Discussion Item: Amendment to Rules of Procedure to address how an item is placed on an agenda.

Mayor Nabours requested a review of the Council Rules of Procedure to discuss the procedure for a Councilmember placing something on the agenda as a discussion item and then having that item move onto the regular agenda for actions, allocation of staff resources and/or receive a presentation.

Currently Rule 4.01 states, “The City Manager shall honor any request by a member of the Council to include an item on the Council Discussion portion of the agenda.  A Councilmember may submit an item for consideration at any time and the City Manager will place it in a queue with other Council requests to be placed on an agenda.  The date and time of scheduling shall be weighted with other Council priority requests.  The Council request for discussion of such item will be placed in the Council Discussion Section of the agenda.  Upon majority vote of the Council, discussion items will be moved to a regularly-scheduled Council meeting.”

It is important to call Council’s attention Article II, Section 3 of the Charter which notes that the “City Manager shall...prepare the agenda for…all meetings of the Council.”  The procedure to enable Councilmembers to place something on the agenda is in cooperation with the City Manager because it is a power reserved for the City Manager.   Any change in procedure needs to balance the ability to know a majority of Council is willing to allocate staff resources toward any research and preparation of an item with the desire to show the public that the discussion item is not pre-decided before it becomes and action item.  Consequently, the City Manager encourages the use of a test period to try any changes in this procedure.