the public setting their feedback in regards to the items that we're discussing, but we're leveraging that as to the extent that we can, and there's not much more that we can do there.

So then it comes down to the council, and I think that and and Dr.

Barber brought this point up earlier around the idea of um, do we do we limit council comments?

Like, do we set a timer at least for an initial discussion?

So that way, I don't want to stymie debate.

We need to have the full debate, but I think that the area that needs to be fixed is how much time the council spends on an issue.

So I just I just recognize I'm just trying to highlight that being the area where we're probably focused needs to be given.

Um I went to uh council meeting in St.

Louis Obispo, and as it relates to the timing conversation around how do we have the discussion around timing, what they did was um, so obviously the council member who had requested the item come forward had already worked with staff in the background, and so when the item got onto the agenda to figure out like what is a time frame look like, staff was already able to say, hey, these are the staff members that are involved, these are the things that they're working on.

So if you want to, because at the end of the day, it's we set the priority for the city, right?

So at the end of the day, if if you if the things that we've already identified as priority in the work plan are taking up that time that we the council may feel takes higher priority, we need to make that like that decision, but we have to have the information in order to make that decision.

And so I don't know what it looks like for us to try to maybe integrate something like that into this discussion around timing where when we're discussing the item, we can say, well, hey, here's the work plan.

Um these are the three items, we can move two of them and we can do your item, or you know, whatever that looks like.

So I just I think uh a conversation around that would be helpful.

Um, but I do think saying a certain certain kind of time frame, so whether it be, hey, it's gonna happen in the third quarter, and again, if it needs to adjust, we have that update discussion.

Um, it doesn't need to be a specific council meeting, but I do think having a general idea of when that item is gonna come back, so that there is some level of expectation that we can um work towards.

Um I'm I'm kind of jumping away from the list, so I'll come back to the list here in a second, but there's just other thoughts that have come into my head.

Um one thing that has been shared with me is how I've been um handling going to questions with the council and going to uh deliberations with the council is who wants to go first, right?

I say that every time, but I guess the question is is that fair?

I just from my own anecdotal experience, it tends to be Gene and Ed that jump in first and and and you know it could just be personality, like how people relate.

And I don't know if that I don't know if that's like the way that we want to continue doing it.

So I just open that up for the council for part of the discussion is do we want to like set it up in a rotation to where every item starts with a new council member each time?

So I I just throw that out as as an option because somebody shared that um idea with me.

Um another thing I'll bring up is that when however we end this, I think when staff takes an item for work, like I requested this item.

I had nothing to do with this agenda being put forward, absolutely nothing.

So, but it's a reflection on me in a lot of ways because I requested this item to be agendized.

So I think what would be helpful is that um there's a commitment towards staff collaborating with the council member or council members who requested that item to be agendized to make sure that it's in alignment with what their vision was and that it's not presented in a way, or at least they're not caught off guard when the staff presentation comes out, and it's not something that might have been fully consistent with what they intended to bring forward.

So I just throw that as an option, and then let me just try to run through the rest of the list to make sure I captured everything.

So, yes, consult city manager um, yes, provide uh uh timing estimate.

Um I I will just say on this.

Oh, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna even go the item C clearly doesn't have support for going to three.

Um I guess the only thing I would say on this is if we're gonna if the council decides to keep the process as it currently is one of the issues that we had, and the reason why this was a little bit debated when I first got into the council as a council member, um, and this happened.

Only two council members supported an item being forward.

Staff put all this time into putting a presentation together, doing the research for it to then not go anywhere.

Um, and so I guess that's my only concern with the way that the process is currently established.

I can appreciate this idea around the minority viewpoint.

I would argue though that the same could be said around one council district.

If one council member representing a district, a people can't bring their item forward because they don't get support from anybody else in the council, the same argument could be made, is all I'm saying.

Um just throwing that out there.

Um, okay.

So the last section, I don't think D require the status update on pending approved agenda items be provided to the council on a quarterly basis.

Yeah.

However, that is done.

