City Council - Special Meeting

It's inclusion requests.

Yeah. We're only two pages in, so.

Okay. I don't know.

I don't know what to say. Just do it. You're not. If we're going to wait for them, then we'll just cancel the meeting because I'm not going to sit here when it's supposed to start. There's your bell. What do you want to do?

My concern is Tina definitely has the strongest feelings about it.

Okay.

So where does she go? And there are some things I don't necessarily either agree or want to explain.

We'll have to talk about it here. Here we go. Shane, I'm going to start the meeting. We can discuss what we want to do from there. But legally, how long do you want to wait? I mean, what's the rules?

It's a quorum.

We have a quorum. Yeah, we have a quorum.

I'll ask city council what they want to do after the quorum. I call this meeting of city council, a special session for June 22, 2026. I ask you rise with me to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Miss Beck, would you please call roll?

Demore is not present. Wilmot?

Present.

Naktrab?

Present.

Walker is not present. Murphy.

Present. We have a quorum. Anything you wish to say, counsel? Mr. Knobtrop.

Is this about the agenda or general anything? This is about the agenda. Tina put through a lot of effort in this and so did I, and there was different points of this that I wanted to have discussion with her because she seemed to be the most active. One of my concerns is if we proceed, great. But there's some things that we're going to have to repeat it. We're going to have to repeat it. What are you suggesting?

One option is take a 10-minute recess. Did you touch them? She's on her way. Which one? Tina. Tina.

I would entertain any kind of motion you guys want to make. Otherwise, we proceed or then we cancel.

We take a 10-minute intermission here, recess, until Ms. Damora appears.

We're going to sit and everything's on.

I have a motion.

I'll support that. I just hope we don't aren't here for three hours.

Motion to have a second. Can you clarify how long we wait? 10 minutes, I said. Okay. I go to Ms. Beck for roll.

Wilmot.

Aye.

Nachtrab.

Aye.

And Murphy. Aye.

Aye. We have until 512. If we need another motion, we can have it. Most of my, are you meeting? You can't really discuss this at all.

Not meeting, no.

I'm just. We can't sit here and really discuss this right now at all. Appropriately, I don't think so. Yeah, you know. There's three of us here, so therefore presents a quorum. And if we start discussing this while we have a timeout, I don't think that's good.

Um,

So who's the guy next to Ted Paul up there?

To the right.

To the left. Dale Meyer. Dale Meyer. Oh, okay. Sure it is. It's just he looks younger. Okay. And who's the guy to the left of Dale Meyer?

Jeremy Wills.

Wills. Is he around?

He's the dentist on State Street in Hamilton for many years with the big, now blue house that built it.

yeah we just saw him one night at the uh passenger pigeon yeah how old is his wife do we uh his wife no they're not married bobby yeah he's divorced yeah becky the one that had dimension oh that was bobby she's been gone a few years yeah his significance manager at Harvard.

to order city council meeting. Okay.

Yeah.

I didn't hear from Lindsay. I have not. I did text her. Any response?

Okay. We're on policy preparation, meal preparation, meeting preparations and procedures. I'll turn it over to city manager Horn to continue the discussion. It's been on for the last nine months.

Let's just picking up where we left off. We left off on page of your packet. If you go by the packet, it's page seven. If you go by the actual document, it's page three under inclusion requests. If you want to pick it up from there, Mayor. If you get off.

Inclusion request members of the city council, there's a level of 12.

So I think that's a page 7 page 7.

It is the yellow highlighted. It is what when I see the yellow highlight on number of footnotes in crossing out is that something we already agreed to.

Joe, that's my editing method. And I highlight the footnotes just so people could find them.

So it was in DeMore comments. It did it with black. So I didn't know that. So there's DeMore comments that's actually all involved.

Under 11 and 12. And reference it to her footnotes. Yeah. Since moving the item forward would require a motion and a second, I'd suggest that we consider the same be required to place an item on the agenda. Two of the five council persons support the agenda addition. Mr. Wilmot said, I don't see the need for this. And Mr. Knopfkamp said, open for discussion. I'm generally okay with wording. Mayor should set agenda. Here's the problem. We got to figure we're not the ones here right now. There's somebody else here. Who do we really want to trust to set the agendas? Is it one or two people? While I think the mayor with city manager sets the agenda at this point, There has been some times when people have wanted to add stuff to the agenda. If let's say the mayor says no, and the person, the city council person, ward rep says, yes, I want this on the agenda. It becomes a little push and tug of should it go or not? If we had two people that would approve that, I think it would make, ensure that the city mayor is not totally running the show.

And it would also ensure that one member with some respectfully harebrained idea can't get it on the agenda if a second person wouldn't support it because they would need that anyway to move it forward. And the other reason I raised this is it concerns me that it says others well, who are these others? I mean, can the way this is written, somebody in the community could pick up the phone and call the city manager and say, I want to have whatever.

And if the city manager agrees with that, what's the problem?

Well, because in all things, the whole purpose of this is to have a framework for a process. And I think it, it's city manager can speak for himself, but The whole point is to say, to give him something to rely on, to be able to say, you know, whatever, whatever the criteria is.

So following that through, pardon me, I don't mean to interrupt, but following that through, if somebody calls with a good idea for an agenda item to the city manager, the city manager can't put it on the agenda until he brings it before city council and gets a motion and then a second? No, these are two separate things we're talking about.

There's two provisions here.

I would expect that the city manager would contact the mayor and say, hey, mayor, do you think we should put this on the agenda or not? If I were to say, sure, we put it on, but if you would like this audience person calling in to at least have it where more than just one person on city council being the mayor has the authority to start junking this agenda up with all sorts of items that are just going to.

Yes, this time. Point number 12. Sounds like we're all in agreement or you know we've not I kind of agree that others couldn't just it should just card launch. I agree with you on on that. Oh for sure on 11. I am. Historically, I've always felt that the mayor and the city manager should set the agenda. However, I also see the real benefit of having others involved on the agenda. I'm going to bring up a subject that I brought up a few times based on the meetings before and I've talked to Shane about. I don't mean to be controversial. This is more of a point of order, so to speak, on the process. At the one council meeting, this is on bikes. I don't want to debate, I'm not trying to debate bikes, but we as a council voted three to one, Lindsey wasn't here, to have input from Parks and Recreation and the Downtown Management Board, which was fine. We did, and when we came out with the agenda and we got the feedback on it, the agenda merely had the feedback and then it had the reading didn't, we didn't have any opportunity to really bring into the feedback, just had the new ordinance. And then what I was told is that we didn't do it because you had the votes to go ahead and pass it as is without any other alternative language. So my point is, and I don't want to get into the debate of bicycling, but I am trying to understand that if things are on the agenda, that there probably ought to be a little bit more involved than just the city manager and the mayor.

And I'd like to add an input. I am saying that normally for the regular agenda, this is the city manager and the mayors working together. In the event that a council person wishes to add an agenda,

would contact either myself or city manager to for us to discuss that to put it on the agenda i'm generally okay with that i am generally okay with that or or at the table there you have two what happens if you put something on the agenda there's three of us don't and it doesn't need to have it modified because we get a chance to say no at the time it comes up on the meeting on the agenda so if the mayor and the shane decide this is what we're going to put on the agenda And then Tina and Charlie have something else that they wanted to, and you just said no, because it's not appropriate.

If there were two of them, then even if I disagreed, I'd go with it.

That's why this should be here.

If two of you bring something, one of you bring something forward and I disagree, I will still talk to the city manager. He will send something out to the rest of the council people, the other three. and ask for some feedback on it.

