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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-12-02 TranscriptionDecember 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 1 December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting 4:00 PM Council: Bailey, Champion, Elliott, Lehman, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Atkins, Dilkes, Karr TAPE: 03-84, BOTH SIDES TAPE 03-84, SIDE ONE A. INTRODUCTION Lehman/Is that a word? Atkins/Oriented. Dilkes/Oriented. Lehman/Oriented? We have--we won't debate that, but--Steve, you and Eleanor and Marian the show is yours. I do know that we are scheduled, I believe, from 4:00 until 5:30 and I know that we have at least one or two folks here that really do need to be gone by that time, so--- Atkins/It shouldn't be a problem. Lehman/No. Dilkes/OK. I'm going to cover the open meetings executive sessions e-mail item. You've got a lot of information in your packet about open meetings. A lot of it is familiar to those of you who have been here for awhile. I'll just touch on a few points. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that a majority of you--four of you--should not gather to discuss a matter that's within the purview of the City Council. It doesn't include purely social gatherings; it doesn't include purely ad ministerial gatherings like settings, you know, calendar setting, that kind of thing. One thing to remember is that you've got a couple committees that are subject to the open meetings law, the Economic Development Committee and the Rules Committee. And remember that if you have two members of the Economic Development Committee talking about economic development matters, you're going to have a meetings problem. In terms of both the open meetings and open records law, all doubts are to be resolved in favor of openness. So, if there's any doubt, talk about it at an open meeting. Examples of meetings that are different than kind of the formal meetings that we call that would be considered open meetings would be, for instance, a site view, if you go to look at a piece of property and there are four of you there and you're talking about it, that would be a meeting subject to the open meetings law. A neighborhood meeting that four of you attend--a design consultant's presentation that four of you attend, what we try to do and what has been the practice for us is that if there is a presentation, a forum, something that is covering This represents only a reasonably accurate t~anscription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 2 something that is within the Council's purview, less that four will attend so that we don't have a meetings issue. If four of you are there, you need to sit and say nothing because once the discussion starts with members of the Council, you have a problem. Closed meetings or "executive sessions" as we call them, the materials cover the various reasons why Council can go into closed session. The ones that we use most often are litigation, property acquisition, and personnel matters, which for you include most of the (can't hear) In order to go into executive session, you need a vote of five out of seven of the Council or all present. Typically, how we handle this--the meeting agenda has to state the grounds for the closed session. You will get usually a confidential memo from me or a member of my staff explaining what the purpose of the session is so that you know what you're on before you vote on it. And what I typically do in those memos is at the end advise you that I believe there's grounds to go into closed session for this particular meeting since that would be a defense to you if there was an open meeting. I am reasonably relied on the opinion. Minutes are taken--- Elliott/Eleanor, excuse me, didn't you say there was a big "and" in that? Does the individual in question need to agree also? Dilkes/In the personnel section? Elliott/Uh-huh. Dilkes/Yes, the person--I, you know, I'm not going to go into the specifics--- Elliott/No. Dilkes/...of each reason for going into closed session, but the personnel is far more limited, as you and I discussed the other day, than you might think. It--the person who you are talking about has to request a closed session. Don't--when you go into closed session, you need to be really careful to stick to the topic, and don't ever assume that no one's ever going to listen to what you say in there. A couple of examples of that are with meetings that are closed to discuss property acquisition, those can be made available for the public or are available to the public if requested after the transaction is completed. You might have an enforcement action that would claim that you were in there talking about things that you weren't supposed to be talking about, in which case that might be certainly made available to the judge and the decision was against you to avert the public seeking that information. And then finally if there is a civil lawsuit, simply because you're in a closed session does not mean that that session is not subject to discovery if it is relevant in a civil lawsuit. Now there are other things that might shield that discussion like the attorney-client privilege, but simply because it's a closed meeting it's not shielded from discovery. So, conduct yourself as if someone may listen to what you're saying. I won't go into detail on the violations for the open meetings law. Suffice it to say there is individual liability--individual fine, attorney, etc., that can be imposed against the members of the Council. It's enforced