City Council - Regular Meeting

the surg surgical sense. Yes.

Okay, folks. I think we're going to get started. Uh welcome to our uh February 9th city council study session. We have two agenda items, better public meetings update, and then we have uh city council rules and health procedure uh discussion. And then uh after that we will have an executive session. We will go into room 104 for that. So, with the better public meetings update, I see our our uh colleague, our um consultant Nick on the line. And uh I I I think I'll just turn it over to you, Nick, to give us uh a report on all the good work that you and uh many of us in this room and members of the community have contributed to.

Great. Well, thanks so much for uh having me and uh I'm delighted to give an update on the work that we've been doing for the past several months in the community. Let's give it a second here to get going. So, we're going to talk a little bit about um better public meetings. And the objectives for today are to brief you all on the process to date um and what we've done, talk a little bit about um the recommendations of the community uh specifically and then think and sort of hopefully tee us up uh to sort of create a a shared framing for a leadership discussion on the next stages. of of this work. So currently, so we have had about three stages of the process uh to date. This is I would say we're roughly let's say 1/3 of the way through the process. Um one/3 heading towards one uh a halfway through the process. So so far we've conducted a bunch of research. I'll talk a little bit about that. Um there's two presentations to the community. Uh one I'll mention um right after but I would consider this the second presentation of the findings to the community and then after this what we want to do is iterate and implement some form of recommendation or plural recommendations. So this is what we did a little bit of the research. Uh we conducted 25 uh interviews with a a good cross-section of the community from within the government, boards and commission, city council members, staff, and then outside with residents um with um some grassroots groups with nonprofits and uh local media as well. And then we implemented a community survey. And the survey was about was roughly four

buckets of information. how the community uh views community engagement, how the community views civic infrastructure, how the community thinks about um places and spaces and digital um platforms and participation. Uh simultaneously we and there's 58 uh responses to that survey. Uh simultaneously you would should all be uh familiar with the scorecard. We have this uh civic engagement scorecard that was piloted uh across your city council meetings and that was just to provide a snapshot of um participants's experiences of the meeting to give us general sense of so how are people participating? What are they seeing that's that's good about the meetings? Where are the opportunities and what they would like to see change? And then some reflections on their their engagement with the community. And then we had a public forum on December 4th and there were roughly 41 people and we had um a pretty constructive conversation about the um things that work well, some of the challenges and some of the opportunities that that they would like to see. Talk about that uh in a moment. So that's uh on the research and maybe I can I don't know how we want to do this. We pause for questions now or maybe we can move through the presentation and then you can ask questions maybe towards the end. That might be a little bit more efficient. What do you think?

Yeah, Nick, what I'll do is I will keep an eye on my colleagues and and uh staff and if there's a question I will let you know. Sure. And then they will ask their question. Happy to definitely answer any questions. Keep going.

Okay. So the outputs uh the immediate outputs and I don't know if it was part of your current council packet for this but there is there is a set of there is a very brief memo of recommendations. So it's a it's a scoped five I think it's roughly five pages or so that talks just strictly about the recommendations some of the thoughts around what those would look like and then the sort of benefit to council on why you might want to consider those. those are are not in a in a in a any particular order. I'll present a a a similar frame of those um in in a moment. And then we have a full research report. So I do have the full research report um just some slight tweaks, but um for for for those of you that want uh you know a little bit more nuanced information on how you sort of connect those recommendations to specific data and outputs. So, um, we have four sources of information that we're working towards. And that's, um, you know, the the community forum, the scorecard, the community survey, and the interviews. And so, it's a lot more detailed in in those regards. And so, I thought having two separate uh documents, one more high level and scoped, and then a more detailed report um to to sort of back up, you know, some of the things that were were were said for the community forum. This was on December 4th. It was great to visit your community. It was cold but it was it was still nonetheless the turn was was was pretty good all things considered 41 people. Um we did a little bit of a uh research update and then we broke out into roundt conversations and we have a good set of information that came from from that as well. So I believe that was also shared um with the community. So, one of the key things here is being transparent about, you know, the things that we've been talking about and I think that's online. Uh, so all of the

data points that were collected through our mentter, it's a live poll, um, are available to the community and that became, um, part of us thinking about the research as well. So, I've been thinking, you know, you know, conducting this research, coming to the community, um, uh, reflecting on what we've had with the community and refolding that back into the research. So, this is a really, uh, uh, iterative process that you're familiar with your own code design, but, you know, you're all it's pretty much it's everything is almost all in your own words. So here is as a high level of what we've been learning like really high level like I said like there's a lot more detail in that memo and then even further detail in that research report which um I'll be sharing with you all and so uh what we learned so what's working um there's very clearly across all of the data points a very strong civic pride and volunteer culture this was noted um throughout the community survey u and throughout the interviews um we know that you some of the really deep involved uh processes like code design um are are are really good and unique to your community and that even your own council meetings are run they're viewed by through the scorecard and through others uh through other for sources of information that they come across as quite efficient and quite orderly and even uh respectful. Um so that's definitely uh to the credit. Some of the tensions that we've we've heard from the members of the public is that participation can be quite high but the perceived influence by them is rather low. So you know one stat here is you know it's unclear how input affects decisions and you'll see sort of the through line I'll I'll carry this over next in the next slide is thinking about the feedback loop and things like that. Um some other another noted while you

know these meetings are quite efficient as we know especially when it comes to things like public meetings laws and the way that we operate agendas that dialogue feels quite limited. So if there is a a lower end of feeling heard um and I would say that this is quite consistent with a lot of other communities. Um this this this really is one of the big challenges. How do we how do we feel heard and make others pe feel heard effectively? what is the what what are the methods that we want to do that and that's one of the problems we're trying to solve for and then some of the pathways can feel fragmented what I mean by this is common levels of fragmentation between boards and commissions and council so the sort of through lines and throughputs between those and how you can sort of make better synergies and integration and then also from community into council right and just thinking about better ways of connecting and creating connections so if we want to get more specific specifically into this. Um residents are highly engaged but there's some of the confidence is lacking in the ways of how their ideas lead to any sort of meaningful outputs. Um and this you know does relate to how do we report back? How do we create a feedback loop? Right? So how is public input being used? There's some notes about, you know, engagement coming a little bit too late, but of course, you know, as people that work in in the public sector, there's all sorts of ways and means that you're trying to inform the public and they come very late in the process. But nonetheless, how do we start thinking about shaping decisions before uh decisions are being made? Um, I mentioned again here that commission and council meetings feel orderly but not necessarily deliberative or dialogic. and how do we make better meaningful exchanges? Um there is uh a noted um participation skew towards uh repeat attendees and of course I think it's important that uh anybody that

shows up should be respected and they were people that had the opportunity to fill out the scorecard for example. Um but we want to expand that. You know there is a very diverse community. There's a lot more people in the community. How do we how do we think about um including and involving more people and thinking about some of the barriers that that that uh prevent them from doing this uh code design works but how do we leverage this more? How do we perhaps think about making it more a part of the mainstream process or scoping it? Uh how do we think about being strategic with it? And then some um clarity on roles. Um so uh how do we make create create better clarity on roles for like say commission members and how do or or or council members in the community and how do we support each other in that in that way. So here are some of the the actions to strengthen engagement here. Now I want to be really clear here that none of what I'm presenting is is like me. Um this is all community generated. That's why I I have everything backed up through the the larger report. So this is strictly um all from all community generated from the research and the public forum. And so you know we're really trying to focus and hone here because the the task that you all set me up with was how can we enhance council leadership uh in ways to improve civic engagement relationships and me and with members of the public. So here's nine. And it's they're not necessarily in a particular order, but I will say that I sort of I I I place them almost as a sequence if you want to think of them in a way of sequencing good forms of public engagement. So you know, if we want to think about how we do these things, improving the timing and accessib accessibility of information, how do we get the word out? How do we think about agendas earlier? How do we reduce those

political barriers to participating? How do we engage earlier in the decision cycle? Possibly thinking about different hearings or different form uh study or work sessions as helping to shape decisions. Maybe thinking about evolving meeting formats and dialogue, different roundt formats. And this is fun thing that I shared um with at the public forum is that we we actually piloted through the better of public meetings in Boulder, Colorado a a a revamped study session and it was quite successful. So and that was all within the bounds of the open meetings laws. So how might different formats create and lend itself to feeling heard or better forms of engagement? Another theme is reinforcing safety, respect and belonging. Obviously, we want people to feel respected and and safe in these spaces and and and what are the various strategies we want to utilize for that. Uh another important one is thinking about how we make public input visible in different ways, how we close the feedback loop as well. So it's one thing to sort of and one of the the you know the ways that I I tried to to showcase at the public forum was mentometer different forms of live polling and I know you've all experimented you're all you'll have you know for example you might even have this meeting that's that's streaming live so we're trying to think about different ways of being visible and accountable to the public and what are all what are what are new ways what are there any ways that are useful possibly that might enhance this and also how can we think about closing the feedback loop after meetings. Um, we did hear about how we might want to partner with youth a little bit more with newcomers and emerging leaders and what are the different pathways. You have a lot of good nonprofits in the community and a lot of people that are um that that we might want to tap into, what are the different strategies we

might want to go and go uh to to to access that sort of lived experience. And then I mentioned strengthening the pathways to council. And so I'm you know how might you want you know think about your own government infrastructure. Are you creating the best sort of integration between council and the various boards and commissions to share information and utilizing the way boards and commissions are um in the community as well and and vice versa. And another thing that I thought was uh was quite um frequent to hear with from elected officials was establishing visibility in the community. And so I've heard that you all are quite more interested in in attending public engagements that's run by the city, but also holding your own informal meetings. So what might that look like? How can we best create the conditions for outreach um so that people are aware of this and that they attended and that uh and you know and sort of building that sort of base for your own work to be um uh to continue your work as representatives and then the last would be sustaining and scaling code designes which I had mentioned. So the next steps um the way that I'm looking at this is we have this set of recommendations. We're here to have a conversation about this and then we can take this back to reflect on everything that you talk about today and maybe come back with a little something a little bit more scoped.

Um but we want to think about so what would we like out of this list of things if this is a good list to think about short-term or long-term objectives and goals. Can we create a work plan across your schedules that's feasible? Um, implement and try something and just test it and and treat it like it's a pilot and learn from it and evaluate if it's good and where we might want to go with that. So, that's where I see the sort of next stages of here. And we're practically, you know, we're still in the conversation phase of thinking about what we want to do with this. But hopefully the the recommendations and the data is providing food for thought for you all on how you know you might, you know, want to to move forward. And so I just as for you all to consider, I just had three questions. Um, you know, and if I'm sure if you have questions for me, I'm happy to clarify that. But the questions I had for you all were really where do you see the biggest opportunity from that list? Um you know which recommendations feel actionable in the near term and then what support would you need to advance any of these ideas. So yeah that's it for me.

Great. Thanks Nick. And to the other Nick Council member Miller. Yeah. Thank you Nick. Great presentation. I have a question about a piece I didn't hear and wonder where it did or didn't come up and that's remote participation. People express uh concerns or a barrier related to not being able to participate in council meetings, open comment, public hearings because it requires them to physically be here currently.

Yes. So there was definitely and I think that's touched upon. That's a good that's a good me uh a good note. Um this is touched upon I think more in the larger report. Um and maybe this something that we can reflect in the recommendations but digital participation or asynchronous participation. So I mean we might want to think about this in different ways. Is this participating live and how we can um how we can garner public input during these processes and what are the the challenges and barriers you have to work around uh to do that or is it asynchronous? there are different um tools um to garner public input before meetings that you know and different strategies to think about um and so that's a digital form of engagement but it's it's asynchronous it's not in real time or live so I think that's a valid point and um yeah I'll have to to double check for sure to see how much was written on there but it was it was part of it was part of the conversations and we did hear about that absolutely Okay. Thanks.

Other thoughts, Mayor?