I would just say I don't think we shouldn't necessarily have to wait for a quarterly period to have the update if we get if we get a sense that we see some something shifting, the transparency, the commute the early and often communication thing, I think is important, especially for the council member that's requested the item to be agendized.

And then to get to the meeting efficiency section, um yeah, special meetings are still a thing, but I think we should add the extra council meeting.

B and C, I'm not supportive of.

Um could be helpful, but I I I do, I can't appreciate creating that space, that opportunity for folks.

Um so then that brings me to E ceremonial.

I kind of spoke to that already, and then F.

Um, I guess E and F are the same thing.

I think we need to create, I just think we need to establish the process of like when is it appropriate for these items to be not on consent versus consent versus even us considering it all, or it's something that's in the Friday folder for the council to receive or put on the city's website.

Um I'm going to make a recommend.

I'm gonna make a motion.

Oh, if thatem is well, I I guess would it be helpful for a motion so it's clear together.

Yeah, you want to so what I will say is um a motion that accepts staff recommendations, A, B, and D.

Um, which category?

Because we've got two groups.

So they improve the current policy.

Um, but with the caveat that um a council member can coordinate within Brown Rack Brown Act rules, coordinate with another council member to then request that item be agendized during council comments.

Um, so right that eliminates this step of us having to request an item be agendized, put the agenda report together.

You've already coordinated with the city manager because I included item A in the recommendation.

So that would be the new process, and then included in that for the meeting efficiency.

E and F.

I I would just say have those things come back for a more defined policy, and maybe staff can give a recommendation to the council on that.

That's my so can I clarify?

Are you uh you want the switch to the Brown Act policy, but with those um A B and D enhancements to the Brown Act policy instead of to the current policy?

That's correct.

To that, yes, to so the current process is the council member has to request it be agendized and it comes to the council for at least one other council member to support.

What I'm saying is that one council member can coordinate with another council member, um, and talk to the city manager.

If there's if there's an agreement amongst that discussion that city manager thinks that it's best for this the council member to agendize it, then they can bring it up during council comments, a verbal, a simple verbal during council comments.

That way staff already has an awareness of what's going to be presented.

And one council member doing it is sufficient.

Yep.

One council member, and then during council during that council comment session, at least one other council member has to support it.

Right, they would have the heads up because we've talked with the city manager, the staff has that's correct.

And and I forgot the last piece, which is I I think adding the third uh council session.

Um second, so can I can I just clear clarify?

Because right now the process is I know we talk about it as a two-step process, but it's really three steps, right?

Because you need to get an agreement.

Yes, we want to talk about it.

That's the first step.

We decide we want to talk about it.

The council member who proposes it submits the three hundred and fifty words of why we utilize that analysis to prepare the staff report.

That's the second time it it's it's heard.

Then we get direction, and if that direction requires us to come back, we come back a third time, which we're it seems to like we're gonna be doing with some of this too.

So is that the process that you have in your mind?

Yeah, minus that we don't there wouldn't be a request to agendize there wouldn't be uh agenda item to request to agendize, it would simply be they connect with you and then they bring it up during the council comments.

Right.

So meeting one, just we want to agendize it.

Meeting two is council member who proposed the agendizing it, submits to us two weeks before the write-up.

This is the reason why we go to the second meeting, right?

We discuss that, and then whatever the outcome of that second meeting, there may be a third meeting.

I would I would maybe suggest that um as part of the process with working with the city manager, maybe there's an initial discussion, however, the council wants to handle that, but there'd be some requirement that before you finalize that conversation that a written report be given to you so that you have something in writing from that council member or council members, um, and nothing goes on the agenda, that's just for staff's awareness doing the work with you, and then however you all resolve that issue at the end.

So, whether you come to an agreement that staff's gonna take it on, then there's no need to agendize anything, or it's decided that this council member or council members need to agendize that all that happens at that point is that the council member requests it to be agendized during council comments and has to have that second second support for it during council comments.

Okay, so.

So what's your question?

So, yeah, it's it's open.

There's been a motion in a second, um, so open for debate.

Yeah, so I'm I um I think I understand what your motion is, but what you're saying is that you want to eliminate the initial write-up from a council member and a conversation with the city manager as an example.