by citizens, County Attorney. Any questions about open meetings, closed sessions generally. Oh, e-mail. You've got a handout tonight that--it's a background article, it's an article that appeared This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 3 in one of my professional journals, which kind of talked about the pitfalls of e-mail communication. ! had given it to the previous Council before, but I think it's a good article. There are some differences depending on what state you're in. But it, in a pretty easy-to-understand way kind of explains the pitfalls. There are pitfalls of e-mail communication from both a public records and an open meetings perspective. Public records--an e-mail may be viewed as a public record because it doesn't matter what the medium of the communication is. It's just a document that can be accessed. It may be a public record. My, you know, my opinion is--and I think you need to be cautious, you need to look at ail communication about public business, or your business as a Council person as being potentially being public records, regardless of where they are, whether they're on your personal computer, or the City computer, etc. And then from a meetings perspective, e-mail poses a problem just because of the instantaneous nature of the communication. In some ways, e-mail is like a telephone call but because it's so easy-- and I guess the example I use is that before we had e-mail at the City, we had a lot more meetings. We were always having to meet all the time in one room, a person from every department, and now we just--everything happens very quickly as we're discussing things on e-mail--and that creates a meetings issue. So you just need to be very cautious, I think, about using e-mail to communicate with the other Council members. You've got the memo, with the date of the memo, is that basically our advice about City equipment and--one really important thing in terms of document control, avoiding meetings and records issues with e-mail is to do your City business on your City equipment. If there was, for instance, a records request that related to a topic and asked for e-mails, it will greatly simplify the matter if we only have to look at one computer system. So if you can segregate your Council business to the City computer, that really makes a lot of sense. Marian tells this great story of that conference that you went to where the lawyer talked about having, being paid many, many dollars to search through voluminous e-mails on a terminated employee's system to determine which were responsive to the document request to weed out the personal from the public, etc., so it will help a lot. Karr/And that was in Iowa and the City was billed. Dilkes/The City was billed for ail that. We would do it probably in-house, well, I don't know. Anyway, so keep it on your City computer and for other reasons, too, you can't use your City computer for personal business. You are not supposed to be using City equipment for personal business. The City will only disseminate your City e-mail address. You should--and I think we have a standard on our e-mail responses--it's good to inform the people that you're communicating with that their communications may be subject to public disclosure. Karr/If they write to you individually at your e-mail address, the City will not be copied. So, therefore we do not have any paper trail of your correspondence. If we--we encourage people to write to Council as a body, as a unit. At that time, then Council as a unit is copied and it does become public record. There's just that distinction. I do not see what you individually may get on your City equipment regarding City business, if it's dressed to only you personal. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 4 Champion/Is that a problem sometimes, when I call my (can't hear) stuffcomes to me directly. Karr/Well, it is a problem, for instance, if four or seven of you get it, a quorum get it, and there is no response generated by staffbecause staff will not know about the communication. Champion/What if only one of you is getting it? Karr/If only one of you gets it, again, just so you know, we can't respond because we don't have it. Dilkes/I think the more documents that are found through the City Clerk's office and are accepted formally and etc., etc., the more confidence the public has that those kind of communications are being made. We had a situation before where a Council Member will reply to an e-mail to the Council, I would suggest copying the Mayor and the (can't hear). I think it's a good idea to have a system of deleting your e-mails. You obviously can't delete e-mails in response to a records request. But, I, for instance, have a policy where I delete every two, go back every two weeks, and when I sign off from my computer at the end of the week, I go back and I delete everything for two weeks. If there's something important that I want to keep, I print it out and put it in my file. When ! delete it--as I understand the technology--when I delete it from my computer, it, our computers are set up to automatically delete the deletes when you get out of your computer and then it goes down to the big system down in the basement and they purge it daily. Now there is some backup system for e-mails that could leave it on there for 14 days, but I think and I tell City staff that that's a good idea so that if we do get records requests, for instance, we don't have volume, volume, volume. See, there's no harm in doing that on a periodic basis. You certainly couldn't do it