All right, good morning, everyone.

I'm opening this uh October 14th, 2025 City Commission workshop.

And our first agenda item is a and our only agenda item is a presentation of Robert's rules.

If we could get a brief presentation, um introduction, city attorney would like to do that.

All right.

Mr.

Paul Zach.

Mayor Commission, appreciate it.

So uh as discussed before, this was something I've wanting to do and we're able to do today uh in conjunction with the city clerk.

Uh bringing before you today is Randy Mora, who's uh highly respected local government attorney, city attorney in his own right, and does a lot of training and statewide presentations on these very topics today.

So I'm excited to have him part of my team.

As you all know, I use uh subcontractors, including his firm.

They're an integral part of my team, incorporated them into my uh operations, and including today.

This will be the one of many trainings that I'm gonna ask him to do.

Hope to do this on a annual basis before you.

So without further ado, I'll let uh Randy introduce himself a little further.

Uh thank you, Commissioners.

This is gonna be very hard to to complete.

I'm not used to having such a handsome man on a screen in front of me.

Um attorney Polzek indicated.

I'm certified by the Florida Bar in City, County, and local government law.

Um I've been doing this practice for eleven years now, roughly.

Uh through my practice, I've served as a city attorney in four different cities in Pinellas County.

I'm presently the city attorney in Pennell's Park among the larger jurisdictions in our county.

In addition to serving as a city attorney, uh I work with my firm with the Florida Municipal Insurance Trust, which is the insurance side of the League of Cities.

And through that, we represent cities in litigation.

And then finally, I have this, which I consider to be my favorite part of my practice, uh, which is educating uh elected officials, employees, staff members serving government.

It's uh, you know, low stress to billable ratio.

Uh, we're not starting from a place of crisis.

We're starting from a place of just wanting to do a little better and ra elevate our awareness about how we can serve our job and how we can serve the public trust.

Um as we go today, my aim for you is to get the information you seek.

Um, I I'm sure each of you come to the table wanting to learn something specifically or address something specifically in the broad scope of the topics we're discussing.

This is your meeting.

I'm just here.

Um so if you have those um questions, uh please ask them.

I want to make sure this gives you and your public uh the value added that you might seek uh from having somebody in person as opposed to just clicking play on a YouTube video.

Uh as a just far as far as roadmap and expectations.

This is not in satisfaction of your four-hour ethics uh Sunshine Law Records training.

It's my understanding many of you have already done that.

If any of you it seems there might be some uh jokes and trends about who might be latecomers to certain topics, but if anybody hasn't done their training yet, um we are offering a four-hour training through the League of Cities tomorrow, uh four hour webinar, which I'll be handling uh to check that box and then one more in December if you're really trying to get in under the wire.

Um that said, today is going to focus on a few topics.

Um I believe firmly in um shared expectations, and and that's what a lot of today is going to be about.

And so this is our roadmap of the topics we're going to cover.

Uh if any of you don't see any of the topics that you were hoping to cover, then we can get the disappointment out of the way early and just start there.

Um we're gonna be starting with ethical guidelines.

I think it's an important pole star when you're talking about any topic, and as some of you may have noted, I do quarterly ethics trainings with the League of Cities, so it's uh an important part to me of government practice.

We'll talk about team-based solutions and service, which really focus on your city, how you work, and how all the parts fit together.

Uh we in before we talk about public meetings in terms of parliamentary procedure, we're gonna focus on the the foundation, just the basics of the Sunshine Law Open Meetings Law.

It's not gonna be an hour, I promise.

Um, but just enough to build the foundation so we can talk about how meetings work.

So while this has been, you know, uh pitched and explained to you as a Roberts Rules meeting, that's really a very small part of what this is.

This is really uh more towards a totality of how we how we conduct ourselves as public officials.

Um concerns before I get started.

I'm usually uh accustomed to standing and pacing, so if you see me fidgeting, uh please understand I'm doing my best to sit still.

Um that said, uh we'll start where every I think every public presentation should start in Florida, which is under our constitution, your office is a public trust.

And what the Constitution says is that a public office is a public trust, and the public shall have the right to secure and sustain that trust against abuse.

Uh very fancy words, but a very important concept, which is you do not hold your office for your own benefit.

Right?

And you know that because there's really not enough benefit to it.

Um there's no fringe benefits to public service.

You're signing up for ulcers, late night meetings, getting hauled into a Roberts Rules meeting midday.

Like this, this is not fun and happy and luxurious.

You're doing this out of some sense of service.

And then what that means to each one of you is likely different, and that's great, because that's what our democratic experiment requires, right?

Uh we come at this with our own perspective.

But when we talk about it in the context of our public meetings and our parliamentary procedure, what we're really trying to emphasize is are you conducting your meetings in a way that gives that builds that public trust, or are you doing things individually or collectively that erode that public trust?

And if you are, are you serving that that notion?

That should be your your pull star through all of your decision making.

When you're deciding, should I say this into the microphone?

Ask, is this serving my residents, my property owners, my taxpayers, not just people without a felony conviction or people with citizenship or people who have lived here 10 years and didn't move here in COVID.

Everybody.

Everybody is served in in terms of what we do by the public trust.

And so we find that in the Constitution, and you'll see in a lot of the things we talk about.

We'll start in the Constitution, work to the statutes and then work about talk about it in practice.

But in the statutes, you find that repeated in chapter 112.

Uh 112 is the ethics code.

Um if any of you have struggled of late as we switch in near uh the end of daylight savings time and the like, and you're having trouble resting, sleeping, if the melatonin's not hitting, open 112, try and work through it, you'll be fine.

Um it's not riveting stuff, but it is important.

And so what it says in chapter 112 is, and paraphrasing, you'll see throughout, I've tried to highlight in yellow some of the more important parts of anything we're talking about, that no officer shall have any interest which isn't substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his or her duties.

And that's a really important thing to understand because there's a lot there.

We're not just talking about voting conflicts there.

We're talking about a conflict of interest in service.

And it's important to start with what that's not saying.

That is not saying that there you're you are prohibited from having passion projects, that you are prohibited from focusing on an issue.

My goodness, you would not get elected if that's how it how it worked.

But you had to say something to your community, right?

I want to address this sector that's been not addressed, I want to manage development, I want to expand development, I want more recreational opportunities, we need more culture, more arts.

It's not a conflict of interest where you say, well, I ran on a platform of we're gonna have more arts, and then I went and tried to get an opera to come here.

That's the job, right?

Um that's the that's the idea in the abstract um of having a passion.

But the goal again is when it comes down to whose interests are you serving, in that example, and uh I'm not suggesting the opera is squarely within your your duties, but in that example, what you're doing is for the greater good for your community at large.

It is not so you are going to get VIP tickets front row when every every cultural event comes.

That's a different issue.

And so again, what you're when we talk about conflicts generally, in terms of ethical conflicts, our principal concern is who are you serving?

If it's the public interest, the public trust, then you're already on the right path.

So an ethical conflict, generally speaking, is a situation in which regard for a private interest tends to least lead to disregard of a public duty.

Now there's the obvious ones, right?

The like, hey, I'll give you this amount of money and you vote on that development, right?

Or you know, I I will give you these tickets and you'll make sure I get my variants.

Those are the obvious things that I would hope are not news to you as I sit here now, are strongly discouraged.

Um that's not just what we're talking about, though.

Again, what we're if you if your calculus as a policymaker is focused exclusively on how it benefits or harms, number one, yourself, then that then you're already starting from the wrong place.

And I I I having watched some of your meetings, having observed um you know the coverage on where you guys are going, I don't think that's any of the core issues here in this community.

There's some where you start from like, hey guys, we need to fundamentally change how we look at this job.

I don't think that's where we're at.

I think it's really just again starting from anything we can do, we can do better, and so let's build from that notion.

So with that, uh I find it important because it's often skipped over as each of you transitioned, and had we had more time, I would have loved to know each of your stories as to what brought you to public service or at least keeps you coming for some.

Because each person has a distinct and important role to play as part of the team, not just as a member of the commission, but really the entire team you work with.

It's sort of interesting how our governmental system is set up.

We take people, and and of late we have really placed great value upon bringing people who have no interaction with or knowledge of government, and then you're supposed to come in and be the trustees and board of directors of this corporation that is government without a full understanding of what is a city attorney, what is a clerk?

Like I know, I have an idea of what those things are, but in the day-to-day, you folks check in once to twice a month, meaningfully, um, hopefully more than that, but meaningfully, you sit at a meeting, and then you're told to supervise people who just go about this job on a day-to-day basis without a full understanding of how does all of this come together.

Or said differently, what's the context?

So let this this portion of the presentation is intended to focus on the context, right?

You folks have an organizational chart.

It is much bigger than this.

You'll see it in a moment.

But really, for our purposes, this is where we're focused, right?

You answer to the public, and if I could amend that, I would say the public trust, right?

Because the public is is this amorphous thing.

The public trust, I think, is almost more concrete.

But you answer to the public trust because it's hard, the public is not a monolith.

The public is asking you to do seven things that all are mutually exclusive all at the same time.

Um so you're serving the public trust, and you are overseeing everything.

You are the vision, you are the management.

If you were a franchise, you are the management.

You're the ones in the box seats.

Everybody else is down on the field, but you're in the box seats and you provide the vision, and you say, This is how we're gonna expend our resources, and here's how we're gonna get to those goals, and these are what our goals are going to be.

So that's where you folks come in.

And then one tier below you on the org chart, you have the city attorney, city manager, and city auditor and clerk in your city is the title.

Now, we're going to go through each of those positions more broadly, but just in case it's a surprise to any of you of how large your city is, there's your whole org chart, right?

But it's what you can see, and and you'll notice this as we go through.

Look how much is under city manager.

Look how much is under city attorney.

Which should tell you that, for example, as we talk about it, your city attorney doesn't make decisions.

Right?

And and I mean that in a really kind way.

You don't make decisions.

I tell people all the time, my job is to give you advice and get ignored.

I don't make a single decision all day long.

Um ultimately, he gives advice.

Your ex your executive, as we'll talk about, your manager is out there in the trenches day after day.

You know, again, to use the sports analogy, and you'll see there's a reason why I keep doing it.

Your manager's on the field.

You know, call-in options and all those things.

I'm sorry for if you don't know football, a lot of analogies here.

Uh a lot of metaphors.

And then your auditor and clerk has very clearly defined goals and and responsibilities and is in and is over those as well.

And you can see it's even more complex than simply it's not just everything under the manager.

You're your auditor and clerk has very specific duties and powers in your city as well.

So let's get a little bit of an understanding on how all of that fits together.

Um let's start with the most important people in the room, you folks, right?

The five of you are truly the most important because you are who the public accesses.

When Joe goes to publics, he does not get cornered and asked about the drainage on 16th Street.

You do.

I do, actually.

This is Sarasota.

In a lot of cities, I try to be, it's it's hard when you're six foot and spotted, but I try to be as in the background as I can.

Right.

Ultimately, you folks are the face that most people are aware of if they're aware of your local government at all, which is a whole nother issue.

So you are, to bring it back to School House Rocks, you're the legislative branch.

You make the policy.

In this city, and again, no surprise to you, you're a five-member body, you serve four-year terms.

Your positions are nonpartisan by design.

Um two of you are elected at large according to your charter, um, and three of you are from single member districts.

And you cannot, just as a uh a footnote, you cannot be employed for the city for up to two years after leaving office.

It's a very interesting.

I've not seen that provision at a local level.

We're very familiar with it as sort of the anti-lobbying thing.

Um it makes sense in some respects, and we wouldn't want our commissioners or vice mayors to suddenly become the manager, and it's really just a function of more of the same.

It creates that division to say we're gonna get some some some change and not make this sort of a landed practice, if you will.

Um another note about your powers and duties, and this is you'll see throughout, I tried to keep it a little smaller.

This is all drawn from your charter and your rules of procedures we go through this.

And so in your charter, these are your powers and duties.

I think the first one's the most important.

You establish policy.

And not administrative policy.

Day to day, the managers responsible for personnel policies, but you you provide the vision for your city and what you want it to look like, whether you want it to look like what it always did, or some new version.

That comes from collectively you.

I can only look any one of you in the eye at a time, but it's collectively you, right?

You appoint and remove the city attorney, auditor, and man uh and manager, right?

Um, and and um you debate and adopt legislative enactments, your ordinances and resolutions very critically at this time of year, you set the millage rate and adopt the budget, which we've just closed out and started our new fiscal year.

You establish boards, um, and we've talked already a little bit about some of those boards and and some of your vision for those in the future.

Um, and critically, and somehow confusingly for many, you get out of the way after that.

You stay in your lane.

Um, and that is in your charter, it's very clear that you may not interfere with the administration of the city.

And that's because that's the province of the city manager.

Whether they be interim, acting or permanent, is of no consequence.

There's a there can only be one islander.

That is your Highlander.

Your manager is the one on on the feet on the field in the trenches, doing the work day to day.

Um, if you find yourselves in a meeting, for example, having a really long discussion over what color the street lights should be, you've lost the plot.

Um you've decided we're gonna fund street lights, we trust the person that we need buying them, we've given them the general direction that we want.

This is the aesthetic we're going for, this is what we want to do.

Great.

Let them go and do, and you guys keep developing more vision and policy.

Now, one of you sits slightly apart from the rest, and that is you, mayor Alpert.

Um the mayor is selected by the commission, not the public, which is a very interesting model.

It's not without um precedent.

There's m there are other communities in Florida that have that set up.

Um I think it's what's what's good about that is it helps with the public understanding of how your community is different from other communities, right?

Because there's very there's there's many different forms of local government.

You have a council manager, commission manager form of government, which means don't interfere, let them administer, you create policy.

When you have a very prominently elected mayor, for some people, because their knowledge of civics is either limited to Richard Scary or perhaps sixth grade civics, they hear the mayor and they're like, oh, you cut the ribbons, give the big checks, and you're in charge of policy, and in your city, your mayor has a very critical role.

One we'll talk about a lot today as the presiding officer, but that's where it stops, right?

In other contexts, and I was in a presentation with another one of your commissioners earlier this weekend said, you know, in another context, and I please take offense to this.

I will often I will tell my mayor when they're elected, congratulations, you've now made it to being homecoming queen or homecoming.

Right?

You are one of us, we've selected you as the one with the most popular, you will wear the crown or tierra and the sash and get to hold the gavel.

But in the way that we work, we're all equals here.

So we might remember the mayor a little longer than we remember the rest of homecoming court, uh, right?

But big picture, you're helping provide this is how we're gonna move when we're making policy, but you all have an equal say.

And I think that the idea that from your ranks you collectively choose your mayor sort of puts an exclamation point on that.

This is who we want guiding our meetings in our business day to day, but we're all here in this, and this was all our choice, right?

Um you don't have that situation where people say, well, the well, the the citizens have spoken, I'm the mayor, you're not.

No, we are all equal in that sense.

Now, because of that, mayor, as you well know, you have a voice and a vote in your proceedings.

Uh, you do not have a veto power.

Some cities have a mayor or this hybrid setup, even with a commissioner, uh, I mean a city manager where their mayor may still have some veto power, you do not have that.

Um you are the designated recipient for civil process.

I'm sure that's a great joy for you on occasion.

Um what a what a privilege.

Um that's one of those fringe benefits we were talking about.

Um then the powers and duties shall be such as can are conferred upon him or her by the commission.

So if you guys pass an ordinance, for example, and you say, or a resolution, say, okay, we have a metropolitan transit authority, and the mayor of the city shall be the city's representative to the transit authority.

That is an example of you creating a power duty, pretty common one, that is specific to that office.

Now I'm not saying it has to be the mayor, just in that hypothetical, it's the mayor, right?

But ultimately, you folks are where the rubber meets the road and where the real work happens in terms of the vision of your city.

And so before we continue on and I get into the rest of this organization, I want to stop where I should have started, which is thank you.

Thank you very much, one for having me here today, um, but all and giving me your time and attention in such a strangely intimate environment.

Um also thank you for volunteering your time to serve your city.

Now, you may get a stipend, but that's really besides the fact it's volunteering your time.

Um you care about your community enough to sacrifice your time, your mental health, your your stress, your peace to serve your community because you care enough about it to do this.

And the system only works when people sign up to do this.

Um it is not that long ago, as we went through Form 6 and Form 1 resignations and all the like, that you saw a real crisis of are we going to have people willing to do this job?

Good, bad, or indifferent.

So thank you for being willing to do this job.

Um it is embarrassing that I still altruistically believe in all of this process and how it works, and I I love seeing people who are committed to that.

So thank you for that.

Um with that, before I talk about your colleagues here at the table with you, um, any questions on anything we've covered so far?

Or any points you wish to make.

All right.

Yes, ma'am.

I just want to add a piece to the powers of the mayor, and I tease the mayor each time we have a new mayor.

The most important power that the mayor in Sarasota has is decide when we get bathroom breaks.

Oh, I'm not sure.

Hopefully, yeah.

It is a critical one.

Critical.

Any other questions or comments at this point?

All right.

Just nailing it.

Wonderful.

Love the move away from your role more broadly as we still talk about these team-based solutions and focus on the other roles.

Your city manager, your auditor and clerk, and your city attorney.

