Charter Review Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Everyone, we'll go ahead. We don't have our full team here right now, but we, we'll go ahead and kick it off. And then if we need to backtrack on they have any questions on anything that we discussed, we'll go back and bring them up to speed and review it. So, you wanna go ahead and call the role for us?

Commissioner Arevalo. She's running a little late. Commissioner Ayala?

Present.

Commissioner Burleson? Commissioner

Garber?

Here. Commissioner Meeks? Commissioner Rourke? Here. Commissioner Tomides?

Here.

And, I think we've all heard that the other three commissioners are on their way, so should be joining us shortly. Item three is citizen comment period. Did we have anybody sign up?

No. Okay.

No sign ups for that. So if it's alright, we will, skip item one on the agenda for approval of meeting schedule until the rest of our colleagues get here. We'll come back to that one and start it, on number two, which is, section by section review of the charter. We left off, at the end possibly of 03/2004. And, so if it's alright, we'll go ahead and just jump in at 03/2005.

And if we have to go back and review anything on section three, we could do so. Sam is 305, mayor, mayor pro tem, deputy mayor pro tem. Is there anything in there that's

You know, the this is fairly standard. You know? You wanna have somebody to help the mayor. And in fact,

it came up, not last

night, but at this I think it was the workshop meeting on Thursday, if I'm not mistaken. It may be all a blur now, but it just came up this past week. The mayor was getting over something. She had a bit of a coughing attack. She had to step out. And, Shane Scott, who's the pro tem, took over. And, there was a concern for a while that he might not be everybody's there's stuff going around. I don't know if you've noticed. So, the deputy mayor pro tem, possibility that she would have to step in. So that's really all that is. It's like a chair or vice chair and just to have that backup to run the meeting.

So Some kind

of new work.

I think it's pretty standard,

honestly. But

Anybody have any, comments or questions, concerns about 30305?

This one. Anything that the council brought up for us would answer. No.

So we'll go three zero six. Vacancies? Give

us a quick

again, this is the deal. Just one point out. If there is vacancy, in the event the mayor is unable to call a meeting to order the election for any reason, mayor pro tem or deputy mayor pro tem are authorized or directed to call a meeting to order the election and perform all the required actions. And in the event of vacancies, the offices of the mayor, members of city council, the following authorized to order the election. So that's just basically default.

It's kinda like, you know, that move that TV show designated survivor. Who's left? Who's the orders in in what order? Or Yeah. Member what was his name, during the Reagan administration? He says, I'm in charge. Yeah. He thought he was in charge, but he wasn't. And so this is saying that

I'm in charge.

If for some reason, none of these council members are able to to take over, the city manager, clerk, city attorney. So, again, very unlikely scenario, and I don't know if there's anything unusual about that. K. The next section

Anybody on 306?

Oh, yes, sir.

Any interest in? Okay. Three zero seven, Sam?

This one is fairly standard for cities. It's what are the general things that the city council is gonna do. And one is, you know, if you're gonna sell or convey land or lease land, the city council is usually the one that's gonna authorize that. You you don't authorize the city manager to sell city property. You know?

That's something you want your you want the public to have notice of so that you can speak to it so that it, the city council is retaining that authority. Same with city facilities and acceptor liability. So imagine we get sued. The city manager just can't say, okay. I agree. I agree that we're liable, and we're gonna settle this case for you know? For example, we have the Biden bus lawsuit. You know? So, anyways, those things go to counsel because they're the ultimate decision maker when it comes to expenditures, city funds, but also liability. They may not wanna admit liability.

So, again, I don't know if there's anything unusual about that. But if you feel there should be a restraint, you know, or an expansion of their powers, you can certainly look at that.

It does say lease. Can the can the city lease property to some other entity?

Yes, sir. And there is also you know how the Lions Club lease comes up all the time? Yes. That that's built in here. Right? It talks specifically about in subjection three zero seven b one, city after public. We can authorize the lease of park property to another governmental entity or to a nonprofit for a term of up to three years. So y'all probably noticed, and Mr. Dwighty's, I've been on council, you've probably had to approve once or twice or maybe not during your but every three years, you'll notice that the Lions Club lease comes up. And in fact, it'll be coming up in October, I think.

Yeah. So that's an example. It's built into the charter. That's why that's

What what section was that? Oh,

three zero

seven b one. Almost at the three three lines from the bottom. City council may authorize the lease of park property to another governmental entity or to a nonprofit corporation

for up to three years. But this section covers more than just park leasing park property. Correct? This would be any leasing of real estate. Or

Well, generally, it talks about leasing real estate then, specifically yes. I'm sorry. Yes. Park property, this is about But

this this section covers any leasing?

Yes. The sale the city may city council has the power over this. The sale, conveyance, lease, mortgage of land. I'm sorry. This section, yes. It is for park purposes. Just park purposes. Subsection B 1. My apologies. Yes.

Is there any part of this section that is not park?

Yes. Subsection C. I'm sorry. I was looking for it there. Okay. The city council will have the authority to approve the conveyance of land, rights of way, or easements.

That's all done in an ordinance?

Yes, sir. And what's interesting there is, you know, we have a million, like, drainage projects and roadway projects, pipeline projects, you name it, for water, wastewater. So the city manager will buy easements all the time unless they're over a $100,000, because we do have an ordinance that limits her authority to a 100,000. But those ones, we don't have council approve everyone because it's they've already approved the CIP project. It just goes without saying we gotta build the pipeline, so those are authorized if we're just buying land or an easement.

Well, I have thoughts on leases of former donut shops, but I'm not gonna bring it.

It's it's a blip.

Too lengthy. I I'm not sure this is the I think it'd be done. I think it's more proper for an ordinance of how leases should occur from the city. You'll remember what I'm talking about probably. But

It's it's not on the lease itself. It's on that next subsection down to find the leases.

Yeah. Not sure the charter's really good. But but I think we could do over a much better job of leasing property anyways. Not to be a smart aleck or anything, but just thought I'd throw that in there.

So are we deciding that, like, clarification defining things is important to certain things rather than triggers?

Well, in the section of three zero, three zero seven c for non parkland purpose.

It's over here.

It's over here.

I mean, for parkland purpose, it seems like, you know, it's pretty pretty cut and dry what the city can, can't do. But we've had leases come before the city council of just buildings we own or property leasing them to other businesses. And some people get it one way, and other other people across the street get it a different way. And it's, yeah, it's not very so I'm not sure that this is

So, yeah, so it's against that issue. The charters like the constitution, you know, like with Congress, and then Congress implements the statutes, which starts to get distilled down to the details. So that's how ordinances work. You know? But so the the charter just grants the power to lease or to sell or convey. It doesn't tell you how you have to do it. Now with Parkland, it does. It requires an election if you're gonna sell Parkland. Got it. The voters gotta agree with it. But that's that's just limited to parks.

