City Council - Regular Meeting

[music] [music] Hello, welcome to 78621 Live. I'm Stacy Ford Osborne, the public information officer for the city of Elgen. And this is a special edition of our podcast where I'm going to be talking about city council meetings, how to watch them, how to read the agenda, and explain some of the things that happen at every city council meeting so that next time you watch one or attend one, you'll know what's going on. So, let's dive right into it. What I'm going to do today is review what is on a city council agenda. I'm going to show you how to find the agenda on our website and then show you the different parts of it. I'm going to talk about some important terms that you think you might I think you might need to know and then explain each part of the agenda from the call to order all the way to the adjournment. So the first thing we're going to do is um talk about how to find the agenda. That's really important thing. That's a really important thing that you want to do before a city council meeting is you want to download the agenda so that you can look at it and understand what's happening. And there are two different kinds of agendas. There's one that's just the agenda with just the items that are on it. And then there's something called the agenda packet. And the agenda packet is very lengthy. It's sometimes more than 100 pages long. But that has all of the backup material. And it has all the information that the city council is seeing um when they're sitting up there on the deis. Um and it kind of explains the backstory to what you're hearing the presenters speak about. So, I'm going to show you how to find both parts of that agenda. If you don't want to see the backup information and you don't want to read the whole agenda packet, they do pass out the agenda at the city council meetings. So, if you don't have a chance to download it and read it beforehand, if you go to a city council meeting, you can find it there. And also, I need to tell you that

all of our city council meetings are recorded and and um posted on our YouTube page right here on our YouTube page. So, you can find them later and watch them in their entirety if you want to. And the link for all of the city council um meetings. I'll show you where those live on the on the city's page. So, this is the city of Elgen website, and there are several ways to find the agenda. The easiest way is just to go right here on this front page. There's a little section called meetings and agendas. And if you click that, it takes you to this calendar and it shows you where all of the meetings and all of the agendas for all of the meetings that we've done from council meetings to board meetings to commissions, all of those, all of those live here. So, I'm going to use um the council meeting from November 17th because that has a lot of all of the different parts of the agenda. So you can see what it looks like. This was a regular city council meeting. And so when I clicked November 17th here on the calendar over here on the right, it shows that meeting and it shows you when the agenda was posted, where the meeting was held, what date and time it was held. So you can either download it straight from there, but what I like to do is I like to just click on the meeting itself because that opens up the agenda in a separate window on your browser and you can look at and you can see either the agenda itself or you can see the agenda packet. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to click it and it's going to take you to this public portal and it shows you the agenda right here. And then if you want to see the details for each agenda item, you can click the agenda packet. So you see the agenda packet is 154 pages long for this particular meeting. That's a long that's a lot of paper. So they don't print those out for everybody, but they are available to you to look at

online five five business days ahead of the meeting just like anything else. Um, for your information, um, the agenda items have to be posted five business days ahead of the council meeting. And this is the same thing for any commission board and commission meeting, any meetings that we have that are public meetings for the city of Elgen have to be posted that far in advance. And the reason is so that you can do what we're doing today. It's so that you can go through, look at the agenda, understand what's on it, and have the opportunity to talk to your city council representative about what's going on. If you want them to vote a certain way, this is your opportunity to tell them about it. If you want to ask questions, this is your opportunity to do that. And if you want to prepare to come and make a public comment, this is your opportunity to prepare for that as well. This is also council's opportunity to read all this backup material, these 154 pages that tell them what's going to be on the agenda and what they need to know so that they can make an informed decision. So, always 5 days before if you um know that a meeting is coming up, start checking the website 5 days before, five business days, that doesn't count weekends. So, five business days beforehand, you'll see the agenda posted. If you want to get an alert about the agendas, if you are anxious for a city council meeting coming up or you just want to know when those agendas are posted, you can sign up for that. And I'll show you where that is on our city website as well. You can go right here. I'm on the homepage. And you can go here to alerts, sign up, and get connected. And when you click that, there's all sorts of things you can sign up for. and they include public hearings, they include um city of Elgen council meetings, etc. So, if you want to sign up, all you have to do is go