You can see there I've got sort of an image of the Avengers behind the that text.

And that's because that really is what your charter officers are like.

I'll let you decide who is who.

Um maybe we do a sweepstak at the end.

But it's critical because there is sort of this Avengers assemble side to helping you folks be able to create the vision.

Your meetings, your day-to-day questions, your citizen code complaints that you bring to the city, all of those things happen when the three of us get together and say, okay, how does this work?

Right?

And sometimes we're figuring it out on the fly in battle, other times we've got a clear plan.

You know, the budget at this point, I'm sure, is while there's always hiccups a well-oiled machine, you know the calendar in February for what's happening in October.

That's the shield or the Avengers in action, right?

That's that's your manager, your auditor working hand in hand, asking the attorney, okay, what are the compliance requirements?

Can we have this meeting at three?

No, it needs to be at five, okay, great.

All of that is how is how that works together.

Let's talk a little bit more about their individual roles.

Let's start with one that you folks are very invested in at the moment, right?

Yeah, I know you've given considerable amount of time, both past and and last 24 hours, right, to the city manager.

So let's understand a little bit about what that role is, and maybe this informs as you go.

But your manager is, again, schoolhouse rocksing it, your executive branch of government, right?

The manager is appointed by a vote of at least four of you according to your charter, um, can be removed by three, uh, and is ultimately supervised by you, the commission as a charter officer.

Remember that org chart, those are the three that you are directly over most your most direct line is to the manager.

Um their powers and duties are enumerated in the charter under Article 5, and they appoint deputies and department heads on a day-to-day basis.

So, what does that mean?

Well, if they're appointing employees in an orb in an organizational corporation, they are like your CEO.

If you guys are the board of directors or board of trustees, this is your CEO, whomever is sitting in the seat.

And they translate policy into action.

Now, I mentioned the sports analogy on the front end.

I I partner with, though I'm not an employee of, I partner with the League of Cities on a lot of their education.

And years back, they had an educational flyer on city manager selection and city manager and understanding the role.

And what that flyer said was every coach needs a quarterback.

Your manager is your quarterback.

Day to day, they're calling options, they're running, they're throwing, they're figuring out where everything's going to go.

You folks are the coach, let your quarterback do their work.

Sometimes it's a little bit like Brett Favre, a little bit like Brady, they're scrambling, they just make it happen, and there's a Hail Mary.

Sometimes it's just a clear march down the field.

But either way, that's who's making the place.

Right?

You don't get to, as the coach run on the field and say, I'm taking the snap, you clearly don't know what I'm talking about.

This is what I mean.

Do it like this, right?

Maybe to take the to to torture this analogy, maybe there's a form of practice in that you folks meet one on one and you say, hey, when we had that meeting, I think what you what you understood me to say was this.

What I really want to see going forward is that, right?

But understand ultimately your manager, whomever that is, works with the city commission as a collective.

So you may be very, very explicitly clear with your manager, what I want to see is this.

When two more people agree with you, let me know.

Because when I'm talking to them, that's not what they want to see.

And at any given time, at any given time, you need three best friends, right?

Because that's what it takes to terminate that position.

And sometimes that is a calculus.

We say, I have three people.

I mean, that's how you govern by a majority most of the time, but also there's a small side of it that is saying, I need the buy-in, the support, the investment of at least three of you at any given time.

Um so that's who the manager answers to, and that may change issue to issue, agenda item to agenda item.

Um but on balance, they are working for the collective.

Now, um they're also working with city staff to develop and implement your vision.

And so they need to trust their staff and have the ability to supervise and direct their staff and know that when they're giving that guidance that it's consistent and and at the risk of spiking the football, um, make it very clear that somebody's not interfering with that, right?

Because if he if your manager, if inter manager bullet goes to the chief of police and says, this is our priority right now.

We're gonna focus on, I don't know, we're getting we're getting towards um we're getting towards the winter months, I want to pull a little bit back from the beaches, I want to focus more on this, and one of you comes and says, Listen, chief, I need a targeted patrol right on Beach Drive.

Um, you know, these these golf carts on the beaches are out of control, and this is what I want you addressing.

And I I'll be out there tonight and I expect to see at least two deputy cars on every street.

Right?

Well now the chief knows who the chief answers to in the department, but now you're creating administrative confusion and tension, which again then leads to what?

Erosion of the public trust.

Because if my department's being pulled in two ways, that means they're doing two things and effectively rather than one effectively, right?

And ultimately the chief may tell you, I'm not doing that, I have my marching orders, I'm moving off the beach.

But regardless, that's just helping you to understand where that dynamic comes from, right?

And we'll talk a little bit about more your city auditor and clerk and your city attorney.

Ultimately, we will look at often we'll look to you folks and say, yeah, you need more votes, I need three of you.

But if the manager calls me right now and says to do it, then I'm doing it.

Right?

Uh when I when I've talked about an organizational chart as it relates to municipal government, I've always said the manager and the attorney and the clerk, wherever we are, charter officers all exist on a level playing field.

I would just put the manager one almost imperceptible degree up from us, right?

With a line that goes outward because since they are out there on the field and since they're doing the day-to-day work, they need to have the ability to go to all the moving parts of the city and say, move.

We need to move in this direction.

This is the vision, this is what I'm needing, this is the problem I'm solving.

I need your assistance to get the site plan together, to make sure we have that hearing ready, to have the agenda prepared in the way that we need it done.

And so we all, that's that Avengers assemble ability.

I guess if I had to say your manager's kind of like Cap, right?

They're Captain America and they have a little bit more of that visual buy-in to say this is the direction we're going in.

Um questions on the role of the city manager as it relates to everything.

Yes, ma'am.

Um one of your slides, one of your slides said that the city manager has the authority to appoint deputies and department heads.

Yes, ma'am.

We have one deputy.

Is it the city manager's authority to appoint another one or two or however many deputies if the city manager thinks that's appropriate?

Excellent question, first and foremost, as it relates to all of this, whatever Joe says.

Um but also beyond whatever Joe and his team say, I think part of it is how you're defining the term deputy, right?

Some people take a very literal term of that, and I know this isn't how you're using it, but they'll think of like, oh, a sheriff's deputy.

Um that's not how I mean it, nor how you meant it in your question.

You have a deputy clerk, for example.

Um, but the also as you see on the clerk, the clerk has the ability to appoint deputies within her own office.

Um I would say that's more has to do more about the ability to delegate and the ability to assign work and create the positions needed to do work.

And whether that takes the form of somebody with the specific title of deputy manager or deputy department head, solid waste director, is sort of a a a separate issue that I would look to, you know, what is your budget allocation for those things and all those other things.

I think the bigger takeaway from that is less about the the specific word there and more capturing the ability to delegate and assign.

Does that make sense?

Good attorney talking.

I would say yes, they do.

Yes, I think is what you meant.

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer, it depends.

Yeah, just to jump in on that locally, yes, uh the ICM could.

It could involve a budget amendment and a TO amendment, which would come back to the right.

And I have one more question.

Um so we talked about how important the number three is when you have a five-person commission.

Um ideas that we have or ideas that the city manager has get discussed during one-on-ones with the city manager.

Um, I could see a city manager saying, Oh, I had this discussion with this commissioner and this one with another one.

I got three people who support that.

Even though we haven't talked about it at a city commission meeting, the right thing to do then would be for the city manager to bring it up for discussion at a meeting before going forward.

That's a question.

Oh, that's information to me now.

Okay.

Um in so much as it's a question.

Uh yes.

Um it the we'll talk a little bit about sunshine law, and one of the clear clear uh elements of the open meetings law is that you cannot do indirectly that which you cannot do directly.

Um so uh take it outside of the manager.

No one person should be going commissioner to commissioner and saying, well, um, you know, Commissioner Badis said this, Commissioner Trice said this, where do you sit?

That's not how the this system is set up under Florida law.

That said, there is nothing wrong legally with any member of staff meeting with members individually.

What you do is you keep your cards close and you say, hey, I'm meeting with each of you because, let's say, for example, just make it very abstract.

Uh we're developing the budget for 20 fiscal year 26-27.

We're already getting started.

We're thinking about diversifying into crypto coins as an asset of the city.

And before I do all the work and I have Joe and his crackerjack team research our you know, before I do any of that, I want to know is that a direction you want to go in?

Because I don't want to spend a bunch of time going on something you're not interested in.

So I'm going to meet with each of you individually.

Commissioner Batty, what are your thoughts?

Tries and one of you says, like, well, I could I could kind of go both ways.

You know, I I'm I I'm torn on it.

You know, well, what what are the other ones thinking?

What I and I've been in meetings like that, not about crypto coins.

And I say it's like, well, what they're thinking is not unemplo is not important for the purposes of this discussion, nor would I tell you.

I'm asking what you think, and then I'm going to take that and I'll present it.

And maybe I get a clear number.

Maybe I get left with two, two and a maybe, and I say, okay, I had enough, the discussions were fruitful enough I thought that this warranted a public discussion, not because of transparency, but because you only had one person presenting information.

Once you had the opportunity to discuss, maybe that takes a different form.

So there's nothing wrong with meeting.

I I want to hit two points here.

Um my kids hate me for always saying two things can be true, but it settles most of their fights.

Um be true.

Yes, your manager can legally meet with you individually, or any member of staff can meet with each of you individually to discuss policy, goals, vision.

That said, when doing so, that should be an individual discussion and thoughts, musings, insights into what any one of the other four are saying is not a topic of discussion.

And I find that to be true.

Awesome.

Um and then um-on-one discussions, the only time we can talk to each other is during a meeting, a duly called meeting.

And so by the end of the meeting, everybody's tired, but that's when commissioners bring up new ideas.

Well, and we can talk about how that works when we get to the discussion on the flow of the meeting and your rules of procedure and and your roles on that.

It's a salient point.

Um I think uh, you know, a corollary point is I believe there's hot team coffee in the back if you're ever feeling that.

Um but no, but you but you're right, and and I'll touch on that I think a little later as far as as we in terms of flow.

Thank you.

Um but getting to back to the roles, so that that covers the role of the of the manager.

Now we're going to turn to your city clerk and auditor.

Now, in many cities, the clerk is often confused with administrative support.

They're they're the secretary, um I mean the clerk.

I'm gonna really like you.

Um but they have the your your clerks, your clerk's office has a broad array of responsibilities, and I have the Swiss Army knife there because it's a very interesting thing.

And and and again, uh as attorneys we focus on the words and what you have in your code.

I encourage you after this, um, before you get to trying to fall asleep with chapter 112, crack your charter for a moment.

Look at the powers and duties of your manager, look at the powers and duties of your attorney, and then look at the powers and duties of your clerk.

Um the enumerated powers and duties, this is not all of them.

Um but these are the ones that your charter identifies.

And it's um it's really really interesting.

So again, same the same is true for all your charter officers, appointed by a vote of four, removed by a vote of three, supervised by you directly.

Um your clerk has the ability to appoint deputies, um uh deputy clerks most specifically, or deputies within their office.

They appoint, remove discipline and administer the compensation and salaries for employees in the clerk's office.

Obviously, you folks approve a budget, but in terms of from an administrative standpoint, your clerk is principally responsible for the budget for his or her department.

Um then I I I tried to break out like powers from duties in terms of the two columns.

And and let's take a moment on that.

The very obvious one we're all familiar with prepares the agendas, coordinates the logistics.

When I reached out to Joe or Joe reached out to me and we started coordinating this, we knew nothing was happening until Sheila and Laurie were on the call, right?

Um before that it was just vision.

They're gonna get us the room, they're gonna get make sure coordinate your calendars and all of that and prepare the materials.

Um by the way, the fact that you did not have printed materials was because of me, not because of Sheila.

Asked me like a week and a half ago, and I said, I find it's better if we start from the digital and then it's all available at the end.

Um they are the custodian of official records, which is a tremendous responsibility in terms of public records law.

Um, a whole separate presentation that I could do another day.

Um transcription of city commission meeting minutes, very important role, right?

Capturing what happened any given day.

Um it's I I joke um in other contexts that your your minutes are kind of like that 90 sitcom, your permanent record.

This might be the closest thing that actually exists of to a record of what happened.

Um administration of pensions, administration of elections, huge role, especially in 2025 and six.

Um maintain records of city assets, financial reviews, uh per your rules of procedure, they serve as the parliamentarian, and then other duties as assigned, which is actually where most of the work happens.

Um other duties as assigned on top of all those other things.

Um I go through that list to show you it is undoubtedly an administrative role, um, as are the other two charter officers.

But it is very much the making it happen, right?

Of i if if the manager is is the quarterback, I would say the clerk is the wide receiver, tight end, D VAC, right?

Um the attorney's more like the kicker.

Uh we just kind of come in at the end.

Nobody can touch us and it's fine.

Um, punt, there you go.

And that's and that's our best move.

What's the answer?

Punt.

Um but that is the role of the of the city clerk and auditor, and again, found in in Article 6 of your charter, but I think again, really important to understand that most especially as it relates to your city business.

The thing that distinguishes your corporation from every other corporation is first, not every other corporation has to be concerned with the public trust.

And oftentimes you will hear, especially in 2025, we're aware of the public trust and we're sensitive to those concerns.

But we have to be concerned with shareholder derivatives, right?

You don't worry about shareholder dividends.

Your shareholder dividends are are the streets clean, the lights on, and everything else, right?

Um and so that's one core way that it's different.

The second is everything you do is public record and open to public scrutiny, right?

And there's one person who's principally responsible when people ask whether they're asking for body cam footage or minutes, the clerk is the one who's making that happen.

Um again, maybe delegating to another department, um, but that's a very, very important role and a very big distinction from your average corporation when we talk about context and how all of this fits together.

Um before I move on to the city attorney's role, I I think it's prudent to just take a pause.

Any questions on on that role, how it fits or any of those duties?

No, but I will say I'm gonna make a compliment.

I think we have been told by many media outlets that we had the best records response in probably the state of Florida.

So, you know, I know a lot of people don't understand the work that goes behind it.

I don't think people understand how many records requests we get a day.

Yep.

That are filled, but to get that compliment by media outlets is huge because they deal with a lot of municipalities and counties and to get that and and when they look to us to see how we do our records management.

I think that says a lot.

And I know it's true by the number of Florida man articles I read about Sarasota.

Anytime I take about any anytime I see a city with Florida man stories, I know that's a city doing its job.

Because that only happens because somebody made a records request to the city and the city promptly provided that information.

And so it's in in another ver in my public records presentation, I often say that the origin story for the greatest superhero, Florida man, is chapter one nineteen of the public records law.

But you know, that's a tremendous compliment to you to your team and and and your values here in terms of how you the resources you put behind that in the time.

Commissioner Koch.

Yes.

Um the the powers and the duties that you listed here, is that standard across the state or the country, or do each municipality have their own list of powers and duties that they add to or take away?

Excellent question.

Um I can't speak to the country.

Um I'm I practice in the state of Florida, so I'll keep it there.

Um of those are standard, many of them are, right?

Custodian of records, prep preparation of agenda, transcription of minutes, uh administration of elections, um, all of those are pretty standard.

Um yours are more expansive, you note just by your title, you have a city auditor and clerk, not a city clerk, right?

Um, which is a difference.

Some cities have finite departments of finance that are not a charter official.

Um that's that's one difference in some cities, and we'll touch on this as we get to parliamentary procedure.

Um the parliamentarian might be one in the same in terms of the presiding officer, maybe the city attorney.

Um in many of my cities I've been designated as such.

Um that is something that varies city to city, but that's also, while we still have home rule, one of the beauties of it all, right, is that we all get to run our cities in the ways that work best for us.

Uh you folks have the fantastic privilege of having the resources to have a well-staffed uh not just city auditor and clerk's office, but all your offices.

I've recently, as I mentioned, um started working in a city that's 50,000 residents, 500 plus staff.

Up until this point, I've worked in cities where my staff was 12 people or less.

And so even though your clerk was not your auditor, your clerk was kind of your auditor because they'd say, well, you're the keeper of all the records, those are money records, make sure they get to our you know contracted CPA or whomever, but ultimately you're gonna have to sign off on them.

Um so there are ways where sometimes it's not explicit, it's in that other duties as assigned.

Uh but yeah, city to city subject to what's charter language versus administrative language, a resolution or something.

Those can and do change.

Okay, thank you.

I I d I don't love the word that you said about while we still have home rulings if it's gonna go away.

I'm a bit of a cynic.

Thank you.

Uh I'm I'm sorry.

I I also wanted to mention that you uh our city auditor and clerk does pensions as well.

That wasn't in the it has administration of pensions on there.

Okay, okay.

Okay, I didn't say which is a very unique role as well.

That is not that is not common to your clerk at all.

Um it's not inherent, I should say, in in the clerk's office.

That's that's not to say there aren't ones who do it, but that administration is beyond the record keeping of it is is unique to your city.

And our auditor and clerk also does the responsible for all the you know the meetings and the projections and the videos and the and the category, you know, posting it online and I mean you could have entire college programs that are just students making these things happen and that you have um you know your your at any given time, and I I think that's a really good point to make though is let's take that we're sitting right here.

We're sitting here with an agenda where things are being transcribed.