For everybody just arriving, we we just, jumped in at section three zero five when you have a chance to look at it. And we'll continue on to 308, and I'll backtrack and give you a

quick primer

five, six, seven. So can we move to 308, please, Dan?

Yes. In 308, this is that notion that we're council manager government, and this puts some boundaries on the city council's ability to interfere and and city manager's hiring of, you know, all the people under purview. So it's basically I mean, I can read it. Neither the council nor any of its members shall instruct or request city manager or any of the city manager's subordinates to appoint, remove from from office or employment. Any person accepts with respect to those offices which are filled by appointment by the council.

Right? So the city manager is supposed to run the day to day management of the city. That's the basic premise there. And the next part, the council and its members shall deal with the administrative and management functions of the city solely through the city manager. Other council appointees is appropriate, and shall not give orders to any of their subordinates. And that's the whole deal. We actually have it built into city ordinance as well. Council members aren't supposed to direct, you know, like the director of utilities to do a certain thing, whatever. So that's what it is. Now that's pretty typical, city manager, council, form of government.

Now council controls the budget. You know? So council has to wait. Council's influence never actually is completely eradicated in these areas. Right? You council controls the budget. So they have ways of influencing how things are run. Right? It's just not the day to day affairs. That's really the thing there. It's not this micromanaging. That's the concept of that section.

Also, the the, you know, the the common conversation that's usually had is that the council's a policy board, and then you have the your your administration, city manager, and and so council sets a policy, and then city manager is supposed to implement that with the employees in the organization, ideally. Is there any seems like section three zero eight is also pretty standard for most home rule cities. Is there any any comments?

I'm just kinda looking back, and this was updated 2017. This yeah. We've we've had a few issues. Was this just a was I just worried? Was there anything I'm just kinda curious with the problems with why this was beefed up last or in 2017.

I'd have to look at the actual 2017 change to see if it was beefed up or if it was loosened up. I really don't know that.

I just was kinda curious.

I think there was some discussion about about council members that or elected officials that had relatives that or, you know, there was some there was some discussion about what's the word? Nepotism. Nepotism conversations. I don't know if that would be here, though, so I I can't say.

Right. Because we have a nepotism provision further, later on in the charter that

But if it's if it is listed in 17, that means something was voted on in this section.

Yes, sir. Okay.

I just And sometimes they're just clarifications, not just in that type

of grammatical sometimes, but we have to look at twenty seventeen.

It's probably in that file right there. Yeah. But while you're doing that, I'm just gonna go back for those that just came in. 03/2005

was one. That was I've got the.

Oh, I

I think we do have the 2017.

I can look it up.

Yeah. Just look it up. Let me Sam, just look it up. I'm just always kinda

curious if there

we had a few things close. Yeah. Some reasons why, you know, I don't want you to watch this stuff.

Yeah. Three zero five, three zero six, and three zero seven explanations were kind of and three zero eight were kind of standard for cities. This is standard language that most cities without a strong mayor have. But if you you all or anyone has any additional questions on that, we can always address those. So, let's move on to three zero nine because this one, is one that we talked a little bit about in our in the council suggestions.

And that one is the council suggestion. This provision requires 22 meetings a year, and the council suggestion's 20. You know, that and the What else is it? Meetings of the council should be in the city unless if they want to meet outside the city limits, they can publish notice of that meeting. Still has to be with public meeting.

So since I've been here, I don't recall a gathering of the council outside the city. And I'm talking about regular meetings with the council. My understanding is that, in years past, though, that there have been, like, council visioning sessions, which we just had one in January, that sometimes they would go, say, to New Braunfels, like, some sort of retreat and do the visioning there. But just seems like councils are not inclined to do that now. I think But the option remains on the charter to do that.

Yeah. They used to always be out of town for a reason, I think.

What what used to be out of meetings?

The visioning.

Oh, oh,

okay. Yeah. Because it's like an eight hour day, and you're you're trying to facilitate open thoughts, not camera, not worry about you know, you're just trying to vision. You're not making any decisions. You're just trying to vision. And then you come back and, you know, you have your you vote on the actual policy statement that came from them, but was kind of pure purely the ability to think and speak freely.

It keeps counsel from going out of town, making some decisions. If you've got troublemakers or, you know

Yeah. Makers, whatever you

want.

And and even this provision still says that, you know, the meetings will be It's public. Yes,

sir. Yeah. They were all public. We had a couple of times somebody would come, and they'd sit for a couple hours to see it.

So this this provision retains that option for counsel. It doesn't you know, again, presently, counsel hasn't expressed that desire, but the option is there under the charter if they were sub fund.

Does anybody else have any thoughts on the council suggestion for the 22 regular meetings to 20? Yeah. I my

it it dropped the two meetings. It was only gonna be 20.

Yeah.

And it was one, like, maybe during the summer or something and then to November?

Yeah.

Okay. Or it's at their discretion. But I thought my recollection

is that y'all were accountable to make that ultimate decision so that in any any given council could have their preferences as, you know, each election cycle. But that would allow He gave an

opinion of November. I think like, oh, that would be great.

We can

give

you a question or something.

I think that's what the mayor brought

up. Yeah.

That was the actual very first thing we talked about.

Okay. And one other thing that's interesting and really not part of this is unique to San Marcos and part of it is not. But, just not that long ago, I wanna say it was 2019 legislative session, they the legislature required that all citizens have a citizen, essentially, period for citizen comment or the ability of citizens to comment on the agenda. Well, San Marcos has always had that. Well, I say always.

It's my understanding since a few decades back, they've allowed citizen comments. So we were ahead of the curve on that. But the thing that is unique, San Marcos, in its last sentence of three zero nine is the question and answer session with Preston Public. And to my knowledge, there's no other city in Texas that has that. I I could be wrong.

There are some concerns about that in terms of Open Meetings Act. And so because that doesn't tell the citizen comment, it's a one way dialogue. The reason this is tricky is because there's this expectation that the council will have a dialogue back. And it does raise issues with the Open Meetings Act, but, you know, we've managed to deal with it. And our usual to comply with the Open Meetings Act, we do what the Open Meetings Act already allows, and I'd say you can have staff follow-up with the information requested.

You can provide just basic factual information, or you could, you know, bring it back to a future agenda if the citizen raises a question so that it is publicly posted. So, like, citizen raises whatever issues they're gonna raise. Say, you know what, city manager? Let's put that on next week's agenda or whatever. It's all about letting the public know. So, anyways, it's it's unique to San Marcos as far as I'm aware.

You have had some certain citizens have really championed this and have really break the city with the coals to to put, like, I guess over this past few years. Think for, you know, with with doing it by the book, I mean, is there some things that staff you know, this wasn't brought up by counsel, but is there some things that maybe staff has seen that they may wanna see with this that are some suggestions? I'm kinda and have we always had this, or is this

It's been a long time. I I

think the nineties

since. Oh, I don't think

that well, I don't know about calcium. Guess it's only been there about three or four years.