Is that correct? Actually, what I would likely do is go back to the person who petitioned for that item and say, I need you to go back And amongst your colleagues, I need to hear from one other council member. When I hear that, then I know that I'm good to proceed. Because you know you've got three people, or you know you've got two.

We're just talking two. He'd call me and say, hey, here's the change on the agenda. We are putting this on, and I'll say, great. Because if there's a push for it, let's put it on. But we're trying to eliminate... Joe Schmo continuing to bring up the same thing to happen to the agenda that has been turned down. I agree with that.

And the other reason you want two instead of three is three would be a violation of the open meetings act because then there would be a majority that have decided something.

So what you're suggesting here is on 11.

Read it. Two members of the city council may request the city manager to include items on the agendas. That just solves 11 if we write it that way. But the and other part is still.

Delete it.

Yeah. Or not delete it.

Delete it. Cross it off. Just cross out and others.

Are you okay with that, Charlie?

Yeah, I'm fine with that. With the thing that's throwing me off is I thought you had suggested it be requiring motion in a second and it's much less formal than that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I agree with the much less formal. I do too. Motion in a second would tie things up.

Two members of the city council.

We never did an agenda.

Well, a motion would require three votes. And again, in this context, that'd be a violation of the Open Meetings Act.

Unless it was done at council.

Correct.

But you can always do that at council, I suppose, when you're in session. You can always amend the agenda. Right.

So have we taken care of this part of it. So I'm wondering if we need to add, say, two members of the city council and the mayor.

And then be three.

And or should not not and sorry. Mayor may request that the city manager and mayor include.

Well, this is interesting though, because, and this is not an objection to you, what you guys are doing right now, but I looked at the charter and I don't see where it says this. Do you know, does it say it someplace? Because if it isn't in there, then we do need to, well, it doesn't say anything about this that I could see. It just says, wait a minute, here's the part. Here, this is your part about duties of the mayor right there. And I didn't see anything in here about the agenda. So I think you're right that if the process that we're following has been that the mayor and the city manager are doing this, that that needs to be in here too.

I would agree with that. And two of the other council members want to add something to the agenda. That's kind of another thing. It doesn't say agenda at all.

I don't see it in there. I did not have it electronically though, so I couldn't search for the word. Do you, Sarah? I'm looking at it right now.

Yeah, I have it. It doesn't say agenda, but I think that's the past practice.

Yeah. And that's fine, but then we better put it in here because it's not in the Okay. So let's see what this says. Let's look at agenda preparation. Does it say anything like that?

That's preparing them.

The way, you know, yeah. I think the way we've been doing it is very effective. Otherwise we're coming back into. Okay, so hold on then, hold on. I think you're right, John. We're delaying people, the process of moving things on, because now it could be two weeks to a month after we vote. Oh, yeah, so let's put it on the agenda. Now, two weeks to a month later, they get it on the agenda, a second reading, and it could be a month and a half before they got their things done.

So how about something like this? How about a first sentence? I'm just winging it right now. But so inclusion requests, the mayor and city manager will collaborate to establish the agendas of regular meetings, something like that. Then it could say two members of the city council may request the city manager with something like that. Or it can request special agenda items to other, to other.

No, it will just continue to read the way it is there. to other city council. John is not one of them, right?

Well, when you say city council member.

Be one of them.

No, I could be one of them. So I think it is.

But then it could be that Tina and John get together on the agenda. Yeah. So I thought it was, we needed two others.

No, it could be because he gets... Because he has to agree.

If you take the rogue person who's bringing up the same old stuff over and over again, he can still reject it.

So if he agrees with the one member, then it goes on the agenda. If two others want it on the agenda and he doesn't agree, he's still able to.

That's what it says. I agree with that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what, and because if you read the charter, the mayor has like certain special responsibilities, but he only gets one vote like everybody else. He can't veto anything or anything like that. So it is right that if he and you agreed to put something on the agenda, that would count. But anyway, let's see. On the 13th. And we're Laura's going to look at all this. I didn't get what you mentioned. So I'm still working on it right here.

Right.

We're going to have the attorney spend money on reviewing this.

She's already, she's already reviewed it, but she's already found any changes would, the whole thing would be reviewed. These are guidelines. We don't really need her to.

Yeah, we do. It's a policy. Absolutely. Absolutely. The policy is the work that we do having her look at this. I mean, look, this one's from 2015, isn't it?

11, maybe 12.

Long time.

So.

We're on agenda availability now. We're still on inclusion requests.

We have reviewed some of this. Yeah.

So the mayor and city manager, this is just an idea, will collaborate to establish meeting agendas. Two members of the city council may request the city manager to include items on the agenda of regular meetings What's the rest of this say of the city council for and upon which? I don't know why it needs to say all that, but the mayor and city manager will collaborate to establish meeting agendas, period. Two members of the city council may request the city manager to include items on the agenda of regular meetings of the city council. Do we need the rest of this for and upon which the city council? No, you don't need the rest of that sentence. I don't think you do either.

City manager cannot include items for grant request.

Yeah, the rest of it's fine.

So, Inclusion requests, period. The mayor and city manager will collaborate to establish meeting agendas, period. That's new. And then two members of the city council may request the city manager to include items on the agendas of regular meetings of the city council, period? Or are you guys having the entire rest of the period?

And then you begin items for inclusion.

So what about special sessions though? Because the first sentence I drafted just says meeting agendas. It doesn't say regular, you know, but the second sentence says regular meetings. Then it goes on to talk about special session meetings. And it doesn't say anything about.

So there's the same rule applies to both, doesn't it?

I mean, you just change on the agendas of regular and special meetings.

Item for inclusion on the agenda of the special meeting for the city council shall only be those for which such special meeting is specifically scheduled. So it can only be for the sort of, like tonight, we can't add something I'll have added something else to the agenda other than what would be expected.

But when the meeting is created, if two people want, if two people can do that. Yes, exactly. So that's really no reason to differentiate between special meetings and regular meetings in this case.

Well, it seems to me that if a special meeting is called for whatever subject is, I think the point ought to be that we can't add other things to the agenda later on.

Okay, but here's the thing we're sussing out right now. The first sentence about the mayor and city manager will collaborate to establish meeting agendas. Should the second sentence omit regular meetings where it's two members? Should it just say two members of city council may request the city manager to include items on the agenda of meetings of the city council?

Sure. What are you saying about special meetings, special session meetings?

Well, the first sentence is allowing the mayor and the city manager to collaborate, to establish meeting agendas, generally speaking, which would include general and special, regular and special. As written right now, the second sentence is only allowing the two member situation to happen for regular meetings. So the question is, should we take regular out there? So the first two sentences are basically saying for any meeting, you can have the mayor and the city manager collaborating or two members of the city council. I'm fine with that too. Do you have thoughts? No, that's fine. Okay. So we take regular out.

One thing we did in the community I came from, we thought we allowed something very similar and on the agenda itself, um, The agenda item would be the title and then it would be sponsored by council member Wilmot. If he was championing something on the agenda, we would have him listed as the sponsor. We don't have to do that, but just so people knew where it was coming from. Just FYI. Is that for everything then or just something that added? I think, well, I mean, there's a lot of routine on the agenda, as you know, like staff initiated stuff. So we weren't really sponsored that stuff. But if it was something that I got a call from two council members or whatever, and it was something that they were initiating or sponsoring, then we would put that on. It was fine with it.

The point of an agenda is, in my opinion, other than to give structure to the meeting, is to inform the public what you're talking about. Is that relevant?