If we're in the meeting, she's simultaneously or her team is simultaneously coordinating the next minutes based on what you do, you know, calling the role, making sure that the buttons you press or everything else is working, it's a lot.

Um so I you know, I i sh I promise she did not put me up to this.

I just say that to say when we talk about the roles, it's it's helpful because that context is often lost.

When we talk about public records requests, often people assume, well, that we're a city of X amount, I can kind of forecast what those are.

But those records requests come from Washington, D.C., Washington State, internationally.

There's an entire cottage industry of people who find states that have public records laws and say, okay, I'm going to be the middleman on Industry X.

Yes, Muni Code has all our codes available.

However, if I'm a pool builder, I don't want to go all over Municode.

I want to go to the pool builder database.

Pool builder database just makes public records requests.

They're based in Ohio or Michigan or Iowa.

They request all of them, put them into a simple database, just monetizing public records, and say, do you want to go through Muni code or do you want to pay me a subscription service as a pool builder?

And they get those all day long, right?

Vendor lists, all those kinds of things.

And so it's it's not just your immediate community.

And I just have to note there that her the way she executes her job makes my job a lot easier.

Public records, meetings, notices, those are all critical functions that can end up back in the attorney's office and don't here.

We don't want to do that either.

To that end, that that that really highlights the Avenger side of this, right?

That Joe even feels compelled to say, like, she makes my job easier.

And I can tell you the difference from a city attorney's side on working with an effective clerk or an ineffective clerk is huge.

Um so with that, let's turn to the city attorney.

Um the city attorney is in Article 7 of the Charter.

Uh we're gonna have a whole Kumbaya thing at the end of the day.

Um, a point there, we're still trying to do it.

We're trying to decide who's which Avenger.

Oh, right, no.

So they're appointed and removed by the commission, similar votes.

Um they are the city attorney is the chief legal advisor to the to you, but as well to the city manager, clerks, city departments, offices, and agencies.

Your attorney is asked questions about things they never once thought they would think about at all.

Um, you know, and what kind of notice do we have to provide before we repay the street?

I don't know, man, just get the street done.

Um that's not legal advice.

Uh they're a public official.

Um and as uh a public official, in as much as they're they're holding this office and subject not only to statutory code of ethics uh as in as a s as a city attorney under chapter 112, um, but they're also subject to the Florida Bar, um, which is a very interesting added tier of in terms of ethical obligations, disclosure obligations, right?

I was um at the presentation this past weekend with um Commissioner uh Kelly Ulrich and explaining that you know there was a community that I was involved in uh that was in litigation, and every two months or so it seemed, it's not really the number, but we would get the settlement offer.

And each one, the community, writ large the community, was very much against settling this.

They wanted to see it pursued.

And every time I brought forward, hey, we've received a settlement offer that looks like X, let's say last time I'm just making up numbers.

Last time they're offering fifty thousand dollars, now they'll settle for 45.

Okay, we're back now.

I'm back with a new settlement offer, it's 45 and an apology or something, right?

The commit again, the community would be like, why do you keep doing this?

Why are you afraid of fighting?

Well, no, under Florida Bar, I have an ethical obligation to make my client aware that uh we're getting settlement offers.

And unless you've given me clear authority that it's nothing, it's no unless it's this, which at that time I didn't have, then I'm I'm going to present it to you.

And again, to your point earlier, the only time I can get your guidance is in a public meeting or a shade um session, which we'll talk about briefly.

Um but ultimately it's from you.

I'm not gonna make again, we don't make decisions.

So I'm not gonna say, oh, we reject that offer.

It's not what I think my client would want, unless I have some clear insight that that's what my client would want.

Um so absent illegal or ethical conflict, they generally act at the direction of the majority of the elected body uh and in concert with fellow charter officers.

I think that's important to say in terms of the absent legal or ethical conflict.

Obviously your city attorney, whomever they may be, is not going to actively break the law, um, but also that they act at a direction of the majority.

Um we've talked about this in the context of the manager.

The same is true here.

I've had commissioners come to me and say, I want a memo on golf carts and low speed vehicles and the ability to do this in our city.

And say that's sounds really interesting.

Sounds like a good amount of work.

Happy to do it.

Sounds fascinating.

I just want to make sure before I write some five to 15-page memo that that's what you guys want me doing.

So let's bring that up at a public meeting.

Um the attorney-client relationship is generally with the elected body, um, which is to say Joe works for the commission, which is this legal fiction that it exists as some you know being, but he does he and his team or whomever is in that seat, doesn't work for any one of you.

He is not your personal attorney.

Um, in fact, part of a different conversation another day, were you to have personal legal issues, Joe will probably tell you, your city attorney, whomever they may be, will tell you.

That sounds like a challenge.

I hope you figure it out.

Um you should get legal counsel, right?

Um, they are not your automatic defense counsel um if you are subject to litigation, whether that be in the form of an ethics complaint or some other that's not to say they can't be.

I'm just saying it's not automatic.

Um there are there are circumstances where that might be appropriate based on statutory guideline, common law guidance, um sort of it's a pivot all its own, but I just want to say it's not an entitlement with the office that you somehow have, you know, an attorney on call to meet your every need.

Um I was joking at the conference I was at recently.

I I when I was early in my career, I I one of my colleagues, I was shadowing at a meeting, and at the end of the meeting, somebody came up to them and said, So I want to talk to you about something, a member of the public, and said, Okay.

I was like, well, see, my old lady, she passed, and we got my dad, he's out in this other state, and then we got this tough situation, and we're we're dealing with like, okay, I'm sorry, how is this connected to the city?

It's like, well, you're the city attorney.

I pay taxes in the city, I need a will, is where this is going.

So you're gonna do my will, right?

And you're like, well, that's not how this works.

Not only do I not have that competency, like that's not how this works, right?

That's not the role of the city attorney.

Um while in some settings, conversations with individual commissioners or members of staff might be privileged, um, there's no you should never assume that you're having an attorney-client conversation or exchange with your city attorney.

Um, owing to what we've talked about in terms of especially of the public records law.

Um, again, with the giant asterisk, it depends on the circumstances.

Are you in active litigation?

Are you in threatened litigation?

Are you talking about union negotiations?

There's all these other pardon me exceptions or or carve-outs.

Uh, but if you just come to your city attorney and or better yet, send an email to your city attorney and say, you know, city attorney, this is how I feel about this, this, and this, and I would really love to see, you know, that never hire Randy again.

By the way, this is confidential.

No, it's not.

I love those from our residents.

Please, you know, I wish to remain anonymous, signed.

My name, home address, phone number, and like it's a wish, not all wishes can be granted.

Um but understanding again um the role of the city attorney is um multifaceted.

I was, you know, Joe and I were commiserating at the outset of our meeting when you work in a large city, how how challenging that can be because you start your meeting in the morning with the land development team talking about live local and redevelopment and rezonings, then you get pulled into the fire department, you're talking about pensions and securities and purchasing and procurement, and then you get pulled into, and then you and then you and then you and none of those are the same thing.

Um it is, you know, what i it is I'm not suggesting that what we do is impossibly hard, or this is not rocket science per se, or brain surgery is to use all the cliches.

But it is a very specialized area of the law.

Not all lawyers do this.

I would not go, you know, I would not go figure out the debt tranches for a meta or or Google tomorrow any sooner than I would ask one of them to sit at a public meeting and be fully mindful of all of the compliance and legal requirements at the state level.

Um it is a specialized area of the law, and one of the things that makes the ability to do this possible is when you can turn to your fellow avengers, say, get me back up, right?

Um if I if I've if we're talking through, hey, do our minutes need to say this, or hey, what kind of notice do we do?

I'll start with like I'm not aware of a statute.

Why don't you call the other clerks in the county, ask what they do, and then I'll figure out if what they're doing is right in the first place.

Um and we'll go from there.

But it'll give us something to work with, right?

And so um ultimately, though, the important part again is you folks are setting the policy.

We are the the wheels and and cogs by which that policy cranks out and gets made and happens, uh, bring is brought into action and brought to life.

And from that, um we get to ultimately where you folks do your business in public meetings.

So that'll be the next topic we cover.

But before we move on from our idea of team-based solutions, any questions from any of you?

Or comments, musings you can't control.

All right.

The one thing I'd like to add, um, you know, it and this is occasionally I'll get on a on a soapbox, and and this is the one I'd like to add, is um this when I when I start on team-based solutions, I want to make clear what I'm saying is you don't all have to be rowing in the same with the same destination in mind, but we do generally have to be rowing in a similar direction to have a team-based approach.

That is not to say you shouldn't have a voice of dissent.

In fact, I encourage it, you get a better work product when someone says, let's slow down, is this really what we want to do?

Or I'm not so sure this is the right reason, and here's why.

Well, maybe we mitigate uh against that risk just by virtue of the fact that you raised it.

Um I had a very strange interaction in one of my communities where I mentioned something along team-based service, and in um you'll have to forgive me, what I considered perhaps the most boomer response possible.

Somebody immediately was like, Well, I'm an individual.

I'm an individual, I am not part of a team.

I didn't come here to be part of your utopia and sign over my own intellect.

I was like, no, you're a rugged, wonderful individual, uh, you are special in every way.

Um sure, sure, sure.

When I say team-based approach, I don't mean, you know, surrender your right your individuality at the door.

Your individuality is what makes the city great.

Your individuality is what made you stand out from some competitor, whether you were being elected or appointed for a vacancy, regardless, your individuality is what leads to a better product.

Now let's harness that and recognize we're moving together.

Um it's sort of uh part and parcel to the civility discussion that we often have when we talk about how the public approaches us.

But when we talk about the public trust and we talk about how our meetings are conducted, part of that isn't how we respect and treat one another and how we disagree without being disagreeable, uh, and all those cliches.

But the idea of team based service, I want to be very clear, is not a clarion call to abandon your individuality and and your and your autonomy, your agency in this process, but rather to serve that public trust which is beyond you.

Um, than what your own individual thought might want in that moment time to time.

We're going to transition.

Um before we do, uh, the roadmap that I had at the beginning, we've covered the ethical guidelines, we've covered team-based solutions and service.

Um we'll next be going to uh public meetings and then on to parliamentary procedure.

But before we do that, I think it's a a good moment to take a break here.

Uh get some water, do whatever you gotta do, and let's see.

It's uh ten fifty eight, come back eleven oh five or so.

Eleven ten.

I I think probably found in the other.

There we go.

All right.

All right.

It's eleven ten and or eleven eleven now.

And so the uh City Commission workshop for October 14th, twenty twenty five is back in session.

Thank you, Commissioners.

Uh, where we left off, we just uh I I believe firmly in telling you where we're going, where we are, and what we've done.

So in terms of our roadmap, we've we've covered the ethical guidelines.

We've talked about team-based solutions and service and the the context of your role as it relates to the charter officers.

Um thing I f I meant to mention as a city attorney, just because I I think it's interesting comes up noting that this is a a work session, is that you know, uh they work at the pleasure and for the commission department heads, manager, et cetera.

Um and I I joked about the will thing, but one thing that's very interesting that comes up is sometimes you'll get the public contacting you directly as city attorney and say, what is your take on this issue?

Or I think the, you know, Commissioner Mora has done this untoward thing, and I need you to investigate this.

And that's not our role.

Um our role does not extend to, you know, the pup while we serve the public trust as well.

Um the role of a city attorney is combined, you're like, we're on Team City.

I work for the city.

Um and so if you're telling me you think the city's done something wrong, I'm ultimately probably gonna be defending the city on that end.

But also I don't, as whether I've been in large communities or small, I'm not in the habit of taking citizen calls one, because the cost to my client if I entertained every single call that would come with that kind of practice.

Um but also again, I'm not clear that the issue is an issue for the city to address.

Oftentimes it's not, right?

It's I'm calling because my neighbors done this and their fence is on my line and you guys permitted this.

It's like, sounds like you have a property boundary dispute.

That's a private issue, not a city issue.

Um but anyhow.

As we talk about how all those things fit together, that leads to where we are now, public meetings, um, and where we talk about where where you're where most of the work happens for you folks as commissioners.

Um and so as we talk about that and in terms of public meetings, I'm gonna focus on the foundation, um, something that each of you should have seen in your um annual trainings that you've gone through to this point, but we'll start with the sunshine law.

Um the sunshine law is not, as many people think, just great branding for the sunshine state.

Um it actually has its roots in legal doctrines.

One of our one of our great um legal minds, uh Justice Brandeis, um, before he was Justice Brandeis in the late 1800s, wrote in a letter to his fiance, if the broad day of light, if if the broad light of day could be let in upon men's actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.

Um I I saw a collective swoon from the women in the room, I'm sure that was very romantic.

Um but it was on the duty of publicity, and he was sort of kicking around this idea, and then some um nearly twenty years later, in another um publication in in in the in Harper's Weekly, um he wrote a um essay called On Publicity and What Publicity Can Do.

And he said, Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases.

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants, electric light the most efficient policeman.

Um that is not publicity in the form of social media influencers, it was publicity in the idea of making things open to the public inherently changes how they are and takes away often the corruption.

That is uh one of the the image you see of the robber baron looking type is from that essay.

And and the idea was the sunlight disinfects against corruption, and that's where the sunshine law comes from.

Let the sun shine on men's affairs and the affairs of our government.

And so we see, as I've told you before, we'll look to our constitution.

In our constitution, all meetings of a municipality at which public business of such body is to be transacted or discussed shall be opened in notice to the public.

And that is a uh a command from our our constitution, it's a duty, a calling, and that this is how things should go.

So earlier, um, when Commissioner Kelly Olwork was mentioning um, you know, we can't talk to each other, that's mostly true.

It's you can't talk to each other about city business.

Um if you folks want to snipe at each other about college football season, have a blast, right?

Um uh the moment you start talking about city business is where you get the challenge, because all on and any meeting of your municipality at which public business of that body is to be transacted or discussed shall be open.

Um and and you'll see in the interpretation that the way that that's administered, it means any two of you or any two of your other boards.

This applies to your planning and zoning board, your you know, official friends of the library board that your city has created, not citizen groups.

Um and one of the reason I pause on that for a moment is um I I I admit that I don't know all of your bios.

Um, but often with some of our newer commissioners, newer to local government, they'll say, you know, where the deficit is in this city is community engagement.

We need more community engagement.

We have people who are passionate, but we're not harnessing that.

And so we need to create more boards and committees for people to be a part of.

And while intrinsically that makes sense, the challenge with that is once you create that board by ordinance or resolution, that board is subject to the sunshine law, the public records law, chapter 112 ethics, all those things.

And so, for example, the topic de jour in many communities is pickleball, right?

Pickleball growth, pickleball stadiums, partnerships, all this stuff.

And so let's say you take your five most passionate members in Sarasota about pickleball.

I'm sure they would love to have a tournament on who would be those five, right?

But you take your five and you put them on a committee to talk about pickleball in the city of Sarasota, guess what they can't do anymore?

Talk about pickleball in the city of Sarasota unless they're at a public meeting, right?

And so there's nothing that prevents those people from getting together on a Friday night and submitting a report to you some other time or coming to a meeting and saying, hey, we're the ten people who care the most and we want you to hear from each one of us.

Each one of us has prepped a topic.

We're gonna talk about safety, we're gonna talk about lighting, we're gonna talk about noise mitigation.

Great.

And they can all use their three minutes or request a special presentation if if that's appropriate based on how your rules work in your community works.

But just a point to mention, a little a little detour, and one one of the reasons we talk about maybe doing this in front of your other appointed and subordinate boards, is helping you understand that applies to all of them.

I had this issue with a community that had an arts and culture board and it's a Florida community.

Three of the commissioners were snowbirds.

And they said, hey, so like we're all going to go back to New England for the for the summer.

What if the three of us met and did a tour of the municipal arts in, you know, we do a Vermont, New England, we do a whole tour, take notes, and it's like, uh no.

Right?

Um it's one thing, like, we're doing it very clearly, we're gonna take notes for the city, we're gonna report out for the city.

It's very different than just like, hey, I'm gonna go find some stuff out.

So do it together and talk about it while it's happening and how it could work with the city.

So what we see that translated to is actual policy.

This comes directly from chapter 286.

Uh all meetings of any border commission at which official acts are to be taken are declared to be public meetings open to the public at all times.

Um and then more to the point directly from your charter, all meetings of the city commission shall be public as provided by state statute, and any person shall have access to minutes and records at reasonable times.

Um that's the sunshine law distilled to one sentence in your charter.

Right?

Um so we see that time and again, the law is nothing if not redundant.

Um but that that notion is there.

And so how have the courts interpreted this?

Well, in terms of how this gets administered on the legal side, um, the courts have said the obvious intent was to cover any gathering of the members uh with some matter on which foreseeable action will be taken by the board.

I want to pause on that before I get to the other ones.

Um this often presents a challenge for commissioners in terms of the conceptualizing it, because you go from, well, let's say we're voting on I don't know, uh a short-term rental ordinance today, and it passes on second reading today.

Say, oh, well, that can't come before us, we just did it, it's done.

Now we can talk about it all we want.

No.

Right now we have an ordinance in place that's gonna get enforced, it may be challenged.

Um we may have an election in two months, three of us change out, and now we're undoing the ordinance we just passed.

So you never know what's coming back.