I had one of those.

I did a conversation with the city manager, submitted the 350 words or less for request for it to be agendized.

I fear that your model you're talking about would promote actually more discussion than we're ready for by simply bringing it up at the council meeting, because one council member might say, Well, I haven't had a chance to talk to you about it, but I'm talking to you about it now.

Here's what I'd like to see come back in rapid, rapid uh time frame.

A second council member says, I agree.

I think that opens up for a conversation about the topic that then works and erodes the efficiency.

I think there's a part of it that's um not accurate in regards to what you characterize as it you there's still the requirement that they have to have the conversation with the city manager beforehand.

So they're not just bringing it up in the meeting and then expecting staff.

I got that.

So I see my city manager on Monday and Tuesday, the council meeting, uh, I tell them what I'm gonna do, and I bring it up at the council meeting, and I get a second person that affirms and says, hey, that's a good idea.

I think that should happen.

And then those two staff have heard what those two are interested in, and then one of those council members writes it up and gives it to the city manager.

That's all been done before the meeting.

Okay, so how is that different than what we have today in a governance policy?

Because right now, right now what we're doing is all I have to do right now is just draft something up, give it to Dante, and then he's gonna be required to put it on the next council meeting.

What I'm suggesting is, and what staff part of what staff is recommending is council should have that conversation with Dante beforehand, okay.

And I can agree with that.

Yep, yep.

And then, and then as opposed to me doing a write-up that's going to be put on the agenda to for us to discuss whether or not we want to agendize that, all I have to do is say go to the council meeting and during council comments say I want this agendized.

We're not debating the topic, we're not debating whether we want to agendize.

All that needs to happen is that one other council member needs to say, I also want that to be agendized.

Once that requirement has been met, staff is required to have it agendized.

Okay, so the downside is that you're gonna have a council member say, I don't understand what you want.

I haven't seen any write-up.

Then it promotes an actual dialogue with the whole council while you're fishing for the second supporter.

It actually promotes more dialogue and wasted time rather than the current way we do it.

The current way we do it is when I present my item tonight, I'm limited to three minutes.

I've already presented my 350 words, it's part of the agenda.

I'm supporting it.

I only get three minutes, and we're not gonna be talking about whether you support the nuances or the details of it.

It's just yes or no.

I fear the other way it actually just promotes a lot of conversation because there needs to be an expression of what the details are that it is that you're after.

That second person may have to clarify it, it goes back and forth, city manager is waiting for the two.

It just seems like it's no improvement and doesn't eliminate anything.

Could you give me an example of a time where a council member requested an item to be agendized and through that process, changed what they were requesting to be agendized that didn't get the support of the council?

That's never happened, and and no, I'm not saying that they wouldn't.

I think that it's pretty easy to get a second vote.

But I I think I think the concern that you're raising could be solved when that once the item comes back on the agenda, and I think that's kind of the part that we're trying to avoid is getting into this space of debating the issue that's being requested and just focusing on do we want to agendize?

And I offered my in my opinion, at the very least, what we should do is when it comes back from public comment.

If it were to the current process were to stay in place, I would do a quick check-in with everybody and say, does anybody support this?

And if there's that one, there's no more discussion, we just move on.

I'm trying to find a way of moving us along here nothing precludes another council member let's say you and I let's say I have the item that's been requested.

Okay I request it we've already talked you also agree with it so then when it gets to you you say yep I agree with that too.

Let's say then Gino is like I'm confused I don't understand nothing precludes him from saying whatever he wants to say during his council comments right we don't need to have we're not gonna have a debate on it but his point is being made so he can say it and then we're gonna have the item agendized anyways and we'll have the full discussion at the next whenever that meeting is it's just I agree.

It's just a new the nuance it maybe it winds we wind up at the same place.

I don't think there's necessarily an easy way of well it I don't see either way eliminating a process of staff ultimately needs to have time to prepare it to bring that item to a regular agendized with a full staff report and that usually is going to add two to three four weeks under under the current or under the future I don't see anything being speeded up.