And I'm not saying that that's probably not a great idea, because what I saw happening, it almost became a thing like, well, I'm sponsoring three things this meeting, and I'm sponsoring two. It became a little bit of a councilman thing. Exactly. So I'm not recommending we do that.

Okay, as I'm reading this, I just want to make one more suggestion. It's grammatical. So the mayor, this is for Sarah mostly, the mayor and city manager will collaborate to establish meeting agendas, period. Two members of the city council may also request the city manager to include items on the agenda of meetings of the city council. One of which may be the mayor. It seems like we ought to be clarifying. Yeah. I don't think we need.

I don't think you do. You say you're the member of the member.

It's all clear.

He's one of five of city council for the charter.

The key is we need at least two people to add of the five agenda, other than that, the mayor and Shane already collaborating on.

Okay.

Yep. You got to also add Sarah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so the rest of it, rest of it's good.

I didn't see anything else there. And Laura didn't note anything there. This was just to, I think we all agreed on this. I put a note agreed that February 16th that we should use the five days.

Yep. I thought the five makes sense because we do have a common problem with Thursdays and Wednesdays. And I like that. Anybody have five days prior to the meeting?

Yes, I am in agreement with all of the changes for 13 and 14. Okay.

So 14 wasn't a change. It was a question.

Except that apparently a council added some language.

No.

Probably made available to the public and news media. She added.

I don't think so. She had. It was her. No, green is hers. Oh, green is hers. Green is hers. I think I underlined it to point out what the question was I was asking. I just said, should this be written updated since all agenda materials are available online? I defer to Laura on this for OMI Open Meeting Act compliance. but you know, all such meeting and agenda material shall be made available to the public in the news media.

Well, there's no reason to on request. That's your point. That's why I agreed with it too, but there's no reason to be on upon request. It's already available.

Yeah. Yeah. And, but the blue, correct. Agreed. Joe, the blue underlying part was just true. This is one of these things as we read through, because this was done in 2011. to put it on the radar of our attorney to say, you know, is this, should we still have this in there this way because it's online? Do we need any updated anything because we're in a different time and space?

So do you, you know, going back to this five days, it always was four days. you feel that four days is not enough time to process what the city has given us. I mean, I guess I have to ask Shane, what does that do?

Well, we're five days now.

Yeah, we've already made that change. Thursday, but it's on Thursday right now. Wednesday, Wednesday. Oh, it's on Wednesday, okay. What happens if we, you know, it's great to have it on Wednesday, but is it that bad to have it on Thursday for four days? No. I feel it's kind of putting, I think our city manager and clerk has done a great job of trying to get it out on Wednesday because we requested a little earlier. And that's what it's been is trying to do that. But there are even some days when we've had it. And I've said yes to Thursday because we had one election. We had stuff going on.

Yeah, and it does like to have a business day beforehand to be able to contact Shane for questions or clarification, which is Friday, which is a Friday. So the Thursday or Monday.

or Monday. So you have really two days to have comments. I don't know.

You're saying maybe change it not later than four days.

Preferably five, but on those occasions, I don't know how do we write it.

The language is already in there. It says unless there exist extenuating circumstances and we'll be prepared as soon as possible. proceeding, blah, blah, blah. So I think we're covered there anyway. We're already in that mode right now of giving that extra day. So I think it's been working fine. There are times that it's a short week because of holiday or whatever that I've asked, you know, we've extended out to Thursday, but I think the language kind of covers that situation.

I just feel that we need to be flexible on this piece, I guess is what I'm saying. And

And when I add a provision in there under extenuating circumstances, that allows us to be flexible.

And it says no later than five days. So that allows for flexibility. Because five days, it shouldn't be needed any longer than five days, right?

Right. I guess why we're on this topic, and it's not a language issue, but I think it's something that I need to kind of keep asking because... Faces change, things change. Is how we're doing agenda packets right now how you prefer it? We could, you know, as we go through the budget cycle, we could get laptops and or iPads and we become electronic. And so we're not out delivering hard packets to you. But if you prefer that, certainly we will continue to do that. I think now is another good time just to ask that question. It's how we're doing it preferred, or do you want us to consider something during the budget to maybe make change this up a little bit? Or is this how you would like us to continue to execute the packet?

You guys need to turn your mics up. I'd like to at least comment on that. There is no question I like it electronically, particularly if I'm maybe not here. And it's really nice to get it. I love getting the email from Sarah because it's all there. And I can quickly go through it. And I love that. At the same time, When I'm really in the midst of making the meeting and reading it, I put notes everywhere. And it really is nice to have it printed so that I can say, Tina's up to it again. But I can make my footnotes in there and have my own questions on it. So that's really convenient to have it in writing.

OK.

I like it the way it is. I certainly do not need another electronic piece of equipment. Okay. All right. We'll continue. Thank you.

Me either. This is good the way it is, and we can save the city the expense of laptops.

It's also the labor that's running around all the time, too. They don't have electronics. It's nice, but I like it, too.

You got your answer. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, moving along, down at the bottom is number, I think we're done with 14. No.

I don't, I guess, I know you guys said okay to the five days, number 13. 14, it was just removing upon request, so the thing in blue is keeping that?

No, the thing in blue was my question for Laura. You'll see along the way here, I've got some questions for her about since these things are all available online, is this something... you know, should it be written this way? Should it be written a different way to comply with the open meetings act and made comments? There's nothing in here either about zoom and everything. We're going to get to that, but that's, that's what that is. It's just a question that I have. She may have a better updated, whatever way to do that or suggestion. Okay.

Okay. So similarly number, excuse me. Similarly, number 15 is nothing more than a note to Laura to say, is this the right way to put it in this day and age?

Yeah. Along with it's interesting that provision reads a consent agenda that generally includes approval of the minutes. Well, I don't know, is that accurate that it should generally include the approval of the minutes? Should it always include that? So, Just the language of this section, that was why I was highlighting it, yes.

Just as an ongoing issue, I'm sorry, as an ongoing issue, When you say generally, it seems like that is what it ought to be generally and not have a shall all the time.

Unless there's a law that says every meeting must have the minutes. I don't know the answer to that.

My experience in this year and a half that I've been doing this is that the mayor has been pretty open to pulling anything out of the consent agenda if we wanted to. And so I thought you'd worked out pretty well with the way that you do the consent agenda. But your point is it's a mandatory thing that are supposed to be. OK.

Well, presumably that comment will be a consideration that Laura has as she's reading this, right? If she sees something, whether it's highlighted or not, if she sees something in the writing that needs updating, she'll bring it to our attention.

Yeah, that would be her responsibility, correct?

Yeah.

She'll read the whole thing through, is another words of what. So 15 are asked. 15 is okay. Just checking. Yeah, okay.

16.

Well, we got 16 person various boards.

Before you go, Mr. Mayor, before you go to 16, just want to Oh, no, nevermind. That's seven gets into the next paragraph. Sorry, Michael.

So the reason 16 is there is this is not where we put this on our agenda. So this is giving us the order of our agenda. And we typically, please, Please.

Sorry. There's one that I have noted here and it is where it talks about old business. I don't know what bullet point that is.

It's right above.

So you can remember our training on OMA and parliamentary procedure. This says old business. And there was a comment that was made that there's no such thing as old business. It's unfinished business. So I just made a note for you guys to consider that you guys can say whatever you want.

Henceforth, unfinished business. Are you good with that? I'm good with it. Move forward. Done.

I mean, I was just the point that was made.

It's good.

So you get rid of the word old and it's unfinished business. So if I understand correctly, Tina, if you just want to move that one earlier in the agenda and the list.