Um assume you are, and I think it's an an appropriate uh metaphor given the time of year and the job.

Assume you are in a scary movie.

The killer just keeps waking up.

Um, right?

No issue is ever truly settled in municipal business.

Um it just keeps getting resuscitated, and like a Phoenix that will rise when you least suspect it.

Um so the idea of what may foreseeably come, foreseeable is the broadest definition of that word, not just, oh, well, I thought we built the movie theater so we could talk about movie theaters.

We don't know.

Um and especially as it relates to land development, maybe this project's done, you don't know if that developer will have a new project tomorrow that you'll be on, and you don't want that, you know, that being said, like, oh, they met afterwards to discuss as prelude to.

Like, no, I had no idea.

Um next is that the statute should be construed so as to frustrate all evasive devices, uh, which is very flowery word from 50 years ago that basically means if you think you found a way around the sunshine law, I would like to congratulate you on finding a way that you have likely violated the sunshine law.

Um there is no working around it.

Um, you know, you can't do indirectly what you couldn't do directly.

Um and it's not just meeting with a city official.

Um, you know, examples I've heard oh, well, we didn't talk.

I just I left a napkin in his mailbox, and then he put a sticky note on my door, or well, I talked to his kid and his kid talked to my kid, but we never talked.

It's not it all counts.

Um to put it more to the point in 2025, um, whether you're using Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Nextdoor, LinkedIn, DMing each other on the slide on God knows what platform, it all counts if it's about public business.

Um there is no end around through digital services or direct in-person services, um, excuse me.

We saw a bit of a a backslide uh during COVID when people got so accustomed to remote communication that they forgot it counts.

Right?

It all counts.

A Zoom meeting, um, no matter how much you're dissociating, you are still technically connected to somebody, and we're what we're concerned about is the meeting of the minds, right?

Um and the last, we note that the sunshine law was enacted to protect the public from closed door politics, and the law must be broadly construed to affect its remedial and protective purposes.

And so when you work with your city attorney and you have issues, as as you guys have had in the last six months, where you get a really intensive analysis of an issue relating to the sunshine law, that's because you're looking at, okay, this is the mandate, let's make sure we're preserving this idea of broad protection while still harmonizing it with all the other legal guidance we have, right?

And so that's sort of the the and and you'll see each of these cases are are much, much older cases, but the problem the the premises behind them still remain good law and the most succinct distillation of what the the sunshine law is.

In the last um three to five years, there was a very notable case out of a city in Florida where a commission post well in the midst of early COVID, if you will, April 2020, um they had noticed a meeting, and the commit and the manager looking around at the world around them said, okay, well, the NHL's canceling games and the NBA's canceling games.

Maybe we need to cancel a meeting.

And the manager can't cancel the meeting.

And a few of the commissioners said, like, fun, you're canceling my meeting.

We'll call the meeting, and they go into City Hall when it's all, you know, only floodlights, they brought in twelve or so of their supporters, and they had a meeting with three of the commissioners, anyways, for that notice time.

Uh they decided to fire all the charter officers, declared, I think they declared one of themselves to be mayor.

Um it was fascinating.

Um you can watch it on YouTube.

Um, and uh the best part I think of the meeting is if you watch it, you can hear somebody say, hurry, the cops are coming.

Um auspicious start.

Um but ultimately um those three commissioners were found to have not just committed civil infractions, but criminal violations of the law um for the way that they met in violation of the sunshine.

And they argued, well, it is a public meeting, it had already been noticed, even though the manager had canceled it.

We said it was still happening.

It was at City Hall, there were people in the public there, there were like a dozen of them, and then one of us agreed to take the minutes.

So what's wrong with that?

In fact, one of those people sat through my training on the Sunshine Law and said, Randy said I could do this.

Uh Randy did not say you could do this.

Um But I the reason I bring up that example, ultimately, just if you're into it, um the commissioners were recalled.

It was the first that I'm aware of successful recall petition in the state, and to my knowledge, the only successful recall petition that removed a majority of the council.

Um they removed three of the five members, and then there were in the criminal prosecutions, um, one of them was not criminally prosecuted.

I believe they turned states' evidence.

I don't know that specifically.

Um the remaining two uh were prosecuted.

And the reason I bring that up is I said these are older cases.

They challenged those criminal um convictions, and on appeal they were affirmed.

And there was one judge who wrote a dissenting opinion or concurring opinion.

And usually when you write a concurring opinion, what you're saying is, I agree with the end result, I just would have come at it a different way, and this is my way, and I want it to be documented.

There was this other way to solve the same problem.

And the just started out, uh, while I recognize as a concurring opinion, I agree with everything they said.

I'm writing this because I don't think public officials are taking this seriously enough.

And when you violate the sunshine law, you need to know that every single deed you do to make that happen is its own separate violation.

They were prosecuted for obstruction of justice, perjury, everything.

And and several violations because they met you know online before they met in person and all that stuff.

But the real thing that I that I loved about the opinion is it it it ended in, and I'll send the opinion to Joe after today.

It ended with um seven uh rules that commissioners should go by.

And one of them, well, the the my favorite one was if ever you are in doubt that you are at a legitimately held public meeting, dot dot dot, or comma or m-dash, all caps, leave.

Leave.

That's your calling.

If you're not good with the pro with the process, then don't be a part of that process.

Um and just I say that again to remind you, we talked earlier about your own agency and your individuality.

Um don't fall victim to the group thing thing.

If you're sitting in a room and like, oh, well, this is a work session, but we've locked all the doors, we told nobody this was happening.

Like, okay, on what basis are we doing that?

Oh, just trust us, it's good.

You know, uh don't ever turn off your brain that way.

Um not that you would, but again, just a word of caution.

So a takeaway in terms of the rule of thumb when you're looking at the sunshine law, it applies to any meeting where two or more members of the same board or council um are meeting if that interaction includes matters that could reasonably be expected to come before that body.

So as it relates to your subordinate ancillary-appointed boards, it really their powers and duties are critical in in making that analysis.

If you have a citizen's advisory board that can do anything the commission does, only they don't bind, they advise, well then their limit is as broad as yours.

If your limit is just the marina, well, they can talk about pickleball and golf all-long day as long as they're not talking about doing it at the marina, right?

And so your powers and duties will always inform that analysis.

And again, you cannot do indirectly or through technology, that which you could not do uh directly.

Before I move on to a little bit more of the uh nuts and bolts of this, any other any questions on those base premises.

All right.

So we forge ahead.

So what does it take then if we understand that this is uh uh one of our chief callings in the ways we meet with one another, what makes for a proper public meeting?

Um, those things.

That's it.

We're done.

Uh no.

Um the first one is notice.

Um notice is a very big it depends factor.

Um notice at base has to be reasonable under the circumstances.

Um the reason we have that sort of broad that means nothing way to go, Mr.

Lawyer answer, is because the notice you need for we are going to rezone all our agricultural land to industrial versus there's a spaghetti fettuccine diddleini model going on in the Gulf and we need to implement emergency procedures are two very different kinds of notice.

One might be six minutes, when not quite, not quite that, but one might be six hours, right?

The other might be six months in terms of newspapers and ads, and um again, not quite that, but just to show that land use changes are much heightened compared to um you know something like that.

Um and then just your casual things.

Yeah, we decided to add, we were looking at the agenda, the agenda looked a little light next week, so we decided to add a presentation by you know this um some scouting organization.

Cool.

We don't need to tell, send postcards to every member of the community that we change the agenda that way.

Uh the next is the location, the location has to be at a place open to the public.

Um not that the public can go sometimes, but open to the public while you're meeting.

So if for some reason this building was faltering and somehow Whole Foods right down the street have the space to accommodate you.

Um when you're having your meeting there, if someone's trying to attend your meeting, Whole Foods needs to let everybody in, not like that guy in particular is persona non grata here, bad checks, whatever, whatever, we don't let them in.

Well, they're getting in at least to get to that meeting, right?

Um the next is the minutes, the minutes have to the minutes are an accounting of what has happened at the meeting.

Um they need to be prepared within a reasonable amount of time.

Um it varies in some communities, in some of your smaller communities, you have these boards, like your planning and zoning board, maybe meets three times a year.

And so you meet in September and they're like approving the minutes from February.

Fine.

We didn't have to have a special meeting to approve the meeting minutes in March.

They just got approved in September.

This is the next time we met.

Um then finally, um public participation, if applicable.

I'll talk a little bit about the if applicable later, but understand that the public has a reasonable opportunity to be heard before you take official acts.

Um, which leads me to my um my another one of my soapboxes, if you will, as we talk about all of this.

Um eighty-six of the open meetings law, there is no such thing as a workshop or work session.

I know I am here in the present with you as well at a workshop or work session.

Those are entirely creatures of local creation.

A work session is no different than any other public meeting in that under the law, it's a public meeting.

We noticed it, we're at a public place.

Some minutes will be taken.

It's not going to capture all the brilliant things I said today, but it'll say Randy gave a two-hour presentation, slide deck behind it or whatever, and we'll move on.

And those are that's that's a public meeting.

Now, in many communities, you have workshops or work sessions, and your local rules or your rules of procedure will say something like, no official acts shall be conducted at a work session, which is a nice fun way of saying we're just jamming, right?

It's it's a jam ban night.

We're gonna see where the night takes us.

We don't know if it's gonna end early or fast, we're just gonna kind of talk it through with no clear boundaries, and at most, the most direction we get is at the end of it, yes, Mr.

Attorney, I would like to see, in light of all of this, an ordinance on golf carts operating in our residential neighborhoods, right?

Um that's but that ordinance is still gonna go through public hearings, that's not the end of it at all.

It's just okay, now we've agreed that we want to go in this way.

And there's real value in in doing that for some communities.

Um from a commissioner standpoint, it's a little bit of like I I don't feel like I'm playing jeopardy.

I'm not gonna have to answer tonight and ring the buzzer.

I can just come in and knowing uh I could just we're gonna talk it through, the stakes are low.

Um but you know, the the other challenge there that you can run into is sort of an analysis paralysis uh with work sessions, sometimes one of the cuts against them is that it's um it's a little bit like if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.

So tonight we're gonna talk about paid parking, and you're like, cool, that means a lot of things, and we're a big city, and what is where is this going, right?

Um and so at le it can create an amorphous discussion, but for a board that can only do its business once, twice, maybe three times a month, there is something, there is something nice to saying one mo one meeting a month or two meetings a month, we have signaled to the public.

Don't worry, if you're only worried about showing up when decisions get made, you're gonna show up, right?

Um, because no decisions are getting made tonight.

Or if you want to be a part of a very spirited discussion, tonight's the night to come.

This is when we're gonna do the heavy lifting, right?

Um But I I just want to put an exclamation point on the fact that there is no difference under the law.

Under the law, they're just both public meetings.

It comes down to your own rules on what that means.

And when I mentioned the public comment side of it, remember that the public has an opportunity to be heard within reasonable proximity before you take official acts.

Well, if you've signaled you have a special kind of meeting where you take no official acts, there's at least a legal argument that no public comment is required during that meeting.

Because whether we create an ordinance or not, ultimately the ordinance will go to public hearing and have public comment.

That said, from a practical standpoint, you have told your public you're going to have a work session where you talk through an issue and then you invite the pitchforks and torches and they're like, they're here, they're sharpened they're lit, and then you're telling me you don't get to talk.

And so that's a community by community thing.

When I talk uh, you know, when I talk about our role as city attorneys, I often say, and and uh Commissioner Kelly Ulrich he heard me say this over the weekend.

The our job is risk tall is is just risk management.

We tell you here be dragons, right?

Legally, you don't need it.

Under the law, reasonable proximity, you wouldn't need public comment.

Now, practically, you folks, individually and then somehow collectively define the risk tolerance.

So I tell you here be dragons, some of you wish to slay dragons, some of you are afraid and want to get off the map and maybe vacate office if there's dragons involved.

I did not sign up for dragons, I signed up for ribbon cuttings.

Um it's a totally different thing.

And so um ultimately when we talk about things, you know, or when you ask questions of your city attorney, sometimes you get the like, well, this is all we have to do.

And that's a hard answer for some people.

The answer is no.

The answer is legally, we have nothing left to do, we are done.

But I want to make this person happy.

Well, that's a different calculus, right?

Um so how you conduct your meetings, there's a little bit when we get into your rules of procedure and public process on that's on you as policymakers in terms of the risk tolerance, not just in terms of legal exposure, but you know, the court of public opinion.

And how are you going to build the public trust in terms of your meeting procedures, right?

Any questions on any of that?

Yes, ma'am.

Commissioner Yes.

Your slide on basic compliance requirements.

So I was reminded how much we rely on our charter officials to get it right.

Right.

So that we come to the meet.

Well, we get our packet uh fourteen days ahead of time.

We the agenda is posted in a timely the notices in a timely fashion.

They get it right so we can do the people's work at the meeting.

That's absolutely right.

Said differently, we make you look good.

We try.

Yes, Commissioner Hunkrook.

Um so is it uh best practices to take public comment at workshops?

I don't have an opinion on the matter as far as best practices.

I think could as a matter of practice whether it ends up being in the rules or not.

Um I have been in communities where it was explicit in the rules that there was no right to public comment during work sessions and they still did it every single time.

Um, right, because whether it was because of the mayor they had at the time or the ver the again, if you're in a room with people who have been grumbling or even praising everything you do in while you know jam and do your work session thing and or brainstorm, at some point those people want to be heard.

And and and so whether you're doing it that night or in some other way, you know, meet me in my office hours, it's very hard to overcome the either pressure, temptation, however you wish to characterize it of like, well, they're here now, so we might as well, and we want to show them, we want to build the public trust.

So I don't know that it's a a best way one or the other.

As a matter of pragmatism, it ends up working out that way often.

Now, it's a very different thing when you have that same work session and there's two guys, it's Jim and Jane.

Jim and Jane come to every meeting.

Jim and Jane are going to tell you how they feel regardless of whether you give them a microphone or they pull you aside as you try to get to your car tonight.

So then you just like don't do it.

Um, even though you might have you could have um you just say, like, practically we're we're we're good.

This was for our benefit, you know, we're talking about you get real inside baseball technical things.

There's some meetings where nobody's there, you know, or one person's there and you might open it and they're like, come on, on with it.

I I'm just watching, right?

Um so it could it could vary.

So some meet some workshops you could say we're not taking public, and some workshops you could say this one we are.

I would strongly advise against varying.

Okay.

I would I would encourage you to be consistent with whatever you do.

Um it avoids any equal protection challenge, constitutional legal claims of someone, because even though your Matt, your reasoning might be pure, that it's hey, there's every other time we've done it, there's 90 people in the audience, this time there's one.

That one is going to be the person who is me i the way it ends up working out is the one that one person who's going to feel discriminated against for whatever reason, whether there's somebody who's vocally against your policy goal or whatever else, and then saying, well, I have 10, you know, meetings where you always open it up and then this was the one meeting where you didn't, huh?

That's weird.

Um so I would strongly encourage you to be consistent.

And I I'm I'm forgetting now what your rules say, if anything.

That we don't have public comment on workshops.

And I don't have a side either way on it.

I just want it to be one way.

Oh, should this have public comment?

Should it not have public comment?

Because not everything comes to you all to approve for workshop topic items.

So I don't want to make that assumption to say, well, this should have public comment, this shouldn't have I I don't want to put that kind of pressure on our office.

In as much as your auditor and clerk is your parliamentarian, it it doesn't lead to we'll talk about the purpose of rules of procedure, it doesn't lead to clear shared expectations.

And then it leads to confusion and then that erodes public trust.

Um so regardless of whether you have it or don't, just do it uniformly, whichever way you do it.

Yes, ma'am.

I haven't asked spoken to Joe about this yet, but I think all of us want to hear.

Um in terms of public access now with the uh non-enforcing the gun carrying thing, you know, what's the deal?

Well, that's my time.

I defer to your city attorney on that.

That's what I think.

Yeah, we've talked about it a lot.

So in um basically there's gonna there's a need, the McDaniels first DCA case you're talking about, uh solved one issue and in terms of it declared one statute clearly unconstitutional, and that's the open carry prohibition under 79053, I think it was.

Um now open carry is legal in Florida, but it did create another issue with 7906 in the regulation creating gun-free zones for certain public facilities.

Uh and I I think your city attorney is trying to delicately describe what you had was a patchwork framework of different statutes that all intersected to create norms and requirements.

One of those falls away, and in context now, your city attorney's office and city attorney's offices across the state are trying to figure out, okay, well, what does that mean when this one was interpreted to be read with that one and that one's gone?

Now what does that leave you?

Right.

Um and so I think there's an ongoing navigation of that.

Are we still able to do that?

So the only following the the safest interpretation of the 7906 is that we can prohibit unfortunately certain classes of firearms, but there's a gap in that statute in the plain reading of it for for long guns.

And that's the problem that local governments are dealing with across the across the state.

But they're dealing with it so we should be expecting some sort of legislative help and there is um Florida League of City.

Florida Sheriff's Association, uh Florida Chiefs of Police Association are all lobbying for a fix, and I I don't think it's House Bill 63 in the next session is attempting to do that.

So but we are targets until that happens.

Yeah.

I would hope not.

Um with that very, very positive uh transition.