Please yeah um so I get where you're going on that that makes sense because if once you have an the second person it doesn't matter because it's not the time for the discussion piece.

And that's where we're getting caught up is the discussion piece we're getting into the discussion of the of whether you support it don't support it we're that's not what that's for.

So to me it makes sense that you can do it doing um you know um council comments because if you get the second person then that's it you're still getting your time you stick you still can't have your whatever time it is to do your comment piece and you've already gone to the city manager prior to so you already have an idea whether it's even something that's uh has validity to even be it even uh request to agendize where I where I don't agree is um having the extra meeting because I feel like we already have an extra meeting on a Wednesday this already say that you we can utilize that the public already knows that that uh last Wednesday is already there that's operable that we can be able to plan so that's where I I would have to not agree with you on.

I I I would clarify because I and I because I didn't speak about it today but the issue isn't being able to shift and offload things to this the special council meeting because yeah we've we've done that but it's the fact that our meetings are going to 11 o'clock at night and so if we could be intentional around setting up our meetings during the agenda prep discussions and saying no we really can only do you know one uh public appearance item in the afternoon and maybe two in the evening that's gonna shift a whole bunch of our workload into a space where where when are we gonna get it done and frankly I like the study sessions for what they are.

I think it's nice to dive in deep into certain topics and and allow that to be a debate.

And sometimes it's nice to take it and allow it to be the whole session like this took the whole time we're not in my opinion I don't think we're gonna get to this next item because it's past six o'clock.

So it's nice to have this meeting designated for one thing but that's not a I mean our workload is so much that how are we preventing ourselves from going to 11 o'clock at night.

So I mean I hear and understand what you're saying but I I feel as though that's where the meeting efficiency needs to come in when the agenda is being made to be able to see how many items we can actually realistically get in.

I think we're putting too much into one of them and I don't me personally I don't see that it's a problem to be able to use a Wednesday one when we need it because we don't you we don't have a specific you know special item that we're getting into all the time that we need to go into depth with so for me I think the Wednesday still holds that same opportunity.

Yeah but that's that that's where so I don't know how that looks uh Christy of his with his motion because I agree with all the other pieces except for that one.

How how would I I uh and I don't know whether you guys are needing a vote both or whether this is more of a recommendation vote.

We we would like a motion.

Okay, so how do how would you want me to do that, Chrissy since that you can just record a no vote for that one piece and approve that the other parts.

Or or is there friendly that you would accept?

Or we could um um think if the motion dies because you don't support it in its totality, we could try to bifurcate the motion, the action.

Um, okay.

Any comments, thoughts on this side before we go for a vote?

To get some clarity on the part of the motion where you said that it would need the support of a second member, but also that the council member could coordinate with another council member beforehand because from the way that we were discussing the brown act concern, I'm not sure that jives.

I guess I'm still not seeing that where the issue is because there's not now there's no vote occurring, right?

We're not go we're not putting something on the agenda.

Oh, but didn't you say that a it would require the support of another member?

Yes, but that's not a vote.

Is that a concern to you for C.

It's it's something that's done during council comments, and it's just a council member identifying that they also support that.

Is the way he described it a concern to you with the Brown Act about um if they still require a second person supporting the matter, but they can also go to a second person before the meeting.

So I think if there's two council members that want something agendized and they go to the city manager, then um the city manager would put it on.

It's not the council putting it on, it's the city manager putting it on.

Um, yeah, I mean I've I've done that.

So if I if that is a brown act violation, I I would love clarity in regards to where the violation actually occurred.

Um I I've when um when um and anyways.

Why don't we take that out of the motion?

The fact that you talk with someone beforehand is not um a required fundamental to the to you moving it forward, yeah.

Yeah, you can still bring it forward.

And if some and if yeah, no, I agree.

So yeah, we can edit that.

And as Jean being the second the seconder of the motion.

I'm okay with that.

I think we're good.

All right, all right.

Oh so there's parts of this motion I'm confused about.

Can we could you read back what you have and then maybe we could so the motion then with that amendment would be that um it would we'd switch to the Brown Act policy, but it we would include these um enhancements A, and there would still be a written report, but it would go to the city manager and not be on an agenda.