Well, I as I think back um just over my 10 years here, eight years, maybe it just seems like 10 eight years here. Um, there were times when and and even looking back further into what the school board has done in the past where there are opportunities for a topic to come up and people to give input early on before that topic gets anywhere near a council meeting. Um, and and we could I know it's it takes people's time, but that's this is what we're here for is to give our time for the betterment of the city. Um, and we used to do uh council meetings every week. I mean, study sessions every week, even when we had the council meeting late at night. That was a long day. Not suggest we might necessarily go back to the exact same thing, but is there a way at the end of a, you know, meeting here where we're reaching the end of the day where we could be be available to stay longer and invite people in for some roundt discussions um about issues that might come forward in, you know, in the next month or two where we could get that input and it won't be so sterile that it's standing in front of a podium where you see people shaking and they're nervous and it's not comfortable and they have only two minutes to get everything in and you know and again even if we had four minutes we saw them go on and on right it it it wasn't it still wasn't getting to a meaningful discussion with another person and I think if we did roundts and let people you know come and sit down and talk and heard back from us and we responded to them people will understand that they are heard and that we're hearing from them early enough to utilize that information in that decision that might come in a week or two weeks or 3 weeks. So just you know wanting to know if we could consider

using these study sessions at the end of one perhaps as one way to pilot and see if something like that if if it was well advertised and people knew the three subjects we would be talking about and they can bring their own subjects frankly if they want to. But um if if something like that would work um utilizing the schedule we kind of already have but just expanding it like one time a month or something like that. So it was just something I've been thinking about is we're already here study sessions are less formal. Maybe there's a way council member wall.

Thank you. Uh I am uh probably most interested in hearing as many voices as I can from the community and uh that could be a hardware store owner or a student or a senior citizen or a nurse and uh trying to find opportunities uh perhaps within wards, not necessarily so, but perhaps within wards whereby we would have uh the mechanics to uh invite people uh into a space where we could actually dialogue. I don't necessarily see much dialogue happening as we're debating uh a specific issue in front of a council at a voting meeting, but I think that there could be considerable dialogue uh leading up to those uh meetings. Um, Council Member Miller and I were part of a briefing this morning in which it was, I think, quite helpfully suggested that, you know, maybe ward members would like to take it upon themselves to within their wards uh leading a discussion about a current uh uh need in our community. Uh I think that at least I um don't know how to make that happen in a way that will uh generate more than the three people who always talk to me uh in my ward. Uh whether that's breakfast or coffees or telephone calls or emails. Um, and the city probably has the muscle to uh be able to advertise those kinds of things that would generate a larger group of people, 20 or 30 uh people who would show up at a specific place to why don't we talk about and then fill in the blank. I would be very excited about that.

Council member Kane,

thank you. Um, yeah, I was trying to go back to just the high level questions like where do you see the biggest opportunities of strength and trust and I I think the one that I think of and this is bigger picture but we get input when we're at a project level when we're down to the point of we're doing something and I think input is much more valuable when you're trying to set policy the example I think of and this is not easy but uh when we were going through the two years of unified development code design we were trying to run meetings in the parks and run these other things and get input about hey these things will allow um other other sort of a um step back functions and you'll have less public meetings and we couldn't get anybody interested in coming and saying what are you talking about but when the project comes and now says hey this building can be right at the corner of your block that's when people get excited and want to be there and to me the problem is that's too late because the policy has been set uh and we don't have an upcoming uh public hearing uh and and people are a little stunned and I don't I I don't know how we find better ways to engage earlier. Um I I I don't mean to bring this up like here's a easy to do and let's do this cuz it's really hard. Uh it's hard to um um I I know Ryan Yeser and the team were trying to come up with ways of saying you know drawing pictures of what could happen on certain blocks. They had ice cream free in the parks. No, nobody nobody came. Um, but like I say again, when you divide East Center Street and you put a roundabout on the corner, people go, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. That's on my block." Um, and now you get the attention, but now you've had your engineers at 70% design already. And is it good policy for us to start backing that out? So, my my concern is finding ways to engage earlier. And I and I don't mean to say it lightly like it's let's handle that quickly. Um I do think our biggest risk with input right now and this has been coming through our mail and other places

is we have lost some trust or some connection with the community because of things like and I I think of one is cost overrun. The other one I think of with RPU was we we blundered with some public output and saying like hey this is what's happening with rates and there was an implication that it was because Mayo was doing all this development and our rates were going up because of that and that was just bad bad communication and we've since done a lot of work to fix that but those things break trust and I think we have some of that right now we also have this contention contentious project we've worked on with the sports complex where people right here on council we've told different we've told competing narratives of what we were trying to do. And again, I think it's caused a a break in trust with our community. And those are the things I think we really have to work on with community engagement. The the one thing that doesn't come out here, and I'm going to bring it up, um I I think we have to be careful like with codeesign, there is a clear implication that we want to collaborate with you. Many cases, we want input, but we want input. We don't want to collaborate. We don't want to say here you do it, but somehow our words sometimes imply that we do. And I think we have to be careful with that. Um when when the city engineer is designing a street or talking about how an intersection is going to work and somebody wants it different, that's important input from us. But I I think we've created the environment where no, they're going to tell us not to do it and that's what we should do because we're the city council and we're listening to the residents. But I I think that's I think we need to be careful how we communicate that we want input, but we don't want to give up control of city intersections to let people decide where stop sign should go and things like that. So, um those are my input. They're not helpful for what exactly to design, but I think this is just a a complicated area of of municipal government and hopefully we can work our way through it.

Council member Cmer.

Yeah, I I'll go off what Mr. Keane has kind of start with that. Um, I think one of our problems that I've learned is that we need to start putting draft on our our stuff or 10% design. Um, I'll give you an example on Sixth Street where the um um old words is and the entry was going to be at 6th Avenue and now it's not going to be at 6th Avenue and how people go, "Oh, that was the picture I saw. That's what I I saw." They didn't hear it's it's it's a concept for why it was changed. Um, I go back to the sports complex. It was 10% designed because that's the money we had. Oh, no. Oh, no. It was in in stolen. That's what we're going to build. And that's what they saw. They could go backwards and they can say, "Well, here's a picture. Why didn't you do this as far as as as engaging with the public?" And I think that the city council should have their own tent at um Rochester Fest and safe city nights and and work that. And it doesn't have to be just that council person. It could be other ones. I I think going to where the people are is far better than thinking that they're going to come and see you. Um, I'll do um meet me in the park or go to see me in the park and and I'll have a few people um and sometimes you get different people, but but they have to come see me. But if you go to where the people are, I think that would be a much better thing um to do. For me um in my ward the last seven years, we sent out the newsletter every every um December to say, "Hey, this is what's going on in the community. That's what's coming up in the community." And that's one of the ways that I communicate with with with my ward members. I go back to let's let's think about what events are happening in Rochester and could we have our own tent that we sit there with the table and a couple of chairs lawn chairs um and and have a dialogue with people so they can come see us.

Council member Miller I'll just say I I agree with council member Palmer that having some city support to be more visible in the community feels very actionable. Um, and I think the forward concerts Rochester trust partnering with the mayor's office, uh, who is often at events would be good ways to to go to where people are. I'll also just say like in the biggest opportunities in the near term, I think, uh, this idea of closing the loop as an opportunity, we have open comment. People can submit written comments to the council. Sometimes we have an opportunity to take that up. Sometimes that's a question for city staff, but I don't know if that's a close the loop report, a report back at the next meeting, something that's available on a web page that feels actionable without a ton of resource. And I feel like in a way we have minutes of who speaks. Um, and not every issue should receive a follow-up. Sometimes it is just a comment, but I feel like there are tangible issues within there. And I I don't always know either what's what's closed or not. and sometimes we get emails and sometimes we don't. So that would be really helpful and I feel like that's a near-term opportunity. I'll also say I think we have a big near-term opportunity that we have this technology upgrade in this uh room. We have presenters now able to come and speak to us uh address us through this technology but we have not reopened uh a virtual participation for comments open comment or for public hearings. And I look at other organizations, school board for example, that requires a request to comment. Uh, and it feels like we could set that up and make sure that we know what the topic that somebody wants to address uses on. uh make it clear that we are inviting specific people and not broadly advertising a meeting link that anybody could join but trying to control it in a way that that coming here physically at the right time to sign up is not a

barrier to um addressing us. Does that feel like an opportunity with our investment in this room? Council member Fredericks.

Yeah, I I feel like the city goes above and beyond to communicate with our community. I think it's our community's duty to be engaged in those processes earlier on then when it gets to the point where it's hey it's go time it's construction time. Uh we have seven different addresses in this community then I'm always I've always felt informed of what's going on around our different businesses and our properties all the neighborhood meetings. We showed a good uh measure of th being thorough when the center street project uh people that were affected by that said, "Hey, we didn't receive our cards." We pulled it back in. We made sure we they got them. We did it right. We we're not going to be perfect, but I I really do feel like we are doing a good job of communicating with our community and letting letting them know what's going on. And we have great department heads that make decisions on how roads are going to look, what's best, and how often is there a whole bunch of uproar about what's going on, and they raise a whole bunch of I can't think of a better word than hell, but they raise a bunch bunch of cane about what's going on. Then all a sudden the project's done 5 years later like, "Hey, this is a great project. This was really good." Well, that's why we pay professionals. And Dylan Dumbrosski comes to mind a lot cuz he's very calm and collective and he has a good idea how things need to work out and he sees the whole picture. And I just I think we do a good job of things. I think we as a as a community just need to be more engaged earlier on in the process. I would just uh echo and the the kind of what are the biggest opportunities I engaging earlier in the decision uh cycle I think is key I think uh I think we brought this up last year at at this time I think we've done a better job in uh in filling our study sessions with uh issues that the public are engaged in. I

think there's also something at the apex of engaging earlier in the process and establishing visibility in the community for our elected officials because if our elected officials, those of us around this table, we're the ones that really get the pulse of the community and those issues that are going to be be uh uh upper in the forefront of of our community's mind. And we as a city decisionmaking body have to be more flexible and nimble and responsive to what the community is asking for for us. So in that glide path to decision making or bringing an issue forward to the council uh being having that flexibility and I think in two very recent uh occasions we were able to be flexible at a our regular council meeting two two meetings ago where we knew the community was really hurting because of the uh the uh federal officers that have come to our community and we said this is not on our agenda. And we were able to work with our city staff and the mayor to hobble together a presentation through the administrator's report and the the the mayor's report that looked like we were responsive. And then we were able to then follow that up two weeks later. Uh and and so I think that is a model of the as the world moves faster, we're going to have to be more responsive. And

I think that that speaks to virtual uh attendance, virtual input and uh establishing that visibility in the community, working with our uh community uh communications and community engagement team to incorporate the elected officials in those engagement opportunities. and then and then have the cycle where the elected officials say this is an issue that's starting to percolate. Should we have some community engagement opportunities around around this issue? So those are the the the pieces that come to mind to me and I do uh in our next discussion have some proposals that maybe get a little more granular.

There was I just have two quick things. One is we do um downtown on Thursdays downtown have a booth. Um my office does as well as at all the safe city nights and we can get a second table and have city council put on the front of it to to be at that as well. So if that's something you're interested in, Council Member Palmer mentioned that we could do that and have a second table and it could, you know, just be the city's thing and have two separate areas. Um so that's something we could do. The only thing you have to the challenge there is um uh open meeting law and making sure that you would manage that somehow. Um so I think we could do that. And the second one is there is a digital program that we heard about and for the life of me I can't think what the name of it is that um helps us invite people in our community to events by ward, by age, by whatever. Um, there are ways to do that and we don't currently do that and it's something we might want to look at where you could have, you know, you know, one of the wards wants to have an event and, you know, they could send an email out to everyone in their ward or we could have a citywide event and send it out to people or you could send it to just people 60 and over if it's a senior thing. There there's ways to do that and we just don't have that capability yet. And several of us heard from this group um a year ago and I've talked to them since and it might be something we want to look at just to be able to reach people because we know that's one of the hardest things that we have is getting people.

Council member Fer.

Yeah, I have a I have the pleasure of visiting with a lot of um constituents from all of our wards in this community and the feedback that I get for anybody that is trying to reach their ward representative is positive. We're all accessible. We all have our emails out there, our cell phones numbers out there. We're easy to talk to. All of you guys are. Even if we're on different sides of some issues. We all get along. We all want to reach back to people. Even when we maybe don't want to hear it, we do it. I have not heard otherwise. So, we're very accessible that way. And um I took Mr. Wall's lead on this one. Uh showing up at your neighborhood informational meetings, it's a good way to talk to people. There's there's a there's something right there. You know, maybe only one person shows up at it. Maybe there's 20 that do it. Ones that are a little more I don't know what you'd say.

Contentious. Thank you. He has bigger words than me. But anyway, that's a good way to to meet with people at different levels where they're comfortable to have that back and forth. The back and forth dialogue for each ward should kind of come to us in my opinion and we should be the voice for our wards. It's a lot easier to have a one-on-one conversation than it is to get in a group. And and then to me, all a sudden, if we have all this input coming in, holy buckets, how do you juggle it all and and and take that input and put it into a a workable plan? Council member Palmer.