I'm just gonna forge right on ahead.

Um more question.

Oh yes, ma'am.

Um so uh it was shared with me at an FLC meeting by s another commissioner that a way to get around sunshine laws, which you just said don't do it, is a workshop.

And you publicly notice it, it's open to the public, um minutes are taken, so on and so forth.

And two commissioners can show up, you're not taking any decision, and talk about the topic that is notified, or three or four, or five.

Um and that if you really want to have a casual conversation with a commissioner about pickleball, that that's the way to do it, um and it's a work around to sunshine, so to speak.

Is that you don't have a quorum.

But you don't have to have a quorum because you're not making a decision, right?

I mean, so I you've you've you've identified one of the you know moments where you're dealing in the grace.

Um and so I would suggest first that you're not really getting around sunshine when you're noticing a meeting, it's open to the public and minutes are taken.

Um, so that's all of that.

It is open to the public.

You can't notice it and then just you know, brainstorm together in a back conference room unless there's everybody's allowed in on the conference room.

Um as far as the like, well, what about the threshold of meeting?

We'll talk about that in your parliamentary procedure.

Your meetings do have quorum requirements, and if a quorum is not met, then the body's not convening.

Um I I hear the like, well, you only need a quorum to take official acts.

We're not officially acting.

And I think at that point what you're you're you're you're talking a little bit less about legal requirements and and falling back more towards risk tolerance versus risk management, right?

Do you want to be the community that answers the question on if that counted?

Um, you know, or have to, or have to navigate and make the legal arguments, which I think are defensible on both sides, on is that you know, permissible or not permissible.

I I take umbrage with not you, because I understand you're you're repeating um what was told to you, but I t I sort of take umbrage with the idea of like a way around the sunshine law.

Like, why are we starting that way?

Why is it not like a creative way to facilitate additional meetings is this?

And and I understand maybe that's just branding for some, but for me, it it sort of starts normalizing and conditioning a thought process that shouldn't be, which is how do we get around this incredible inefficient impediment that is the sunshine law as opposed to how do we continue to enhance transparency in government while still making it efficient and effective.

So I think there's some some truth to that.

Uh you know, where you drop down to the point where it's only two of you, I th that's something I would definitely defer to your city attorney on on what what the advice is going to be for your community specifically.

For the record, we've not done that.

I I wasn't under the impression you had, but yeah.

I mean I don't see how you would coordinate in the sunshine.

We've noticed this meeting, all five of us know about the meeting.

But you three aren't gonna allowed to come.

Don't come.

I don't think it's a discouraging.

I think what you see, because I've seen this in other things.

Let's say, let's say you were um there's two of you who are passionate environmentalists.

It's sea turtle season, and you want to have a discussion about um, you know, sea turtle light and sound mitigation, and two of you could care less, and one of you is traveling because your mother's ill.

And so you say, well, the two of us who are most passionate are still willing and available to meet.

And so that's sort of where that dichotomy comes from.

But I think you're right, right, like in terms of the knee-jerk reactions that it elicits, but when you're balancing it, that I think those are the competing narratives.

And I think the the idea was not to get around or avoid sunshine or not be compliant or do something, you know, uh uh illegal or unlawful and to evade the public trust.

But it was to be able to have a casual conversation with somebody that you may be at potentially on the opposite side of an issue with and talk through it, you know.

Understand in a casual way where they're coming from and they can understand where you're coming from.

No votes, no decisions are made, just the sharing of the information of where you're coming from, so that you don't drag out your commission meeting, that you have that, you have an opportunity to have that, and not limiting it to two people out of the five.

But like you said, if there are two people that really want to discuss the, you know, do we paint a purple, do we paint a yellow, um, and why they feel passionately about those, that's an opportunity to have that casual discussion without taking a vote, without violating sunshine, and so on and so forth.

Um I get that it's not it's we've never done it, it's not recommended, I I'm guessing, but I've not seen it in my in my ten years of practi or eleven years of practice and that of my respective colleagues, we've represented over 14 cities in the last just little bit and a longer list.

I've never once heard of that approach where at least not where you're dropping down below a quorum.

Um frankly, if I showed up as your s to as your city attorney and was like, well, there's not three of us here, I'm out.

Um, you know, there's there's not no business is getting done here.

Um so um again, I leave it the you guys decide what you want to do about those dragons.

Uh Ms.

Ulrich?

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Um so could we talk a little more about uh workshops if it's noticed and there's a location and there are minutes taken and public participation is allowed if that's our uh you know how we do things.

How flexible are we in terms of the city attorney's participation, the auditor and clerks, city manager?

Can the three of us or five just sit around in the designated room and oh I'll take minutes and just discuss pickleball.

I think I understand your question.

Because you highlighted one of my responses earlier, no.

Um and I can give the longer speech on you know the powers and duties of the respective roles, right?

We made very clear that under the your charter, the clerk is responsible for preparing the minutes and and deputizing and and appointing.

So failing that, if I was in a legal situation where three of my commissioners did that, say, well, who had the authority to to say that it wasn't going to be the clerk taking you know minutes or deputizing, or was the clerk consulted and said, yes, please do it that way, I've got you know an ill family member.

I've been to meetings where I've taken the role because the clerk was out that night that but they said, hey Randy, take the role, do the thing, and I'll draft my minutes from your notes.

Um that's sort of an acting versus actual, but in a broader sense, again, um I would never I would always recommend against uh playing fast and loose um with with your rules, whatever they may be regarding the differing roles, and the simple fact remains your city attorney is the charter official designated to provide you legal advice.

I've been in meetings where somebody said, Well, my friend, you know, Clark here is a lawyer, and he's gonna come and say, you know, Clark, you can come to the microphone, you have every right to speak, but I just want to make it very clear before you do.

This is my client.

I'm the only person in the room with the authority to give them legal advice.

So you know, as my client, I will turn to you to the commission and say, please be mindful of that with whatever you're about to hear.

Um, you have no idea what this person's credentials are or otherwise.

Um, you know, nor would I suddenly deputize any one of you to give legal advice.

So I don't know if that fully answers your question, but the short answer is no, please don't do that.

We haven't.

But we all understand how difficult it is to talk about things when we're not allowed to talk about them.

But it doesn't preclude having an you know I I think there's a, you know, um uh a disconnect here.

If the clerk's taking it the minutes, we're you know, we're we're gathered just like we are now.

It doesn't preclude just casually talking about a topic because then you're still following all the sunshine laws.

The sunshine law doesn't prescribe how you discuss any particular issue as long as you're in the noticed meeting and it's minutes being taken and all the regular order just like we're doing today.

I think that's absolutely right, and that's why I started from the idea that there's no distinction between the work session and public meetings.

They're all public meetings.

I think what we're talking about though is really two different phenomena.

We're talking about a psychological phenomenon versus a legal phenomenon.

The legal phenomenon is noticelocation minutes.

I think we've exhausted that and you folks understand it.

The psychological one though is we're also familiar with the idea that the moment you place something under observation, it inherently behaves differently.

And what you're finding is in as business leaders, community leaders, members of nonprofits, and otherwise, you're able to operate with a certain level of candor that you don't feel you can bring to bear in your public service.

And I agree with that and understand that because you're always subject to a certain level of scrutiny.

And there's a part of you that wants to shed all that you know, skin arm or whatever, and say, okay, this is just Randy, like just dudes talking.

And I think one reason that if I may be egotistical for a moment in my career is that I've I've kind of given up on the pretense of we are in a s you know, this austere body, like I'm just a dude trying to tell you some information, and maybe you do better with it, maybe you don't.

As I told another attorney when I was involved in a conflict on a phone, I was like, listen, man, I'm gonna hang up this phone and I'm gonna make grilled cheese for a nine-year-old.

Like this is not the end all be all.

I'm still a guy just trying to do a thing, and it's hard to f to shed yourself of that while you're, you know, you just want to have like the Gen decathy conversation.

I'm not saying the two of you, but just as like I want to be Jen, the woman who has done all these other things that is not a city official.

And be you be Kathy, the, you know, with successful professional mother, whatever you've done in your life, ma'am.

You know, and just talk from that standpoint.

And my I think the mayor's point is well taken.

Nothing's stopping you from doing it apart from sort of like all of the social constructs we built around this.

Um the last point I would say is that there's been a lot of discussion, especially in the last 18 months about efficiency as a goal.

And this process is by design inefficient.

Um efficiency is not a policy result.

I think your manager and and your auditor will agree that you can efficiently do two very different things.

You can efficiently never build another road in the city of Sarasota.

You can also efficiently embrace micromobility and autonomous vehicles.

Those are two very different things.

But efficiency is is not itself a policy result.

And I think um the unfortunate thing is you at local levels, the lowest tier of government in the hierarchy, is your being taken to task for being inefficient, but your hands have been bound in a way that require you to be inefficient.

And I I think a lot of this discussion is sort of a uh a gnashing of teeth about that frustration, right?

Of like how do I get out of that?

How do I shed myself of that to get to where I want to go?

I don't know.

Yeah.

And I wanted to piggyback on it a little bit and say that we try to think of things in a way of will this put us in a position where the city attorney has to explain it.

Or you know document it or do whatever he needs to do.

We just don't want to put ourselves in that situation where he has to do anything legally to explain what we're doing.

That's kind of how I think about things.

I don't ever want to put us in that position.

So I was going to use the verb bail us out of the No Dragons.

No dragons.

So with that, in the interest of getting through the content, I'm going to forge ahead here on some of the other um information.

So we've talked a lot about your public meetings.

I want to talk a little bit about the different um roles you have.

I've worked with commissioners who I like to use a lot of weird words who consider themselves haberdashers.

Uh haberdasher is a hat maker, right?

And you constantly saying, oh, well, I was wearing my citizen hat.

No, I was wearing my commissioner hat, and I was wearing my CRA hat.

Like you're all still the one person.

Um but if you're going to insist on that, I think there is one moment in your meetings where that haberdashery and those hats come into play, and that's the difference between when you're making legislative versus quasi-judicial decisions.

Um so though a commission typically operates as your legislative body, and we talked about that on the top end in terms of your charter, on occasion you're asked to pass judgment on how factual circumstances align with the criteria in your ordinances.

Um those are quasi-judicial hearings.

In a quasi-judicial hearings, you're applying facts to establish criteria.

You are no longer making the law.

You or your predecessors and interests have already made a law that says you can have a dock that is 10 feet if you do ABCDE.

In a quasi-judicial hearing, you are looking for A, B, C, D, and E.

How you feel about boats, docs, manatees, all of that stuff goes out the window.

You're no longer making a policy decision.

You're just looking at A, B, C, D, E.

So if you're unsure, um, you know, and I and I happen to know your city attorney and know that you're genuinely introduced and made explicitly um aware, we this is a quasi-judicial item.

Some cities um it's not flagged separately on the agenda and and you kind of get um you you find out um or it's sort of assumed you would know by now that a variance is a quasi-judicial, so it's just variances or something.

Um but you're looking for ascertainable criteria if ever you're unsure.

Um you want to be mindful that ignoring criteria or evidence altogether and making to make a policy decision can lead to litigation and exposure to liability.

Um we'll talk a little bit about voting on the back end.

One unique feature about uh quasi-judicial hearings is whereas most of the time you have to vote on your legislative stuff, unless you have a legal conflict, which is a defined thing, we'll talk about.

Um in a quasi-judicial hearing, you can abstain just to preserve the integrity of the process.

You could say, I'm a judge, I'm a juror, and frankly, I can't be impartial.

I just there's nothing you can tell me that I will ever you could tell me all the criteria and this is the best thing, and you know, utopia itself will exist if this is passed, I'm gonna be against it, or for it no matter what they say.

And so you have the ability to abstain on that basis in a quasi-judicial hearing.

Um I would say again, work with your city attorney to determine if that's applicable.

This is not I'm abstaining because I don't know, it's a toughie.

Um that's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about like you've gone on record saying, as long as I'm a commissioner, there will never be another building above 10 stories, and you have some code that says nine stories only, um, and somebody says I'm prepared to build ten and I actually need to go eleven so I can accommodate floodplains and garages, and we want to do this energy efficiency thing, and we're going to the very inch, the least that we can go up to make this happen.

And you but you're on record saying doesn't matter.

There's nothing I could do, right?

And so I might, as an applicant, say, well, I've already been I've already been told Commissioner Mora won't get there, not just like he's against it, just there is no amount of evidence.

I want a fair hearing.

Um so that that can happen that way as well.

That's the first I heard that we could ever abstain.

Is that in in our charter?

And yeah, that's consistent.

You know, we just it hasn't been something I think that's come up.

We don't like to highlight it because we don't want you folks abusing it and saying like, well, I'm gonna abstain because I can't be fair because I'm generally against development and this is development.

That's not what we're talking about.

Um we're talking about you clearly cannot.

And and and so, for example, when I introduce a quasi-judicial item to my cities or have in the past, I would typically start out with sort of this like I can black out and do the speech, you know.

Um ladies and gentlemen, we are now about to begin a quasi-judicial hearing.

In a quasi-judicial hearing, you are no longer making the law, but applying the law, establishing the code based on the facts and evidence presented this evening.

In a quasi-judicial hearing, you are asked to consider the competent insubstantial evidence presented this evening.

Um then I will ask, have any of you had any ex parte communications with the applicant or their agent outside of this meeting?

Have you talked with them?

And usually everybody says no.

Sometimes somebody says yes.

Now I'm gonna ask you about that, and at the end of it, I'm gonna say, having disclosed all of that, do you feel you are still able to impartially adjudicate this?

Yes, I can.

Great.

Then we go on.

And has anybody done a site visit?

Can you still adjudicate impartially?

Yes.

It's all about preserving the integrity of the process is really the goal.

At the conclusion of a quasi-judicial hearing, ultimately you're making a decision based on the criteria and the evidence presented.

Okay.

The important thing about a quasi-judicial hearing is you're looking at criteria.

My charge, my encouragement to you, and we can do a whole nother thing on quasi-judicial hearings.

But what I would say to you is when you're in a quasi-judicial hearing, focus on the criteria.

If somebody comes to you and says, I want to build this doc and I want it to be 50 feet into the intercoastal, you say, okay, if you have criteria that says this needs to be the minimum variance necessary, just ask.

Did you consider less uh did you consider a shorter thing?

Why was that possible or not possible?

Right?

Instead of just starting from, well, I don't want docs, so I'm just against this.

You probably could have got there had you just focused on the criteria and the evidence.

Um remember you're you're applying the law.

Um look for that, and you don't all have to agree.

You're ultimately we're going to get either a majority decision one way or the other.

But ultimately, what we're looking for is you to make findings of fact and conclusions of law.

And so what you'll sometimes see is a situation where a member, an applicant says, I'm here and I'm asking for X, and to get X, I need to prove A through E.

I have proven A through E.

Staff comes up and says, I have proved that we agree they have proven A through E.

That does not mean the analysis is over.

Yes, they're in agreement, but is there some evidence in the record that says otherwise?

I find the applicant and staff have said that this is the minimum variance necessary.

However, upon review, when you look in the materials, there was a pre previous design that was two feet shorter.

Or the applicant said it was never once considered because they just felt like twelve was a good even number and it was the number they wore when they played little league.

You know, you get these things and you start realizing, okay, it's not maybe it's not as fleshed out.

Um but ultimately what you're looking for is competent and substantial evidence.

How much evidence is that?

It's some evidence.

You just need some evidence.

So look at the record in front of you.

Um ultimately, if one of your decisions in a quasi-judicial capacity is challenged and it goes on appeal, what a court's going to look to are those three things.

Was there competent and substantial evidence?

And by the way, every time you have a quasi-judicial hearing, I almost guarantee you, if there is any public feedback, somebody will say, if you approve this, you will either ruin or totally improve our property vowel values or yeah, property value.

You will either completely ruin or facilitate more efficient traffic, and this will either enhance or completely destroy the culture of our city.

And that will be based on nothing but some guy's opinion.

That's not competent substantial evidence, right?

A traffic study is evidence of traffic.

Property appraisals are evidence of property values.

Some just somebody just saying, I've lived here a long time and I can tell you this is how it's gonna go, maybe helpful, but it's not by itself evidence of something.

Um you're looking for evidence.

Um the next thing a court's going to look to is procedural due process, which just means did the person have notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Right?

We told them, and that's not just true of when somebody's looking for land use approvals.

This is also true when you have your code enforcement hearings, right?

Did they get notice that they were allegedly in violation of the tall grass ordinance?

What did they get time to cure it?

A day to come here, let's assume it's not a repeat violation, um, a day to come here and say nah-uh, right?

That's really due process, by the way, for all the controversy around it, bails it boils down to being able to say yeah, nu-uh.

Right?

Just have one chance to be heard at at base.

And then the final is the essential requirements of law.

The court's gonna say were you were you looking at the right sheet of music, or did you apply the law properly?

If you deny somebody procedural due process, that's a deviation from the essential requirements of law.

Uh but it's let's say, for example, you're talking about a variance and someone says, I want to build my fence this high, but you start using the criteria for shrubs.

Well, then you've deviated from the essential requirements of law.

You were should have been looking at the criteria for fences, right?

Um and so that's what courts are looking to.