Um B, which is the staff would provide well, B doesn't work it actually with the Brown Act policy because I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

B I'm noticing B may not work with the Brown Act policy because it has to do with a written request, like a written report which wouldn't exist anymore.

Um, and then D, which is getting regular status updates, um, and then there would be the required support of one more member.

And for meeting efficiency E and F to come back for a more defined protocol discussion and adding a third regular city council meeting.

And I would just clarify that I think B still could work in it in the sense that if Ed and I both identified support of an agenda an item being agendized, and since at least one of those individuals had has already been engaging with the city manager on the topic, that hopefully Dante could come prepared with an idea of when that item is could it be expected to come back, what quarter or whatever that item could be expected to come back.

Perfect.

Yeah, yeah.

So I I uh an important part is that um analysis provided by whoever is proposing the idea because we utilize that and I I would think before we start working on this, and and I don't want to assume, so I want to ask.

Um it seems like the council would want to know how much staff time this might take and what other priorities we need to juggle to to put this ahead of that priority.

And so that's where that kind of second meeting comes from.

Um and we wouldn't have a full we we would at that step but um that it's critical to get your idea or the council members' sense of why we need to discuss it why it's important so we can provide that uh analysis at that point but it's critical that write up was going to be critical but aren't you doing that with your first meeting when when if it's me and I'm coming to meet with you about what I want to agendize aren't we having that conversation then to see whether it's important enough or whether it makes sense or where and how and all that aren't we having that and then you can give me a basic idea of the time limit you may not have all of it because you haven't spoken with your directors yet but you would have some sort of idea of yes it's important enough yes that makes sense um but it's probably gonna take us uh a month to get that together yes I think you would be able to give us that information in the first meeting I would I would think yes or you can correct me if I'm wrong.

No yes we I would be able to give you that information but I I think in your own words describe to us what you want us to solve for I I think that was one of the comments we got to written 350 words when we come talk to I could bring it when I can talk to you that way you you're kind of taking care of all those things in that one meeting so that you can be able to get the feedback from you.

It's critical okay thank you so I think just to clarify in this B, it's no later than two weeks prior to the meeting referring to the meeting with the city manager.

Yes, last one yeah okay we're gonna call the question here um all those in favor?

I any opposed um not the yeah yeah except for I'm um I'm actually uh reporting a no vote for the extra meeting yep I don't think I did that correctly okay so I I know there's a lot here in the details and I want to understand the objection to the extra meeting what where's that extra meeting that you you're seeing.

Part of the motion was to add an extra meeting council meeting in the month so that we can help with agenda management and not going so late.

Okay.

And I need to also vote no for that portion.

Okay.

So I'm gonna amend my vote yes on everything yes on everything except for adding the extra meeting because we already have that we get clarification also on that extra meeting is that an extra fourth meeting of the month or just the extra third meeting that we have like today is the third meeting.

An extra meeting a fourth meeting a fourth meeting of the month yeah okay and I think we just have to I'm a s my assumption we don't need to make the sausage now but my assumption is that we would probably just pick the third the second Tuesday but obviously I think that might require some coordination with council and agendas and and stuff.

So now the planning commission meets on the second important thing.

Okay so we'll figure I again we'll figure out the legit we don't need to figure it out right now um I'm not gonna do but but what I also remember is council has priority over the ch use of the chambers so I think if we need to make some adjustments to other boards commissions and committees we we can do so okay with that I know we have uh another item on the agenda thank you all for that discussion um there's another item on the agenda but we're past six o'clock so I'm gonna go ahead and um well let give me one second I'm gonna um request the item be tabled is that the appropriate or continued and then the other depends on continued I'm gonna request this item be continued to the next council meeting if you're in agreement with with the next council meeting as a best space to place this well the the if here's the problem the timeliness of the date of being able to execute I need that second meeting to have the council hear what the request is.

So postponing a three-minute presentation by me is the difficulty because the because this is timeliness.

I I understand, but the meeting is the meeting is already over.

And so it was the same thing that we did last time, the last study session where I gave everybody in the council two minutes because we were running short on time.