here and then you click notify me over here on the right and it'll ask you to enter your email address and then notify me to sign up and then you just click which ones you want to be notified about. So, if you scroll down, you'll see city alerts, you'll see calendars. So, if you want to sign up for a city council meeting, you just click right here and you'll have the city council meeting emailed to you five days before when it's posted on our website. So, that's just another way for you to get that information. So, let's dive into what is on a city council agenda. Um, I'm just going to go through the actual agenda and then I'll show you in the packet what that looks like as well. So, all the agendas are organized very similarly. So you have a call to order, then you have a roll call, then an invocation, pledge of allegiance, public hearings, etc. At the top of the agenda, it tells you where the agenda, where the meeting is held, what date it's held, what time it begins, and where you can watch the meeting online. That's a link to our YouTube channel, and you can watch it right there. So, the first thing that happens at every single meeting is a call to order, and that's done by the mayor. She starts the meetings promptly at 6:30, and she does that with the gabble. She gabbles in. She calls the meeting to order and then everybody um quiets down in the room. Council members are at attention and then she does a roll call. And this is important so that you know who is present and who is not. She does that for the public record. That's important. It's done by and and by the way, all of these things are done by the city charter. It's in our city charter that these this is the way that we run a meeting. So when she does the roll call, she calls each council member by name. They say present or not or they say present if they're there. If they are not present, they have notified the mayor addition in in advance and she will explain so and so is not here tonight

because of family business or so and so is not here tonight because they're on vacation, whatever reason. And then all of the city council members have to approve that absence because council members are required to attend certain meetings. um a certain number of meetings per year. So that's all for public record. Then they usually have an invocation. That's usually um an invocation by somebody either that the mayor has asked to give. Sometimes she'll give the invocation. Sometimes it's a council member. Sometimes it's a member of the clergy. Um but somebody will get up and give an invitation. Then there's the pledge of allegiance. We pledge both to the um American flag and also to the Texas flag. Um and then we start in on the agenda. So section five is public hearings. There are not always public hearings on an agenda, okay? But when there is a public hearing, what that means is that there is some business that's going to be going to city council for an action. And when there's business that's going to go to city council for an action, some of those items have to be given a public hearing first. Sometimes those public hearings are done the same night that the action is taken. Sometimes it's done a few weeks beforehand and sometimes it's done several times depending on what kind of action is being taken. In this case, we have two public hearings, excuse me, three public hearings. And for those public hearings, these are um annexations of land. There are changes to the zoning map and there's some clarification of some language in the code of ordinances. So depending on what those are, they might require one, two, three or four public hearings. Um in the case of an annexation, those kinds of hearings have to be done first at the PNZ board. That's the public and excuse me, the planning and zoning commission. And then

they have to come to city council and have another public hearing. The way a public hearing works is the mayor will open the public hearing by reading what the public hearing is about. She'll read this entire paragraph here um word for word. She reads it for the record so everyone knows exactly what is being heard and then she will open it up to public comment. If you're interested in commenting on something that's in the public hearing section of the agenda, you can just get up and speak when she opens it up to comment for your item. You don't have to sign up in adv in advance. You can just stand up, say your piece, and give your comment about whatever it is that you're concerned about with that particular item. If you want to understand what these public hearings are about, this [clears throat] is where you're going to look at the agenda packet. So, I'm going to click here on the agenda packet. And here I'm looking at public hearing one. And you can click here and it'll show you the agenda item executive summary. So, this gives you the actual item. It tells you what department is presenting it. It tells you what action is being proposed. So since this particular item is a public hearing, council cannot make any action. Okay? They can't vote on it. They can't discuss it. All they can do is present it to the public and allow the public to comment. So in this little packet here, we have the proposed action. We have some background on what this is. Um staff usually writes what kind of financial or budget impact if there is any for this particular item. And then if staff has a recommendation for council, if there's an action required, they'll make that recommendation here. And then they usually add some attachments so you can have some context about what that item is about. In this case, there's [clears throat] the actual ordinance. It shows what the ordinance will be that council is being asked to