I'm just saying this is our procedures. Okay. So if this is the format that we're going to follow, and this is not in the order we do it, we can do one of two things. We can either move this to where it should be or where we've done it. or we can hence forward, do it in a different order.

So why don't we put it where it's normally?

I think that's a great idea. Where is that? That was my comment, was we should just follow our practice.

Yeah. To move it to where? It would go right after public.

City manager report.

City manager report. Great.

Consent agenda, then public comment, and then update by the manager, and then appointments. Right. So updates from manager appointments, then unfinished business.

Right. And then new business. Council comments, et cetera, and then adjournment. Yep. All good. So go to, when you're ready, Sarah, we move.

Oh yeah, go ahead.

Give you time to give it down. All right. This hits.

No, I was on 17 and 18.

17 and 18 under agenda amendments.

Two separate things. So we'll talk about 17 first. 17 is the same problem we just discussed above in the inclusion requests. So now it's saying members of the city council and others may request that the city manager include items on the agenda of regular meetings of the city council. So who are others again here?

I want to point out that the city attorney discourages that limitation.

No, she's discouraging something different. 17th. Well, on the notes, they've put that in the wrong place because her limitation is 18 where it's in green. Okay. She's talking about only those items that have been included on such agendas, which shall be provided to the city council, the public and the news media prior to the city council's regular meeting may be acted upon at those meetings. She's saying, I discourage this limitation. It's not required by law and limits the council from acting on urgent issues that come up after agenda preparation. That was just inadvertently put under 17 instead of 18.

So her point is we should allow for agenda modifications. And it goes kind of against that. We didn't put a public notice on the agenda that we're going to add. Like if we didn't have a bikes on the agenda, June, July 6th, and we added bikes in the meeting and we do that.

I think she would say to omit what's in green. I don't want to speak for Laura, but that's what I think she's saying here. She would just omit that because it's a, overly restrictive.

Okay, going back to 17, why not just delete others? There's no need to really reach out past city council.

Well, the other weird thing here is this doesn't say anything about amendments. It pretty much that first sentence says what we already addressed above. So I'm not sure why that's in there.

These are agenda amendments.

Right. So let's go on to see what does it say about amendments. Regular meeting. Only after thorough discussion. Yeah, I don't know why we need the first sentence there because it says the exact same thing we just did under inclusion request, unless somebody's reading it differently.

I would, I would agree to just striking the first sentence, including what, what council has provided in green. So just start at agendas may be amended. Yep. That would be mine.

Yep.

Okay.

Good. The other thing here, I had a note to myself again, because all about media and news media and advance notice and all that. This is another place where I'm curious if Laura thinks any updates are needed to this because of online availability. This is another spot where I think I just like her eyes on it to see, you know, if any updates are required, because this is all talking about publication and that sort of thing.

Perhaps when it's submitted again for her review, Shane and Sarah, you could make a special request that she consider any updates that might be necessary in accordance with our new electronic world.

So we're okay with the rest of the paragraph. Agendas may be amended at a regular meeting so they can sound, but the action... shall only occur after a thorough discussion of city council and consideration on a case by case and blah, blah, blah. Are we all okay with that?

Yep. Okay, good. Yep. Okay. Because there comes a time when we may need to do that. We may do this. It's not a practice that you want to be doing.

Agreed. All the time. I always want the public to kind of know what's going to be on the agenda in advance of them to make.

I don't think it's fair otherwise. Okay. Meeting minutes. Anything you wish. Legally, I believe the only thing that has to be in meeting minutes, I believe, are motions.

And we had that discussion that the guy, he said less is better.

Well, yes. I like our minutes. And legally, legally speaking, the only thing that's required are emotions. And there are some that do not have any discussion at all. We have decided, I guess, that we are going to have more...

Less is better in the minutes. I agree with that concept. My question is a little bit bigger, and that is when someone is introducing themselves for public comment, what is it that we require of them for the record? Because it's on Zoom. Just their name. Just their name. So we don't care whether they're actually a resident of Petoskey or not.

Well, they- We don't have a right.

I do not believe we have a right to require- But we've talked about that before, haven't we? No, and I disagree with it. I like the idea, are you a citizen of Petoskey or are you a non-resident? Not that we're going to not take their ability to speak, but I would like to know who I'm dealing with.

So when you say that, John, are you saying, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm in an open dialogue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you saying that there's a distinction between when you say a citizen of Petoskey or a resident of Petoskey, is that different than a taxpayer? I think there is a difference. I get a little sensitive to, okay, if I own a house here and I have a subject that's going on, but I'm not a citizen, I'm actually a resident of Birmingham, but I have a second home up here. Am I not allowed to speak? And because I am a taxpayer. So how do you distinguish that when you're saying a resident and non-resident?

I would say that if you own property here, you are a resident. I do too. Okay. As long as that's what you mean, I agree with that. I take it that, you know, that person's a resident of Petoskey. They own property here. They have a business here. To me, that's a different situation than...

I would agree with that because the right to speak is different than a vote on an issue. A non-resident second home person doesn't necessarily have a vote on a ballot, but they do have a voice.

So I defer to Laura on this, but the reason this whole thing came up about addresses is because there are people who have personal protection orders, et cetera, where giving their address on the record could be a danger to the speaker and discourage public comment. To the best of my knowledge, there's no prohibition. Again, I defer to Laura to be able to say that the person, you know, I live in the city of Petoskey.

You know what? I have met this weekend five or six people who would say, oh, I live in Petoskey. And I had conversation with them to find out that they lived out by Bill's Farm Market. So they feel that they live in Petoskey. 49770.

Well, you might even, and this would be a question for Laura, you might even be able, if people know what ward they live in, I think they could probably say, I live in ward one, ward two. It's the specific address that's a danger to certain people in public. And that's why.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't know how to work around that. I don't really care. I feel whenever somebody comes up here and says, I'm going to listen to, and I have the ability to ask questions of, How did you get, why do you feel this way or where are you coming from? I think you can lead into getting an answer that would be specific. You guys could ask.

I agree. When someone's up here talking, I kind of want to know what their deal is. Are they a resident here or are they just an interested party from Harbor Springs wanting to get into the business? I'd rather talk to people that are I'd like to know if the people that are up there are people that are residents with a vested interest.

Within the city or within 49770? Within the city.

But I would love to know. I'm open to their opinion. But to me, it's a little different when I'm sitting there, when you're talking to people and you know they live here.

I mean, sometimes you sometimes say full address. You could just say street name. You don't have to give specifics potentially. I mean, Sarah and I were just talking today. There's a community in Michigan that has two public comment periods. The first one is for city residents only. The second one is open to anybody.

Interesting. That's really, I like that.

Yeah, it was either city resident or if they have a business in the city.

Yeah.

So it captures that.

Yeah. You could also say a tax, you could also say a tax paying city resident.

Well, but then you're taking out all of the people that are renters. Oh, not taxpayers.

Okay. So they're now out of it. So, but I mean, you emphasize the word city resident as opposed to larger Petoskey.

What about, I think you're right. There are going to be people getting up here and say, I'm a resident. I live in the city of Petoskey. I witnessed that this weekend five or six times. What you would prefer to do is say the address. Well, like Shane said, at least your street address. Street name.

I get the privacy thing, but I can imagine someone is on. I don't know.

Mr. Moore, how would you answer the addressing of this to not expose a person's address, but yet get the information that we are requesting?