Just so you can understand a little bit about what Joe and his team do, after you make a decision and and some order is issued, if somebody appeals it and you're challenged now to defend the decision of the board, um, at that point we we have what I call no new friends.

There's no new evidence.

We go with the record we had.

So if we have that hearing and say, oh, but we have this map.

We have this map from 1973 that actually shows if that wasn't there the night you folks talked about it, Joe doesn't get to bring it in now.

We go with the the court will never s will never replace you as the fact finder.

It's just going to say, based on the facts available and the things they could have considered that were in the record that night, is this uh are those other three criteria met that concludes um the quasi-judicial.

I know there's a lot of questions.

Um so I'll start uh yes, please.

Um so what if before the quasi-judicial hearing you receive um evidence that you would consider you know competent beforehand in an email or someone meets with you or you know, often you'll have uh will be asked to meet with whoever's proposing it, like the developer and the neighborhoods and so on and so forth and the groups and also city staff.

And so everybody's presenting you with these things and you gather that beforehand.

I I was told it's my understanding that um you can you have to base your decision on evidence presented during the hearing, not on something you've received beforehand.

How do you how do you do that?

I mean you were presented with the evidence beforehand.

Does everyone physically have to show up and say, all right, here it is again?

Uh no.

Uh short answer, not everybody has to show up, but they have to submit things for the hearing.

Now, I think that your, you know, your community is probably looking at its rules of procedure as it relates to quasi-judicial and other things, or may wish to in light of some of this discourse, right?

Um in some communities it's very clear.

People can submit written statements that will be disseminated to the board.

They need to be received X amount of days or hours before the hearing, and they'll be circulated to all five of you, right?

If you've met with the applicant or their agent, whether that be a developer or a local property owner, then I think it's if you found something out that is not being presented at the hearing, ask an incisive question.

Right?

The example I give is I often discourage site visits.

Um I I strongly discourage them.

I'm not saying they're unlawful.

I discourage them with my quasi-judicial boards, and I say the very reason is you might see something out there as the judge, but now you're you know, as a fact finder, but now you're the judge, and you're the only vector by which this information is coming in.

I don't think any of you would like to get in a lawsuit based on a car accident and show up and have the judge say, you know, I went there this morning while I was having my Dunkin' Donuts and I saw that that light's uh actually like 30 seconds.

So your whole case dismissed.

It's not a three-second light like you said, right?

And so I had a case where I discouraged this, and it was for a C a DOC variance, and to get the DOC variants in this community, the C wall needed to be X amount of years old or something.

And one of the commissioners says, I went out to the property today and there was no seawall.

So I don't know why we're having any of this discussion.

And everybody shot up the applicant, the city, like first of all, there's a diagram in the materials, the show the seawall.

But second of all, what you went to is a vacant lot that's overgrown, and if had you pulled back the cattail and things, you would have seen there is in fact a seawall.

There's an engineering study in there.

And so what you thought you could present by your own fact finding would have been as simple as just asking the applicant or staff, is there an existing seawall that satisfies criteria A?

And you get to the same result.

Um if they fail to do that, well, there's only so much leading you can give that horse to water.

Um, I I've seen hearings where a commissioner really tries to do them the favor because you've met with them and they've told you this is the minimum variance necessary, they've gone through three designs, all this stuff.

And they come through and they say, you know, I really want this, I think this will be a pretty addition to the waterways of your community.

Thank you.

And that's their whole presentation.

You're like, have you considered other designs?

I mean only kinda.

You're like, but you told me for an hour that you looked at like three architects.

I'm trying to help you to get the record, but if they won't if they're not engaging with the process, that's not your job.

Um so when they submit their evidence, their email, their whatever, do they say I officially want this to be part of the record, or how do you make it official?

Because we get it hundreds of emails a day.

So how do we distinguish as what has been submitted to us as evidence for a quasi-judicial public hearing and what is just someone's opinion?

I think your rules of procedure making m clear making clear to whom it should be submitted, what should the title say if you wish to have it, you know, or an agenda item number in the title.

I don't I don't know how you get there.

And I think that one of your your challenges is scale, right?

It's one thing in a beach community that's a mile and a half large.

It's another in a community the size of the city of Sarasota where I'm sure you as a commissioner receive dozens of emails, several that have nothing to do with your city to begin with, some have to do with the county, so you gotta deal with that.

You know, it's it's uh I I don't have the perfect administrative solution, but I would just say that you want to make clear if something, if you want something to be part of the evidentiary record, either it is the onus certainly is on the person trying to present it.

It's not on me though.

It's not on you.

You're not the fact you're not the person you're just there to judge.

What if they don't know though?

What if they don't know how to do this?

Um then you just send them this video and say, man, listen to this minute and second marker, that guy's got it too.

Um it's a challenge though.

I I hear that the the the the subtext of that is I I want the public to know and I can't reach the entire public and sometimes it's hard.

Listen, the the hardest public hearing or the most instructive quasi-judicial hearing I ever attended, I was a wee baby city attorney, um still looked like baby Huey, but many moons ago.

And um I went to a hearing on a community that was doing site plan approval for an indoor gun range.

It was going to be the largest indoor gun range, I think, in the tri-county area.

And my colleague Jay, who some of you may have met or worked with was sitting in the city attorney's seat.

Site plan approval is very basic.

It is in this community it was quasi-judicial, it's not in all of them.

But it's like, do you have enough parking, traffic study, buffering, noise buffering, ventation?

It's boxes that you very clearly checked or did not check.

Um so applicant gets up, says we've done the boxes.

Staff gets up, says they've done the boxes, and they even worked with us on this other thing.

And then we have a public hearing that goes for four hours where we go through the second amendment, 9-11, big E, Tupac, I don't know.

We went everywhere.

And it ended with my colleague sitting in the chair saying, at the conclusion of public comment, ladies and gentlemen, you are here on site plan approval.

The criteria are A through F, right?

Nothing you have heard in the last four hours has anything to do with A through F.

And I encourage you, in fact, direct you to ignore all of it.

The coolest thing about that was a public that had been divided for four hours unified to boo one man.

Because they heard their time was wasted, and why they heard their time was wasted was as a misunderstanding on the process.

They thought we were there making a policy decision.

We were there saying we have told people that you have development rights if you can do these certain things, and they and they agreed to do and showed that they can and will do all those things.

And that indoor gun reach stands today, right?

And my colleague had two other workshops after that where he explained work sessions.

And guess what?

While there were nearly 200 people in the room for that, there were two people when you did the instruction.

So you know, that's sort of how that how that plays out.

Um I'll take one or more two more questions on this.

I do want to be considerate of your time and get through the other content as well.

Uh, Mayor?

Okay.

Yeah.

I I was just going to say um whether it's like an another time, but I I think um uh clarity on what is evidence, even if somebody sends an email and it's still just opinion is not necessarily competent substantial evidence.

So just, you know.

Yeah.

I think a little clearer, you know, like explaining what competent substantial evidence means.

And this is an area we've talked about that our code needs some improvement or our process, and we're gonna we're gonna do that.

Okay.

I I I think you'd start looking towards the same maxims we have in the civil process, anything that makes a a required element of the cause or hear the relief requested more or less likely that a fact finder could reasonably rely on.

Um if you find yourself with, you know, you're looking at it and I think of the sandwich boards I see that say, come have the worst meatball subsum guy on Yelp ever ate.

Um, you know, it's sort of like it's tongue-in-cheek way of saying it's just one person's opinion.

Um, just saying this is going to be bad for traffic is not evidence.

It doesn't prove anything.

It's just stated as as a you know an assertion.

Uh Commissioner?

I did have one question.

Um we talk about decision-making criteria and competent and substantial evidence.

Would you address on balance decision making?

I don't know what that word means the way you're using it.

Um so we frequently use that um that if you have five criteria and um the application ha meets some of the criteria but not all, or a little bit for three and not for two, you say, but on balance it's okay.

It meets the criteria enough, I guess I'll say, uh.

For me to vote for it.

I would I would limit my answer to that to say I would look to whether your criteria are conjunctive or disjunctive.

In some s instances, they are conjunctive, and that just means like the and versus or.

In some codes you have to prove A, B, C, D, and E.

And it's very clear.

In other codes, it is completely unclear.

And in some it's very clear that you have to do A and B or C, but you only need you always need A, and then it's B or C.

So I would look to the from a lawyer standpoint, the on balance thing is not a term of art that I'm familiar with specifically.

I I get the point that you're making, but for me it would depend on the board, the code, and the relief requested as to which section I would advise, whether that's um, you know, advisable or not advisable.

So I don't have a clear opinion on it, because it it that is an it depends thing for me.

Just a quick thing.

Maybe some of our criteria are kind of squishy.

And maybe that's something because say with the traffic, oh yeah, it will wreck traffic for an hour a day.

You know, is this but to me that's that's a situation where it comes down to your personal judgment.

Um and I want to be clear about that.

You again, you all have your own autonomy.

You could take the same amount of facts and Commissioner Batty could say one hour a day is known an impact.

There's 24 in a day, 23 aren't impacted.

I don't see the problem.

And you know, Commissioner Ower could say, like, well, I'm picking up children and and nephews and grandchildren at that hour, and it absolutely ruins traffic.

I would never stand behind that.

That is not a function of whether the criteria are sufficient.

It's just both of you have considered that criteria and reached a different conclusion.

Neither of you have ignored it.

Um now if you have criteria that are completely ineffective, like it will enhance the cultural environment of Sarasota.

Like sure.

That that's that is the very definition of squishy.

You're never gonna get to an objective standard there.

And then I think you take a little more poetic license, but you're still ultimately going to need to justify the the how you got there or didn't get there.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh with that I'm gonna forge ahead.

I'm gonna I'm gonna move a little more quickly on this opportunity to be heard only because we talked about it.

But um, generally speaking, under the under the ethics code, the public are free to seek redress from you, and their opportunity to be heard occurs at a meeting during the decision making process within reasonable proxy proximity in time before the meeting at which you act.

By the way, this language is only about 10 or 11 years old.

Um there was a case where uh around 2014 where it came to pass that, as I jokingly said earlier, the people public showed up with their pitchforks and torches and a commission said, Hey, um nothing in the law says you get to be heard.

It says you get to it's notice m minutes location.

We're doing that.

We're not taking public comment tonight.

And they went ahead and the court looked at it based on the law at that time and said, Well, I don't necessarily agree with the wisdom of it, that's not our court, that's not our decision, and I don't think it's necessarily in the spirit of it, but under the law, there's no requirement in their code or the statute.

And so the legislature very quickly changed that.

And so it is very very clear and explicit that the public is not just in a meant to be seen, not heard posture.

Um there is a a very clear inroad in the process.

And of course, the the arguments in those situations was that, well, people were always free to meet one-on-one with commissioners outside of the meeting.

By the time we get to the meeting, we're doing the business, right?

And I think there is there is value to that point, and we'll talk on that in a moment.

But there's obviously some exceptions to public comment, ministerial acts.

That's why people don't usually you don't usually see people ask for public comment on the adoption of you know uh uh the hurricane preparedness plan announcement or something.

It's just this is you know it's a ministerial act we're announcing this.

Um there are some meetings exempt from the sunshine law.

Again, this is not a sunshine law presentation, so I'm not gonna go into all of that, but you're familiar, I'm sure, with the idea of shade meetings or executive sessions when you have active pending litigation.

Um then there's also meetings where you're acting in your quasi-judicial capacity, but then there's another exception to that.

If it's land use, so ultimately you end up taking public comment and ensure that nobody can be said that they were denied due process in the hearing process.

Um just as a general note, the public has a right to hear all comments made to or by members of the body.

Um so for that reason, um if you've ever had a Joe or I'm guessing more likely your your clerk um or auditor turn to you and say, um, you know, Commissioners uh uh uh Coke, and oh or like if you could please speak into the microphone, or if you could please stop your sidebar conversation, you might be turning into each other and saying, hey, is it hot in here?

Yeah, is it just me?

Should we ask to take jackets off?

That's fine, just say it into the microphone.

Um, the private conversation in the sidebar should be avoided.

Certainly don't text each other um during meetings.

Um to say nothing of the public records law and in terms of an open meeting law, the public can't observe that.

Um it is perfectly permissible to have time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, um so long as those are reasonable with uh you know a clear connection to a government purpose.

That's why we typically have three minutes, come to wherever the public comes to in this room here, the podium, however you may do it.

Um provided they're clear for the presiding officer, you can regulate um speech um in terms of the you know um repetitive, relevant or disruptive comments.

I would be very, very cautious there to work with your city attorney.

That is a general statement on parliamentary procedure.

If somebody is if you're trying to do business and throughout the entire meeting somebody's yelling at the back, play free bird.

Like at some point that's disruptive.

It's clearly not applicable to anything we're doing.

Um that's a little different when somebody says I'm here in public comment and I wish to do an interpretive dance, just let them have their three minutes and do their dance.

Um, you know, you've seen any number I I know in my career we love sharing.

Here's something that happened in Arizona or Illinois or at some public hearing, you know, somebody does a spoken word or a rap, uh, you know, whatever.

Just take it for the three minutes that it is.

Um as one of our vice presidents once famously said, the right to be heard is not the same as the right to be taken seriously.

Um, you you give each comment the credence you think it warrants.

Um but um that la the last part is a member of the public can videotape or record a meeting.

I mean, you folks are already being recorded about six different ways.

I wouldn't take too much umbrage with somebody holding up a phone in this room, um, but just you know be mindful of that.

Um any questions on public meetings generally.

I think we've had a long along the way, but anything you want to touch on before we get to the parliamentary procedure side of it.

All right.

Um so again, in terms of showing you where we are and where we've been, uh we've covered ethical guidelines, team-based solutions, now we're in public meetings, now we're on parliamentary procedure, and so in the last hour we're getting the thing you thought this was all about.

Um why do we have um why do we have parliamentary procedure generally and rules of procedure?

Well, the idea is really just comes down to shared expectations.

This is a quote from Robert's rules of order.

For those of you unfamiliar, Robert um of the famed Robert of Robert's rules of order was a member of the military who'd created an entire system as you have these large battalions and all these groups on how are we going to get voices heard, make decisions in the as a collective while still preserving order, decorum, and structure.

And that's what Robert's rules was, which is a fancy way of saying it does not translate well to local government, right?

Under Robert's rules of order, uh the mayor would not vote.

Um but our system of government explicitly states the presiding officer votes.

Um so right from jump, you're already going to see some disconnects.

Ultimately, um the goal, however, is to assure the orderly transaction of business, make sure one item is considered at a time.

I think the most important one is that all of you have an equal right to persuade your peers.

You may not have the same capacity to do so.

Some of you have more social capital than others, some of you are more passionate or knowledgeable about certain issues.

Um but ultimately each of you has a right to try and persuade the body, um, even if it's not in an informal, you know, work session style, you have the means to do that.

Um but ultimately it's to ensure that the majority has a right to decide and the minority has a right to be heard and potentially influence the majority.

Um but the goal is to facilitate full and free discussion with clear expectations.

That said, that's the why.

Let's talk about the what.

What is parliamentary procedure?

It's a guideline.

It is not the law.

Um though I am a lawyer, I don't just play one on TV, um, though I am a lawyer, parliamentary procedure is not the law.

I told you early on in my introduction that I'm a litigator.

I I represent cities when their actions are challenged legally.

I have yet in my career to find a single case that was resolved based on a deviation from parliamentary procedure.

Deviation from statutory notice requirements, sure.

You know, those sorts of things are absolutely a requirement.

I'm not giving those short shrift.

But I've never once seen a court say, well, there was a second motion placed on top of the original motion, and it did not get the second it deserved, though they all voted unanimously.

Hasn't once happened.

It's not there to invalidate your process, it's there to protect it.

That's what it's there for.

It's to protect the process.

It's if you think of give going back to the original analogy of a sports analogy, we're all showing up to play a game.

We should know how the game is played.

I know that I get one vote.

We're not going on, well, on Tuesdays, uh or let's go on Wednesdays, that's the third day of the week.

Debbie Trice kind of sounds like Thrice, you get three votes this week.

Like, right?

Like that's that's we know that we all get one vote.

We know what the voting will happen after debate.

We know if it's an official act, it'll happen after public comment.

These are shared expectations.

And Joe and his team's principal role is like the umpire of the match or the ref.

Um that is to say he's gonna preserve order.

He's not invested in the end result.

He's just trying to protect your process.

And like any good umper ref, if it goes sideways, you'll blame it on him.

Um but ultimately there's no legal requirement to have standardized rules of procedure.

It's just a way of having shared expectations.

It's the bumpers on a bowling alley.

The game's being played in between.

The game doesn't happen because of the bumpers, it's just informed by it.

Um that said, I uh in another version of this presentation, I usually have a graphic of the claymation character Gumby, if you remember Gumby.

Um they're flexible.

The rules can be deviated from, especially where s adhering to them strictly um leads to an undesirable and practical or unjust result.

So as an example, if we say, okay, um the members of the public only get three minutes, and um we're only going to allow um one round of that, then that's fine.

Um but if for some reason you you don't have that, you have one person or two people here, you say, you know what, we're gonna open it a second time.

Everybody gets a fair shake and gets to go again.

You're deviating from your rules, you're changing the shared expectations, you're definitely making your night longer.