Okay.

It's always

Really good.

That I remember it counts.

But it's we kind of have the system worked out. It just you know? And, again, for over weeks, we kinda worked it out where, you know, again, we're allowed to provide a basic factual information, or or we could say we'll get back with the citizen or put it on a future agenda. So we have ways to deal with it. I mean

You'll see. Been around for a while,

and it's I just we've been noticing from from the staff side since counsel didn't bring that up. I know, again, you know, I've kinda watched from the sidelines

and the

fireworks on this place.

I can at least at finding something. It can get contentious. It kinda opens the door to anger, frustration.

Which part?

Oh, it's

bad. Question and answer.

Yes. Question and answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's always it's always like a statement. It's never a question.

Yes. Yeah. And then and then It's

ugly statement.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's people coming after usually the board members and being ugly, and you wanna answer them. And I think one day one time I did answer. Because I was like, okay. You're not gonna get up with this. Like, I'm gonna answer this.

And

that's not good because it puts everybody in a bad situation, but we've not had that issue.

You'll see in '21, it was amended, and part of it was citizen comment at every meeting of the city council.

And I I do

Not just regular meetings, because there's a meeting here before the meeting in this room, and there's direction given. And we had a citizen comment person who came to every meeting of the charter review last time, and that was her big issue. So we listened and made the suggestion, and it obviously, it passed. You know? Why would that be a problem? So, yeah, that was in there. And but yeah.

Thank you for that. Anybody

else on 309 have anything in particular? If not, I do. I'm gonna ask this if you'll pass it down. This is some language that I wanted to bring to you all for input on. The red underlined is additional language, and there's a little yellow box there that is not filled in on purpose.

So I wanted to hear it from everybody. But this particular amendment is worded that no member of the city council shall participate by teleconference in more than blank regular meeting in a calendar year, except when participation is for excused absence, and you'll see at the bottom, excused absence is defined. This is essentially to keep people in in person and to have the meetings in person because I really do feel like it's a different experience when you are in person at the council level. There's a lot of nuance to a council meeting that does not come through on the first off, the audio for council meetings is horrible. Yes.

You can barely hear anybody. Nobody speaks into the microphone, but everybody around that dais hears what everybody said or didn't say or, you know, every little groan or whatever. And so it's kind of important, in my opinion, that, council members meet in public, meet in person. And we have a there's an ulterior motive here. We have a attendance policy requirement, for boards and commissions that is, 25%.

You cannot miss 25% of the meetings in a year, or you're automatically removed at the end of the year from that board.

Three in a row, 145%.

Well, for I don't know if is it three in a row for all board members as well? Okay.

I think council.

Council's three in a row. Yeah. But we also had a situation where we had a council member that moved moved out of state and continued to meet for six, eight months by video conference and get paid every month, and, there's no prohibition against that. So this is kind of a prohibition against that. It's a twofold.

It's to encourage in person participation unless you have an excuse absence. Look. If you have surgery and you're out for three months, you're out for three months. Everybody's gonna get that, and that's defined by ordinance already. So my thought was that this should be, I would say, 25%, but I I think it should be less.

I think it should be four meetings, not five, but I wanted to hear what everybody else said. So in other words, this would allow you to participate in a regular meeting via video conference if it were adopted four times a year. It should be enough.

So what's the consequence if they go over?

Well, we're hoping that people don't. I mean, obviously, if it's excused, there's no consequence. Right? If it's if there is no excuse and they just decide not to do it, you know, counsel has some ability, informal and formal, to enforce the rules of the charter because they take an oath to uphold the city charter. It's not specifically defined as you miss, you know, x number of meetings and you're out.

That doesn't work that way. It it is in there in some things, but in practical terms, I'm not sure it's

And what why were you suggesting for

because it aligns with the 25%. If we go to 20 if we go to 20 meetings a year, 20 regular meetings

K. K. My gut is to make it less than that.

I mean, this is just a jumping off point. It and so it was to keep everybody to meet in person and to eliminate the, hey. I'm gonna get elected and move, and there's nothing you can do about it because I have the right to video conference. And I think most people, in the community kind of expect if you're gonna get elected, ask to get elected, get paid, that you show up as much as you possibly can within the within the boundaries of the rule set up setting set.

Maybe we need to add something in there about I mean, I'm following the logic. Maybe we need to add something in there about if they live outside of they have to live here to get elected. But then if they move and they move outside of this area for more than I don't know. Some people have a vacation home, so they go for six weeks out of the summer or something.

Well, this doesn't so I I wanna address that because we we had that conversation, Sam and I, about, you know, the residency part. And the residency, as we all know, is is really difficult. It's really difficult to enforce residency. You guys deal with it at PNC for number of people living in properties. I mean, it's just very difficult.

The the language is in the charter, but it's, yeah, it's it's very hard to prove whether you're a resident or not. And if if you, you know, still keep your driver's license as Hopkins Street, then resident even though you're living in Florida. So because I wanted to prohibit that scenario, but also this this seemed like a pretty good, way to do it.

I I think I remember that out of state moving out of state, there was going to be a May election to replace the person, and it was determined that they couldn't do that for when maybe COVID was COVID possibly, and that's why that person continued on. But the charter says must live within the city, so they shouldn't have been able

to do that. Well, it's a one year before.

Here's the for purposes of subsection, a person must meet all of the following to meet the requirement for prince for principal physical residence in the city. Person's the person must use the residence address for voter registration, current driver's license, or Texas ID card, must use the resident's address as the person's home address on documents such as employment records, resumes, business cards, government forms, and loan documents. A person must not claim a homestead on any property other than residence. So I think that and I think there's a reason why. It doesn't get into and they must be living in that spot continuously for XML because there's a lot of cases in Texas about elected officials, appointees in different contexts.

And surprisingly, most of those cases, when there's a challenge to residency, the the person who's being questioned usually prevails because it's difficult to prove you're gonna compel somebody. You're gonna be out there with a video camera that they're So they're trying to set up some basic objective criteria they can look at. Driver's license, voter registration, homestead, things like that. They're not looking at, you know, being able to monitor that person coming in and out of the house at all hours of the night. Right? So

And part of the part of the role of a council member, as we all know, is not just the meetings. It's the community meetings. It's list showing up, listening, talking, to the residents. It's, you know, showing up at when there's a natural disaster. You know? Those types of things that occur outside the regular meetings. It's just more far more work than the regular meetings are. And I don't I just don't feel like you can honestly represent somebody if you're inter if you're you're in another state and you haven't been around and you're gonna intend to be around. Our charter doesn't prohibit it. So

I think that I

think that we could add something somewhere. Maybe at that very beginning part of qualifications, must maintain residence

in the city.