The idea that's just been raised to bifurcate public comments, kind of an interesting idea, because then it puts a little more pressure on people. If you say we're going to have two segments to public comment, if you're a resident of Petoskey, come forward in the initial segment, you know, you could try that. But I just, I don't even like the idea of a street. How often this applies, I don't know. I can tell you that I had one constituent that came and spoke here and then had an incident happen afterwards at her house. you know, there's no way to establish that those two things were connected. But I can also tell you that that person has never been back to speak. I just think it's a different day and time. And I think if somebody wants to stand up and say they're from the city of Petoskey, and they aren't, I'm not sure how much you can really do about that. I would not And again, I defer to Laura. I don't even know if it's legal.

Let's move on because we're stuck here. We haven't even gotten to that section yet, actually.

It's number 19. That's where we are right now, I think.

Are we done with minutes? That's different hearings, though. That's different.

There's nothing in that section. I thought we kind of morphed on to number 19.

Yeah, public hearings are a little different because we do need, I think typically there's a requirement to have names and addresses for public hearings. I think that's a little bit different.

I don't know the answer to that. Maybe Laura has to tell us.

Get a statement from Laura and move on. Okay.

I do feel very strongly about number 20, though, and I don't think that's always been happening. Okay, wait a second. Let's find number 20.

It's at the top. We're going to Laura. We're going to Laura for public hearings. Yep. Okay. I agree with Dina on that.

We want to find out on affiliations.

Yeah, because sometimes people are at meetings speaking and they might be a member of a nonprofit or who knows where. And I'm not clear if they're expressing their personal opinion or if they're representing that organization. So I think that's, I mean, it's in there, but I just think we ought to be finding out. Okay.

But so that's already in there. Yeah. And I think that's something any one of you can ask. Are you speaking on behalf of you as a resident or you as a member of blah, blah, blah.

So we don't need to make any changes or just leave affiliations and give us questions as, as, as the presentation goes by quorum and voting. I see down at the bottom is 21. All votes shall be roll call and tallied. I'm all in favor of that. Number 21.

No, 21 was a question. There's two things. One is Laura's comment. Wait a minute. Let's see this. Are instances two-thirds required? Right. So my question was, where is a two-thirds majority for any vote required? I looked in the charter. There's a provision that says it's a majority vote unless a greater number is required somewhere in this charter, but I couldn't find anywhere in the charter where a two-thirds majority is required.

So that's- Just three members, period. I thought we needed to have the three votes, period. Not two-thirds. Well-

Two thirds of five would be three. What if only four are here?

Yeah, that's ZBA. Right. ZBA requires it.

ZBA requires it. It has a different requirement than city council for a vote. What if there are just three here?

There's only three here. Yeah. But this is talking about issues where a two-thirds majority is required.

Two-thirds is five, right?

Excuse me, two-thirds is three.

Two-thirds is 66%. If there are three people present to vote in favor, that's your two-thirds.

Well, you can't pass anything with two votes.

3.3, two thirds of 3.3 people.

Right. So this, why, why?

I thought it said, where are you seeing two thirds?

I think it's saying like three is a quorum, but then saying if there's four people, it needs to be two thirds of that. So it can't be two, two. It still has to be.

Oh, here it says the affirmative votes of four members. Okay. Let's the affirmative votes of four members will be required where a two thirds majority is required. So my question is on what issue do we need a two thirds majority? I could not find anything in the charter. So the question is, do we need this? And the green part is something Laura says she wants us to admit or, or not. Let me, Correct that. She says this is the way we do it, that all votes are by roll call and tallied, is not required by law. So she was just letting us.

I understand that. I'm in favor of a roll call and tally because I believe the citizens want to know. I agree. Let the record state that Ms. Walker is present.

Yeah, I got it. By 58.

So I just think roll calling. People want to know who voted and who didn't vote. And I think to step up to the plate and vote that way, I think that's fair. Yes, Mr. Compton.

And I 100% agree with you, John. The question I have is, how do you decide the role of it? Is it always the same, the person who did the motion? First motion, second motion. One, two, three.

And then you go to the next one, the next one, and then mayor. That's how it's always been. So Sarah's shaking her head.

That's not a law though. It does not matter who you call first or second.

But our practice at this city that I have always been- Whatever the policy is.

But yeah, it's not a requirement by law.

But the process has always been who made the motion, who seconded it. If you made the motion, you have to vote for it. The person seconding it can vote against that motion. but the person that makes it.

You always are last, so you get to cast, you're always getting the final vote to change with the wind or whatever your thing is. Sometimes I'd like to have that vote.

And you can. I mean, that's what a lot of my trainings and other professional sessions, they say in other communities, some people have this fancy program in Excel and they jumble up the names and it's whoever comes up first for that exact reason.

And when you do a vote, excuse me, when you do a vote, can I say pass for now? No. Back to me?

Yes. I mean, I've seen that happen.

I've seen it too. Not here, but I've seen it in other, actually in Toledo. That's a Roberts rules.

Yeah.

You have to, you have to. when it comes back around to you, you have to take a position, but you can, you can pass.

So what happens to pass, pass, pass?

I also don't think you can abstain unless you have a conflict of interest.

These are the knocktrob rules. Toledo doesn't.

Toledo. Yeah. With the community I came from, that was routine. It was what they passed all the time.

How did that go?

I mean, they just kind of were waiting people out to see who's going to take what position. I'm not saying that was the right thing to do. I don't really think so. I'm saying that that is something you can do.

So why should the mayor have that last opportunity to change? Why should the mayor be the last one?

Serving in Adrian, it rotated. For every voting measure, it would rotate like Sarah was saying. It changed.

I thought it had to go to the person that made the motion and the person that second had to go first and second.

I don't think that's, I don't think that's has to be that way.

Well, we're writing the procedures. I mean, I think there's something to be said about beginning with the person who made the motion and then the second, But what you could do past that would be rotate every time the order of the speakers, if people thought that was a good idea.

How difficult would that be to manage, Sarah?

My memory. I don't know. I mean, I try to go in order, but.

I like the idea of motion second, but I also like the ability to. change it up a little bit to have the order of who's the next is going to commit or not commit. I'd like that.

I mean, it might not be right on the fly. I'll have to, like, look back because, I mean, I just.

Why didn't you just go right to left one time, the next time left to right, and then the next time right to left and back and forth?

Then the people in the middle are never the end vote.

That's okay with me. Well, that's right. I'm going to vote the way I'm going to vote. I don't need somebody else to tell me how to vote. Voting. I don't need to test the way the wind is blowing.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that for anyone, Mr. Wilmot, at all. Mr. Nachtraub has raised an idea and we're trying to brainstorm how to do it fairly.

Otherwise, if we didn't, if you guys chose not to do the motion in a second, I mean, I could just have it all prepared after each potential motion where I picked four, three, two, one mayor. And then the next one I say, mayor, one, two, three, four. Like I said it.

Yeah. Otherwise we wouldn't know who's making the correction in the second. So that order would always be off, but we could certainly all that have that pre done. If we didn't have to follow that. The first person was the person who made the motion second.

Miss Lindsay, do you know where we are? Yes. Oh, good. Okay. Thank you.

So that's Sarah's suggestion. Does anybody go along with it? Did she just decide arbitrarily?

I'm okay as long as it's kind of rotated.

I'm good with that.

So do you guys want to add that under the required vote section or that's just I mean, we all know now, but three years down the road, if all of us are gone. Right.

I probably would say that it doesn't need to be in here. It's kind of a ministerial practice. And if it says all voting shall be by roll call and tallied, we could test drive this method unless you all wanted it to be a part of the procedures going forward.