And in that scenario, we had already begun the item before we hit six o'clock.

Now we're where we've blown past six o'clock, and we're talking about adding a whole new item.

It's not just a three-minute presentation.

Council gets asked questions and we get to go out to the public and then we come back and we're debating on whether.

So I I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to continue to the next meeting.

I understand the time sensitivity for you.

I just don't think it's worked out.

I mean, uh it's unfortunate that it didn't work out.

I I think your request perhaps came in a little too late.

Um so I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to continue the item.

Okay, it's a moved and seconded question.

Yes.

Would that then be June 2nd, which is in six days?

That's correct.

Um well I object, I think that you know there's members of the public that are here.

It was going to be a three or four minute.

Um and when we did not continue the last meeting, it was at um almost 11 o'clock.

The difference here is that it's 25 minutes after six, we'd be out of here by 6:30.

So I'm asking for the five minutes to be able to move this along instead of putting into a crowded night, June 2nd.

Um, so we'll have to see how the motion goes, but I just think it's unreasonable not to accommodate this.

But we just so I want to clarify that I wasn't referring to the last council meeting, I was referring to last study session, and when it when it got to six o'clock, I was very eager to make sure that we ended on time out of respect for the public and the council.

You can see we already lost a council member because we blown past six o'clock.

Further, we just came out of agenda prep meeting, you and I, so we have a preview of what the agenda next week looks like, and there's a proposed no evening session, so it looks like there's gonna be plenty of time for you to be able to have your item discussed then.

So with that, let's just go out to public comment on this real quick, and then we can bring it back for any last minute comments from the council.

For folks on Zoom, you can use a raise hand function.

Anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on this item.

I'm gonna leave this one to one minute because we're running short on time here.

One minute.

Okay.

Um thank you for your time.

Um this is probably an important issue for him because um the fourth of July is part of his reason why I wants to have this this moment um input it there, because it is for our country, and um painting a sidewalk is important for this nation, but also in allowing a painted sidewalk, it shouldn't even be allowed at all.

I um flag day for anyone, they shouldn't be allowed to paint sidewalks because it's a hazard.

I know you allowed it, and I know that there's been violations with the previous person that has a right to do it, but they've violated it and it probably should be removed altogether.

Um, it's a great opportunity to represent our country, but I mean we can just put out flags, but there shouldn't be any allowance for um crosswalks because it's very um I used to draw for UPS, and um it's a very big health and safety hazard.

Thank you.

I support council member Smith's uh wanting to agendize this item.

I commented a year ago, I think it was almost to the day about the uh the crosswalk down at Alvarado at the head of Alvarado.

That really what you should be concentrating on is getting a policy created that makes this easier when requests such as this come forward.

My dad taught me long ago sometimes it's easier to make a tool to do the job because you know you're gonna do the job in the future rather than every time you try to do the job, you kind of hack your way through it.

We talked about making meetings more efficient, and you spent two hours and 20 minutes on talking about how to make meetings more efficient.

Coming up with a policy about the crosswalks would make that discussion more efficient in the future.

Thank you.

Good good, excuse me, good evening.

Um, yes, I would like to support the um idea that the council needs to have some more general view of how changes, celebratory um activities for our very diverse um community get done.

I think just doing things ad hoc is not a good idea.

I was very surprised that at this time of year we would suddenly be thinking about the 250th anniversary of our country.

So I'm kind of thinking that maybe we need to do something really bold for that, and then leave the issue of celebrating um the the grade diversity of our community to a longer discussion that will lead to a systemic um kind of way to accommodate everyone.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think I failed to do a countdown for Zoom.

So I'm just gonna do a quick countdown for five, four, three, two, one.

There's one on Zoom, so we'll go ahead and take that caller.

Laura, you can go ahead.

Okay, I'm I'm a little confused because I thought we were skipping this item, but it doesn't sound like we are.

Um, I'll just make it quick, but before I do, I just want to say that it was awful even after you guys took the break to supposedly fix the media, and I talked to a lot of other folks on Zoom, and it is horrible.