Well, a couple things. Um I I would think a separate tent and area for us would be better. Um then then that way you could take it to your ward if you wanted to or you could take it somewhere that says city council and and we can see who has the most amount of time on the tent and and work on that. I think you know um for people who check it out a lot the the thing that the thing that I I want to caution us about is the remote meeting participation and we had done that in the past and that becomes very tricky. a um you don't know who you're talking with and number two um they can say anything they want. We had some very derogatory things said in throughout the United States derogatory things were said. So I'm I'm happy we did that. I think we almost need to reook at how we do our open comment period and maybe not televise that anymore and have people not play to the show but but but come and and talk to us. Uh but I think that might be a different discussion that we have. I am disappointed though in in this in the program that the community forum had 41 people at you know if you're trying to outreach to everybody in the community 41 people isn't very many people and and um my understanding from the participants that were there was that it was pretty much a set deal and and um they're the usual suspects that come to our meetings anyway. So um I don't know if we reached out and got other community members. Part of the problem of of for businesses is that they like to survey the people who show up. you should really survey the people who aren't there and um and and ask them why aren't you here and what can we do differently and I think that goes back to um us going out in community where people are and then engaging them council member Miller.

Sure. I guess to to build on that and a comment council member Palmer made earlier about sending out a newsletter and also what the mayor is mentioning one and this is a longer term item because it would have budget impact but having some communications support to be able to more practically reach people each of us can build newsletter lists perhaps managing emails um building social media presence etc. But at some point that doesn't allow us to practically reach out as the mayor was saying if there's a a forward concert at Cascade Lake to be able to choose a radius around the park and let people know electronically. And that's one of the capabilities of the tool the mayor was talking about. Um, but it also, I mean, I appreciate Council Member Palmer's, um, financial investment, mailing everybody in his ward an update once a year, but that is a financial cost that each of us have to take individually um, and is not part of our current council support um, for communications. And I feel like they're potentially good technology tools that would allow us to be in better conversation, build a relationship, make sure that people know who we are, and that when there are events happening, it isn't just the usual suspects. And um that's going to take time, I think. But um but that's something I'd like to see how we might work toward, not as an immediate change, but being able to scale our our reach, so to speak. And I I feel like that scale of of impact is something that's come up a few times.

Council member Wall,

um I do like uh Palmer's deal about going where the people are because we do have trouble raising people. Uh you ask about the 41. Uh actually I sat at a table of five and I knew uh one person well and three others I had never met before. So uh I was encouraged but but still there were only 41 of us there and uh many of those were connected to the city either elected or staff and why weren't there 141 or I was at one of the natural gas franchise fee things in the library and I counted uh and I believe besides my wife and me and people who were intimately connected to the project that is a consultants our staff people. I think there were five people there. Now, why in the world? Because I I thought that the city did a fairly decent job advertising that these uh many along with additional opportunities upcoming. I thought the city did a pretty good job letting the community know that this was going to happen. And uh you know, I don't I don't know what time it started. I'll say 5:00 or 4:30. I kind of looked around the room and I'm glad at least two or three more people came in because I wondered where is the community. So maybe we've got to go where they are. Uh although I'd still love to believe that if we had a pertinent topic and we had a tent set up or or a a room reserved somewhere. I think I got a great room in Ward 3, they'd let me use their spot. I think people would come when it's really a compelling topic. Bingo. Council member Keane.

Yeah. Appreciate hearing the different discussions. I'm trying to pretend I'm staff and what I'm going to draw out of this discussion and what comes next. So, I think it I'm trying to think it that way. But I'm going to make a couple comments. One

on the uh communications uh support stuff. One of the key things for community input is surveys. And surveys, some of them are done kind of willy-nilly, but the real professional ones and we do one of these once a year. and try to get that. I think it's important to make sure you do the the higher end plus or minus 3% uh but those are spendy things to do and I think we as a city step up to do one. I believe it's once a year. Um, I get worried about some of the other sort of uh we should poll the community for something because uh council member Campion said once he thinks 72% of the people play in uh um uh horseshoe leagues because the horseshoe league gets together and says we really have to all you know weigh in on this and we can be manipulated through those numbers. But I think that communication support's important. Uh the other idea that's coming up here is this idea of this uh you know our community outreach and I've always applaud the mayor's office for being at you know safe city nights or uh Thursdays on first. Um but I I'm looking around here and do we really have that commitment to start saying yeah uh this isn't just like the someone opens up this is work to do and and hours to be to be spent. So that's something that the mayor's office has been good about doing. I tried to just go there and participate with that one and come and go. But now this when you start talking about this, this is committed time. So I'll just um I'll mention that I I want to bring up one other thing here and this is something we didn't talk about and it really wasn't in the scope of of uh community engagement, but I I do think it comes down. We have uh u three or four or probably more than I can think of. We have a a pad and bicycle uh commission and tries to in my view uh consult or inform us of community needs. We have a historic preservation commission. We also have planning and zoning. And I feel like we've sort of again implied to them, we need you to

tell us what to do. And in fact, that's not how it works. Um the the example of historic preservation, I found it that we have as a council have overrode their decisions more than we follow or overrode their recommendations more than we followed them. And I think part of the problem we run into is the people that are drawn to be in that stuff um have us have like a high investment in this and it probably isn't representative of what the communities is. And I think we have to be careful because I think we create some frustration with those boards that they're on there, they're doing the work. I think the sustainability group is getting there right now that they feel like, okay, we came here, here's what you should do, and we're trying to represent the entire city, not just the uh people that are really serious about this. So, I I'm bringing it up as I think it creates some of that trust problem. It creates some confusion, but that thing about uh the community uh being frustrated, I think some of it comes from us inviting input and then not following up on it. So, I think it's something we have to be careful with overturning.

Thank you. Uh council member, I I'll go to next. I I really appreciate uh the last comment that uh council member Keen just made because I think that's the largest problem is that we do invite folks to provide input uh and we don't give any indication. I I think well I'm going to speak for myself. I do my best to make sure that they know that I've heard them, but we don't have a formalized process to say we are actually hearing you. Uh, until it gets to a a really hot button issue and then it it is almost perceived that we're reactive in the in the in the messages that we're hearing. So, I'm interested in uh I appreciate all the comments. I I I think uh it is a both and situation going to people as well as inviting people to come have dialogues with us. Um you know I've met many people who are afraid to have a one-on-one conversation with me. But if there's a group of 10 people who want to talk about something uh they'll invite me to that conversation uh because there's strength in numbers and some anonymity in in numbers that there just isn't present in one-on-one conversations, right? So I think it's a both end. Um, but I'm I'm really interested in in figuring out mechanisms to invite people uh to provide input uh for me to communicate to people on a larger scale what's going on. Uh sharing with them my thought process about issues um um and and allowing feedback for that to happen and and and shape direction and and form possibilities. Uh I'm concerned at times that if if we want to be informed by board and commission's meetings that we have to navigate a a 2 and 1/2 hour recording that sometimes is not very intelligible to listen to the dialogue about how they're shaping recommendations to us.

So, I'm interested in a more meaningful um summary of those those discussions so I can get a higher level view or a more informed perspective about their de deliberations and why they're bringing forth recommendations. Um but I think overall I'm just more interested in exploring mechanism and exper mechanisms and experimenting with things to see what actually works and what doesn't. uh before discounting anything.

Thank you, Council Member Dory. I was just going to add on boards and commissions and I think council member Dory made some really good points about being able to make that information digestible to council members because I look at boards and commissions in particular the ones that you council member Keane mentioned as a uh process of bringing in more information. So you get a deeper dive into the issues. It's not necessarily uh looking at their recommendation as a recommendation but as input into our decision making and at a more granular level. uh but uh at a higher level I think there is value in getting that boarding commission information in a better format so that it is usable to us. I do. And not speaking of it because I used to serve on planning and zoning, but I think we're able to get through a lot of our planning and zoning public hearings very quickly because of the pre-work that planning and zoning has done to bring that to us that they've vetted a lot of those questions. Uh so it's not a we're rubber stamp but it is uh it is helping us with our ultimate decision making. So with that, uh, council member owner,

I'm gonna go off of kind of what's been said is when I first got involved with stuff, it was with the Elsa County Environmental Commission and when you went down and you were interviewed by the county commissioners, you you had to tell them what you why you should be picked and and I was picked because I'm just a regular person and and I think there's some value to having regular people and not advocates or not people who have, oh, I'm all for this or I'm all for that. I think some of the communication problems we have is that we set this expectation that I'm going to be on this commission and when I'm on this commission I'm going to tell the city council what to do. That's not what we do. And and I would prefer us as a city council to ask them a question say hey look at this issue look at at at the gas gas fee look at some other issue. Come back to us with some thought process that you have. But I think at the end of it, our job is the balance. And part of that balance is between finances and and goals and other things. And I think some commissions just think that we're just going to take what they have um at face value. And it's a bigger picture that we're looking at. And I think we need to to let them know that that yes, we respect what they do, but it's it's got to go through almost a meat grinder to get to the end.

Mayor.

Yeah. And I just want to be clear, people are picked because they apply. Yes. But we interview them and they are just your neighbors. They are regular people. There are a few advocates in a particular in one I think one or two committees. They're just people on the street that and often they'll be, you know, Mayo sends it out to the Mayo staff when they see these postings. It's an AO employee. A lot of them seem to be in tech for some reason, but I want to get involved in the community. you know, I want to serve on a committee and they list three and I interview them for one of the three and they're not all advocates just for one particular topic. So, I just want to be real clear about that. We shouldn't have this this feeling that everybody on every committee is just somehow wedded to that committee. They're wedded to community service, many of them, and that's why they um and there are a couple exceptions. There's always someone who loves the topic they're in, but it's not the that's not the the rule. It's more the exception.

Thank you, Mayor. I Well said. I I agree couldn't agree with you more. Uh Nick, any closing thoughts? Where do we go from here from a better public meetings standpoint? The work that you're doing?

Well, I think you know some really great points here and you know one thing that we should do is you know the the group that's been meeting regularly put our heads together to think a little bit about the themes that you all talked about. I'm hearing, you know, different types of mechanisms for inviting input, ways to communicate out, how to do community engagements within the community and different and and awards or different sort of festivals and events, digital forms of participation. So, I think let's let's digest a little bit of this, think a little bit more about how this align with the other input and and maybe what we can do is come up with something uh that's sharable. Um but I think as immediate steps just you know as as a group think through you know some of the stuff a little bit more and um start thinking towards you know what what sort of actions that we would like to take and and and experiment with that makes sense.

Yeah. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for all the work you've done so far and looking forward to continuing to work with you. Yeah, my pleasure. It's been great. We are going to move on to uh our next topic which I think dovetales quite nicely with the previous discussion uh city council rules of procedure and code of contact conduct review and administrator Zelms are you taking the lead on this one?