I'm good with it being in the ether.

too um going back i'm sorry i don't mean to short change this kind of thing yeah i i guess i i was under the impression that uh first motion person gets to vote first um that that approves the motion goes second so i assume that was standard protocol but you're saying that's not either in these documents, nor in Robert's Rules of Orders. It's just been the way that we've done things. Okay, so if the whole idea about us changing the rules and procedures is to reflect reality or to have like a protocol, why wouldn't we include that as part of language?

Include what as part of the language?

Like the fact that You have the person doing role for a vote. You have the person that made the motion go first. If we're changing things, then why wouldn't we encourage that? Because otherwise, I really don't understand this activity. And I've never understood why we're doing this.

Why we're doing?

This whole process. That's why I've never commented on anything like that. I've just been like, where is this coming from? And why are we doing this? So if you want a comment, what I'm commenting on is for this roll call, why wouldn't we include the way that we've been doing things as part of a new format?

I think, I think, Lindsay, you don't forget your mic. Oh, now it's on. Oh, thank you. Sorry. I think. You're right. I mean, this is like a framework for functioning going forward. And you can kind of make a decision where it's not like legally required how granular you want to get. So you're absolutely right in saying you can put it in here if you want, or you can just leave it in this broad sentence, the one she's got in bold green, that that's going to be the method, but then the specifics of it are something that... this council or other councils could test drive along the way if they wanted to. You could do it either way, right in what you're saying.

I'm also like just benevolent and like, let's just get this done as fast as humanly possible and get up behind us and like focus on things that matter. That's my opinion.

Okay. The traditional roll call vote, the clerk calls the roll in alphabetical order. However, the presiding officer, the chair or the president is called last and will only cast the vote if it will affect the outcome of the motion.

Well, that's different, John, because that's different because you are the presiding officer, but you also have a vote. So you don't have an option not to vote, you know, to, well, I suppose you can abstain, but otherwise you vote because you have a vote just like all the rest of us.

My only point on this is, is, is, is, What we want is the mayor to always, in essence, doesn't happen very often, but do we want the mayor to always have the deciding final vote with the benefit of the other four?

Rotating order from legislatures and deliberative bodies, modify the standard rule and rotate the starting letter of the alphabet for each new motion. So the same person does not always vote first or last.

What I would say is what we could do is just leave this all voting show be by roll call and tallied, and we could test drive this new method and see how everybody feels about it. That way it's not etched in stone.

So how are you persuading it would go? I would like to see, I don't care how the other three people vote, but I'd like to know how, I would like the person that made the motion to vote first, like the person that supported it second to vote second. And then I don't care what you do with the jumble. If you don't want me, you don't want the chair, not me, but you don't want the chair voting last. I don't care, but I just think those first two pieces go in place.

I want to clarify because I thought Tina said or somebody said whoever voted and made the motion must support it. I don't think that.

I didn't say that. I believe that is in Robert's rules of order.

My point, and I made the motion on some subject, I love getting the feedback from people. You can't have comment from the council or the public until you have a motion to entertain. What if I change my mind? And I say, you know, that person out there made a really good point. I disagree now. I'm going to either withdraw my motion.

You made the motion, then yeah, there is no recourse for that. But if you second it.

The person that made the motion, can they withdraw their motion at any time?

So somewhere, I have to look. I do not see where this is required before taking comment. Does the person making the motion have to vote?

in the affirmative.

You know what I'm talking about, Shane? Somewhere, I don't know if it's in here

Tina.

That you, Mr. Nachtraub was just talking about how you have to have a motion. Discussion. Discussion. And somewhere it says something different than that. Somewhere in the charter. I don't know. You have to find it.

It's under public participation meeting procedures where it talks about persons in attendance have an opportunity to make comments at the beginning of the meeting. Where are you right now? Miss Sarah, please under meeting procedure and she's 10 of the policy each two. Where it says at the beginning of the meeting during the miscellaneous public comment agenda item and or during the discussion of each agenda item. where it says they cannot stay in their meeting.

Okay. So look at page 10 under public participation. It says this is about a quarter of a way down on agenda items. Following the mayor's reading of the agenda item, the city manager's background report and some city council discussion, the mayor will ask for public comment. so as it's written right now i don't see where it's required that there be a motion first but you generally have done that right right but i don't see that that's in here that's what i was trying to say so we're not that far yet but that might be something we want to talk about Because in that case, you wouldn't have to have somebody make a motion in support and put them in that position.

As long as we consistently do that, I think getting public comment before we vote in some form is really important.

And so either we're going to do it in the public. After the motion, what that does is it allows council to be the first. into the debate with public, with the city council. Allow the city council to discuss it. Whatever works for you has worked fine with me.

I mean, the way I think you've done it is fine. At practice, you've always said, hold your comments until we get to the agenda.

Yeah, but the question is whether you have to have a motion first before hearing public comments.

And as a, as a practical matter, the mayor has been calling for a motion first and then council discussion and then public comment in that order. I'm very comfortable with that.

I'm comfortable with that too.

As long as that's what we do. Well, then. When we get down to section 10, it should be written differently because that's not what it says.

I'm also comfortable with the person who made the motion voting against himself or herself if they change their mind as a result of discussion and public comment. I don't have a problem with either.

I think that we ought to be able to do that. Otherwise, you're kind of stuck. It's happened to me before. What? That you had to vote?

I made a motion or I seconded a motion and I had to follow suit after discussion.

But you ended up, because you made the motion, you said yes, even though you didn't really agree with it.

Until we have Robert's Rules of Order in front of us, I don't think, or we get the city attorney weighing in on it.

I think that's relatively important because these are important votes when we're doing things.

Does the charter say we're following Robert's Rules of Orders?

I think generally. I think generally it says that

I think generally this country has done that.

Well, alternatively, I think Robert's rules also says that the person making a motion can withdraw their motion and the person who had made the second can withdraw their second.

Well, you and I did that.

Yeah, we did. So, so that solves the problem right there. If you change your mind, just withdraw the motion.

For my part, I prefer allowing public comment before the motion. I think I don't, This is no offense to you, John. I know you've always done it this way, but I just don't see the need for that.

So for every item on the agenda, we're going to ask for public comment before we do anything with it?

Well, you already offer public comment on every item unless it's the consent agenda.

Normally, I just ask it after the motion. After the motion. If there's no motion, because I've seen sometimes we do things here. If there's no motion, there's nothing to talk about. that goes on to the next agenda. So I think the practice that John has followed makes sense.

Could we go back to note number 21 on page nine, required votes? I would suggest that at the semicolon in line three, we delete except all the way through required and keep voting shall be by roll call and tallied.

Well, I agree with that if we confirm that there is nothing that requires a two-thirds majority vote. That's my question. I don't know. I could not find it. So that's the question.

So the question to city attorney is, unless there's something that requires a two-thirds vote, please, we want to delete this language.

From accept forward to period and leave in all voting shall be by roll call.

Yes, that would be- That's two-thirds of the majority present as opposed to of the total.

Well they can hopefully she'll address that when she addresses the fundamental question is there any requirement for 2 thirds because I understood that when it there's only 3 here you need to get there.

Only 3.

Well this is specifically if you form and who's the one this is specifically we're going to need at least 3 any at any time yet.

This part only pertains, this defines what a two-thirds majority is, which is four members. The question is, what do we need, what do we have that requires a two-thirds majority vote? Otherwise, you have to have three votes.

So this does say, if we have to have three, I'm sorry, it takes me a while to read. If we have three people here only, And it's a vote of two to one motion fails.

Right.

Okay.

I like that.

Yeah.

That's required by the charter section 4.5. Okay. Are we good on that?

Yep. Next. Page 10.