We already have that.

Yeah. But

they're saying that prove.

It's hard to prove because just like she left, and she could say, well, I still own property there. I still

Driver's license. Yeah.

Like, I can give you an example for me. Like, I was looking to get a fellowship at the White House two years ago. That would be one year church fellowship. I would be there for a year and then come back to Texas. Right?

My employer was gonna hold off of my position, not pay me that entire time, and then I come back. My residency was all here. And I don't think that it would be disqualifying if I was a city council member if I happen to because it advances, for one, what I'm learning, how I can help my community, and it's the whole purpose of the fellowship is for you to bring resources back to your community. So that's why I don't think it's the worst thing if it's, like, a one year thing or not. Now if you're not planning to come back, right, which is a hard thing to prove or any kind of that's why I don't think we should venture on to, like, determining when residency happens or if living physically, I don't think that'll be So

in your situation, are you saying that if you had gotten that VC, then you feel like you should have been able to still zoom into all the meetings and participate?

Not just Zoom in. So under that situation, I I was getting comp I was gonna get compensated a fair amount to where I could, you know, come back and do some of those other events that need to happen. Right? Still plan and do some things to show intent. Right? To show either combination Zoom meetings, combination, like a quarterly meeting, something that shows that you want to stay involved and still have the capacity.

But that was your personal choice. So I think what we're talking about is what people don't choose to do that and how

That's true.

That's true. But like I said

What what?

And the scenario that we're talking about

is That's funny. I'm not I'm afraid that going back up to 30,000 foot. Okay. What we're talking about here in this language is about how many teleconference meetings you can meet, you can miss. We're not talking about residency, where anybody's going.

That's background in my mind. Okay. What you know, in this case here, he's bringing up a good point. And I I guess I wanna go back to one other issue that you brought up, John, is that it's that person to person, that face to face, that is much more I can have much more impact as somebody to citizen comment, period, many times. I can have much more impact going in there and looking at you and looking at every single one of you.

TV screens just do not do it, folks, as far as communication. That's from my standpoint. Yes. I understand if you're gonna move somewhere. It's just as a council member, I wanna be able to see. And so that's that's where whether you move or not. But that's that'll really work out. I guess the only thing is that enforcement. You may wanna put just something in there, I don't know, enforcement and council discretion. You know? I don't know. But you you do have that is this okay. We've that's. We've settled this, but how do you enforce it?

Yeah. So consequence. I think if you're gonna make a rule, they're gonna laugh at you unless they know the consequence.

And I think a good consequence is a similar one to the PAC has with the board of directors. If you miss 25% of the meetings, right, in person, then you are no longer qualified for the assignment. Right? You you can still be a board member. You can still be involved. You can still do the work. You just don't get paid for it. Everyone can see that show up. I think the site will be a fair one.

Now just to that's missing the meeting altogether. Right? And for the PEC, and this one is well, they're still participating in the meeting. I right. Whatever. I just wanna make sure the distinction Right. They're not missing the meeting in this case.

That's because they don't have, like, Zoom meetings, so that's that would be the equivalent. Right.

Because they don't have Zoom.

It has to be that way. In this case, since we have if we're able to do it that way, then then we can not necessarily raise or lower, but change the standard a bit because you're missing a meeting, but you're not really because you're you're still engaged in the process. Right? But you're not there physically. So that's why if we make it four, which is not five, right, the 25% Right. It doesn't get too big. I think it's a fair number, and I stand by

So maybe just for and I I hope you don't mind this chair. I'm wondering if we need to look at it two parts. First of all, are there four people in favor of the concept of missing with or or participating in no more than four meetings. And then if there's four that like the concept, then you can talk about the consequence part.

Yeah. I Let let me let me get to Yancey. You had your hand up.

I was just gonna say, we're talking about consequences, it could be that let's say that you can't risk more than four regular meetings for the teleconference, and then after that, it counts or counts. Even though you're there, it counts an absence because it's more than two.

Okay. So let me ask you all this. Is is there interest in limiting the number of times you can attend a regular meeting by video conference technology?

I

see consensus for that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna say yes. I had I suggested four, but I'm throwing that out there in the middle if you wanna bat it around.

Four seems very, very generous. I I think I think Three.

You've got Three.

So you've got 20 meetings out of 20 meetings. We're not taking it. So Right. You can have three.

You have that exception. Like, no one's saying if you had surgery and you can't be there, then, obviously, there's an exception, and you're gonna have proof, doctor's proof or whatever. So there's no anything else is taken care of in the exception part. You know what I mean? So free is fair because if it's some real emergency

Yeah.

Then that clause handles it.

Yeah. You're you there is an excuse an an excuse if you need more than three.

Yeah. But And there is

a there is a a section that will go that we're coming up on on enforcement of these rules.

Right now, we're talking about just the number

of Yeah.

Meetings you can do by video,

not Yes.

Absences or anything.

Just video.

Or

I mean, I guess, my question is, are we is the threshold of meeting meetings are missing meetings gonna be smaller or larger?

Well, again, so this has to go to the voters. What and the and the voters, what do they see? You know, they're gonna have a a thing saying council members, no member of this council shall participate by teleconference in in more than three may meetings in a calendar year. But that's gonna be the question they're gonna vote on if this makes it three. So whether it's three or four, I'd like to I'd like to propose something that can pass, not just the council, but at the end and with the ultimate with the citizens.

So is do you feel like there's a does anybody feels feel like that that it's unreasonable to to do three? Like, that's not enough? Yeah. To use it for

Well, I guess I'll be fine with three because it's, like,

the worst thing I can't imagine.

K.

Honestly, I don't think it's been passed with the citizens because we're sitting here talking about it. We understand the value of face to face being in the same space because that's how we operate. We wanted to be on this charter review commission. I think since COVID, everybody lives life on Zoom. I mean, all the things at the university are on Zoom. I mean, so I think people aren't gonna get it. I don't know how we're gonna educate them and tell them why we have this and why we are recommending this. I mean, so I am gonna go free, and I do see the value of us putting it in there.

K.

But I think it's gonna be one of those things that the general public is not gonna give it.

Depends on how it's working.

Because I think that if you heard enough of them complain when we had the issue of someone living outside for almost a year, like living in Florida or some sunny, nice spot, but she just teleconferenced and was never here, not involved in the community, didn't do anything. But she's taking the stipend. She's doing whatever else, but she wasn't doing anything else. Like, she you know what I mean?

I think, though, anybody serves me, she wanted to resign and put it all back to resign. But they said, no. We we can't we can't can't hold a special May, so we we can stay on.

Mean, that's Well Back then, they'll be in. Yeah. Okay. What what Amy was talking about? K. I'm gonna circle back because okay. Is it in our mission? You're right. We've gotta get it passed. It's gotta be out there. It's not in my mission to educate everyone. They're having. K? Yes. But it's not my mission to make sure that

yeah.

