All right, good morning, everybody.

I'm gonna call this uh Tuesday, January fourteenth, uh City Commission workshop to order and we will get to our first agenda item right away, which is a discussion of the um meetings procedure process.

And so we're all right, we did Bob, were you gonna say something you look like you were ready to no I I asked to have this on our first workshop of twenty twenty five um to discuss how you all as a body would like to procedurally have your meetings handled.

Um I just want us to all be on the same page and how we want the meeting to run and just kind of have clear defined roles.

Um especially for me.

Um and then also you as a as a body.

So um, I guess we're kinda gonna open it up, kind of talk about, you know, what our expectations are, you know, what will we see, what would we like to see, um, especially from my standpoint.

Um how you all want these meetings to to run.

And hopefully we run in a fish and spool manner.

So that's the goal.

Um, so I think first of all, I we'll like to kind of start out with maybe go around and ask what do you all individually see as how you will want the meetings to be run.

Um, and we can just kind of I don't know who all wants to start first, and I'll let the the the mayor kind of raise hands and who wants to start first.

But um just kinda go around and just let us know how do you all first proceed how these meetings should go.

So well, I mean, obviously according to Robert's rules of order and um you know, I don't really have a lot of um complaints about how they're going.

Okay.

So I think that um, you know, in general they they they go okay, but I do think that there's a lot of room for improvement.

Um the um the idea that we this is really funky loud.

The idea that we um have which is relatively new.

Timed QA for each of us and that whole situation came about in about twenty twenty-one, something like that.

Um we never had that before.

We never stick to it.

It's an item that every meeting we have to say, do we approve the time schedule for it?

We we never stick to it.

If somebody presenter needs more time, we give them more time.

If a commissioner needs more time, we circle back around and give them more time.

I don't think it's been an issue.

Uh and I that's a piece of our agenda that I think could completely go away.

Um so that would be one of my suggestions.

The other suggestion would be very much to much more strictly follow Robert's rules of order, which has a very specific time period when it's QA, it's not statement time, it's QA time.

And if you don't have a question, don't speak.

If you've got a statement to say, you say your statement to the motion when the motion is made.

And then that limits the discussion of everybody sort of posturing, me included, right, to what your thoughts are on a big topic to the motion, which is what we're really supposed to be doing with Robert's rules of order.

Um not just talking about your opinion about the whole idea of a park or a this or a that.

Just to the motion.

So, you know, when we go around and we do the Q ⁇ A piece of it and everybody's given 10 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever time limit is was given.

How about we just have a couple of questions?

You know, do and I hate to hamper back to this, and I'm no I'm pretty sure Kathy will as well.

When I was on the planning board, we would generally ask one or two or three or four or five questions.

And then even if you had fifty, you'd stop and let others ask questions because they could be asking questions that you were gonna ask.

So we would just sort of like rotate through and ask, you know, a handful of questions and then step back and let the others ask questions.

But it was not statement time.

It was not, you know, parks are this and we should do this and city should do that, and no.

It was just questions.

And then when a motion sounds good to me.

And then when a motion was made, then you spoke only to the motion, not to the grand idea of parks or the grand idea of something else, specifically to the motion, and that was it.

And so that, you know, limited um focused, I wouldn't say limit.

I would say focus the meeting much more.

Um that's another one of my suggestions is that I would I would just make sure that when we are going through, we go we really follow Robert's rules of order.

QA is QA, then you close the public hearing, someone makes the motion, and then you speak to the motion if it's seconded.

You know, um also allowing the city auditor and clerk um more ability to uh do her parliamentarian role.

I think a lot of that was sort of um muddied when we had the switch over from the former city auditor and clerk to Miss Griggs.

Uh I feel like Miss Griggs is perfectly capable of being the parliamentarian, takes that uh responsibility off of the mayor.

Uh and that allows the parliamentarian to sort of be the the bad guy, so to speak, and in a lot of the situations that may be delegate, right, for who who is running the meeting.

Um so that's those are just some of the ideas I have about some other ones, but I'll let somebody else chime in.

Thank you.

Um, I don't consider myself a parliamentary nerd, but I'm one of the few people I know who really enjoys amending bylaws and rules of procedures.

I don't know if you know me well enough, but I went line by line through the rules and I have three pages of comments and recommendations.

I can start with the time issue.

Uh first of all, you know, doing this is really tedious and difficult, and a lot of people give up before they get to the closure of it and really do the work.

I can start with the timing matter that Commissioner Ahern Koch mentioned.