Um but that's up to you.

You know, I've I've had many a presiding officer, I've told you many times I'm the parliamentarian, and I get turned to and say, you know, can we do that?

Can we take more public comment?

Well, it's your meeting.

If you're gonna do it, you just gotta let every you can't just be like just for James.

You know, James and Claire, if Clara wants to come up again, and great, well, like I'll bill you by the hour tonight, all right.

Um but the you know, ultimately it's shared expectations and deviations are welcome.

I I had beach communities that had in their code that no meeting shall go beyond 9 p.m.

unless the board decides otherwise, right?

And so every meeting when we got to 858, I'd have to say, hey, we're in the middle of this, just so you know, we're supposed to adjourn in two minutes.

You guys want to keep going?

Every time they say, yeah, let's keep going.

Um but that's an example where they're they're deviating from their own rules.

Now they're adhering to them because the rule their own rules say we can waive them, right?

Um but a majority vote of the commissioners present is required to suspend or waive any of your rules under your own rules of procedure, and that's rule thirteen and the rules that you folks revisited as early as this year, right?

Or as recently as this year.

Which by the way, kudos to your city attorney's office um auditor clerk and team for having those in front of you.

Usually I get to say this whole long speech about rules of procedure are not 90s infomercials.

You can't just set it and forget it.

Um a lot of communities' rules of procedure were most recently adopted in 2015, and at the risk of hurting people's feelings, that was ten years ago.

Um so you know, you are are staying with it because there's many rules of procedure that were adopted before Zoom and go to meetings and all this stuff was a part, and it doesn't even address or or deliberately or or you know um otherwise.

And so just making clear our rules of procedure um do that.

Now we talk about rules of procedure and everybody thinks Robert's rules.

Um somebody asked me when I was walking in, oh, you're doing the Robert's rules presentation.

I said, well, something like that.

Because to me, on the hierarchy of all of this, Robert's rules is last.

It is last place in terms of where we get our guidance from.

We start with the US Constitution, free speech, due process.

So we already know when somebody comes here, what can they talk about?

Pretty much anything they want as long as it's relevant to business.

And if we have an open area, they if they want to be for what the city's doing, against where the city's doing, we know already they have a right to say it.

Right?

Then we look to our Florida Constitution, we look to our state statutes.

It informs our parliamentary procedure.

Our state statutes say open to the public.

Notice was given, you know, minutes taken, we're already understanding.

Oh, we're getting an idea for what this meeting looks like already.

Right?

Okay, so we can't meet at a CC's pizza with just two of us.

We're gonna need to, you know, have some trappings around this.

Um then we're looking to your charter, your ordinances, then we look to your rules um and resolutions, with some where you adopt your own rules of procedure.

And after all of that, last place we look to standardized rules like Robert's rules of order.

And your own code says um in it, to the extent that they are not in conflict with the provisions of the charter, the city commission or or in c or in uh conflict with the code and other ordinance of the city, the city commission's meetings shall be governed in rules of procedure by Robert's rules, whatever the latest edition is.

Now, that language goes back to 1971.

Um, however, comma, it's still true.

Everything else comes first, and then if we're left with how do we do it, then we'll look to Robert's rules.

Right?

So if our code says nothing about a point of order, well, it's certainly not in the Constitution or the statutes, we'll just look to what Robert's rule says about point of order, right?

Um ultimately, uh according to rule uh 10A, um, for our Rocky fans of Roman New Morals, uh the presiding officer shall be familiar with and follow Robert's rules of order.

Um and that's in your own administrative um rules of procedure you've revisited earlier this year.

Um so maybe you have a spirited discussion as you elect your next mayor and quiz them on how familiar they are with Robert's rules in deciding who to pick.

I don't know.

Um that's a joke, don't do that, please.

That'd be super lame.

Um anybody can learn.

Um so we've talked about the the the what and the why.

Let's talk about the where and when.

Well, where?

At a lawful public meeting, right?

And then where can is also influenced by, okay, where do people speak from?

We know you will speak from your seat with the microphone.

We don't ask you to go summarinum part of the room.

The public is invited here.

We, you know, it's the you know, sort of kindergarten rules of who's holding the talking stick, okay, the where and when.

Um the other when is once a quorum is established.

Uh quorum requirements differ from board to board.

Under your charter, uh three members of the commission constitutes a quorum.

And it says the affirmative vote of three members shall be necessary to adopt any ordinance or resolution, and the passage shall be taken by yes and no votes entered in the minutes, right?

Um so that's a clear indication in our rules of where and when do we meet and do the the city's business.

So let's go to how.

How we do those cities' business in terms of preserving order.

First is the agenda.

Now, if you go to the open meetings law, you will not find the word agenda anywhere.

Talks about minutes, does not talk about an agenda.

An agenda is not a legal requirement under the state statute.

Now, I am not saying, nobody quote me that Randy said don't have an agenda.

Absolutely have an agenda.

There's a ton of other case law that says it is the most effective way to provide notice, right?

It is unequivocally the most effective way to have an efficient meeting.

That whole if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.

We just say, like, hey guys, we're gonna get together every Tuesday, we'll see where this goes.

How are you supposed to prepare?

How are you supposed to do that diligence?

The meet community meetings you talked about, right?

I I don't know, guys, just come and talk to me about whatever.

I'm gonna show up Tuesday and find out if anybody else wants to talk about it.

Um that's not how that works, right?

And under the city of Sarasota's rules, under Rule 5, the city auditor and clerk prepare an agenda for each meeting.

All non-agended items shall be added to the agenda through changes to orders of the day, which is uh sort of a hat tip to Robert's rules parlance.

Um all matters listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine and shall be enacted by one um one motion, right?

We m I move to improve the consent agenda items A through Z, right?

That's usually how some version of that speech is what's given.

Um and then another another rule, commission action in response to issues raised during citizen input concerning city topics, shall be limited to referral to the administration or placement of an item on a future agenda.

Which by the way, I think it's a you know, Joe is and I were talking before the meeting, I said, I think your rules really do a great job.

This is one thing that I think a lot of rules fail to address is well, we're here to do the public's business.

The public comes and says, I want you to do X, so shouldn't we just stop everything and do that or add that to the agenda that night?

Well, no.

Nobody was prepared to give that the staffing and support it deserves.

Right?

If you want to make an informed decision, we need a chance to go and do that.

Now it's one thing if we've been non-responsive to the public, and for months they've been coming to meetings or sending emails, but if somebody comes up and this is the first time I hear about the pothole on 15th Street, we'll follow up with you.

Like, or maybe we need to have a broader discussion about capital improvements, but tonight's not the night, right?

We're not ready for that to give it it's the the focus it deserves.

Um another part of that, and and with more time I would have focused on this, is the um when we're talking about public comment, um, it is precisely that.

It is public comment.

Um that's the term used, comment, which means it's an opportunity to come and be heard, but not necessarily an opportunity to engage, which is frustrating and hard on this side of the magic show, right?

But from that side of the magic show, if one person comes and says, I want to understand why you guys aren't doing anything about the dog park.

And Commissioner uh Ulrich says, Well, you know, I do think the dog parks is an institution here.

I've had many great memories with my my kids, our family dog.

That's a great question, Mayor.

What are we gonna do about that?

And the mayor talks, and the commissioner and then Commissioner Batty's like, I don't know why we're investing in dogs.

I don't have dogs, I don't want dogs, I don't know me.

Um but like, you know, if one commissioner then says that, like now we're having this whole discussion around one comment.

That's the first person in line.

And now we took three minutes and turned it into 20 minutes or 10 minutes.

And God forbid it's an election year, because now all of you feel like you have to go on record to know, like, well, if they're gonna say it, I have to say it too.

I can't be unheard on this issue, right?

And so now every comment turns into at least a five to ten minute session when we could have fit in three to four public comments by then.

Um I cannot control what my presiding officers do, but I do try to recommend when I start working with one, hey, when we get to that public comment thing, that's a specific item on the menu.

So once we're done with, once we're done with that course, we're done.

Say it's open to public comment, speak now or forever hold your peace, and then we're done.

Oh, well, now that you guys were talking, I have something else I want to say.

No.

We did that.

We debated, we opened a public comment, we closed public comment.

Now we're moving on.

Um that's a it's a hard thing to do, especially when you're facing the the pressure of of a room of people.

Uh, but in terms of the efficiency of the meeting and the agenda and the flow, that is uh what what is a best practice as in terms of we've had questions about best practices.

Um so we've talked about the why, the what, the when, the where, so let's hit who.

Who is the mayor?

The mayor presides at all meetings, no surprise to anybody there.

The mayor does have a voice and a vote in the proceedings, so there's no requirement your your mayor abstain from the debate and discourse, which you would see in Roberts Rules.

So that conflict, your your code is very clear.

It resolves in favor of your charter.

Um the city auditor and clerk shall serve as the parliamentarian.

Uh that comes from your charter, by the way.

Uh not just your rules of procedure.

And then under your rules of procedure, the mayor preserves order and decorum.

I joked earlier, mayor, that it's sort of a ceremonial role, but it's a critical one.

I have seen entire communities change overnight from meetings that ended in 90 minutes to meetings that ended in five hours based on the change in the mayor.

I had one mayor who was a school teacher, she didn't like conflict.

And she would turn to me and say, Randy, like if this gets tense, I want you to handle it.

And then the very next person we had a new mayor come in, and he said, Randy, I got this.

News flash.

He very much did not got this.

Well, I think we're shutting down the public too much, so if they want to talk, we're gonna let them talk all the live long day.

I hear what you're saying on the on the on the legal side, but I just don't like it.

Okay.

That's a cultural shift that happens with your presiding officer.

And that ceremonial role does have quite the significance.

And I think is in terms of the public trust that's built there, how you conduct yourself relative to your peers, and also what kind of shared expectations people can have.

So for our presiding officers, we're generally you're generally expected, you know, be on time, start the meeting on time, be organized, trying to stick to the agenda, being prepared.

I think the last one there, being a teacher and example is is a great example.

Um I think it's a great uh requirement.

Um clarifying things in a collegial manner.

I had one presiding officer who really missed her calling as a as a nun and headmistress of the most stern Catholic school because it was the moment something went out of order.

Like the whole room's vibrating is like, you are out of order, you were given three minutes, three minutes, two seconds, like, whoa.

You know, there's uh small breaches can be addressed a little more forgivingly.

Um, control the floor, uh be impartial, be composed, um, be precise.

Uh, you know, this is this is not just a mission statement.

Um there's uh this is not legal requirements either.

This is just aspirational what you like to see in somebody who's establishing the culture of your organization.

Any questions on the who, what, where, when, and why of public meetings and and parliamentary procedure.

All right, I'm gonna keep forging ahead.

I promise I'm I'm very close to having you out exactly when I said I would, if not a little ahead.

Um not a surprise here, these are your rules on the flow of meeting.

When we talk about the how in the agenda, in case none of you have ever read your agendas yet, um this is what they look like.

Uh it's not this outlay on a slide machine, uh, but uh that you have that.

You those are your expected A through R.

Now not all of those will be on every meeting.

Um some you may get to, and there's just there is no unfinished business tonight, forging right ahead, right?

Um but this is what the flow of a meeting is based on your rules.

And so um, if you have, you know, commissioner remarks, for example, I think there was some some statement earlier about like, hey, we get to the end of the night, and now people are bringing stuff up that we didn't even talk about.

Well, it's kind of I think it goes hand um hand in hand with the comment about what we do with the public's new stuff.

We probably shouldn't be debating it at that point, right?

And that's the moment where you ask, hey, before we leave here tonight, next month can we talk about micromobility?

Next month, can we talk about I you know I encountered this, I found this as an issue, and I'd I'd really like to have a meaningful discussion.

Can we have that added to our next work session meeting, whatever you guys are doing?

I think that's really what you're looking for more from that time, rather than like I've been lying in wait, and now I'm gonna spring on everybody.

I want us to be the premier city that does this, and I want to vote tonight.

And you're like, whoa, not cool.

Right?

And I think that's to your point, is like, then we're not having the discussion I thought I would have wanted.

I would have wanted way more information to meaningfully respond to your suggestion that we, you know, trademark the city logo or something.

I'd want more information.

Um, you know, that's the flow of your meeting.

Um, we understand all of that, so where the rubber meets the road for you is debate and discussion.

So under parliamentary procedure, while you're in session, all members are supposed to preserve order and decorum, which are really nice ways of saying, don't be a jerk.

Right?

It's that's it's not a legal requirement.

In fact, I have to often remind my clients that it is not against the law to be a jerk.

Right?

There are there are people who will not come with their best self that night.

And everybody comes based on where they are in life's journey, and that's fine.

But you're called to a just in the same way that you're called to a higher responsibility in the way that you do the city's business, the same is true in the way that you receive it and facilitate it day in, day out.

Um before a commissioner, staff member, and audience member speak, they must be recognized, right?

Um and upon recognition, the person requesting to speak shall hold the floor and make the point clearly and succinctly.

Um my bigger point in and Commissioner um one of your commissioners heard me say this earlier this week.

The most important thing is the part underlined at the bottom.

Debate the measure, not the member or the motive.

It's very easy to lose in 2025.

Um, but debating the measure, not the member means saying, I am against pickle more pickleball courts.

I think we have plenty of recreational, we need to diversify.

We need we I I hear that it is of keen interest.

I don't think we need to be doing this.

That's not that's very different from saying, of course, Commissioner Morrow wants pick more pickleball courts.

The guy's retired, he does nothing but leisure around town of going, we just need to be here to be the amenity to his house, huh?

Like that kind of debate does nothing to elevate the discourse, and it certainly erodes public trust and the fact like I don't think these people get along, and I don't think they're actually talking about policy.

I think they're trying to settle scores and like high school fights now.

Um so that's really, you know, the so whether it's the member, the motive, oh well, of course you want more paid parking, you mean the largest, you your family has the most real estate downtown, of course.

Like, come on.

Whether or not there may be some kernel of truth to that, it doesn't do anything to speak to why the city should or shouldn't be involved in this.

Um, Commissioner.

I wish we had time for you to show that video of that one commission meeting.

I did.

I'll just say there is a YouTube video, I think it's labeled like worst public meeting.

It is not in Florida.

But there's a there's this long 90-second clip that I show where they start making personal tell, oh well, you're a convicted felon, and oh, well, you're cheating on your wife.

Well, you threaten to kill your wife.

Well, I no, I was never charged.

It's like crazy defense.

Um But that you know, that kind of that that that really does erode the public trust.

And it shows I I think to the commissioner's point about showing it, like it's funny, but it's so rare that you guys get to see what you look like.

And when you watch a video like that and see what it looks like, and you start going through all your own human emotions, like that's ridiculous.

That person's serious, oh my gosh, and you're like, well, yeah, that's what your public thinks.

When you think you're taking the moral high ground, and and I don't think this happens too much in this community, you guys really do have a very collegial environment from what I've seen, not to say that we never get cross or disagree, but um I I don't see as much infighting as you might see in other communities, but when you do that and you think that like, oh man, I really slammed them down and showed them.

You know, it's it's as a very famous philosopher named Sean Carter said, uh never argue with fools because people from a distance can't tell who is who, right?

Um that's that's one of those when you start getting rough and tumble with each other or the public and you you you both lose the high ground, right?

Um so with that, when we talk about parliamentary procedure, um this is the flow of how we're we're now we're moving from debate, now we're gonna know okay, we've discussed it.

What's the next steps?

Just so you see there is some chronological flow to this, is motions, right?

How do you take action?

You move.

And it is move.

I move that, you can say I motion, but it's I motion or I move.

Um it is not I not I second that emotion, that's not Smokey Robinson.

A member is recognized by the by the presiding officer.

They say I move that.

Another member seconds the motion.

The mayor presiding officer should mayor best practices to restate the motion that was made so everybody knows what they're voting on.

Sometimes it helps because it reveals a misunderstanding.

Oh, well, the member has moved that we will open the skate park as stated in the ordinance.

No, no, no, because the ordinance is 7 a.m.

I want it 9 a.m.

That was what my motion was.

Oh, so I didn't know that when I seconded it.

I was, you know, doodling, and now I realize we have a misunderstanding, right?

Um the members discuss and debate the motion.

Um ultimately you put the question to the vote, you vote.

Um no surprise there, and then you announce the results.

Uh sometimes it's the clerk, sometimes the mayor, uh, whomever, whoever announces it is not quite as critical as the process.

Uh but when it comes to motions, generally speaking, you can only have one motion on the floor at a time.

We don't move to pass ordinance 202501, say, you know, kind of like your middle school math test.

Oh, this one's hard.

Can we just move to pass 2025 02 right now?

Uh no, we have to resolve what we're doing with 2025.

It may require us to table 2025.

You have to dispose of the motion on the floor.

There's really only one category of motion you can make once you already have that main motion, which is a motion to amend.

And we'll talk about that in a moment.

But ordinarily speaking, it's one motion at a time.

So if you're saying I move that we I move that we open the skate park at 10 a.m., second.

I'd like to move that it's 11 a.m.

No, we have a motion on the floor already.

We're gonna have to deal with the 10 a.m.

one.

Now you can either withdraw it or we can take the vote and it fails or succeeds.