Did we decide what we were doing? Are we going to test drive some different kind of voting or what, what did we decide?

We already did. We did. I thought we did that. I thought we did. We didn't decide that.

I'm not sure what it is.

I thought we were going to leave it to Sarah after the, after the person who makes the motion in the second, she'll pick the last three people at random in a rotating fashion of some sort.

Yeah. It's going to be a little harder. With that, we won't have that preset, but we'll figure it out.

I think that's an undue burden. If we want to do that, then we need to have a preset thing. That's all. A preset rotation. That's possible.

So it's just clear that this is how we do it. That's possible to do. It would have to rotate. Alphabetical one direction and reverse alphabetical the other.

And if you're an N, you're in the middle. The middle person would always be. Because you're a W, so you're always in the end anyway.

I'm always at the ass end, yeah.

You guys good? I'm not. You're not. I'm hearing a motion and a second, and then I get to jumble, and then I just heard I can decide. So can I decide? So A, from the beginning alphabet, all five, not a motion and a second.

Ah. I guess I'm asking. It's here for you to administer if you'd say, It's going to be alphabetical, all motions. You're going to have it already set.

That's what we're saying. It's easier if it's preset where it's not a requirement by law to have a motion that second and then the rest of the three. So I could have a preset where the first thing in the agenda is A through Z. The next thing you guys are voting on is Z to A. The next one would be N and whatever I decide. N to Z and then to A. And then go back to A to Z and then Z to A and then the middle person. That can be preset and determined as long as like obviously people are absent, then you just will take that person out.

Are you okay with that, Lindsay, though? Because you said you liked where the motion person was first and the second person.

And for the first and second person.

Yeah, I think everybody's in agreement that the first and second motion maker should go first and then leave it up to the clerk to decide the mixing up of whatever she just said.

Okay.

Let's say, Sarah, do it to the best of your ability. You can test drive this. And if it doesn't work.

And if we need to change it, we can change it.

And the language here just remains the same, that all voting shall be by roll call and tallied, and then we just work out our little details, but it doesn't need to be in print, right?

Page 10 of 50.

Thank you, Sarah Beck.

City clerk, so the current shall attend all regular meetings, special meetings.

So my input here is just saying this language is very iffy, shitty, that kind of thing. And is that what we want? And also it's saying that the clerk is limited in speaking concerning issues before the city council. Is that what we want?

City clerk, who should define limited?

As far as I'm concerned, the city clerk's point of view is welcome.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's why I don't, I've been limiting.

And as far as should is concerned, and if possible, I would suggest changing that so that the city clerk who attends all regular meetings- Well, what it's saying is she's not going to vote.

It says, you know, for- basically what it's saying is she's limited to speaking in concerning issues. What it's saying is she's limited to speaking in them, but is not voting on them. Is limited in speaking.

That's not how I read that.

If you took the word in, it is limited to speaking concerning issues. If you change the in to to, It reads is limited to speaking concerning issues.

Why do we, why do we need that here at all to begin with? But yeah, why do we need that? Cross it out.

Do some cities where the clerk city clerk has a vote? No, no.

And I, and I would say too, in my mind, the, the clerk, there's times that she's not likely going to be here. So should we, I think should probably is fine because if she's not here, then I will do that responsibility. Which is sentence number two, right?

Oh, there you go. Okay. Yep. And it could be you or it could be someone else. Yeah.

But what are we doing on 22 and 23 then? Yeah, so what do you, I'm sorry, Shane, you're just saying leave should in and if possible in?

I don't know that it, I don't know why that's.

That thing about if possible, she'll call for, the role of purpose for meeting and attending. I think scratch that. Scratch if possible. She's going to attend, if possible, she's going to attend the regular meetings in a special session. And the word, if possible, I think crossing all that out

The city clerk who should attend all regular and or special meetings of the city council shall call the role for purposes of recording attendance and for tallying votes, period. How about that? That's it. Stop right there. Get out if possible, but.

Say it, read it again, please.

The city clerk who should attend all regular and or special session meetings of the city council shall call the roll for purposes of recording attendance and for tallying votes, period. Whoops, before city council, sorry. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we're omitting if possible, and we're omitting the part about is limited and speaking like that. Does that seem right?

Period. That's it. It does. And then the next one says city manager shall designate. We're good with that.

Okay.

For the attorney.

Look at us.

So the attorney, we're giddy up. We'll get a saddle on here. So the city attorney may attend. All meetings, what's?

Well, here's the thing. Yeah. It says the city attorney may, it should say, may attend regular and or special session meetings of the city council. And I'd say at the city attorney's discretion. I don't think that should be omitted. I agree with you.

That's a request of the city council.

Right.

There should be a line through that yellow part. I screwed up.

So it reads, the city attorney may attend regular and or special session meetings of the city council at the invitation of the city council as a body or the city manager.

Perfect.

Is that okay?

Move on. And that's typically, yeah, because I've been doing that. So I guess if you see the agenda packet and say, hey, I'd like the city attorney to be there because I'd like her to weigh in on blank, blank, and blank.

that's something i would need to know because we have we have inside that he has done that he has asked me in the past what do you think should we invite laura online for this and in 99.99 i i've said yes because he just wants me to just give a yes to it basically he's already made i'm fine with this so as a point about a point of clarification i i guess i am too as a point of clarification can i say

that I want Laura to, I'm worried about spending money unnecessarily, but I'll say, can I say, I want Laura there?

Or is it only- Maybe we go back to how the agenda prep. Back to how you add the agendas, identical to how we get to the agenda, because otherwise- every one of us are going to have an issue we want Laura. So it's this first meeting, second meeting, third, fourth, you know, we're going to end up racking up a big bill.

Exactly.

Just because all of us have specific issues that we want her there on. But I think if we have two people.

Yeah, the second line, Sarah kind of highlighted that at the invitation of the city council as a body or the city manager.

So the reason as a body, I mean, I agree with what everybody's saying, but as a body is not right either, because that would mean we'd have to have the foresight before we even get an agenda to vote that we need to have the city attorney with us. So it should be redraft this the way we did the other one. I agree with everybody that at the request of two members, something like that.

Or another option could be if Council Member Damore asked me to do it, I call you individually to try to get two others that concur with that.

Or call me first, and if I say yes, then there's two votes, and it's automatically on there.

This is a point of discussion I had, and now I forget where it is. I don't think we should be able to directly spend the city money by contacting the attorney.

No, we should not be able to. It's kind of consistent. I first heard it go to the city manager. Here's why. You send a message, an email to him and say, Shane, I have an issue of dogs jumping out of windows downtown. I think it's important for him to call because he will then get information and share it with all five of us. Then email. Got a request from a council person on this. Here's the answer. And I think it saves him having to contact five people. And the most important part is we all get the message the same from the city attorney.

So is the city manager then the gatekeeper in determining when to spend the money for an attorney's input yes i think it should be too and not any of us individually unless there's three of us wanting to do it okay let's see money i know what tina's thinking right now well i want to talk about this when i have had a legal question shane can speak to this

I reach out to Shane and say, I've got this question or concern. And he will say to me, go ahead and send it directly to Laura. Or sometimes even he tells me to call Laura. I want to caution you with the road you're going down here. Cause I get it. And I would be worried just as much about some rogue person calling individually. However, The council has a direct relationship with the attorney and where you can get into trouble is if you have issues with your city manager. And if you've limited yourself to funneling all concerns to a lawyer through the city manager, no offense here, and certainly not intended toward you in any way, Shane, you've cut off an avenue that's open to you to try to problem solve if you have issues with your city manager. So I hear you. I don't disagree. But I think you want to be really careful here.