in response to a request, but doing it periodically I think is a good idea. I'm done with that. Karr/Special functions and travel policy. Again, those, there's memos included in your packet about checking out of City vehicles and the current Council travel guidelines. Again, these are policies only. And if there is a change, it should be directed and discussed by Council as a whole and then we'll implement a new policy. But again those were contained in there. Basically, if you're interested in going to a session, please let me handle those arrangements as far as I'll do a travel request for you, I'll get the registration done; we encourage you to make your own travel arrangements and bill the City, simply because rather than a third person involved on your arrival and departure times, it's just easier to make that directly and just have the bill sent here. We will coordinate all that paperwork for you. Again, some of this will overlap a little bit. But posting and minutes, we do post all City Boards and Commissions and City Council meetings on bulletin boards in the main lobby as well as in various City buildings. We also put them on our City website; however, in the state of Iowa, the website is not qualified as a legal posting. Simply putting it on the website does not meet the legal requirement. We exceed the legal requirement by putting it on the website in addition to our normal posting. We also do, for the City Council we do transcriptions and minutes, which are also available on the website. Minutes of individual Boards and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 5 Commissions are available on the website as much as staffcan physically do. All staff for City Boards and Commissions are different. Each have their own different procedures. At the present time not all Board and Commission minutes are there, but all City Council information is there. Voting procedure? Dilkes/Well, you got some information on that. There's a kind of a length or longer article from the Leagues publication on the difference between motions and resolutions. And ordinance motions are kind of a one-time action, direction; for example, setting a public hearing is often done by motion. Resolution is a statement of policy, and an ordinance is the most encompassing, which is basically a law that governs the behavior of citizens. The passage requirements for a simple majority. A motion requires the majority of the quorum and everything else requires a majority of all members of the Council, which is four and that is always four unless somebody is abstaining for a conflict of interest. If you've got three sick, for instance, it's the (can't hear). A Council member statement that he or she cannot vote due to a conflict of interest is determined about that in terms of how many it takes to pass. Ordinances require three readings. They can be what we call "collapsed," two readings put into one. So instead of three meetings, you've got two meetings. There are some cities that actually will collapse all three so you can do all three ordinance readings in one meeting. That has not been Iowa City's practice (can't hear). We will collapse two into one so we can get it done in two meetings. That takes-collapsing takes about a six out of seven-member Council. We have had at least with this last Council--and we can talk about that a little later--a policy where kind of a different way of expediting, I guess you'd say, is to put one reading of the ordinance on at the informal on Monday night instead of doing two meetings. O'Donnell/Eleanor, to collapse three into one, does it still just take one motion, like collapsing two into one, or do you have to have two separate motions? Dilkes/You know, well, I think you--we've never done it so I've never really looked at that. I think--- Karr/Two motions is very similar. Dilkes/...what you'd do is say two motions, you do it basically the same way, you just do it all on the same night. O'Donnell/OK. Kart/It's very similar too, so the motion that reads "I move that the second consideration be waived and the ordinance be adopted," it's "I move that the first and second consideration be waived and the ordinance be adopted at this time." Dilkes/But, please--- Karr/When you say a long, long time ago, I do remember it so I don't--yeah, I don't know how long "long, long time ago." I'm a little sensitive to the double "longs." But we haven't This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 6 done it in quite a number of years. Dilkes/I didn't know that we'd ever done it. Kart/Mm-hmm. Dilkes/OK. So, (can't hear) possibility. Lehman/No. Champion/The last ten years. Karr/It's more than ten. More than ten. Dilkes/There are some situations where the Iowa Code requires a super majority vote, like with a protested zoning. I gave you a copy, a City Council resolution regarding abstention for reasons other than a conflict of interest, and according to our rules now, abstention for a reason other than a conflict of interest is taken in a vote that the common majority (can't hear). You've got the Consult policy with P and Z in your packet here. Basically, if it appears that by way of informal consensus of the Council that there's going to be, that the vote of the Council is going to be different from the vote of the Planning and Zoning, action by the Council has to be deferred pending a meeting between the Council and Planning and Zoning. Karr/Do we want to do, hand out--this is just a very--- Dilkes/Oh, I didn't, yeah, you all we've got Roberts' Rules here. Karr/Simplified. Atkins/What