I wanna put it out there that it's clear enough that there's a reason. We felt that there was enough of a reason for it to go on that ballot that it said, wait, that 10% of the population is gonna go out there and vote in this election and is gonna choose these for the most part. They're probably gonna take a. So have to go. But we've gotta make it clear enough and not not try to seek anything through.

So I'm in agreement with Gammy, but I'm just gonna back off a little bit from yeah. In my mind, just where I'm coming from is, no. It's not my job to educate everyone out there on that. I just wanna make sure it's clear that we bring it forward, that it's got enough of a weight, and that we kinda get, okay. We're not gonna send this to counsel. Counsel's gonna decide from here, and then we can go out.

We don't have that. Do we give them the wording, or we can have them at the end of city council?

We we will give them the in the final report, we will give them actual ballot language that they will be able to consider and, which we will vote on. And, and so this could be worded a little differently instead of no member of the city council shall participate in more than three regular meetings. It could be a little simpler saying

Yeah. Wait.

You know, council members shall not participate council members shall participate in person.

Should be present or something.

Should be yeah.

Positive. So I can watch something positive instead of don't do this. We wanna say do this.

Yeah. Sam I think we can write.

Does. Okay.

Well, I think I'm hearing, yes to promoting in person, and this would be the explanation that we would give counsel because we have to give them a reason why we brought it up and why. So it'd be promoting in person participation in regular meetings, limiting the number of video conference meetings that council members could have with the idea that there are there is a Well, that's okay. A contingency.

So I

I'm happy to play around with the wording on this. And I guess I can email y'all some different way. There's many ways to say the same thing.

You all can

decide what you think is most effective or you know?

It's it's kind of work to do for you.

And then

Is it Yeah. Plan with word excused absence, is that directly lifted from

That's already in there. Right? Excused absence.

And lifted from some

That's by ordinance.

It's not from the from the okay. What this says is that the complete absence is defined by ordinance. Okay.

Okay. Well, thank you for that. I'm just gonna put approved by consensus at this point at three, and we'll work on the language, and that'll come back for final approval.

And were we gonna keep what we had mentioned earlier about?

Let's go a little further into the section three. I think you'll your question will be answered. Well, I don't know if it's in this next. Let's go to, first off, is there any anything else by anybody in 309? If not, we'll go to 3010 310, Sam.

This one, one of the things that's a little bit interesting is takes four well, let me just read. No action of the council shall be of any court certify unless it is adopted by a favorable vote of four or more of the council members. Why that's important is if you know Robert's rules, say under Robert's rules, all you need is a quorum to conduct business. So say five council members show up, and then they take a vote, and about this rule in here, if three members of the five vote, it cares. So what this rule is saying, it doesn't matter if only five of you show up for this council meeting or only four of you show up.

It takes four votes to pass anything. And so what that means is sometimes if, say, members are sick or some members have to be out on a conference, wherever they're out, and you only get four or five or less than all seven members there, you run the risk that you don't have enough votes to pass something till you get all seven present. But what year that's added, I'm not sure, but that's what that means, basically. No matter what, it always takes four

to pass.

But it all it

also fortunately eliminates de facto notice where where a a motion to approve something fails, some would argue, well, that that means it's denied. But that isn't that's not how

it works.

Right. So it's the favorable vote. And that's why what you often see in our meetings, and I think y'all have seen this where I hereby move to approve this contract. Or let's take it no. Let's do a zoning case. I move to approve the zoning, and it fails. And you think the matter's done. It it failed. Well, no. It it didn't fail because an alternate motion could be made, and the alternate motion could be, okay. I moved to approve the zoning, but with these restrictions. Right? Or I moved to deny the zoning. So you'll see that in a lot of our meetings as

far as

the council, okay. Y'all didn't approve it.

Y'all still haven't

denied it yet.

The favorable motive for you

to deny it is necessary. This little little nuance. Any

suggestions for 03:10? If not, I have one. City city council meetings, city council agendas. Most every any board I've ever served on has an agenda item approval of the minutes. City council agendas do not have minutes anymore,

believe it or not. What?

Yeah. Actually so

Let me let me finish my thought,

and then you can

back straight. So

use the the practice has typically been that the clerk would essentially, just a basic minutes. You know, you all have them on your p and z where this is what was discussed. This was the direction of the group. It's not a word for word. It's not a lengthy tone, but that there is a small explanation in writing on the agenda item and or was.

And if someone went back and was searching agenda agendas, previous agendas, approved agendas in minutes, they could actually see what the council directed, whether it was a vote or whether it was a whether it was a vote or whether it was a consensus or direction given. I'm gonna let Sam explain why, but in why that's not it's maybe makes that unnecessary. But I do want to make a recommendation in section three ten that written written minutes be included in city council agendas and approved in city council agendas and online records and approved by council at every meeting.

Well, if it's not in minutes, how do the actions get

Same.

Right. So minutes are still required in the in the ordinance. We even have an order of the agenda for minutes. So the absence of minutes, and

I am trying to

say this delicately, but it it is not at any direction of the council. There's been some and I I don't think to do this. But it's there's been some issues with staffing at the clerk's office, and they are actually getting very close to catching up all the minutes. There's kind of some lag time when there's the transition from Jimmy Case to the new city clerk, and that's something that the clerk's been working on to and for what it's worth, council member's been also trying to get those done. And so I I just wanna make it clear.

It wasn't any kind of a council directed thing, and there's gonna be a meeting or two coming up where there's gonna be a bunch of minutes, I guess, that are gonna be up for approval, just FYI. I just wanna make it clear. It wasn't a council thing that caused any of that, but there is

And there is another level to that story.

Okay.

But in the end, there is not has not been for a couple of years a written minutes that was approved by accounts the council. And I I think it ought to be, and that's why I'm making this right.

They approved, or was I had they just not approved it because it's not there to be

It's not there. It's not on the agenda.

For approval.

Some cases, we've already been

that job for a while. So let me ask And

I just wanna be

I because I wanna tell them.

Yeah. Every every council meeting I ever served on, there was minutes, and we voted on them, and we would read them. And sometimes you would ask correct them.

Right. And exactly.

Hey. I didn't quite say that. Sometime

between the error and, Sam, you're saying that this is more recent with change the case with the transition, you know, with the the office that they had to get back to up, so they just were not doing

Correct. I was saying this. The the oh, the minutes are right. So there are gonna be minutes coming to be approved. That's all I could tell you.

I, you

know, I don't know the whole back story and what I understand. But it's not a council thing where there was some I just wanted to make it clear there wasn't some council directive that there would not be minutes. It's just been

a Okay. So how long is that gap? I'm just saying John remembers Two years. Okay. But John's saying for two years, he even does. Okay. So that's the catch up that we're eating right now for the approval?