vote on later in the meeting or at another meeting in a future date. And then there's also the map that explains what area is being annexed. Okay. So part for this particular meeting uh the mayor read the public hearing and then she opened it up to comment. There were some people that had comments at this particular meeting. So they got up, said their piece and talked about what their concerns were. Now when somebody gives a public comment, whether it's during a public hearing or whether it's later in the public hearing section of the agenda, council cannot respond to you. Okay? All they can do is listen. later they can ask the city manager to do something or they can ask a staff member to do something but they cannot take any action on anything that you bring forward. And let me explain why that is. It's because by law, if there's going to be a public meeting, everything in that public meeting has to be available to the public ahead of time so you know what they're talking about. And that's so that council can't just have a meeting and decide things without your knowledge. Okay. Now, if you if you're not informed and you don't stay up to date on when council meetings are, that's on you. But you do have the opportunity to know what's on those city council agendas. When you're getting up and giving a public comment, nobody in the room knows what you're going to say before you say it. So, it's not on the agenda. And therefore, the rest of the public, because everyone in the city is the public, the rest of the public doesn't know what you're going to be talking about. and so they don't have the opportunity to talk to their council member about it or to come up with their own thoughts and feelings about it. So public comments are just that. All you do is you make a comment, council hears it, and then if they're going to be taking an action later, they can

consider your comment, but not during that period of the the meeting. So once we have our public hearings and we listen to I'll I'll go back to the agenda. There we go. So once we go to the public hearings and the count the the mayor has read the public hearing and then opened it up for comment, she'll go on to the next one, opens the public hearing, opens it up for comment, and then she'll open the next public hearing, open it up for comment, and then that will close the public hearing section of the agenda, and then we'll move on to what's called public comment. Public comments are at every single council meeting. The public has the opportunity to get up and speak and tell the council what's on their mind. It doesn't have to be about anything that's on the agenda. It doesn't have to be about anything that the council's going to be taking an action on. If it's something that you have a problem with and you just want council to know about it, if it's something that's going on in the city and you want council to know about it, or if it's just a question that you have that you'd like to have answered by staff, you can get up and speak during public comment. What this is not a chance to do is a chance to deride somebody, to um speak ill of somebody or to say things that are derogatory to about council members, staff members, any other individual or group. This is not the place for that. This is a place for you to speak to council and you address your comments to the mayor because she is your represent. She is representing all of city council. So, you stand up and you say, "Good evening, mayor." You do need to give your name. You do need to give your address. And when you sign up for public comments, we do ask that you give your contact information so that if you're asking a question or you need clarification on something, staff can reach back to you later on in the week and get back to you if if you're having

if you have a question that you need answered. Um, when you get up, you state your name, you state your address for the record, and then you make your comment. Um, different city council members do this, excuse me, different city councils do this different ways. Um, some have a time limit, some just let people speak. In the city of Elgen, everyone who speaks has three minutes to do so. And the timer starts as soon as you get up and begin speaking. The timer will begin, and then after three minutes, the mayor say will say, "I'm sorry, your time is up." even if you're kind of mid-sentence so you can wrap up your sentence and then sit down. Um, and everyone who has signed up to speak gets the opportunity to do it. That doesn't matter if it's one person, five people, or 20 people or more. Anyone who gets up has the opportunity to speak during public comments, but you do have to sign up before the meeting. So, if you're planning to speak during public comments at an at a future council meeting, you need to show up about half an hour before. That's when the the doors open. And then you just go up and and sign in and you just tell them what you're going to be speaking about and put your name down in your address. And then what will happen is the mayor when it comes to public comments will say, "Okay." And she'll bring out the first one and say your name, ask you to approach the podium and you'll say your piece and then she'll go on to the next person. Again, the mayor and city council and staff cannot comment or respond or engage in a discussion about any of the things that you bring up during public comment. A public comment is just that you get up, you say your piece, and then if it's something that needs to be addressed, either council will ask staff to address it with you later or they'll put it on a future agenda to discuss. And if it's something that's being discussed that evening that's already on the agenda, they can consider your comments when they're making their decision later on in the evening. Okay, so that's public comments.