I will facilitate the PowerPoint. How about that? There will probably be a lot of leads on this one but aren't me. Um, but we did try to set the table a little bit so that you could have not everyone wants to talk about every sentence of the rules of procedure and code of conduct, but often some similar themes come up there. Um, good discussion um that I think helps to frame some of um the policy consideration for why do you even have a council rules of procedure and code of conduct. Where do I point to this? Do I point to this? Oh, there we go. Or maybe you do it. Um, so just something to kind of ground us in. Um, things to think about as you're considering the council rules of procedure and code of conduct. Um, is there anything that could be clarified? Is there something that's unclear to you? Is there something that, um, you feel like could enhance how the staff is working with you? Um, or um, help your decision- making and how do these things work in concert with the charter and um, the code of ethics um, the ethics ordinance that you have. Um, so just things to be thinking about. Um, also important is the purpose. Um, there is the broader purpose of why do we have a council photo of conduct and rules and procedures in the first place. Um, they really are supposed to be your norms for how you expect each other to show up and how you can expect the u staff to show up and deliver information to you. Um, trying to provide some clarity and roles and expectations. Um, focus our time and resources on the things that you've all um, agreed on are important and that we're trying to have all of our teams align towards. um making sure that our team can be confident in how they're operating and the um norms that they have for their day-to-day operations and not um moving outside of those. And then um just making sure that we can be transparent and try to have good governance um through having those shared processes even when we have hard topics. shared processes can help us get through the hard topic. Um well, maybe clunkily, but Robert's rules can be helpful in the clunky get through of a

hard topic. Um which are in your council rules of procedure and code of conduct. Um just a few other things to think about um um highlights from the charter that you can um go to if you're really bored. Um the legislative authority, the council, um you have regular meetings. We talked about that during setting the calendar. Um you technically only have to have one, but you can have more. Um the um council authority um things that are prohibited, you can't be a staff member and a council member. Um so you are a council member or a mayor, you're not a staff member. Um but we try to work as a team. Um the conflict of interest portion of the charter and I think you'll navigate that. Um so these aren't things that are called out directly in your council rules of procedure but the spirit of them are um within the council rules of procedure um just written in legally um which only one of us can interpret um to the fullest extent of the law. Um so why do we have this a glide path a chart for a glide path ultimately and you discussed this earlier um on getting engaged with the community at the policy level um it's hard to engage at the policy level. It's not like always clear to people um what does it mean to update your land development manual? Land development manual is not common conversation at the dinner table for most people unless they're sitting behind me. Um and uh so you know keeping the council at the highest level possible as much as possible and setting that policy through the strategic goals um the priority action items and that oversight for projects etc. so that the day-to-day work can happen in delivering uh the operations of the city whether that is major projects or making sure that everything keeps flowing smoothly as much as possible every day um for the different services that we provide. Um so um there are a lot of things in your council rules of procedure but it talks about meeting structure, the time of

meetings and the manner of the meetings. Um again sometimes those adjust but really we try to keep them as um as regimented as possible so people know what to expect. Um but it also talks about the uh presiding officer. Uh we try to make sure that Randy never vetos anything. Um and so you know those kinds of things. um but the order of business and the flow of the meeting, those kinds of things. Um but it's also important to note, and you've done this before, that your rule rules are made to be broken. And the way that you do that is by suspending your rules. So, five of you uh can approve a change to your council rules of procedure for until they change again or in immediiacy of a meeting, um you can change your rules because maybe they don't work for the topic that you're talking about, but five of you have to agree that it doesn't work that way. Um so we've made some changes um over the years. The most recent um was the presiding officer designation. So um this group of folks um made that change to instead of having it be very prescriptive about the month and your ward aligning with it to having um the council president designate that and then you just are aware of it. Um so there sometimes it's gotten more prescriptive and sometimes it's gotten less prescriptive, but again it really depends on the city council. Um, so maybe the first thing that we've talked about before and talked about since is remarks and debate. And I think at least according to the to Nick B, um, Nick Bahos, I always say, um, the community thinks you're doing a great job at your remarks and debate. Um, except maybe they're not as clear about how you've taken their input when you're having remarks and debate, but we do have um, council rules. So um norms that you have established or your predecessors have established on how um you expect to treat each other when you're on the dis. Um those have been important at certain

times and some of you have um called each other on that which is a good example of who decides if the rules are being applied as intended. That is you. Um so um that can be very uncomfortable but also they do provide you something to point back to um if things aren't going well. Um and of course there's also the code of conduct. So that's also trying to establish some of those uh roles, expectations, norms um that isn't just for council. also helps um our staff to understand like maybe we're veering a little bit far into the weeds on something with an individual and that really would require a policy change from council in order to um to do our work differently in this space. And it just gives them a little bit of cover for lack of a better word to be able to point to that because rarely in my career has it ever been intentional that something has skewed very far. um a foul of existing policy, but it can be hard to answer questions from the community members that if they don't love that they have to clear their sidewalk of snow or things of that nature, right? Um but depending on on how it's addressed, it can be challenging. One thing I'll point out here is seating order. Um we may expect a little bit of a tweak to seating order on the DAS here coming um next week. U one of your members has uh would be very valuable for them to be closer to the ramp. Um, so that would be even a question for now. There's two great ideas brought up by teammates. One was you just reverse one through six to one through six, which would mean that uh, council member Keane would get to sit next to me and I would get sit next to sit next to the other idea involved the same thing except lesson which would be council member Dory and council member just switch. Either way, you would get to sit next to me. Um, so those are things that are established in your rules, but for reasons that, you know, are sometimes

just better for all of us, um, we need to adjust them for a period of time. The clerk will still call you in order unless you change that. Um, but those are that's just something to be aware of coming into next week. Um, either one of you or all of you would would change. Do you want all of Well, all of you, but one. Um, would you rather all just flip-flop and get a whole different um view of the world or gentleman's agreement? I could just I'm good either way. I get to switch you. And this is an example of flexibility um in your rules. So, just wanted to point that out because it's on there. Um and um

others since council member wall I mean council member Keane weighed in. I I think yeah just Dan and Patrick. Perfect. others feel the same way. Doesn't affect me. Okay. It may be easier for the community, too. Well, Michael, can you get along with Dan there? No. I'm just wondering if I should take on the the persona of of council member Keane since I'm sitting in I think it should be a surprise. What does that mean?

Uh, so just something to be aware of. Um and so again, all of these are really to try to have clarity in your meeting so you don't have surprises um where you where we can manage it. Um it does talk about um the travel policy within your council rules and procedure that is adjusted from time to time. Um those kinds of things. So um gets very granular and very high level depending on what part of the council rules of uh the code of conduct and rules of procedure. Uh so placing items on the business uh meeting agenda, a topic that has come up before and I think it's important to note this is related to a council rule of procedure that tries to focus our staff time on the strategic priorities that the city council has established and uh funded in the budget. So, um, it's really related to the other code of conduct that talks about not spending more than 30 minutes on a topic and we don't like time it just in case you were wondering, but I think we know the difference between 30 minutes and multiple meetings about like a a policy or a topic that the council hasn't provided direction on. Um, but we do have uh the the meeting that's scheduled. We try to also get feedback from you. I think this has been working well, but I don't know how you're feeling about it to make sure you all have the same information as much as possible when questions are asked sometimes of all of you by the same people. Um, and getting that back to the council as well as polling items. I don't think we've really had challenges with that. But, um, that's been a positive change since the start. Yeah.

Um, we also hope the council initiated action and so this is where it's trying to align with the, you know, not going back and forth on new ideas, but there is a a process for the city council to request something to be on the agenda. I think the initial intent of this has been to provide direction to staff to work on something and come back. Um, that's not always how the council initiated actions have either come forward or the motion that has come with them. So, just acknowledge there's been some friction with that occasionally on council, but um the intent is to be able to review it and have a good sense of how much time that might take and whether or not we might need to rep prioritize. We need prioritize other work. Um it does not prohibit you from putting something on the agenda and asking for approval at that time, but of course, most people don't like to be surprised with an idea a few days before they're expected to vote on it. So, um, felt important to highlight this in your council of procedure. Can keep going. Any questions or comments?

Any thoughts so far? Additional thoughts? Well, for mine, um, you have the the mayor's request doesn't require a second and those have not typically been done at the table since I've been here. Those have been done working with the administrator and giving it to you and not going through a formal process at the table. So, just to clarify, there's like that's

Yeah. And those are just the way that I've approached that is just having enough time to make sure it could be on the agenda and then I placed it as close to a council initiated action as possible, which is reports and recommendation. Not to have any judgment of it, but just so that the city council can be aware that it might it's it's not necessarily something that was in the work plan. Doesn't mean it shouldn't pass, but up to you to discuss that. So I um so I see the CIA I would rather characterize it as not friction but kind of an evolution. I mean we've had some resolutions that have come through that process. And I don't know if folks have an issue with that. I think this is the vehicle that we have as council members to bring issues forward. I did have a clarifying question on other business and so if council members bring up other business and I do know that um most council members if there is other business we will get a heads up Monday by noon that there will be other business and what the topic is I don't and uh Allison I'm not sure if you share what that is or I I I I don't know if we share it with everybody on on the console.

If it is provided to me, I share it. Yes. Okay. So my question is so other business comes up and there's a topic can we take a vote on that or should it be as we've done in the in the previous meeting where we did head knots and I'm okay managing either but I wasn't quite sure if we could actually take a motion and a second to approve approve a project under other business.

I think it depends but on the what you were referencing I think you could have done. I think the question is do people read the headnod the same way? Well, and has the community been notified that a topic is coming up even and they they don't and that would be my concern?

And I could go ahead take a stab at it. Council President, maybe just a a few thoughts. Um there's nothing that precludes you currently from taking a vote, doing a motion and taking a vote. Um, some of you have, I think, been part of discussions in the past when we've sort of debated whether we could better define what is permissible and what's not permissible in other business and we've kind of struggled with that a little bit. But I think what we've talked about at times in the past um, and just haven't really codified yet because there might be some downsides to codifying it. Um, yes, you you could do a motion and a vote. Um, yes, there's been talk at times about questions of the spirit of open meeting law or maybe even more than the spirit getting close to the techn technicalities of open meeting law. If it is a substantive topic that's coming up and really hasn't been broadcast to the community, um, it's a little bit more of a challenge. Of course, it's an art of defining what is substantive or not. Um, if there were questions about that, I would try to give you guidance, but it's not going to be a black and white answer either. But that open meeting law question, there's been times when there's been debate about whether you should spend money through some action um as part of other business conversation. Is that sort of a marker of be hesitant to spend money on the fly through other business? And what was the third item? I think just to just to the extent that um again maybe reflecting on the substance piece

to the extent that you are um surprising um either the public or your colleagues um through that discussion it can be sensitive as well. Thank you. Sorry. I am going to have some difficulty just

I did want to go back just to the council initiated action and I think the question in front of us is do we need more formal rules? I know last week after we didn't I I say one council initiate action but two different votes. I got some push back from my peers saying you misused the process that should there's no way the staff only spent 20 minutes or 30 minutes on this and that kind of stuff. So, I mean, do we have these should we like more formalize the rules or does the nature of um real-time government require some flexibility in there to react to what's going on in the community? Um, and I again I I could I could do a couple things here. I could say what is the appetite for tightening up council initiate actions to only deal with staff time to do something going into the future as opposed and then it would not allow a resolution or would not allow the spending of money. It would allow an analysis of that that would come back at another time which was I believe the original council initiated action. So I I'm mentioning it high level here. I'm not proposing it but I don't know if there's any appetite for that. Um I I'm probably the one like more cringey about council initiations than any of my peers. Um because I do view it as we're off the beaten path. Um but there are times that you should be off the beaten path depending on what's going on in the community. Uh the other one I guess I'll bring up too on this. We have the thing with uh pulling uh or not pulling items. That's you can do it individually, but a council initi action requires a second. Um, but it doesn't like limit you to two or four per calendar year. Um, and as an example, I'm thinking of the football games where um, would it ever get just so outrageous that someone's doing council initi action all the time to almost like muff up how your council runs? And would there is there any value in it? I I don't see any need for it right now, but what our rules really are

are keeping us from getting into trouble in the future. So, I I don't know if I'm looking for my staff or my peers to react to that or if there's any reason you shouldn't do this because from the legal side. I'm just uh I have had feedback. Um well, I've had interaction with staff that says like we got to get our arms around council initiated actions or else we're going to we're going to legislate through council initiated action which is not something we want to do.

Thank you, council member. Well, the the reason for them to start with is my understanding is is that instead of one person telling the staff what to do and spending time and or money that you had another person and then it would come to the council and the council would discuss it and then this council would have four votes to say yes or no or it gets tweaked during that time. One of the reasons I like that is that you can at least get the idea out there that this is coming to the to the um city council and you can ask some people or get some public input into it. Um I didn't ever have seen it that the money was an issue or the um subject matter was the issue. It was just as of city council to bring it to us. Um otherwise there's really no way for us to say um I'm hearing from the community. This is an important subject. This is what we need to change and and there's really no way for us to do that. Um and I I think that that's why that's there and why I like it. Um I'll go back to suspending or or go back to other business. I think from a constructive perspective and in it has been the policy that we've done whether or not it's written or not that we not vote on that. Um if you if you want to vote on it, you could have it be your rule and then at that night you could say suspend the rules to to have a vote and and I think that there are items that might be um important to suspend the rules during that time to to do that. Um because I I think that that one the staff have no idea what you're talking about. Number two, I have no idea if if I'm another council person sitting there and not be able to to understand what the issues are. Um, in the one that we just had, it's interesting because it was join a lawsuit. We didn't really know what kind of lawsuit we were going to join, but yet if you read today, you understand that the governor can't do anything unless he declares a peace time emergency.

Well, that wasn't added to it. And then I don't think anybody subs. You had the I'm sorry, I don't mean to crack you, Sean. You're talking about two different things. The there was the join the lawsuit. That was one thing. What you're talking about was the order to put a moratorum on on uh evict evictions. Yep. And and so and so when you see

action thing that that you have to have a it has to go to the governor and he has to declare a peace emergency, which he's he's not probably going to do. I don't think anybody here wants that to happen. But, you know, go go and sorry to mix it both up, but um the one that we did pass, I have no idea what we passed. It was not written. It was not shown to us. It was not in the packet. We had no public input to it whatsoever. And and a lot of times, and we get our packet on Wednesday afternoon, I read it. Thursday, I send it out to people and say, "What's going on here? What do you think?" I ask questions of the staff. And if it just appears on Monday night at the end of the meeting, it makes it really difficult to make a decision. Well, just to clarify, I I was the second on that CIA and it was the alternative action uh was to uh to provide a friend of the court uh brief to uh to that case. So, it was it was previewed in uh in the RCA.