It's like I don't you're not old enough in the room to remember what it's like having records when they have a big scratch in them, and it just skips every other word.

That's what it was like trying to follow this two and a half hour discussion, which is an important item, so it's really frustrating to not be able to follow it.

Here I'm getting the echo myself again.

Anyway, I support agendizing the discussion uh that council member Smith brought forward uh regarding this decorative crosswalk policy, and and I'll I'll just end there, but we gotta fix the media of this situation to make it really hard.

Thank you.

Okay, and with that comes back to the council.

Any last limit questions, comments from this council?

Um is there a motion?

There was, yeah.

Was it seconded?

Yes.

Right, yeah, okay.

Of course, you're not really one.

Hmm.

Um I I do want to clarify um with staff because I think that there is some pending issues as it relates to the rainbow crosswalk that is currently in place, and my understanding is that um there's already been council direction on moving forward with the maintenance and the establishment of that crosswalk.

So I just kind of wanted to get clarity.

Are we good to move forward with the rainbow crosswalk under this umbrella that the private contributions?

I don't think that's we can maybe talk to you about that after.

That's not okay.

Sorry, so there's been a motion in a second.

Um any other discussion?

I'm sorry, the the motion was to continue the item.

Okay, you're talking about your motion.

Um so with the stipulation that folks in June on June 2nd will still be able to make open comments on the agenda item.

Because I know you open it up for yeah, it'll be on the agenda, so it'll be opportunity for public comment.

Yep.

Okay, all those in favor?

Aye, uh all those opposed, no, no.

We have a two-two.

Which means the motion fails.

So okay, but let's do it fast.

What about okay?

So I'm just trying to clarify the meeting end time.

The meeting, the agenda says six o'clock.

Well, I mean, I would my version that's four on the front, but I if you go to where it says afternoon session, it says four to six p.m.

Okay.

Um Pledge of Allegiance, call to order.

Right.

Um typically, if we have an ending time, it would be on the agenda, like I would say four to six at the top part.

If it's past six and it is, um, you can make a motion to continue the meeting.

Or I I've in the past interpreted it to be by consensus if the meeting has gone beyond the end time.

So the meeting has gone beyond the end time.

Um is there a consensus to continue the meeting past the end time?

Yes.

Okay.

That's not a consensus.

I mean, yeah, my preference.

Okay, so I don't consent.

But I hearing sorry, sorry.

So I I thought council member Smith was okay with continuing the item given that there would be public comment.

That was after the motion.

He's assuming that that the item was going to be continued.

Okay.

Um, but because that motion died.

So now we're in a place of I think just trying to determine whether or not we want to allow the meeting to continue at this point.

Well, I'm not ready to make exceptions here.

I mean, I I think I I looked back at uh another meeting where this happened and it was very clear that council members wanted to end it, and I don't see a reason why to make an exception here tonight.

Okay, so we're gonna go ahead and um adjourn and and I and I would just point out that it's probably appropriate at this point given that we've lost so many of the folks that were here.

No, I'm just I'm I'm pardon my interruption, but there was a motion to continue and it's that died.

And it died, and so that means it Right, but what you were just sharing was that because the meeting has a scheduled end time, in order to continue past that point, right?

We need a consensus from the council.

I think it would undercut um the failure of the motion to continue.

There it was it was uh there was a motion not to continue it, so then it's by default, then it's to be considered, right?

I mean that that motion did not pass.

So but the process still exists though, so then used so then his item would just drop off, right?

Um if it's not continued and if it's not heard.

He can give it to we give it to Dante to put it on the next council meeting agenda.

Well, I'll I'll defer to all y'all, but um typically, and Clementine, correct me if I'm wrong, but typically the front of our agenda would say four-six pm.

I think I didn't even notice the ending date.

This is exactly what happened last meeting, and however we fix it, I think we should just make it consistent.

And in my opinion, the study session should be from four to six.

That's uh the way it's always been since I've been on the council.

Um so I'm gonna go ahead and call it and adjourn the meeting.

Thank you, everybody.

We could have already done it.

Yep, could have.

Well, no, what I'm saying, either is we could have done this, and then we'll have