So on to the next section. This is announcements. Um this is something the city of Elgen does and many other cities do this too. They don't always have it in a section called announcements, but in Elgen we do. And this is just a place for us to talk about things that are going on in the community. And this is for you and the city council members. just so everyone knows what's happening in the city. Um it's usually things like special events. Sometimes it's um a presentation. Sometimes it's a commendation of a council member. Um sometimes it's an announcement of a new of a new service or a new facility that we have in the city. Um all of that goes under announcements. Um but sometimes there's just one or two, sometimes there's seven or 10. It just depends on what's going on that time of year. for this particular item. Um, this was November. Lots of stuff happening in November. So, there are a lot of items on the announcement section. The announcements are usually read by somebody from the community services division, either the library services manager, the main street manager, or someone from the parks and recreation department. Um, sometimes it's me. Um, but that's that's who gives the announcements and those are just given to council. If council has any questions, they ask them, but usually it's just a presentation that says, "This is what's going on. We'd love for you to attend. The public is invited. If you are doing something in the city of Elgen and you want to put it on the announcements, you do need to submit that to the city secretary um two weeks before the meeting or more. And you do need to put all the details and your items do need to be available for the entire city. It can't be a private party. It can't be something that's members only. If it's something that you're offering to the entire city free of charge, uh we we can consider putting it on the announcements. I can't promise that we'll get them on there, but you can certainly send it to the city secretary if you're interested in announcing something for the entire community that you or your business is doing. The next section is called the city manager's report. And this section

exists because there are a lot of things that the city manager is asked asked to do um that isn't necessarily new business. It's sometimes it's something that the council has asked the city manager to work on or that they've discussed at a previous meeting that they want the council the city manager to bring back. Um, in case you aren't aware, the city manager is the person who handles the day-to-day activities of the city. City council makes policy. They make decisions about rules and regulations for the city. And then it's up to the city manager to it's up to the city manager to enact that policy. So that's what this section is. is it's when the city manager comes back to city council and talks about things that are going on with staff. They he gives reports um for the different uh zoning, excuse me, he gives reports for the different commissions and boards that we have that operate the city and the different committees. And sometimes he will talk about um things like nonprofit support funding like on this particular example. Um in this particular city manager report he notified us that Pam Sanders our human resources director had completed a certification program. Um in this particular city manager report we also recognized employee milestones for the for the cities that had been there for 5 10 15 20 and 25 years. So, there are lots of things that happen on the city manager's report, but they're generally things that are just the city manager reporting what's going on with city business that doesn't have anything to do with policy, nothing that the city council has to vote on usually. Sometimes there will be something like um for example, the item number five here, the discussion and possible action on the authorization of the interim city manager to negotiate with the Elgen Chamber of Commerce for their contract renewal. Um, for this particular agenda, our city manager, Robert Eids, was at

the time our interim city manager. And so this was just council giving him the authorization to negotiate a contract. So for that particular item, there was a vote. So occasionally there will be some action by city council, but most of the time it's just a report from the city manager. He usually doesn't go through all the background material. He just says this is happening. You can read the details in your agenda packet. And if council has questions, they'll ask them, but it's usually pretty cut and dry. The next section is the consent agenda. And this confuses people sometimes because there are some items on the consent agenda and they're all voted on at the same time. And a lot of people are like, "Well, why on earth do you vote on all of those items? Why are they not explained and discussed separately like the other items are?" And that's because these are items that are non-controversial. They're items that city council usually agrees on. Um, they're items that are really self-explanatory. In this particular case, it was the city council meeting minutes. Those are just the minutes from the last meeting. It's an appointment of somebody to a particular board of directors. Um, there are often uh special event applications and fee waivers. So, if somebody's having an event and they have to close down a street, for example, or they're having an event and they need police protection, um they have to go before city council because that's using city resources and city council has to vote on it and allow them to do that and then also allow them to wave the fees associated with it if if council so desires. So, the consent agenda is usually assumed that the council will vote for it. But if there's an item on the consent agenda that any city council member has a question about or they want to discuss or they don't want to vote on or they want to save for a later meeting, they can do what's called pulling the item. So at the beginning of the consent agenda, the count the mayor will read through the coun this consent