That's why we cleared that is to be debated. Um, okay. I've got uh Council Member Frederick's and then I have Council Member Miller and then the mayor.

Okay. To build on that a little bit, I process a little slower than maybe some of the people on the council. I'll be the first to admit that I don't like to make decisions hasty or quickly. I like to take our time and make a good well vetted decision. That uh what happened last week. I don't need to go over that again. Council member Paul a little bit. I did feel in the dark a bit or not a bit, a lot a bit on the on a few of the things I got brought up last minute. Okay. I don't like that. I like to be have things thought through and make a good sound decision, not an emotional decision. When we make emotional decisions, I'm going to say more often than not, we're screwing up. So, I like to have a well vetted, thought through decision with input from our constituents because that's who we're we're uh voted in to represent. So, I just I really want to be careful making hasty quick decisions. I felt like there was a couple things I could I feel like a couple things got bought up on the fly last week. I didn't like it. I didn't like it and I was forced to vote on it and without being able to hear what people had to say and it's just not it puts a person in a position that I don't like to be in. I want to make a good educated decision.

Council member Miller. So, just some thoughts on the CIA process. Um, with the form, it requests a title and a brief description of action. I wonder if there is not a way to request a suggested motion because in our RCAs when those are presented to us, there's a requested action. Often times, it is the the motion that is end up made. And I I can think of times in the last year where the description that was in the packet and the item as presented did not feel cohesive to me. And I wonder if there's a way to tighten that up so that it is clear what the action requested is by the two council members initiating the council initiated action. And I I would like to see that because I think it gives us a clearer place to start and then if it deviates from that written um requested action, it's clearer how an amendment might change the action rather than describing it one way on this in your comment and then seeing a different text description in the packet. I would love to see some tightening of that. But otherwise, I also uh this is just a technical issue, but in the last couple of packets when I pull up the CIA, it ends up giving me a blank form and I like in the meeting about the compassionate city when I click the item, it's just a blank form. And I've had that happen a couple times. So,

I don't know, maybe that's just my version of the software. Council member Keane. Um yeah, I I just take bring this back to the council initiated action process. So there does seem to be some appetite that we should limit what we can do with the council initiated action. And I would I would suggest it would be back to direct staff to bring something back as opposed to um spend money or take an action that night. Um and you could always suspend your rules to do that. And and the point here would be if we made this in our rules that would take a 5 to2 which I'd be comfortable with. Mhm.

Mayor.

So yes to council member Fergus and yes to uh council member Keane and and there's a lot of agreement here actually. Um, I'm I think what administration hears through the CIA is there's things that council cares about and wants to hear about that aren't on the agenda. That's the messaging that you're giving her and them. And I think we need to have a process for that. Um, and it needs but it needs to give her the guidance that that you all say this is a subject we want you to bring back cuz this is important. And so I like the idea of the two-step process as opposed to trying to have something thrown before you either policy or spending and we have done both where it's like I have to spend how much today on what I don't know anything about this and it's it's on the fly and it does it can be emotional for sure. So I I I think the exception and I like this conversation that if it is something that is an emergency that it has to be done now for whatever reason, the council can vote to suspend the rules and make it an emergency. It still makes it a hard vote, but at least five of you have said this is going to be a hard vote and and it's either on policy or spending that we hadn't planned on, but because of the timeliness or what's just happened, we have to do it right. still not comfortable, but with, you know, taking five of you slows down the process and but still allows that opportunity. So, I I do like that and I think there have been, in my opinion, too many CIAs that have been used. I think we're just getting to the point where we want something on an agenda and so we've been seeing too many of them. And I would like, and you know, I say this administration, is there a way to have you hearing from people and understanding that isn't a CIA? If you

hear from two or three or four people that an issue's like hanging out there, does that ever give you pause to say, "hm, I wonder if we shouldn't talk about it in a study session." I would say 95% of the time that is actually what happens. It's the rare the rare occurrence where something comes up and doesn't align with strateg like our strategic plan or something that we're already working on or um is taking something out of um order for lack of a better word of of things that the staff is prioritizing and spending time on or is going to say, "Yeah, we better have a different another study session on that or briefing or something like that because there's needs to be more clarity going into the meeting." Um so I'd say most of the time that but then there are those times where a council member really wants to bring a topic to you and um that can um create challenges and I would just also offer that it is really important adjusting the form is helpful and of course the spirit of the form is that you fill it out. So whatever amount of context you can provide to your colleagues um we try to have the cover summary the um in the spirit of using acronyms RCA um requested council action um the summary sheet um we're pro trying to provide you context um basic context of what we think the implications of that might be um but it really is expected in the spirit of your rules that the council member and their second is describing to their colleagues in that form what they're trying to accomplish, which sometimes mean you have a brief meeting with staff beforehand. Um, but it's harder to have it be a brief meeting the more fleshed out the idea is sometimes versus the the ask to talk about a topic and have staff bring something back. So, um, that just becomes maybe a little bit of a challenge that we have in trying to navigate it. But there's not a perfect answer. You know, but study sessions are

a way even if you only set 30 minutes for it or whatever and it's a short topic, at least it gives everybody a chance to get a little information about it before they make a decision about whether they want to support it or not. And that is maybe a good point for all of you to be here to hear. There is an actual rationale to the calendar item that's on your study sessions. It's not just there for me to remind you what the calendar item or or myself what the next um calendar item is for the study session. It is an opportunity if you look at the calendar and you see something not on there that you expected or um it's a vehicle for you to ask hey when is this other are we not going to have a study session about I don't know I'll use a fun topic like wings um this year or I feel like it's important that we talk about that like it is an opportunity with your colleagues to talk about that and for us to formally say yeah we should look at probably updating something or actually the title that you read here is that topic and we called it something Um so so that is a vehicle for that and not to belabor other business but that is also an opportunity to say you know we heard from someone during open comment and I think it would be really helpful if you came back with you know a memo to staff or we want to have a study session on that. Those again happen rarely, but I do think those are important ways for you to have a feedback loop for stuff that feels important to address even if it's not in real time, but it's in bringing it back um at another time where you'll spend your time on it. So, just things to think about.

I I just I I want to just emphasize that point because I and just to be clear, the administrator puts together our agenda. We do not have oversight over our own agenda. And uh I think that we in certainly in my tenure uh as in a year, I think the city administrator is very flexible to respond to us as council members on those uh agenda items and study session uh topics. I think last year we had more study sessions on the sports complex because we were responding to our community needs. But I do think that we have to think about that being nimble and flexible in an everchanging world where our constituents are wanting us to be responsive quickly. And so we have to find that balance on on those things. But I did want to um say to my colleagues that it's incumbent upon all of us to push that agenda when we hear from our constituents. I there's more in your presentation, isn't there? So

let you keep continue.

We put the among in the middle. um part of the construction of the agenda. Um so this is related so direction to staff. So we do try to be nimble when we can but we also try to you know hold a line where there's a policy item that maybe would be adjusting and I think we've done a a good job of that together. Um requests for information. So we do try to keep those as narrow as possible. If it's something that's going to require a lot of work then we would probably recommend a council initiated action. Again those are rare. Usually it's something that we're already working on and you just want to better understand it. Um and then interaction with staff and just making sure um you know we try to be polite on the DAS to our staff as well. They're working hard. They don't always get it exactly the way every single one of you wants it perfectly. Um but it's not trying. Um so um but again I think I've seen this go quite well I think with um over the last year and so just wanted to point it out here. Um, it is related to that, trying to have the day-to-day operations, be the day-to-day operations, and not have people feel like they're not sure when they should say yes or say no. Um, um, then remote participation. We talked about this last time. This is where I believe I hand it off to Mr. Speaker Craig, so you don't hear me drone, but it's a surprise to him cuz I didn't tell him I was going to do that. Um, the state law did change in May of last year. um we haven't really had uh too much of this and it seemed like there was not a lot of support to have this happen a lot for with your colleagues. It changes the dynamic of the meeting but curious on your feedback or if you have any thoughts.

I would just echo some of that same reflection. And I think you may recall um when we briefly talked about this previously, it was probably around um July or August um anticipating the upcoming uh change to to state statute shifting from a um three times per year exception to appear remotely for either military service or health reasons. Um and that's combined three times combined um to essentially an unlimited model under the under state law. Um and I think what we heard that what the discussion was at the time was um as city administrator uh reflected um sort of a resistance to to going that direction. Um and we have kind of carried forward that sense um from from you not only with the city council of course but um I think there is a belief and understanding that this would would be the model for all other boards and commissions for the city. Um so you can consider that as you um have some more discussion today if you think that that is necessary. I would say otherwise the rules as written are under the old law and that's okay. They can stay that way. We can be more restrictive than what the state law um allows. Um so happy to talk through um some of that either more from a legal perspective or practicality or otherwise.

Council member Miller. Yeah, I'll just raise the issue of um in March, the mayor and I will be at the National League of Cities Congressional City Conference. Um there is a regular city council meeting that happens that Monday evening. And I wonder if there's a way to keep it restrictive, but if we're even considering if you're on official city travel to be able to participate remotely. I I will maybe unless you want to answer. I I think you could do that now if you did so in a location that would be publicly accessible. So if you were like in the business center of the hotel. Okay. My

true. Yes, that's accurate. and notice with the because I I guess this is where I I would feel that we could be more in alignment with the flexibility of the new state law that if I am sitting in a hotel room, not in a lobby, it's much easier to manage background noise, comments, other incidents happening in a public place. Um, I would be in favor of making that flexible change.

Yeah. In the past when I've attended just if I've been traveling to a conference and I sit in, I don't even think about trying to participate. I don't have to vote right by conversation because if you have to be in a public place, you're often in a place that's noisy and to open that up and have all that background noise during the middle of a meeting is not would not be positive. Council member Frederick, what would be the reason you couldn't be in a private space? You could stay focused on what's going on in front of you and you don't have a distraction to the people that are listening on this end. What would be the what would be the issue with that?

Well, if I understand your question correctly, currently the the law allows somebody to appear from a remote location as long as it's public, right? So that that's currently what the law allows. It doesn't allow you to appear from a remote location that is private and that's what I'm asking. Why is you so we can't that's not an option. Period. Unless Unless you expand the exceptions.

That's what I'm asking. Why is that a rule? Why is that a thing? I think the concept of the rule before it was changed last May by the state legislature was that you wanted to do your you you should be able to be viewed by the public, not just in private in your location. The other thing that is in the law is you do need to be visible to everyone. You like everyone has to be able to see and hear you. Um so was probably more challenging before we had teams etc. um to meet some of those provisions of being able to see and hear you. Um, and so it was the concept I right or wrong was if you were in a public location, someone could come and find you and participate in your part of the meeting in the public location that you're at. If you went to a library, if you went I'm not saying most people would do that. Um, but technically even if you were out of state, but for some people if they were in state for some reason they had a backtoback meetings or something. Well, to finish with that then, if we have an important vote on the date that uh Council Member Miller is gone, it's important he he's able to vote on that. It just seems to make sense to me that he can listen, give his input, vote. Uh that just makes sense to me. I don't I don't understand why that would be a thing.

Council member Palmer, I'm sure you want to hear my comments. Of course, Mayor Council member Palmer, could I mean, it might be a goofy idea, but if he's in room 100, could he say he's in room 100 and if somebody knocks on the door and says, "I want to watch that." I mean, I mean, the likelihood of him being in a different state that somebody from Rochester wants to listen to what Mr. Miller's going to say. Seems a little odd. Yes, that that that is an odd. I mean could there is an option to to set up a public space that in theory is public but it's unlikely to be disturbed.

So just to clarify uh under the new statute we could make that kind of tweak where we can have a council member participate fully in a space that doesn't necessarily have to be public. Yes.

Is that correct? Correct. Okay, I would be in favor of that. That was going to be my that was going to be my point that I mean I I've said it said differently. I would like our rules of conduct to align with state law and I think my I think I'm hearing consensus that we would do that. I but I will say like this isn't free. Having remote people really screws up your meeting. I mean all these votes that everyone does like I I have to be a roll. They're all roll and I mean through co this was a pain. And so don't think of this as free, but I think it is important.