That's my I say two years. Don't hold me. I could be eighteen months out of It's been long.

It's been worked on. Fine. I'm just It's

just fine.

It's been worked on.

I was trying to get his one It's not like we don't have them and don't take them and no one's recording it. If you see

that they're

behind, they're gonna catch up.

It's a little scary because

Yes. How's that? We were way behind on.

And we had to do one. This was the same thing with PNC, and we did probably we had a packet like that that had all the minutes from previous meetings.

What if we suggested? Maybe this is where we come up with an alternative, and we suggest that they have we pay for transcription. We already pay for that?

Well, it's not

it's I don't know.

But it's not as hard as everybody's making it to be.

No. I think all you're saying is just put this in because it's this is not in the charter right now that the minutes are required.

It it says it says well, there's also let me let me just say this, and Sam will be more of an expert on this. But I think there's some case law now that says that if you're recording the meetings electronically, that that that can constitute actual minutes technically? I'd have to look at that. Okay. But

It's a trans or a transcription of some sort.

My suggestion and my language is that written minutes be included in every city council agenda and approved by council of the previous meeting. Is it? Is it in Robert's? I think I take this.

Robert's Yeah.

Robert's rule speaks about minutes.

Well, even if they're recorded, who's gonna go back and listen to it and try to edit? I thought

It's not easy. It's not very transparent. Just like we talked about this one issue that we watched Jim and I watched, today. I mean, that's an an or, you know, that's an hour long discussion. I don't I just wanna see what the direction was.

Did. Yeah.

What they do, what was the vote, and that would be contained in the short minutes. It's not that hard to do, and there is more to the story. But

I have

seen is the place.

Called a record of actions taken.

Right. The PNC does that. Okay. A day after action.

Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Just So kidding.

So how are we feeling on the suggestion?

Oh, pretend. Oh,

it I'm all for that. Should be written minutes, and it should be exactly as it says to which any citizen may have access at all reasonable times. Just like you're saying, it's you should be able to go look at it if

you need it.

Well, that is by law already. That's under the Public Information Act. And they are posted online once they're once they're actually passed by counsel Approved. Online and available.

So a couple years from now. That is my law.

Daniel? I know.

This is I just

wanted to say that, I'm I only have an issue with the word written right because I don't

want it to be misconstrued. Right. Right. Right.

Maybe scribe Included. Or type written or, like you said, just included something that shows that it doesn't have to be written out because people tend to type things

Literally. Literally.

And I think they'll come up with better language of how it I think the intent is that it's an agenda item, that they that it's approved Yeah. At each meeting from the previous meeting. Rob, you were gonna start to say something? Okay. I'll get on my I'll

come back to you in

a second.

Anything else?

So that goes into 03:10?

I think that's the spot for it. Yeah.

It's I just I just want to underscore the importance of it to me is that you, as my elected city council member, need to go back and to say, yep. These are events. I approve them. And then once they're approved, yeah, that's you know? Or no. I disagree. I you know, please go back, and I we've gotta have that loop in here. Yeah.

I would think the library or somewhere you have a book. I mean, it's nice here.

Well and if it's included in the agenda that you were actually searching, if you were truly looking for something, that's where it should it should definitely be there, but it's not at this point. So it's easy to get away from, obviously, because they have. I think we ought to make that confirmed. So I am hearing consensus for for that. Okay. So I'm gonna move on. If there's nothing else in 03:10 to 03:11, Sam.

But did we have which on 03:10, or was

I thought we got

the concept. The concept will come back with the actual Okay.

Tweak length.

Well, one of the you know, 03:11, there's a lot of stuff in here. But one of the things is what we do in San Marcos is we have two readings of ordinances. In the old days, at least when I got here, I think for some things, there were three readings. And then there was something different for zoning ordinances where there was reconsideration. But the whole idea of two readings, I think, is I think the notion is that the council can revisit an item one last time.

Because say you pass an ordinance the first time, you get feedback from constituents, It gives the council an opportunity to, you know, take that feedback. It also gives council time to reflect on their own actions and say, you know what? On second reading, I do wanna propose. Surprise, you've been in that chair, so you kinda know a bit better than me. But, you know, after reflecting on it from first reading, I wanna add this or I wanna revise this part of the ordinance.

So But can that only be done by someone who voted for it?

No. Not for not for second reading. Oh, okay. That's like I I know what you're saying. You're talking about, like, a reconsideration.

Mhmm.

And there's a separate deal for that. But just for the ordinance itself, it's already posted for action again, and any of the council members are allowed to change their mind or propose an amendment on second reading. So it's a little different than a reconsideration.

I had a question about d where it said active ninety days of the most recent public hearing. Does that mean the council public hearing?

Yes. Okay.

So a lot of time and this has been fairly infrequent, but we've had a handful of situations over my time here at the city where and it usually involves development projects, and there's controversy, whatever. So sometimes staff goes back to negotiate or see what they can work through with the developer or have some community meetings. And more than ninety days passes, and so they will have a second public hearing because it's been so long. You know? Let's have another public hearing and and, you get everyone up to speed again. And that's the concept there.

K. Anything else in three eleven?

No. We weren't talking about duty to change some of the service. Any agency council? No.

Unless there's something from this board. But if not, we'll go to 03:12 then.

Alright. 312. This one, which it really has to do with ordinances that have penalties or new provisions. So say the parking some parking ordinance. Well, parking is a civil offense now.

But say we have a code enforcement issue. We create a new violation in the city, a new type of ordinance regulating something. So because it's new and it's gonna create a penalty for that new offense, you publish it in the newspaper first. So that's really the crux of that. There are some other ordinances that have to be published, like, for example, franchise ordinances, and then there are some things by state law that might be required.

Any any suggestions on three twelve?

Yeah. 03/12 or three oh, no. K.

Okay. If not, we'll move forward to 03/13 unless I hear something.

The one thing that kinda caught my eye on this is, you know, it's it's the media based. You know, as we're moving forward, what happens if because we've been close to it before, the newspaper. What newspaper are we talking? You know? And we only have okay. Are we talking University Star, or are we talking the daily record?

You know? And The daily record.

Oh, I know what the daily record. The newspaper. You know? So and this is, you know, this is that public record out there that you're saying, and this is where you've gotta get the money, most of these things. Okay. We've as we're moving forward, is that really the the right language? Is that the right thing? I I read that and, you know, just because I'm I'm watching all the media change and, you know, Donald Stall and we're about post COVID. And, okay, so how do we get this out there to people that they need to be able to know that something's gonna happen? And, you know, it's it's typically twenty five years to know people will stay on the the the legal notices.

Could we update it to because I understand that it says general circulation within the city. Could we add and because it's not going away. Official social media.

That's what

I'll say. Put it

on there. Because,

like, we just gotta move on from this one on. Right? We we find stuff in Twitter. We find stuff.