So if the city manager doesn't agree, it should take two votes, just like it did Two of the five should say they want the city attorney to be involved.

I don't think a single council person should be bypassing the shame, the city manager spending our money without some more people involved in that discussion.

I agree. Let's say that we're not here. There's somebody else up here 10 years, two years from now. We have a different city manager here. Do you feel that if there was issues that you needed to talk to them about the direction of the city by the city manager? Do you feel that you have to ask him to call about something that you have an issue with? This is the gray area and it's not, about the city manager. We all have agreed or council. We are studying for the future. And I have concerns about that. We did have that problem in the past. I'm not gonna- But my only point on that- I can't legally go into this, but we did have problems with this. I was involved with it, okay?

I agree with the ability to do that. My only point on this is that that's the case. If we have a problem with the city manager, it would seem like you and one other person, we ought to have some agreement to go contact that we're all okay. Not all, but we ought to have a process that any one person can't do it. It needs to be couple people or just why I said two people.

Yeah, if the city manager doesn't agree, it takes two of the five basically override to override and I would think that she would get on the phone and probably call the mayor because he resides over the council, right? That would call me to say, what's what's the scoop on this? Where do you want to go with this?

So what I want to point out, though, and maybe- I don't know how you want to address that. Well, the way it's written right now, okay, in line two, or at the- Are we on 24? Page 10 under city attorney, line two, it says, or at the invitation of the city council as a body. That's three people if it's the city council as a body. Right. As a practical matter, that doesn't work. because again, these issues come up when we get the packet. So we can't at this meeting right now, three of us vote that we need the attorney to be here on the sixth. So this language needs to be changed. If your intention is to have two people That has to be written differently.

And again, I'm probably over saying my view on this. I'm just feeling like any one person shouldn't be contacting directly the attorney on their own without the approval of somebody else. And it's basically spending money. And you can spend, these guys aren't cheap. And so just make sure we're contacting the attorney prudently, not just every time we have a question.

Is your concern met with changing as a body to two members?

Yes. Yes, it is. Just so I understand really clearly here to make sure this says what everybody wants. I'll speak for myself. If I have a legal concern and I contact Shane And Shane says, yes, I want follow up from the lawyer on that. Are we good with that? Or do I need two of you plus calling Shane and him saying it's all right. Because here it says, this is only talking about meetings right now. City attorney may attend regular and or special session meetings of the city council at the invitation of the city council as a body or the city manager. So if one of us reaches out to Shane about an issue and Shane says, yes, I'll forward that on or however he wants it to happen, is that sufficient? Because that's at his discretion.

In my opinion, if a member of council has a question for the city attorney, they should address that question in email form to the city manager who will pass it along to the city attorney.

which is the practice we've been following unless Shane tells me otherwise.

That's of course at the discretion of the city manager if he feels it's appropriate to pass along to the city.

You got to be strong, again, The city manager has got to be strong enough to just say, okay, or to say, you know, Tina or Joe or Charlie, no, that seems like we don't need to do that. Instead of always deferring, I get the feeling sometimes we just defer to the council members and put you on a spot. And as long as that's not there, then fine.

No, I think it's how it's been handled has been fine. It's a little tricky because the city attorney is your hire. It's your, in this case, your contractual connection, but I'm responsible for the budget. So I'm trying to manage the budget. But if I don't know that three individuals are reaching out, which I'm not saying this is happening. I'm just saying hypothetically, if I don't know that, then when I get the billings, I'm like, and we do, we go through the billings to determine where things are. I didn't know that the mayor called her or I didn't know someone else called her. So I think how we've been doing it, it seems to work fine. It's just a little, It's a little challenging because that's not my person. I don't manage Laura as our city attorney. But in a lot of cases, I'm talking to Laura a couple of times a week. So if I know that you have a question in my course of talking to Laura, I can ask those questions in regular course of discussion. So maybe a separate email isn't needed. I can just ask those questions as we're going through city business on other things. So if I know what you need or clarification, I can add that to my list of questions to her as we connect throughout the week.

Well, as a casual question, I don't have a problem with that. But as a normal rule, I personally think it should be in writing that if a city council person, they should email it to you and you should decide whether to pass that along to city council and respond to the council person accordingly and collect. These phone calls can be long debates.

What phone calls? Have there been phone

I'm just suggesting that it should not be done as a general rule between council people and city attorney by phone.

I'm just asking generally, not specifically. Has it happened in the form of phone calls?

I mean, I don't necessarily recall specific instances, but typically we want something in writing. When she sends us something, that's attorney-client privileged information. So we want to have that dialogue, that feedback in writing typically. I think that's most helpful. And typically when I get that, I'll send it on to all of you so you can kind of hear that feedback.

I like that part. That's the connection to it so that we all hear the same story. from her, not just the person that had the question to the city attorney about a specific.

And if further clarification is necessary, she can be invited to the next meeting for open discussion. Yep.

Okay. So how do we want to draft this? City attorney may attend regular and or special, there's two parts here, this paragraph and the next one. City attorney may attend regular and or special session meetings of the city council at the invitation of two concurring.

Two members of city council.

Well, no, I thought we, I'm sorry. I thought we got into the point that it would generally, the city manager consults with the mayor. And if the mayor says, if Shane wants it and the mayor wants it, it happens.

You can't limit it to the mayor.

It says for the city manager. So the city manager alone can decide when to talk.

When the city manager doesn't want to, you're saying it takes two.

Yeah.

Okay.

Laura may want to massage this some, I think, but it says the city attorney may attend regular and or special session meetings of the city council at the invitation of two members of city council or the city manager.

Are you okay with that, John, as the mayor? Yes, I do. Do you think practically speaking, does that make sense for the mayor if he doesn't want to that you would consult us or do you?

Oh, I would.

Okay. Fine with me.

Okay. I'm very aware of the budget. So I'm kind of going to be fairly conservative on that. But I also want to make sure that we're getting questions answered. And from a liability standpoint, making sure that we're protected always. So

So now we're into the second paragraph of that. There's no footnote, but that's kind of the one I was wanting to understand a little bit better.

Well, this again, it has that city council as a body. So if you want to follow that practice, generally questions involving significant legal research should be at the request of the city manager or two members of city council.

Works. Then the definition of what is significant. And maybe I've beaten the pet on this, but when we're spending city money, I don't feel that any one of us should be spending city money. So that's why, so period. Now, then if involving, do you strike the word significant? Questions involving legal resource should be at the request of the city manager or city council as a body. then you don't have to worry about significant. I mean, you don't have to define significant.

Well, it then has this caveat in the next sentence that the city attorneys, she can or he can answer just individual council members.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think you need to leave this in there again, I think you know I was doing research on this actually in the law is super complicated for. attorneys representing governmental entities like who is the client, who do you represent there's a lot of issues around this and. I think you want to be very careful. I appreciate what it is you're trying to be cautious about, but the flip side is there are instances where city council members need to contact the city attorney.

And I get that too. Actually, I think we should always be able to contact the city attorney if there's something bad going on that we find out that we want to let them know from a liability standpoint. I'm just saying as a general rule, we shouldn't be all free to make direct contact with the attorney and spend city money without someone else knowing it. And we shouldn't set a practice for any of us at any time. Okay, I disagree. Laura, I've been thinking about this. What do you think about this, that, and the other thing? And then you're the client, and then she all of a sudden got 15 minutes, two hours into something, And if we're being billed for it, that's where the control point should be. But it seems like we should always have the ability to contact the attorney if something is going on that we feel it's important. OK.

I don't know.