So I heard two things. I heard make it be what state law says, but I heard the original being narrow it to be things we already allow or for official if you're traveling for official public business. So not like I decide to go on travel. I mean I'm just hearing two different Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me u I I my main point I was going to make is align our rules of operation to align with what state law would allow here. Um you could have someone gone every single meeting and well I think that means three isn't there some limits three times that not if you go fully to state law. So that's what

I think there's still a desire to limit it somewhat but be more expansive than current.

Okay. just to just to kind of there's two lines. Council member Keane spoke to aligning completely with the uh statute. I was speaking more to the narrow tweak uh of of public business and not being in a public place and sticking with our expectation that members are here. Yeah. And and I like that except for that removed military or personal which gets to the point where if you're to and that's where the language that um council member Miller suggested which is if you're at a city approved function that that would allow you to do that as well. So it's you would have to add that component too.

So you'll bring something back to us when we vote on this. You have the spirit council member Miller. Go ahead. I I guess just one final comment. Obviously, this would apply to both uh regular meetings and study sessions, but in study sessions, we would not vote.

Um and I I'll just mention that uh the last time that I was traveling um I missed a study session where we discussed um legislative priorities. And to the point of the other earlier discussion of um surprises, because I wasn't able to participate remotely, I brought an item through council initiated action. And so I'll just mention that I I think um that the the timing of meetings for remote participation is less of an impact for study sessions. And perhaps we consider uh more flexible remote participation in that setting just to make sure that we all give input and we don't have as much surprise and I don't know if people feel like that's a more a place for greater flexibility thoughts. I'm in favor of maybe a little bit more flexibility on with study sessions because there is not a vote uh with a priority in person if you can be. Are there any other thoughts of people like that? We can do head nods this time or not. Okay. And maybe just en encourage a little bit of additional discussion. Um, which standard would carry forward to the other boards and commissions? Would it be the more narrow city travel or would it be more expanded for other boards and commissions? Uh, Council Member Miller,

to answer that question, I I wonder if we might consider a different standard of a limiting number of times that someone is available to able to participate remotely per year. And I'm curious the mayor's thoughts on this because I know that she's had to um replace people because of attendance. And I I will just recognize that I met with a board commission member earlier today who was telling me that they are adopting and worries that they might not be able to continue on that board because of the requirement to be in person today. I wonder if we might consider a number of remote participant opportunities because it's my understanding that they would be voting quite infrequently and the number of votes per meeting would be much more limited than what our meetings would be.

So if you ask for my opinion, can I answer?

Go ahead. I would just say I I I think there are some boards and commissions where and I think of planning and zoning where you really need to be there that that would be a difficult one for something like that. But I think if we did limit to a couple times a year um you know people are gone a couple times a year anyway and if they were gone but willing to sit down on a meeting because it was important and there was a vote there wouldn't have a problem. But when you have a vote where the you or you have a meeting where you do have to vote on something that's coming before the council, it's a it's vital that you have a quorum. And so that's nice, but it also means to council president Schubank, it would mean roll calls. So I I think we'd want to do it infrequently, but having some leniency makes sense. We do limited.

Okay, moving on. Did you get an answer? We'll we'll make it up. Yeah. Go ahead. Bring something forward. We'll bring something to you. You can always adjust it or tell us to do it slightly differently when it comes to your brain. So, I mean, could be iterative. Say something. I do notice that in this setting, we are becoming more and more relaxed as the as the time passes on. So, we aren't making anything up.

No, I mean, I think from what we heard, we didn't bring you as much as Um, so, uh, this is not technically in your council rules of procedure or code of conduct, but it was something that, um, the city council had, um, taken action on in December 2023 about a process, formalizing a process for, um, legislative advocacy and outreach for letters of support, um, for reviewing to ensure that it aligns with um, the council's adopted legislative or state or federal legislative priorities. So providing it here for context is what we've been doing prior but also since December 2023. It could be incorporated into your capital of procedure or could remain as the standalone motion from December will go away.

Thoughts?

Well, I have I have strong feelings about this one because it got broadened um significantly over the last couple years. I went back and looked at policies and it it this letterw writing thing and the mayor writing a letter really was targeted on legislation and it kind of got broad into anything I do had to have three signatures which is not the case. Um um there are times when there are letters with National League of Cities or US Conference of Mayors that are different than letters we write for our local legislative agenda. And so we need, you know, I'm hoping you can see the flexibility on some of that. Um, and I use what we do in our city as our guide. Um, but getting three signatures for those kinds of things doesn't make sense and they're often very uh they're done very quickly. So it does say it's preferred. It's not required. So just so you know, this has been a little bit of an issue. Um, and partly because it was broadened to grants that were like a community member asked for a grant for uh the Bush Foundation, right? Had nothing to do with legislative. It was just something that they were doing that would support things that we would want in our city and the mayor's office would often write letters and that got a little confused through the process. I think we've worked through it over time. Um, but just I just wanted to put that out there that I don't if you have any thoughts about it. Council

member Palmer. Well, I think the conflict becomes when we have the mayor having her statement and then you have the city council who's voted on it, which then makes it part of the city's uh legislative process. And I think when you have two different people or bodies trying to tell somebody what they think is is wrong. And so if if if we sit here, I use the the phrase march is one, you you may not win that that that vote, but it becomes the policy of the city. And that's the policy that we follow. Um and I think, you know, for me, I would change the word to require um that that it it be done that way. Otherwise, you confuse people that, oh, the city wants this where we had not vote, talked about it or voted on it. My letters only say the mayor and our a mayor letter had not the city

and the charter gives me guidance as well. Other others want to weigh in on this. Council member Keane.

Yeah. Again, I I do like what council member Palmer says, you want to be careful that the city doesn't appear to have two different positions. And I I I I've heard different things that some things about uh you know, getting grants and other things about legislative priorities. I mean, as far as signing on to things, if the council of mayors have something and you can sign on to somebody else's thing, I think that makes sense because you're just signing on as the mayor. You're not signing on as the city. Um, but I I also understand the confusion comes up when something comes and says, um, the using the terms like we support your actions here on the letter, mayor's letter, it looks like the city supports it and I think we got to be very careful with any sort of conflicts like that. Yeah.

And does that is that cover it or does that do we need

I mean I think the intent of this is that we review it, right? So what if we were also applying for a Bush Foundation grant? We weren't. But like trying to make sure that there's alignment there, I think is the spirit of what what was happening um and for staff to feel like they could do that with some amount of legislative intent. Um because I don't think the intent is to squaltch something. It's to have to show that alignment. Um, and I think what the mayor had described last week, my weeks are running together now about signing on where those processes she's mentioning for like US conference and mayors, they have very specific process, which is different even than your letters of support that you do because they it's very curated within their system and they know what it means um to do that. So, it's a little bit different than maybe a broader um grant. And we review those just to make sure it's not something that runs a fellow of something that we're trying to do with rarely would it happen, but it could happen where we were also applying for something or when do you say no? You say yes to one. Do you have to say yes to all or do you end up with competing grants even from organizations um that are not the city but are within the city limits applying for similar grant funds? and does that actually diminish their value? So, we just try to talk through those kinds of things.

Council member Miller, I'll just say I I prefer it to stay more within the idea of uh legislative priorities advocacy, not broader our roles as individuals. I mean, I think there's a reason that we haven't set legislative priorities that we've agreed on and those should maintain the council, but I think we're going to either have it everything or specified. I I do feel like there's some flexibility here.

And maybe I might be wrong with what you're you're saying. I think anyone has the ability any of you have the ability to have your own individual city council member hat on. It's it's more so how you do that, right? I'm speaking on behalf of myself. The city council hasn't taken action on this or even saying I'm speaking as an individual council member. We haven't taken action or I'm explaining why I disagree with this. So, it's not necessarily that you can or can't, but it's how you do it, I think. Um is always the, you know, how you make sure you stay righteous with your colleagues and make sure that there's clarity about alignment. Um, so it's always about usually about the spirit of and the how. That's what I would I I would echo what administrator Zelma said and uh Council Member Miller as well that as long as there's we're we're looking at the spirit and the mayor's office and the city administrator is in alignment as far as knowing uh if the mayor is um writing a letter in support of a project that sharing that so that if there is any misalignment or we're doing something from a city standpoint that uh is in that same space that we know what the right hand and the left hand is are doing.

And I think you would agree. I send them to you and say, "I'm asked for a letter for this. I'm going to write one." And I send it and they're like, "Yeah, no problem." And sometimes then I can say, "Oh, we have a good book." I mean, there's like two ways that this can work well, right? because sometimes it's probably not something we should do and we want to be able to provide reason to. Um, right, next slide. Go ahead.

Travel and training your favorites. Um, so the budget did increase this year back to the pre2026 levels. Um, what we had been doing was a process from um 20 22 and 2024. So, um, having you each have a a portion of the travel and trading dollars that you manage and anything that goes over or doesn't align with the policy, whether it's pre-approved travel, um, has to come to the city council. There are other ways to do this. You could say at the beginning of the year, these are the things that I want to do, estimate the cost, and you could, um, decide as a council to approve that. Um, not everyone is going to have the same amount of travel and training depending on all the constraints of their life outside of being a council member. Um, but this has been the process that we followed. I think it's gone fairly well. Um, it but it does sometimes lends itself to if someone um was hoping to do two things in a year that involved a little bit more travel um they needed to come forward to the council and that can be tricky or feel awkward. Um, so there's more than one way to do it and just curious if you have any feedback or

I'll I'll speak because I think this came to an awkward place last year. Um, I wonder if there's a way to consider something like the CIA where you know something comes up, you could approach another council member who has budget and they say, "Hey, sure. Yeah, that that makes sense." still could come to the council but with a recommendation of reallocating budget more specifically that way. I mean in the sense that this is in my understanding intention to be training for the council as a whole and making sure that we're effective in our roles. I think that that I would trust my colleagues to consider how they may or may not support the overall work of the council that way. Council member Ke. Um yeah, I I mean I think this is just a necessary thing that we have to do to have a budget and then I mean this idea of breaking it down to this level as far as how to manage exceptions. I I saw we had a couple last year and we managed them through. So I don't think this policy restricted us any big way. I I have a gripe that this is called the travel and training. uh council member wall is going to go up to uh League of Minnesota cities day on the hill next month and it's going to look like he's spending money for no apparent reason because it's in this budget and to me that that's something where he's going to represent our city and it shouldn't look like he's going off on R&R but this whole the way we manage this makes it feel that way and I'm I'm a little bothered by that. Um I I don't know a good way around it. I go to something like representing the city at the uh chamber of commerce thing the other day and and I'm spending money. Um but where what I think I'm doing is trying to represent the city and bring bring back these different things to it. So that that's more of just a burr in my saddle with this stuff. I don't see any problem that we need to take this uh council member Miller ran into a thing last

year. Council member Dorne did. They wrote something up. We approved it. I I think it's working. Yeah, I would agree with council member Keem travel or training. I took an online class that came out of this. I didn't go anywhere but my kitchen and it was so professional development or being more descriptive as to what the point is. I don't want to not be transparent about that. There can be travel involved, but being more descriptive as to why we're doing that. Council member Frederick, do we have do we have a sheet that just lays out what that exactly looks like, what it is, what it covers?

Um, there is in the official travel policy, it does describe um that for outofstate travel, the things that are pre-approved and it and instate travel is approved, but to your point, this is really coming from the title of the object code in in our financial software. Yeah, but it could be we could further describe it as um and I think it's actually called um training, travel and other business other business meetings, but typically we reserve a very small amount of other business meetings for um if we have food at something like this. Um so we could flush out more that it's for the official it says for official city business. It's just more of a question in the actual organizational policy. So we could add that to your council rules for clarity.

Thank you. Moving on,

we're close. Resident engagement opportunities. So, some of this came up during your at our public meetings. Um, so, um, if there's a definitely sounded like there's a desire to increase engagement with, um, residents outside of public meetings. I think the challenge here is balancing when you're, you know, how do we curate this in a way where we are speaking with the voice of the city, um, especially during election season. How do you do that in a way that is um respectful of your colleagues, respectful of those who might be running against you and all of those things are important to have like the spirit of why we're there and we could curate something like that. Also has been some discussion of and desire to have um a dedicated space that's maybe a little bit more friendly to a um one-on-one dialogue or a fewonone dialogue for open office hours um and um that smaller um environment. So just curious about um and again the opportunity for residents that might not be able to be here but want to meet with you outside public meeting. So an opportunity just to discuss that.