But that's what the city's It's

not unusual to have certain things where posted on the city's website is the terminology, and then we'd figure out a good place on the website. You know, again, being the charter, how specific do you wanna get, or do you want it general? The website, and then the city figures out a good place. But I think there's a number of ways to do it.

Well, you said, you know, social media, I just generic. And I think that's what I was kinda looking at was, okay. This is our one chance in four years. Let's let's update it. You know? Because it it has been a ton of shit.

It does say newspaper of general circulation. The record is not gonna be published. They're least in hard copy.

That's right. So I think Right. So that would leave us with the statesman. That would be the one. Is that right? I heard that.

I haven't heard that.

I don't I don't think they're at that point. They they have been in the past. I mean, it's been rocky. And but they're publishing, and they we do have that here. But it it comes back to what are people And, you know, they in my mind, I'm with you that, hey. Just let's just get social media. You guys go figure out where. Does I have any of that it's it's whether it's website. You know, I am more from city's, you know, official website.

But we should

We have to make recommendations.

But anytime the city's doing anything, just like with comp plan or anything, they tell people. Like, they tried to advertise it everywhere you hear about it in all the meetings. And then even when they're having the little meetings, like, in the neighborhoods or wherever, they also say, but it is posted on the website. And you can go under this section and find it. And, usually, when it's something new, if you look at the city website, it'll have, like, comp plan it'll have something down at the bottom.

And you may have to click on it and take you somewhere else, but it's on there. And I've noticed that with, like, a lot of things with comp plans and different anything that's going on that citizens need to know about, I've always seen it on the website, the city website.

I think to to add to that, that is them telling you and then you going. Right? I think the purpose of this specific, I guess, article or is to state that we are gonna take that information and send it to you. Right? Like, the information has to get to you. So in in the landscape that we live in nowadays, that information comes via social media. So so on the website, we definitely continue doing that, and we also have it to where we're sending it. It's like, I don't get updates unless a notification gets right? And I think that's how most citizens nowadays are. So I think we don't scrap the newspaper because there's a lot of folks that depend on that.

And we we do the general, like, all digital and, I wanna say something like analog, right, media, and then that'll encompass everything. Right? And that gives some but it has to be both. Right? We we make it known that it's both digital, and I I can't think of something other than that.

You know? So should are you saying that the the that sentence would read final passage thereof in some newspaper of general circulation within the city and the official website of the city of San Marcos?

Any official media channels

or anything? And So everything that the city does social media has to have this or just a soc

Anything that's a publication of ordinance. So any publication of ordinance has to go out through social media is what I'm saying.

And I I just wanna make clear. And I wonder if I should talk to our communications director. Like, we have a lot of so many different little platforms. Some of them are about planning, and some are about the comp plan. It's like You'd have to

make it

that one.

Do we wanna have do we wanna have the discretion to limit it to, like, our Facebook, our the standard Facebook, page of the city versus you see what I'm saying? Like, all the sub accounts

Like, I'm not saying that it has to go through the city's Snapchat and the city's TikTok. What I'm saying is as long as there's a social media aspect, there is Okay. A official website aspect, and there's a printed media aspect. Right? Yeah. Just so that no one can give the excuse that they weren't reached out. Right? And it's I'm not saying every little thing. Just whatever you would have put in a newspaper would go into any of those.

What are we talking about with the newspaper? Should it stay just the San Marcos record? What about that community impact news?

Well, technically, what the Statesman qualifies as a newspaper of general circulation in the city because they're actually published daily more frequently than the record. Exactly. And so some of our things under state law, we actually put in the Statesman because under the state law definition, the daily record doesn't qualify.

What do people read? That's what I'm here.

This stuff Let let me ask one. So when we come in over, you know, we came in the steps. On the side here, we've got that big class case that's got oh, everything there that is that's where it's notified. Right? It's put up there. That's the public record. Those are the things

that are incorrect.

Yes, sir. A lot of those, like, public yeah. Notice of public hearings are usually posted in paper.

And that's what we're talking about. Notice of public hearings, what you see coming up the steps. They're same thing that, you know, we see if I go over the county, I've got to if if you do anything in the county, it's it got posted on courthouse. You can go down and find that. Okay. You know, that's the same thing. It's we're just we're not talking about a whole bunch of flowering language or anything else. It's just those public notices only. And that's easy enough to me to just I go straight to the city website. There's a page right there that says public notices. And I just go down there, and here's a nice little scrolling thing of the public notices. That's something pretty simple.

Yeah. And this is this I'm just gonna jump in. It says this is for penal ordinances.

That's correct. It's this is Oh, like

I said, it's not every ordinance.

Okay. And I mentioned at the beginning, it's like where this we create a new violation like a new code violation. Okay. That's what it's about to let the public know, hey. You can't jaywalk over here anymore. You get a ticket.

But I I think it's and you're right. I mean, let's let's say it's not for everyone, but it's the ones that count,

the ones that you want out

of the public. Yeah.

So in terms of language, if I if I hear everybody, if we we feel that the the newspaper is not adequate by any metric, so the language should contain the word and the official city website. Right? Everybody on that?

I think we're missing

Hold on. Let me just ask that part. Michelle, are you good with that city website? Yes. Okay. And I heard social media. Is that a requirement, or is that an endeavor too?

Do we have social media that is official to this city?

We do. But like Sam said, you know, there's a Keepsan Marcos Beautiful. There's a there's an Instagram. There's a there's a city. I don't think they're on TikTok. Facebook.

Notices or something that's

already asking. Like, there should be a place where even, like, like, emergency see someone. For the city wants to state that something's gonna happen in your Probably. Facebook is Do the we not

have an official on

Facebook. I I hate Facebook.

Facebook page might be the place for

So And we could say any applicable, and then

Could we not

have social media.

That's a good one.

Could we not require the city to support Mark's other?

Well, yeah, it doesn't have to be. That's what I'm saying any applicable. Right? Whatever decision we make as a it doesn't even have to be any of the top three. Right? It's whatever means of social media the city wants to get information on quickly and

to science.

Okay. So I'm gonna go around the ring. Any applicable city social media.

Okay. Sure. Notice or social media because it's gonna be on their web page. Anything that I've ever like, if I ever just go to the city web page to look up an agenda or something, you see things up in the top that are important. Like, you're like, oh, I didn't know that. And then you can see what's happening or what they're trying to tell you. It's all there.

And Mr. Ariella's point, I think, was that that nowadays, most people don't like to have to go they sign up for alerts. I think your point was if it's the kind of social media that, you know, you can log into or sign up for alerts, that's where the social media aspect comes in. For you,

it's that's what a newspaper is. Right? That's what a newspaper was always like. It's you signing up to get information.

It's official,

and it comes to you. Right? You

don't have get both. You can go to the website or you can get alerts. 80 record.