items and then if there's some item that somebody wants to pull, one of the [snorts] council members will say, "I'd like to pull item number three for discussion." And so they'll pull that item and they'll have a discussion about that item. And then if they want to keep it on the consent agenda, they'll vote for it when they do the vote. If not, they'll table it. And that means holding it for another meeting in the future. So if everybody's done um discussing it or there are no items to be pulled, the mayor will call for a vote and she'll ask council members to vote on all of the items that are on the consent agendum agenda. So in this case there were six items and all of those items all six of these items here were voted on at the same time. There was no discussion in this particular item. Council just voted on it. Someone motioned to to vote. Somebody seconded it. They voted on it and all of those items were approved. So that's the consent agenda. Once that's done, we move on to new business. New business is any item that council is going to consider and take action on. Now, actions can include things like a vote. Most of the time, it's a vote where they're going to vote yes or they're going to vote no on something. Sometimes it's a discussion. The the the action item is literally discuss this dis discuss this item and come to some agreement on it. Um sometimes it's just to receive a report. So sometimes someone needs to make a report on um a development agreement for example and council will just receive that report, listen to it and say okay thank you so much for presenting it. They'll ask any questions that they might have. This is the section of the agenda where city council has the opportunity to bring up some of those comments that might have been made at the beginning of the of the council meeting. if those comments pertain to one of these items.

So, in this particular council meeting, both during the public hearing and during public comments, there were some questions and some concerns raised about some of these items. One of them was an annexation. So, when during the public comments, council couldn't discuss it. But during this section of the council meeting when they were actually going to annex the property and take the action to actually annex it, they were able to bring those comments into consideration and discuss them amongst themselves. Those discussions are held out in the open. So council members ask each other questions. Sometimes it can get a little heated if there's a lot of passion or a lot of emotion about a particular item. Sometimes they will ask staff members to get up and explain something if they don't understand it. You'll notice that a lot of these items have somebody's name in parenthesis afterwards. So, for example, in new business item number one, Sanders is in parenthesis. That's our HR director, Pam Sanders. This particular item was an ordinance that will increase the employee contribution rate to TMRS. That's our retirement system. So, she's the HR director. That's something she handles. So, she gets up she presents and talks about what this item is all about, what this ordinance is. And so I'll show you what the agenda packet looks like for this particular item. I won't go so for this particular item and the the the person whose name is right here in parenthesis is the person who puts this agenda item together, right? So they write all of this. So Pam put what the ordinance was, what department it was that was presenting it, what the proposed action is, in this case, reviewing and approving the ordinance, increasing the contributions from staff, and then she gives a little bit of background. So she explains to council and to you, the public, what the purpose of this ordinance is about in plain English. So she explains what what this is all about and why it matters and what the

objectives are. And then at the end she'll talk about the financial impact whether it was budgeted whether it was not a budgeted and what the imp the financial impact will be to the city. And then she'll give a recommendation. So if she thinks that this is a good thing, she's looked at it and she thinks it's a good thing for council to consider and that she thinks that they should approve it, she'll put that in there. Staff recommends approval of this ordinance. This is why. And then she'll approve um attach any backup material that council needs to understand. So in this case, she included the actual ordinance that council will be voting on. She included the letter from TMRS explaining what that contribution rate was all about and how it affected TMRS. And then she did a little study that was a comparison of the different plans and the different rates that they had discussed. So after that, council voted on this particular ordinance. So they have this ordinance in front of them. The mayor reads this part right here and then council votes on it. And they can vote yes or no. And then the motion will carry or it will fail depending on how they vote. So that's what happens for every single item on the agenda. If there's a vote, council, the staff will get up, explain what the agenda item is all about, and then they will go through it, ask any questions, go back and forth, take into consideration any comments or concerns from their constituents or from public comments earlier in the evening, and then they will either vote or they will say that they've accepted the report or they will have the discussion as indicated. of this particular agenda. Most of these were ordinances and that's what happens a lot. Um whenever something has to be signed and put down for the record, that's an ordinance and that's entered into the c code of ordinances for the city of Elgot. So ordinances are um the