Well I I will take on uh both the uh engagement increased opportunities for engagement both here at city hall as well as uh uh out in the community. I think we had a lot of discussion about out in the community and I I do want to see more of that. I like the tent idea. I do also like the idea of looking at potential budget for communications from that standpoint as well. I also think that having a presence for the city council in city hall, a stronger presence is important. I I know that speaking for myself, I if there was a presence here, I would look to having open office hours and uh and then having the opportunity for individuals to meet with me at city hall or as council member Doring mentioned larger groups to to meet with uh myself or our colleagues. I see it kind of from the open office hours idea as it's up to each of us if how much we want to lean into that space. But if we could have a visible space with an electronic board that says Council President Schub will be here Wednesday, you know, noon to 3. uh, Council Member Blank, Council, and we then have that presence in city hall and then and then we as council members have the opportunity to uh, take use that and be present in in city hall. Council member Palmer,

don't we have the opportunity to reserve a room on second or third floor to to have a meeting and and schedule that? You do. I think the question is whether or not that's sufficient for people. Is that the atmosphere that you're looking for? Are you looking for more of a permanent presence? And that's a question I can't answer for you. Well, could we have a room on the second or third floor and just say that's a council? We do. We do.

You have one on the third floor. I don't know that it's as conducive in the layout for having, you know, I mean, you have desks around the edge, though. I mean, you could relay that out if folks were interested in that. Um there could be we could repurpose some space on the first floor. I think dedicating a room that's already a meeting room. We do sometimes have challenges. Not every day um with meeting room space and dedicating that. So we do do have a room that is intended to be more drop-in space. It could be modified to be something that's more or if there's a desire for something different.

And maybe I can explain how I'm seeing this. So you walk through city hall, you see mayor's office, you see city administration, you see city attorney, public uh parks and wreck, human resources. We are the key decision makers in the city. we might not have that kind of presence in the city hall for the seven of us to engage with uh our stakeholders, our our residents. So that's that's when I say presence, that's that's what I'm referring to. Council member, I think that makes a great deal more sense for the council president than it uh makes sense perhaps for ward members. Uh most of you know where I meet with most ward members on the northwest side. I think I've met with most of you in in that particular place. Uh they're more likely to meet with me there or on the northwest side then come down here and pay for parking. So it just it would make little sense I think for W three unless we expect a lot of drop in traffic.

Council member Keane. Yeah, I again I've been at this a little longer. My first couple years there was no office space. There was a thing back in 2021 to start having some sort of office space, but it's very rarely if ever used. And I know we have space now up on the third floor. I probably get to it once every couple of weeks, but I think I'm the only one. So I I don't know how much this would get used, but I up to this point I didn't I don't see it in high demand. I think the point that uh there's times that I'm up at the DUIS in the north side and I just go in and use conference rooms and um I I just kind of just do on the fly. I think I think what council president Schub's looking for is more not not just of an office place but a visible presence in city hall. And I I again I I know the mayor's office is very visible and things over the door, but it's also a a manned office probably mostly before whenever city hall's open. And I don't know if we have anything like that with and I think the intent of the words there are that it's reception. So whether someone's in an office elsewhere or they've reserved a meeting room that that is the place that they would go to say to check in, but that may or may not be sufficient for the council. I'm not hearing a lot of support to change a lot, but maybe maybe there's also not super a lot of concern if we were going to adjust the existing office space or

I would support the president's um desire for space and time. Council member Miller was out of the room and I I don't know if newer council members have an interest in having more dedicated space, more use of uh to opportunity to have not only engagement in the community but engagement and presence in city hall. Any other feedback? Want to go first? No problem.

Sure thing. uh very sufficient to meet on the southeast side. I haven't had any issues. I've have I've had zero people request to meet me at city hall. So I meet with people at my place of business and coffee shops and honestly wherever they want to meet. I meet right at their house sometimes. So,

I'll just say I I I agree, but I have been asked um by people in the community asking for a meeting who assume that we have office space at city hall and I say, "Well, we sort of have a room with a lot of desks and it's not great for meetings." Um, so I I understand I think particularly for the citywide um role of the council president, it makes sense. I it I wouldn't be opposed to having the option to use it. I don't know that I initially would plan to set up every week office hours, but I I I like having the option that we think about how we have a visible presence in city hall where people many people in the community assume we we already are at some point during the weeks. Could that third floor room be fixed up better so it looked more like an office? And then we check in at a desk and then we say yes, you know, he'll meet you. He's in room 306 or we'll call him later on.

So it's not just desk against the wall. Well, I've never been in the office. I forgot we had It's not exciting.

It's not exciting. Um, could we I'll just throw this out there and is is with the reception for the mayor and the city council. We could do the signing there. I kind of like to have a little bit of security because you all don't know who you're meeting with sometimes and it would be nice if you could go through that secure place and have somebody else around in case you're having a problem. Um, you know, the city attorney's office has that, the park direct has that where if you got a problem, we can we can get you out of there. Um, and so that kind of worries me to be up on the third floor kind of lonely up there and having somebody um, become unglued or hostile with you. That was something we talked about. Well, it sounds like I'm the only one going to be there. So,

I think it's a legitimate concern that I would have if I like So, we did there is a space in the first floor HR area, which I think many people would not go all the way up. They might go to clerk and then

the most prominent in city hall is the city clerk's front desk, right? it's like a window. Um, and so we were looking at a space that's to the side of HR. So there is there are people around 95% of the time. And so that might be an option where it's more functional able um situation, but there's also someone there most of the times. And we would probably get a panic button and we should probably have a panic button upstairs. Although unless you double swipe, you're locked in there. No one can get to you unless they have a badge on the third floor. Um, so I mean I think some of those things are I I would not disagree with you that it could be

I just just and I we don't have to belabor the the topic but I do think as we move forward as we you know are become a growing community there and it it's less about the space I think you know and the old adage if you build it they will come but that we as the uh council has presence in the building uh going forward and and whether that presence is, you know, a couple offices or one office that the president and council members use, conference space. Just thinking thinking long term about uh a growing city where council council members are the key decision-making body.

And that's kind of where I ultimately land as well. uh you know we we're talking we spent a long time talking about public engagement earlier and I've you know to get us out and more well known in the community so people will engage us I think having having a a more permanent or a more prominent uh presence in city hall might be helpful for that. Um I I would feel more comfortable uh meeting with folks um with other people around. I generally have those meetings in coffee shops myself, but my professional life has also taught me never to be in a room with just one other person. Um, so or without anyone else knowing that that is happening. So, uh, I like the idea of someone having to check in somewhere to have a meeting with me if we're having a one-on-one dialogue if it's not in a coffee shop.

And and I would try office hours here at city hall if that's something we want to pilot or try to do. And you know, I'd sign up for that. And I think having a sign that says something I think is easy to do. Yeah. Any more on this page here, the slide? Now your to repeat that public meetings. Um, which I think it sounded like Nick and the team were going to regroup and come back. But I guess the the bigger question would be did you miss anything really burning within your council rules of procedure and code of conduct that you wanted to talk about that you're unclear about or that you want more clear?

So I just have a question about the better public meeting. So say in the next two months while we wait for recommendations to come back. I want to try to pilot a town hall in ward 6 and there is a monetary output for doing that. Right? So renting space, do we have a mechanism currently where I can approach the city and say I need 50 bucks to rent a space or is that on me as an individual council member to rent that space? We do not currently have that process and I think that there's a great point of part of the challenge I I would say I don't think it's something that can't be overcome is how do you do that in a way that is cognizant that that's property tax dollars that are happening and is it you know is that is it an appropriate it's a question is it an appropriate use of public funds to have a certain amount you have travel and training dollars they're limited um but what we've when we've had this discussion before um the question is how do we do this in a way that isn't um that balances you as an individual council member representing your views and an extension of the broader elected body trying to get feedback on things that all of your colleagues will also be having feedback on. So, I guess my current answer is we don't have a process for that. And I always like to look to my left

if you if you go over there

only that and I I think this was touched on previously really just the same question of delineation between individual council members um representing their individual views, advocacy positions, etc. of course at different times of the year that will become a more sensitive topic. We're in campaign season versus others and um that that balance can be can be tricky and really is is the pitfall of attempting to provide that kind of opportunity. You know, I think there have been offshoots of that discussion of utilizing city space um in in other in other parts of the community, other away from city hall and appropriate ways to do that. So, there can be alternatives.

Yeah. Sort of like booking a room, right? like if it was booking RFQ or one of the community rooms at V6. I mean, I think we could come up with a process for that that identified the places cuz they wouldn't arguably cost money depending on when it's being utilized because if the building isn't already open, then it could be challenging to to do that. But I think there's outside of the very specific question options. Yeah. No, I think that might be valuable. Okay. Council member Miller,

not on this topic, but I I'm curious about another topic. Uh just voting order, which came up in our last discussion of this and just having a rotational model. There are 12 months in the year. We have two meetings per month. There are six of us plus the council president. I wonder if folks are interested at all in rotating the voting order going January through June, repeating 1 through six. Council member Palmer, please.

I'm not um but I'll go back to Mr. Dorian's question and that would be um I I think if it's appropriate to do something of that for for um gatherings for for city council members and we can kind of come up with that. I personally pay for it myself. I personally I'm a chamber member. I pay for any chamber event I go to. But that's my own decision. I I don't see that there's anything wrong with with somebody saying I need to rent this room and it's for city council stuff and u and I trust everybody here to make that decision of of what's city council versus campaigning which which which we all have to be conscious about. But go back to your No, I I think the way we do our voting is fantastic and the way it should stay.

Any other thoughts on uh council member's question? Yep. Go ahead. Yeah, I again I don't know what the right order is. I I wouldn't want to try to, you know, say this what we should do. But I actually do think it's probably better to have some sort of rotation. Whether it'll be, you know, across the different meetings and just changing or across the different months, I I don't know. Um I have no problem with it staying the same, but but looking at it, it probably there probably is some benefits in in not having the council president being the last vote on every vote or not having, you know, something like that. So I think there is some benefits to it. Um so council member

I I guess I might clarify. So currently the numbers are arbitrary. We always start on roll call votes with council member Keen. My proposal would be that we have January 1 through June 6 where that council member is the first vote and then that continues in order ending with the council president. And then so July would return to council member Keane through me. August I would start end with council member Keane before council president Schubert to rotate by month have it predictable and that would obviously only be on roll call votes and just very just to clarify are you you're keeping the council president at the end. Okay for simplicity. I have no problem with it. Council member Frederick

I like our most senior leader going first. I like it the way it is. Well, to speak to actually council member uh Frederick's, I I do think there are other models where they do go by seniority and that's kind of the other typical model. But where um yeah, who has to fight out the seniority between council member and council member? I had on May's lower lowest award

and that was in the rules of those were in the rules but may may have been dropped out somewhere over the years but in the rules okay so the question for Mr. Miller is what are you trying to fix?

It's a great great question. Yeah. And I would say when we've discussed other this council has discussed numbering of things that don't necessarily have numeric significance just equitably rotating who gets to go first, who gets to go last. There are more difficult votes than others and being on the earlier side of where they start. It's it can be unclear where the votes are going. Whereas when it gets to vote five of seven, you have a much clearer perspective of where where the plan is. And I would like to suggest that we share who gets to go first. Council member,

I think it's very important we always vote on merit and what we're going to vote for the reasons we're going to vote. We should never let how other council members are voting sway us. Okay. Are we done with this topic?

Okay. Uh I've got a couple that I I'm just going to throw out here one and they come from better public meeting uh um our discussion there and just uh as as we've moved along and had greater public engagement and one is I want my colleagues to think about uh the possibility of adding public comments to study sessions at the end of study sessions so that we all have opportunity to see the two or three uhformational items that we're uh gaining knowledge on. We ask questions of staff on that topic. And if we do have members of the public at the study session, then we have a just like we do with our regular meetings, a 20 minute public comment period for members of the public to say, "Hey, I think this and that about um those topics." So I think it just opens up the the community engagement just one additional step more. So, don't know what council members have thoughts on that.

Well, I I'll go ahead. I don't like it for a couple reasons. One of them, if somebody wants to read the packet and get a hold of me ahead of time, I'm more than willing to do that. It's a listening session basically. Um, and and for us, and you could have the end of the meeting be um two more hours longer if you have 35 people who want to show up and and and talk and and so for me, that that's a difficult difficult part to do that. Mayor Norton.