We get it from Austin, American Statesman. And the only place from the city that I know that you get alerts like that is maybe weather, but it's PD. Like, if something's going on in PD, you can get an alert, and it'll say, like, avoid this area. You know, whatever is happening there, you'll get an alert. That's the only other thing from the city that I can think of that I've ever gotten an alert for is the PV and maybe, like, some weather related something, but that's usually k u k x a n.

You can get on some list where there's a pending zoning change.

You can get a list for that. Yes. Right. With X-ray X-ray. Okay. So so what I'm hearing on section three twelve would be to add language following the newspaper of general circulation include including or and the official website of the city of San Marcos and any applicable social media.

I wanna make it so that the citizens you know, we we always my grandfather would get up and read the paper, and he'd go and look at the. You know, it was all good, and that was a regular thing. And he that waiting knew what was going on, what was happening to see or whatever he was in. And, yes, the paper is no longer we don't know where it's going. And for it

to be hard in there

without having to look at

the website, do it. No. I don't want Facebook. I don't want to go. Right? So as long as the people with me as long as you can go down to the library, long as you can go to places that even if you don't have the Internet or choose not to use the Internet, you still are not different. Feel like I'm not I just wanna make sure that we've got that somewhere that, okay, at least you can go down to the library and find a spot on the city website that you can pull these up, know where you're at. I'm good with that. I'm really clear about supporting the adult Facebook thing.

I think we have our direction on that one. Thank you.

Thank you.

So, Sam, could you quickly go through three thirteen, please?

Right. Three thirteen, again, pretty standard. It's just saying we need to codify our ordinances, and we do that in two places. We do it in a hard transcript. We do it in a code book. We do it online, and we have this amazing service that probably the majority of cities use, certainly in Texas called Unicode, but there are other services as well. And you all probably used it. You can download Word versions. It's all free to any citizen. And so we comply with that. We just it's just saying we

have a code book.

Now it talks about the types of ordinances that go in there. There it's ordinances that have sort of a are permanent in nature. You're not gonna put every or zoning ordinance in a code book. One of the things is we talked about an ordinance approving the sale of land. No. That's not the code book. The code book is about things that are gonna regulate your daily life. You know, speed limits, code violations like health and safety code, unsafe buildings, noise, things of that nature.

K.

I had a question. I'm in there

ability of printed copies. You know, some my my copy of the Land Of Alpen code is probably ten years old. Been revised several times. Some commissioners cannot get a hard copy of the. And it would really, really be helpful if they had one. Here, it does say officers shall shall be furnished to city officers. Does that mean somewhere later on in here, officers referred including commissioners. Amy, do have a hard copy of the? Wait. Rare. Getting a get do you have a copy of the land development code?

Yeah. Because they gave it to us when I very first came to P and Z. Uh-huh. It's in a binder, and it has the thing, and they gave it to me.

Okay. Some people came here.

My development code, and it's I'll bring it and show it to you. Oh, yeah.

I've got one, but it's Yep.

Well, I don't realize. That's why he's

But they gave it to us as.

Yeah. Yeah. Is that because is it is this some morning or lack of morning here that happened, or is that

I don't know. But it

would be good if we

had a current one. Maybe that's what we should also put in current copy because we have some of the additional

So are you proposing an amendment there? Well

It says It says officers that yeah.

It sounds like you wanna be very a little more specific about the number.

Or how how do you I mean, is isn't that more of a policy?

Should have had a plan, though. But the current

Can you put that on your agenda and just approve it?

And it's also on the Citi webpage.

If you go look

it up right now, it's It's it's kind

of an interesting there. Because, you know, again, we're moving into the digital Yeah. Era. Like, so in legal, like, I I used to always have the code book, and now it's just almost impossible. It's so much easier to go online than to view the code. But, again, some people still like a hard copy. But

so that's up to Is that something you wanna put in the charter on the on the ballot?

No. Okay. Okay.

That's

That that did you have a point you wanted to bring up on this?

Oh, on this? Just and I think it'll just be for, in my opinion, it'll be for future like we did with the gender pronouns. Mhmm. I think anytime that it says, thereby being published in a newspaper, we just add, write that last bit that we changed, and that would make it easy across the word on things. Because if you can publish something, you can copy paste it and post it anywhere. Right? And

Yeah. Or a link to it. Or a

link to it. Yeah. Yeah.

I see what you're saying.

What is the last sentence

that can be made for purchase by the moment and reasonable price fixed by the council?

What is the price of the picture?

You know, I'm not sure I've ever seen that action

done. Never.

I might have to do some research. While I've been here, I don't remember any ordinances or resolutions establishing a price.

But I have had people say to me when because we've been going through the land development code several years. This has been a hot topic. And I've had people who aren't on commissions, but who are very involved and have an opinion. They they said to me they told me that I had to pay for a copy. And I was like, we're a. But I think what they say what my my remembrance is they say,

well, you can go to

the library and look at it for free.

Right.

If you

want a copy you

wanna take home, your own personal copy, they're only charging because had no

seats We would charge the cost to the city. Know? We don't charge

I think

the service.

When we first got elected a long time ago, she gave us a book this thick, and it was hardbound. Wow. And I'm like, I'm not carrying it. I mean but that was before laptops were even on the diet. So So maybe we I I think I mean, if do we wanna add the I'll This list was obviously written before electronic communication.

So we could leave for move and for purchase by the public at a reasonable price by a fixed just made available through electronic medias. All encompassing it should

be available.

Yeah. And and

I do wonder,

we do make them available. I believe they are. You can go to Medico, and you can buy the code via that. I do wonder if

Can't you access Medico through the city website, though

Mhmm.

For free?

So Oh, anyway.

Just We are making it available.

But it could you the city's making it available, you know, if they chose not to as long as you you could go and purchase it. I'm looking at the printing cost as big one if somebody would come in and say, yeah. I want all of this. I want all of this. I want all of this. And,

you

know, we sat there and looked at it that it's cost the city, you know, how much time to get that. That it you could have somebody that could really mess you up. So Yeah. But I'm I'm all for leaving that in.

We do sell.

And I

wonder if you could take out the part that just said because I guess there are people who may wanna purchase, right, like the development code, for example. But, yeah, this part about price fixed by council is kind of interesting. But

My guess is that if somebody wanted it and the city said, okay. Well, look. We'll print you out all 1,100 pages, but we're gonna charge it by the page. That's typically how it goes from the city clerk's office,

which is say

that last bit purchase of our coffee, a physical coffee?

No. I I I think this ought to remain. I don't think we ought to make a de minimis change because there may be some unintended consequence. Like Rob said, if somebody says, I need 20 coffees.

I mean, that's fine.

And and so I think there should be a price for some for the paper and the printing.

Papers. I agree. Yeah. But is it or is it already available for free online?

Yes. It's on the city website. You can access this web this code.