And if it passes, well, guess what?

Your 11 a.m.

one is already out the window, right?

We we agreed that it's 10 a.m.

So that's how that works.

Now, in terms of parliamentary procedure and you're in your introducing resolutions and motions uh or resolving motions, um generally speaking, a presiding officer should not unreasonably withhold recognition.

Um I I there's not a clip I played, but I have plenty of a presiding officer with somebody who's like that kid in fourth grade, like they're like, come on, I it's me, I'm pressing the button, and you're like, uh seeing none, I guess we're adjourned.

And you're like, oh my gosh, right?

Um you're a self-policing body.

Um so the remedy for that is among you, and then ultimately at the ballot box.

Um that night you might have just adjourned.

Um there's a different time when you address that.

But um generally speaking, after a motion's been made, another member who wishes it to be considered must second the motion.

Um importantly, moving and seconding is not saying I support this thing.

It's saying I support us making a decision right now.

Right?

And that's very hard for the public sometimes to understand like, what was that flip-flop?

You seconded it and then you voted against it.

What's that about?

It's like, I seconded wanting to be done.

Right?

I I wanted they the it was clear we were going to be voting tonight.

I wanted to vote and be done.

Um I I thought we we had a crystallized record or we'd asked all the questions and done all the things.

Um but a second does not command you or a move.

I I've been in I've been in meetings.

I move that we approve this ordinance.

I second.

5-0, it fails.

And like, well, how'd that happen?

It's like, well, we agreed to take a vote, and then we voted, and none of us were in favor of it.

Um no motion can be renewed during the same session.

So if that fails, and let's say it's a 4-1, and one of you is very patent.

No, no, no, you guys, okay, so I want to move that we pass the thing we just failed.

Like, no, that's it's done now.

Um we're not revisiting it in this meeting.

Now it may come to pass that over time we decide to amend that or revisit it in a you know a new ordinance undoing the thing we just did two months ago.

That happens.

Um but for that night it is settled.

Uh I talked a little bit about amendments.

An amendment is a motion to modify the wording and sometimes the meaning of a pending motion.

It can be as simple as where it said 10 a.m., make it 11 a.m.

or where it said shall, change it to may.

Um but usually it's done based on something that's already before you.

Uh we're we've we've we're talking about an ordinance.

I move to amend the ordinance to say this differently.

I think I I can't support it in this way, but I if we could amend it, I could I could support changing that shall to a may, right?

Um when you're talking about public comment, Madam Mayor is the presiding officer and Madam Parliamentarian, um, we've already established under state law that the public gets an opportunity to speak within reasonable proximity before actions are taken.

I would strongly encourage you, if you're having amendments, to have a separate public comment on the amendment than the vote.

Uh right?

So, like, okay, we've we've moved, we second we had public comment, and then it's like in the course of discussion, we now have a motion to change the ordinance as it reads says the skate park opens at 10 a.m.

Um during the course of the discourse.

I'd like I I I don't like the 10 a.m.

10 a.m.

idea, frankly, I think it's too late.

I think we need to open it earlier for people who work to be able to go before then.

So I'd like to move at 8 a.m.

I could support that.

Second.

Well, if I was in a member of the public at 10 a.m.

I didn't care.

At 8 a.m.

suddenly I'm very passionate because that I'm getting ready for school, I don't want to hear the skate park next door.

So I would like to have public comment on that so that because my feelings on the amendment are different than the ordinance as a whole, right?

So that's a I I would encourage that where um where you're going on to have public comment on the amendment because it's an official act you're taking, right?

Whether changing the ordinance one way or the other, or not changing it.

Um so that's uh just a uh a best practice there.

Yes, ma'am.

So don't you typically close the public hearing, then you talk about your motion is made, seconded, discussion about it.

Then do you if you make an amendment, then do you like reopen the public hearing?

Yes, but my recommendation is yes, you reopen the public hearing for the limited purpose of talking about the amendment.

So if you're having an amendment to change the skate park hours, somebody says, again, I don't think the skate park should be in this zone of the town.

No, that's not what we're talking about.

We're just talking about 7 a.m., 10 a.m.

That's the only thing we're taking input on right now because the vote on this is different than the vote on the ordinance as a whole.

Once that ordinance passes or fails, then we're going to have to vote on the ordinance as amended or not amended.

And members of the public who spoke once, could they speak again?

Because it's a whole new It's a whole new issue.

Yes.

That's one way that it it's advisable to do that so that the you you avoid the legal issue down the road of somebody saying, Well, I didn't know.

Uh when here's an example.

You publish the ordinance on your agenda and everything else, it looks one way, and then it passes a totally different way.

And someone's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, when did that happen?

Oh, during the meeting, but we had public comment before that ever came up and nobody ever got a chance to talk about it.

It sort of sanitizes that issue.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And again, that's it's advice.

You're not going to find like Florida statute 727-12.

It's not there.

Um that's why we have these discussions, and then you can evaluate what works for you and what doesn't.

Um generally speaking, though, when it comes to amendments, it is improper to raise amendments that are irrelevant, hostile to the original motion.

Like, I move that we approve the skate park hours at 7 a.m.

provided we destroy the skate park tomorrow.

No, that's hostile to the very nature of what we're doing.

Um if you make an amendment that deals with settled matters, I would like to amend this to add the ordinance we just failed to this.

No.

Right?

Um, you know, or frivolous and absurd things that just have nothing to do with that.

From a presiding officer standpoint, you do have some discretion there, Mayor, um, whomever, or future mayors in wait, uh, to say, you know, that is not relevant to anything we're discussing.

That's not your main, so we're not going to entertain that amendment.

I would uh ask that you be very, very prudent and shrewd in how you do that, um, not you know weaponizing the process, um, which is another point I wish to make as we near the end of the content here is um all of this about parliamentary procedure is designed to protect the integrity of your process.

If you find that you're leaving here tonight and for the first time actually studying the materials in a work session, saying, I want to see that slide deck, and then you come to the next meeting, you're saying, well, he said a motion, at least on this motion, so technically what she tried to do can't happen.

You're doing it wrong.

This is not intended to be used as a sword to attack or vanquish your peers or enemies.

It is just a a means to protect the integrity of your process to enhance the public trust and your trust amongst one another and you know reasonable and shared expectations.

That's what this is about.

And while doing so in an efficient uh manner.

Yes.

One of the problems I have had between Sunshine Law and Robert's rules, in that you have to have a motion on the table before you can on the floor before you can discuss it.

And if you have not say had a workshop on a very complex uh ordinance, there may be a lot of variables on in that ordinance, and different ones of us will like or dislike various parts of it.

And motion on the floor, we really can't have a good discussion.

You're just having a debate.

Now I have been in other organizations with Robert's rules that you're like suspend the rules for 15 minutes to adjourn as a committee of the whole so you can have an open discussion of the whole thing.

And and and I asked once about that in, you know, in this context, and I was told, no, you don't do that.

So if you do haven't had a workshop, how do you get to a consensus on a very complex, you know ordinance or issue?

I think you fall back to the uh Michael Jordan doctrine, just do it.

Um the you know, uh you know, the point is well taken, and I think that the um when you talk about harmonizing Robert's rules with sunshine, that's the whole thing, right?

It starts with Robert's rules only applies once everything else is conformed with.

And so you're absolutely right.

We do not have suspending of the rules.

When you have, under Robert's rules, one way that's fundamentally different, and some cities do this.

I'm not advising it or discouraging it, just some cities do this.

They say when you get to item sixa on the agenda, we require the motion on the front end.

Item 6a, I need a motion.

Uh move to approve item sixa.

Second, second.

Now it has been placed on the table for us to discuss and debate.

And if it gets no second, we don't even touch item sixa, it dies for lack of a second.

Uh we never even had the discussion at all.

Um and so that's sort of what you're talking about a little bit with it how Robert's rules work.

Most cities, and I think correctly, most cities do the reading of the title, introduction by staff, we have some discussion.

Whenever we kind of get bored or too scared to say what we're thinking, then we to throw it to them.

That's our intermission while we listen and also conduct our thoughts, comes back to us, we close that, we debate again, now I will entertain a motion, right?

Now, what I would again suggest to you, and I it's a very, very frustrating answer, I can tell because we keep coming back to it, is your meeting is the opportunity to do all that work.

It is going to make a long meeting longer.

But if you're really concerned with it, that is the meeting where you can say, we have two readings of an ordinance.

It never ceases to amaze me.

The number of commissioners who are like, well, we just rubber stamped that.

Who's we?

Do you have a mouse in your pocket?

Because you're the only one who can approve an ordinance, right?

So if it was rubber stamped, it was rubber stamped by the five of you.

You had every ability when I wrote it this way to change it.

In during the during the first reading, during the second reading, you could have made amendments.

You could have modified the language.

You could have come to me as a staff member between first and second reading and said, hey, I just want you to hear, and we come to second reading, now that I did have, think of your first reading as your work session, right?

Now that I've listened to all that, I really have a lot of problems with clause seven.

And frankly, I I'm gonna make a motion to amend clause seven.

Can you help me finesse some language that would be legally defensible so I can introduce it as a proposed amendment for the body?

Right?

So there's this idea, I think r mistaken idea, not just here, but generally, that it's like once it's at a public meeting, it's a foregone conclusion.

We don't see it that way.

I certainly don't.

You know, and and it's in I I my favorite one is at the end of the now that we just finished budget season with all respect to the manager and and clerk is when a when a commissioner or council member at the end of it says, thanks, we've adopted the budget, and and hey, maybe manager next year, maybe we can do something about that ad valorum rate.

I'm like, what do you mean do something about that ad valorum rate?

You just approved it.

If you wanted something done, we had four months of hearings where you could have done something.

Um just because I presented to you a proposal that I thought was in line with best practices doesn't mean you couldn't change it.

Um you're ultimately the board of directors.

And so again, you're right.

All that stuff you know about Roberts Rules, division, suspension of the rules, all that stuff doesn't really come in when you factor in the sunshine law side, but I also don't think it prevents you from doing the job, it's just more uncomfortable.

And to that point, I had a meeting, I I know you guys are probably looking at the clock.

I got five slides, we'll be fine.

Um I had a meeting where I had a public official who very clearly had a degenerative mental condition.

They were losing their faculties very slowly, and it was happening meeting over meeting on video or otherwise.

And ultimately, I tried to meet with them and encourage them to resign, in part because of where they were, and in part because of who they were.

That was never going anywhere.

And I asked um the governor to intervene at the time.

The governor was not willing to do that.

So what I but before I asked the governor, I said, I if I'm going to ask the governor to invoke their statutory authority to do this, I need support that this commission wants that done.

And the only way I can get guidance from the commission to have to ask the governor to remove another member is to do it at a public meeting.

And so sitting two seats away from the person, I introduced, I have this is the proposed letter I wish to send.

I wish to send it to the governor requesting that this council member be removed.

And uh I believe that that needs to be condone because I do not think they have the faculties to perform their duties, which is a form of you know non-feasance.

And so based on that, I'm asking for your authority as the commission to send this letter on your behalf of the city.

And madam, I know you are sitting two seats away.

You are part of this hearing as anybody else, and you're free to say whatever you wish.

I apologize that I had to present this this way, as this is the only way I could get that guidance.

So trust me, when I say I know it's hard.

You know, and uh and everybody knew what I was gonna say.

And so the moment I went, you know, inhaled by a microphone, the entire audience went like this, right?

Um but we do our business in the public.

And to pivot back so I can get you out of here.

When we do that public business, sometimes we have breaches of order.

We don't do things the way we should, or that we agreed to.

Principally that's the result, that's the the role of the the presiding officer to catch that.

But sometimes it may be the presiding officer who's deviating, or just might be an oversight.

We are a self-policing body.

Um so with what that means is if one of you sees something, say something.

Right?

If if if, for example, in that hypothetical where the person's trying to be recognized and the mayor refuses, you know, it's incumbent among one of you to say, point of order, mayor.

Uh Commissioner Ulrich has had their hand up the whole time, and and they have not been recognized, I think before we close this, because if you don't do that, what it signals to your peer is you don't care.

Right?

You don't care and you're fine with that.

And then when it happens to you, they're gonna be, and then it's gonna keep happening altogether.

Right?

Or point of order, it was Commissioner Batty had the floor, Commissioner Trice keeps interrupting.

Um I think it, you know, we say that we each get two turns to speak or whatever your rules say.

Um it's hard to keep track when we keep interrupting each other and asking questions in the middle of our time.

You know, if you get two turns each turn, four minutes, if Commissioner Batty starts going and Commissioner Trice is like, that's interesting.

I was wondering, when you say that, what do you mean?

Well, this, okay, because I was thinking it's like, okay, is this is four minutes?

Is this not as four minutes?

Is this their turn?

Is it not their turn?

Um, all of that.

But again, um ultimately beyond the ballot box, and that is really where most of the remedy comes, um, it's ultimately your responsibility to to police your own conduct.

We've talked about your um the way I usually end the parliamentary procedure discussion is where most of our meetings end.

Votes and adjournment.

Um we we understand under chapter 286 you have an obligation to vote unless you have a legal conflict.

So, madam presiding officer, if you have a commissioner now or future company who uh tend to take uh respiratory therapy or bathroom breaks and comfort breaks every time it's time to call the roll.

Please be reminded you have to get their vote recorded unless they have a legal conflict.

And a legal conflict is a defined thing.

It is your money goes up or your money goes down in a in a tangible, measurable, legally relevant, quantifiable number.

Um that said, I think a lot of times when the public accuses you folks of voting conflicts, they forget that you have to live here to be a commissioner, which is to say rising tides lift all ships and every ordinance affects you.

You're a resident of the city as well, haberdashery aside.

Um and so there's tests for that, and you work with your legal counsel as those come up.

Um but it has to inure to your special private gain or loss, and that's ordinarily understood to be a monetary and fiscal sum, and it's not just any amount.

Um it depends on, you know, if there's a hundred and fifty houses and you own one and they're all of equal size and value, then you don't have a legal conflict there.

You might have the appearance of one, but you don't have one.

Um so that's you know something that comes up a lot.

And then ultimately, I've never once had it become an issue, uh, but sometimes you're not clear on when to adjourn.

Ultimately the presiding officer adjourns your meeting.

Uh usually we can't even to the commissions that do take a motion and a vote, we can barely get through it before the gavel is wrapped.

Um but ultimately the commission may recess or adjourn to a time certain, and this is from your code for the transaction of any business or for specified business only as maybe determined by your commission.

Um there any other questions on anything we've touched on?

Do you want to bring up something before we go?

Because it's super important, and I want to get your opinion.

Yes, ma'am.

To kind of help me with um the commission.

So the process regarding umending previously adopted official minutes.

Yes, ma'am.

I will really I need some help with maybe clarifying that process kind of on a record, and we also kind of are aware of how that works and what that means for minutes that have already been previously adopted, and if that's even something that can be done.

Yeah.

And even if it is done, those minutes that were previously adopted won't be changed because that should not be a practice that we should do.

So a few things there.

I I've told you your minutes are like your permanent record.

They are a critical part of public meetings, so definitely a relevant thing to talk about.

Um because the meetings are a permanent record, you can revisit them if they are, you know, if if I find I approve those minutes, but uh come to find out it said I was present.

I wasn't even at that meeting.

I was, you know, I was off in Seattle.

Uh we need to amend the minutes to reflect my absence.

You can you can do that.

Um that said, when we amend the minutes to reflect that I was there, the fact that there's a version of the minutes that reflect that I was present when I wasn't, those minutes don't get deleted.

That's a record of the city.

It's not offered for the truth of the fact that I was there, but if we're going to say we amended something, well, what did you amend?

I would like to see what it looked like before you amended it.

Right?

Uh when I get um I've had situations where I get a public records request uh when a manager or somebody else enters into a um a leave agreement with a separation agreement, and we give every version of the agreement.

They say I want all drafts.

Well, there's only one approved version, but they see every iteration of it because people often want to do that post-mortem and see how did we get there.

So you can change those minutes, but it's never going to make it so that there's no record in the city that ever says that.

Because we have to preserve the fact that that in fact happened at one point in the city, right?

And and that comes down to a public record retention side of things.

And I've had I've had minutes that and and ultimately those minutes become critical.

I had a charter amendment in a city that I realized was improperly reflected, and I had to go ten years back into minutes to realize, oh, the commission actually did approve that to say this one word that hasn't been on Municode for a decade.

Um, and so getting those sorts of things captured, the minutes are important, but they are a permanent record.

Uh you don't just jettison them because it's it's again not offered for the truth of it, which is a lawyer term.

I'm not saying when you said that Randy is handsome, we know it's true, but it's not offered for its truth.

It's offered we record that you said that.

That is a thing that happened, right?

And that's all it is.

Um whether people agree with you or not, and there's any number of things that we say in a meeting or are said in a city meeting that are true, not true, different levels of truth, and people can agree or disagree with them, but it doesn't change that it was set into a microphone or acted upon or whatever, you know, or displayed or whatever, whatever the thing may be.

Um other questions on anything we've touched on at this point.

All right, then that leads me to my most important slide.

That's all, folks.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

Sorry to take you right up to one.

You were perfect, thank you.

We're adjourned.

All right.