Yeah. And I just I don't think it has to be going to a mic for two minutes. I think it could be council members sitting at tables and letting people come and sit down and talk to us. It doesn't it doesn't have to be the way we've done it before. And I think that's one of the things I'm hoping we can talk with Nick with over the next month about what have other cities done that is have worked well. What about this idea versus this idea? And and hope we can come back with ideas. I think this is one we should brainstorm. I don't know if that's the exact Yeah. And I happen I think the objective is try something more engagement. Council member Keane.

Yeah. I I guess coming into the first session today on the I I mean I'm open to any sort of ideas of that. That one's interesting to me to have it at the end of the meeting because you're really asking for the investment of sitting through our meeting to do that which is you know that that there's there's a cost to that. Um and and and but but I'll I want to kind of grow off that, too. I know that right now our public hearings are 99% driven off what the law requires us to do. We can have public hearings when we think it's appropriate and just and and I don't mean just up here deciding, but if something's going on and looks like this is going on, we can make a recommendation and have a public hearing. I believe that's in our not so much in our rules per se, but public hearings, as long as they're noticed and and you put them out and do it, you can do it. I think right now we've fallen into the trap of only doing them when the law requires them. Um, and I think if if we ever did see that as an opportunity to make an outreach to say, "Yeah, this is something that people are clamoring about, it gets you out of the two-minute open comment and it makes it more of a uh like a what do they call it? Noted or or posted meeting." And I I think we could do a little more engagement that way. Other thoughts on that? I've got uh one more on and I think that also speaks to our our agenda. I think we it right now the uh city clerk and city administrator pulls together our agenda and uh the public hearings are there because statutoily we have to have public hearings. So if there is a topic that we want public hearings to happen

on unless we bring it up at the dis how do we get that to our administrative administrative team that's pulling together the agenda so back to an original question that I had earlier I think that we should consider some kind of uh check and balance from the elected officials to that agenda setting process. So that and then I have another piece that's uh that uh speaks to the glide path that we have. We all know that we get our agendas the Wednesday before our Monday meetings and I would like to see council members get a copy of the draft agenda that is uh in city uh the city administration process so that we have as decision makers a glide path to the issues that we're going to be making decisions on at least 10 days before so that we can then start.

I don't think we actually have the agenda 10 days before. Yeah. seven. Well, there is a draft agenda that's being built and there are topic issues and I've gotten briefings on those at least on a Monday for 7 days before or so I think I think to speak to the glide path to decision making I think council member access to those uh agenda items I think is is something that we should uh consider as well. Uh, Council Member Palmer,

I think to your first point and and that is during our study session, we could ask the question is a study session or would a would a um open commentary period be necessary? Um um would we like to have that? I think that might be one of those items that you could say, yeah, this is important to us. Let's do that. Um to to the second question you have I'm not in favor of that for a couple reasons. Which one? There were two there was oversight of the agenda or seeing the agenda.

The oversight of the agenda or or seeing it because I go back to my my my dilemma with drafts and my dilemma with with with um people seeing half stuff and this would have to be public knowledge that oh this is what we're kind of thinking of. Well, why did it fall off or where where is this at or it gets confusing? Oh geez, this issue is coming up. I got to go to this meeting and they don't go any further. So, I'm happy with the Wednesdays and I think that that's enough for me. Um, but that's my opinion. Other thoughts? Clarification. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. Uh, is the idea of sending to the council make it a public document?

Short answer, yes. I believe Yeah. I I don't think we can share out a draft that is I mean that's exactly the request is to share out a draft. Um so uh I I think we're into murky places here with this. So I I'm going to kind of follow up to uh council member Keane's line of questioning. So is the Friday update a public document as well then? Technically yes people have shared it with others. I don't think the intent is to share it as far as I but yeah it definitely opens itself up to being requested. So then to and let me let me talk about the intent

we curate it in assumptions that you're getting the information and you might be sharing it. The intent of the of the draft agenda, access to the draft agenda is a longer glide path for council members to see what issues are what items are going to be addressed a week ahead of time, 10 days ahead of time. And so, uh, I know that we we do staff has access to items that are percolating up and the the objective is that we know what's coming up. we then can um engage with stakeholders, members of the public sooner than the Wednesday to Monday time frame that uh issues come up. So if there is another vehicle to to bring greater clarity to those issues that are on that glide path to us, I'd be interested in staff uh sharing that. Council member Miller,

and I'm curious about that, too. not necessarily the the week toe items, but there are some larger items that go to planning and zoning and then it's a known date when it would come to council, but it wouldn't be on the agenda. Is there an in between similar to how we have the study session scheduled of items that are in process and their target meeting dates or wonder if because again in the development process is probably a good example of this. There are checkpoints and I would I know I've received notices too saying there's a public hearing coming up and that notice comes before the agenda is published and maybe this is a very niche area. So I'm I'm curious too, but maybe how many agenda items that are a month or two out?

I wish I could I wish I knew that. Um, so I guess what I would say is there's not it will not be like a I think we can come with the spirit of what the desire is and and the desire to provide more clarity. The challenge is the agenda. We have so much happening in the agenda that it is difficult to know especially if it's one-offs what's going to be on your agenda until the cuto off date is now Mondays at noon. So, that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't even know if the full agenda is the full agenda until Monday at noon. And then I still sometimes get questions about, hey, can I put that on the agenda? I missed the deadline. Um, and we're trying to be flexible and adaptable. And um, and is there a way to forecast? I think that's what you're asking. forecast what might be coming in a way that's clearer, especially for bigger items that are going to maybe require a little bit more political chips, if you will, or you know, might be more challenging for your ward or for um different parts of the population. So, I think we could think about how we do that. Um, and to be honest with you, we probably need a better internal process as well. Um the one that you raised council member Miller is probably I'll use the word easiest which I rarely use but that's because planning and zoning does has like a cenance to it

um generally and so there's usually a better idea of when something's probably going to be before you in order to meet shot clocks in order to um meet development requirements. Um, some of the other ones get a little bit more challenging and then some of the the departments who rarely are on the agenda sometimes have to ask each time how they do it because they're on there once or twice a year. So, Council Member Dory.

Yeah, just to to chime in, the few the few times that I've been taken off guard that something is on the agenda uh h has been from developers calling me saying, "You're deciding this in a week." And I'm like, "Oh, okay. I had no idea. Uh, which makes me look bad, but I also just think makes us look bad. So, I mean, heads up in kind of those processes where someone's going to come present to the council and is reaching out to me as an individual council member to to want to set up a meeting to kind of pre-brief me. Um, I would like to know that they might have they might do that. Does that make sense?

Yes. So, we should probably also let you know whether or not we think you should meet with them based on the decision that you're making and whether it's class or judicial. Um, but because they generally won't tell you that. Um, right. So, yeah. Council member Ke. Yeah. Again, I'm hearing some of these things right now and some of it's request for this. It's kind of deep. I I know there's people that I work with that have access to this because there is some public data in uh like in where these permits are done and all that stuff. I I I think the better request the more efficient request for running the city of Rochester would not be be this stuff to be sent and sent but would be training for us so that if we wanted to find this how we would do it that'd be awesome

and I just to kind of wrap this up and I I know we're we're close to time. I brought in Oh, you have more? Not on this topic. So wrap that topic up.

Okay. So the topics that I brought up I think it it really speaks to as things move quicker in our society, we do need to be able to be more responsive to uh to residents and and as council member Doring said, we want to be prepared uh for for those issues, but we also want to have the time to reach out to our constituents and get their feedback as well. So uh so uh think to the spirit of that objective as you move forward on that. Um Mayor Norton and then well so as we prepared for this we were talking about rules of procedures and operation. We also have a parallel document that is similar but not the same for boards and commissions. I've been talking with um our attorney Michael Spanler Craig about this a little bit. There are a couple items in there um that I I would like to have to change and I would like to bring it back to you guys through it can either be a consent agenda or a a voting thing. They're minor tweaks. One of them um just has to do with attendance for boards and commissions and our language says that each member of an the advisory board and commission need to report to the mayor the name of any board member who's failed to show up for the attendance requirements. Well, I do not need nine count commission members tattling on other commission members. We need just the chair or the the staff rep. So, I would like to change that language rather than each member to the staff or chair. Um, we also have an issue with term limits, and this has actually been brought to us by um, uh, board and commission members, where it says they're limited to, uh, no more than six consecutive years or two consecutive terms, whichever is longer. And we need to add the word two full consecutive terms because some people

come on for a year of someone's thing and it's going to be then two full terms. So they will actually serve seven years and we have allowed that historically in the city when they finish up one term and then serve two full terms. So those are the two big changes. There is there are a couple like put a period and add a capital and create two sentences other than one. And I would like to remove uh the term ad hoc meetings and make some changes to that to and just move the language up. Um so they're minor technical changes. They're not controversial. Um, and the only one that I would ask for a headnot on, if we can do that, is everybody else in the city council, our thing says two minutes, theirs says four. We didn't ever change theirs. If you have, if you want to parallel ours, it would change to two. If you don't care knowing that during their meeting, they could make the change at a particular meeting if they wanted to. Um, but the the the fallback would be four currently or if I parallel yours that's two that just got missed. So that's the only one that I could use like a head nod. If

you want to stick with four I'm council. I would I'd like to see it just be put on the consent agenda. Do you want four or two? Two minutes. All of it. Public comments. Just put the whole thing on. I'd go two. Okay. Parallel the cities. Are they asking for two? That was my question. They haven't asked. These are just things that that one hasn't asked. It's just a difference and we tried paralleling. So it would be for it's a good idea similarity. Okay. Other thoughts on the two four two I mean I I would say too with the understanding that it parallels the council and so should we make a change that in the future would suggest a change for commission. Council member key.

Yeah. Just on again I've gone through these before. This is we're doing our our like uh code of conduct and rules of operations. And I think it's uh I I actually am surprised that that we had as many changes we have because if I look back in the last year, I I think our operations have gone really well as far as our public meetings. I think our level of discourse is really good compared to councils in the past. Um and again, just the way we kind of work through different things, I think has been good. So again, I I know there's things with council initiate action, there's things with other business and it's good that we redo that, but we're not in this sort of thing saying like this has to change because this isn't working. And and I I I'm kind of proud of that. Um second, um I think there are some things though in our meetings that I think we as a council probably need a little more training on. One is there's different orders of what our our uh motions are uh and you know, like what supersedes something else. And we've had a little trouble with motion to suspend versus something else. But the one that I think I have the most trouble with is this idea of point of order and what that means in our meeting and how it's adjudicated. Uh and I think it would be good for us to to spend some time on that. Um, my bad timing of bringing this up right now, but this other business, I mean, I I turn to the staff and say, "Anything you can do to get away from this nodding of heads, which feels like an informal way of taking an informal vote that then becomes something someone says happened at a meeting." I I really don't want us to be doing that in our formal meetings. It just feels wrong. Any other thoughts? And I I echo council member Keane's thoughts on uh just the the culture that we have as a council and as staff and um the the u the proposals that I made are it's I think a lot of them we move the culture we move the we build the trust and respect that

we have with each other and we're able to um to be flexible. But I still want to push the envelope on that uh increasing transparency, increasing um public engagement.

One quick item just back to the mayor sorting through on the model rules question and she and I will just need to talk through some of this. We've had this concept of sort of unified or consistent or model rules for all the boards and commissions. And just a little hiccup that we've run into at times is that some of our ordinances for our boards and commissions and our charters really give them the authority to set their rules. Not all of them. I may need to create that list to see exactly what that looks like, but um we'll just need to talk through that a little bit more. All right. Anything else on this topic? Calendar,

study sessions.

Um, you can practice the calendar being the tool. Um, so on your next uh study session, um, we have the historic district public realm plan and action plan and KPI update. Um, so that is forthcoming in February. Um, there was one thing that I believe that we were going to add to March 9th. So, just for awareness, um there is a thing that you may not be aware of yet, but it is called the spongy moth. It is an invasive species to Minnesota. And so, you will likely be having an update from um the Minnesota Department of Agriculture just on some of the remediation that they are looking at doing in Southeast Minnesota. Um so, it didn't make it onto this list. Um mostly for the public. We want to make sure they're aware of a wonderful opportunity to write an article about that um coming up here in the near term. I believe it was the night that we were thinking that we would do that um based on some of their timing for um public outreach. Um uh in addition to that, there is the supporting transformation update and the housing code update on the 9th of March.

All right. Um Mr. Exposer Craig, could you take uh take us into executive session? Yes, Mr. President. Consistent with the posted agenda, we will move into um close session pursuant to Minnesota statutes 13B.05, subdivision 3C3. Consider the purchase price of the property identified as parcel identification number 643521 082745. We will uh we will recess to 104 in uh 10 minutes.

Thank you. Thank you. George.