rules and regulations for the city. Okay? So they're kind of like our our code of laws. They're not laws in a city. They're ordinances. And so if we are changing an ordinance, if we are clarifying the wording in an ordinance, or if we're writing a brand new ordinance for the city, like in this case, we're annexing some land. We're changing the contribution rate for our employees. All of that has to be entered into our code of ordinances, and that has to be done by vote, and it has to be done in a public meeting just like this. Often it requires a public hearing in advance. So that's what an ordinance is. We also have uh resolutions. So if the city is authorizing something, if they're authorizing the city manager to do something, if they're authorizing um for in example here the canvasing of election returns, if they're authorizing some amendments to the city charter, something like that requires a resolution. So they'll say, "Be it resolved. We the city council approve that we're going to do this." So that's what those resolutions are all about. So, usually on the new business, it's going to be ordinances, resolutions, or the receipt of of reports from staff. So, that's what happens in new business. After new business, city councils typically have an executive session, but the city council can retire to executive session any time between the meeting's opening and its adjournment for any purpose that's specifically listed in the local government code. You can see all of those purposes at the end of the agenda. They include things like legal counsel, personnel matters, real property, economic development negotiations, or the implementation of security personnel or devices. Each item listed has to say what section of the Texas Government Code, it's always in chapter 551, is um authorizing city council to retire

for this particular item. In this case, we have four different items. The first one is real property. The second one is personnel matters and the last two are consultations with their attorney. So, it lists that section saying that because they're discussing things that have to do with real property or personnel matters or a consultation with their attorney, it's okay for them to retire to executive session and talk about those items behind closed doors. The reason for that is because a lot of times like if it's an economic development issue for example, um it may be a sensitive issue that the developer doesn't want to be made public yet. Um sometimes it's a negotiation and they have to do that behind closed doors by law. Sometimes if it's a personnel matter, obviously that needs to be done in private. Um and same with um consultations with the city attorney. If council does retire during the meeting for an item that's not listed on the agenda, the mayor has to read the section of the local government code that allows that discussion to be done behind closed doors before they retire for executive session. And then they have to reconvene afterwards if they want to take any action. So after the meeting, after they've gone to executive session, they'll come back into the meeting and the the mayor will reconvene the meeting and if there's any action that needs to be taken based on the discussions that happened in executive session, then they'll take those actions. If not, the mayor will usually adjourn the meeting and say that it's done and then she'll gavvel out so the meeting will be concluded for the evening. So hopefully that helped kind of understand the different parts of the city agenda. Again, if you ever want to find the agenda, you can find it on our city page, on our homepage. Just go to meetings and agendas right here

um on the front page and then you can find the agenda that you're looking for. Um and then they will have the actual agenda, just the agenda itself, printed out and handed out to people at the meeting. If you want to sign up for public comment, make sure that you arrive like half an hour before, 15 minutes before, so that you can sign up and have your name down as giving a public comment. If you want to sign up uh if you want to speak um during the comment section of a public hearing, you do not have to sign up. All you have to do is be there in person. So, that's it. That's council meetings 101. Um, if you want to watch this, we're going to pin it to the top of our YouTube channel so you can find it if you're ever wondering what's going on. And we hope that you'll share it with your friends and refer to it often. Thank you so much for joining us for 78621 Live. This is Stacy Ford Osborne. Very happy to present our council meetings 101 to you. Enjoy them and we'll see you at a future council meeting here in the city of Elgen. Let me do a a wrap-up. This podcast is recorded and produced by the city of Elgen. The producer is Sonia Browder and it is written and narrated by me, Stacy Ford Osborne. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back again soon. [music]