color is it? Dilkes/Simplified Roberts' Rules. O'Donnell/Give those to Ernie. Dilkes/I got one from the League. Karr/Good. Elliott/Do these apply just to me? (Laughter) Dilkes/Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 7 Karr/All of them. Lehman/Especially to you. Karr/It's just a real quick cheat sheet. We furnished it a couple of years ago and it was a bright yellow document. This has been updated a little bit. Champion/I've never gotten one. Lehman/I haven't either. I don't know that it's (can't hear) Champion/No. O'Donnell/Make sure Steve gets a copy of these. Atkins/Yeah. Dilkes/The City Code does provide that Roberts' Rules will apply, and I kind of love the way it says this, in cases where they are applicable and not inconsistent with the standing rules of the Council. There are, you know, sometimes Roberts' Rules don't fit very well. Wilbum/Like when you move to permanently disband the assembly. (Laughter) Dilkes/It's just, for instance, a motion to call the question, you can't interrupt the speaker. Well, we don't have those kind of formal rules about how long you can speak. So sometimes they just don't fit so. But, sometimes it's helpful and I think we conduct ourselves generally. Atkins/All set? Karr/Mm-hmm. Atkins/OK. Contact with staff. We have a group of very bright people that are your employees, and I encourage you to talk with them. We try to keep things reasonably informal, and we just ask you when you do approach a staff member about an agenda item or really just anything that you might be thinking about, try to have some sensitivity about the routine nature of it. If it's just, can you get me a copy of this memo or that memo, but please do not make assignments for the staff. I mean, you can ask them for information that's routine and the staff has the instructions to provide it to you and to alert me. The reason I'm being alerted is that the rest of the members of the Council may also find benefit in this information. And the reason that I mention the assignments, it's difficult for me to measure the work of the individual. I have assigned them tasks and I feel that if they're doing something else and I ask where's my report, oh, I'm preparing a report for Bob. Oh. Well, if I don't know about it, you understand the implications. You can't This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 8 help but ask occasionally of a staff member their opinion on something. Please respect that. We're all team players and we all have lots of opinions but when we come to you, we're here to make a recommendation on an item, we're more than willing to share with you the opinions we've discarded in reaching that. So just be aware of that. But the important thing is the informality. Please feel free if you see an agenda item, call the police chief, talk to Rick as public works director, if you need a background. And initially you know you're going to need some further explanation or background. Please feel free to do that. Dilkes/I just wanted, it occurred to me, I should tell you, the new people, my general hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and here Thursday and Friday if I need to be, but I'm always Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday--so that's the better time to catch me. You're free to talk to my staff about things that you, that they are working on. They're pretty good about giving you a call (can't hear). I'm pretty firm about ifI can answer something off the top of my head or that was four, I'm (can't hear) Karr/That reminds me, too, the lead-in to Steve is often we've had situations where one Council member may ask, they ask something of a staff member, and that staff member then takes it as an assignment, as it were, and starts doing it; while another Council Member may have asked another staff member so all of a sudden, my office is getting the same request for retrieval of information by two different staffs for two different Council members. And that's the other advantage of coordinating it. And so because it already may have been asked and that information may already have been pulled together by the City Manager's office at their own request. But it's a nice way of not having us both going in different directions. Atkins/And please, routine information, something that's in the file, please don't hesitate. But if you want the Planning Department to do a zoning manifesto, we're going to have to-- you know, timeout--we're going to spend a little time thinking about how we're going to get that done. B. ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING Karr/Organizational meeting. Our Home Rule Charter provides, requires us to hold an organizational meeting every two years after an election. The purpose of the organization meeting is to elect a Mayor, a Mayor Pro tem. Our charter provides that it can be no earlier than noon January 2nd or nor later than January 6th at noon. As you can see from the enclosed agenda, which we will get to formalizing, staffis suggesting that the organizational meeting be scheduled prior to your first work session on January 5th at 6:30. That is certainly subject to change. We simply were trying to save you another trip into the building. Again, that is subject to change, but it's something that should be decided sooner rather than later, and we certainly can wait and talk about firming that up when we get down into work session and formal meeting scheduled, if you so wish. But, again, at that meeting we will do the Mayor and Mayor Pro tem. We will also make appointments to committees. There was a memo in your packet and we have a revised one. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 9 Dilkes/You left off the Economic Development Committee. Kart/Also, not listed on this will be, once every ten years by again our Home Rule Charter, we have a Charter Review Commission. And in early 2004, the Charter Review Commission procedure will be presented to you and then we can talk about whether we're going to follow that. In past years we've followed it very closely to other Boards and Commissions, but that will be another appointment that will be coming to you very, very soon. Elliott/How many? Karr/Nine. And I will provide you background information of who'd been on the last one if you'd like to have some carryover. We'll also provide information about how we handled it in the past as far as staffing needs and advertising and then you can give us the blessing that we can proceed in that manner or not. But that'll come to you soon in 2004. Bailey/(can't hear) little bit? Dilkes/Yeah, with respect to the organizational meeting, for a long time--is that OK, "long"? (Laughter) Dilkes/...a very long, long time--- Karr/No, there you go again. Dilkes/There has been a motion on the organizational meeting to determine the method of voting, either by voice vote or by paper ballot. And the paper ballot has been a secret ballot so there's no record of individual votes kept. We haven't done that for the last two election of Mayor and Mayor Pro tem, but it has been something that's been the Iowa City agenda for years and years. That troubles me with respect to the open meetings law because individual votes are to be kept of each, or a record is to be kept of each member's vote, and we don't have that when we do the paper ballot. So, we're going to take that off this one. Lehman/I don't think we've done it in ten years. Dilkes/Yeah, I don't, we've had it on--- Lehman/ That's a long, long time. Dilkes/OK. But it's on--- Lehman/ But it's always been voice since I've been on the Council. This represents only a reasonably, accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 10 Dilkes/You've seen it on the agenda as giving you the option to do a voice vote or a paper ballot, and I don't think you should have that option. Champion/We have done paper ballot. I don't remember. O'Donnell/I don't think we've ever had a need to do that. Dilkes/Anyway, that will be a change. Lehman/OK. Karr/Do we want to talk anything about scheduling organizational meetings, or do you want to go right into work sessions, and we'll just reaffirm this is--- Champion/Fine, whatever. Karr/OK. Lehman/Well, one of the things we've talked about, I think individually probably all of us, is the meeting at some point early on, after the first of the year, we may not like, we have had with our facilitator whose name I now--- Kart/Tim Shields. Lehman/Tim Shields, but a day where we can pick each other's brains as to what our priorities are and really get to know each other. I think that's a great idea and I think it should happen early in January, before we get into the budget too far. Bailey/I agree. Dilkes/Mm-hmm. O'Donnell/Are you suggesting we have Tim Shields? Lehman/No, no, I'm suggesting a meeting of that nature, where, you know, we did priorities. He listed all kinds of stuff on the board, we all had an opportunity, we got to know each other a lot better, and I think that's really important. Not just for the new folks, but I think we ail need to know each other. O'Donnell/(can't hear) Ernie, we can do that without a facilitator, don't you? Lehman/I'm not sure you can. O'Dormell/I don't think that's necessary. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 11 Atkins/I did it the one time. Wilburn/That's right. Vanderhoef/Karin did one. Champion/Karin Franklin. Karr/Yeah. Lehman/I don't care. I just think we should have the meeting. Atkins/(can't hear) so I can participate with you and answer your questions. But we do--- Champion/ I think you need a facilitator; it doesn't mean you have to hire somebody. Somebody's got to be in charge. Lehman/I think that's right. Atkins/We have a number of folks who, if you'll remember when we did that task force about ten years ago, a whole bunch of us went through sort of an informal training. It's not a very sophisticated facilitation process but we have some folks who can do it. Champion/This is not a very sophisticated group. (Laughter) Karr/So do you want to talk about setting aside a special work session then? Vanderhoef/I think so. Champion/Mm-hmm. Wilbum/I would. Karr/Do you have your calendars? Is there a certain--you're looking at a block of time of I don't know six hours? four hours? eight hours? Lehman/I think we should plan for a day, start at 8:00 in the morning and we'll go as long as we need to. O'Donnell/Are you serious? We didn't have it that long last time, Ernie. I don't, you know, I question the value of it. Champion/It's a goal setting. I think it's important. I think it's fine. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 12 O'Donnell/Well, but I don't--for eight hours? My gosh, we're going to be using building blocks. Lehman/We may all be at home by 1:00. O'Donnell/I just think--- Lehman/I just think you need, I'd hate to see us in the middle of a really meaningful sort of discussion at 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon and then have to leave because the meeting's over, and if you schedule--you don't have to go that long--we've done a lot of times where we meet at 8:00 and we're through by 11:00, but we scheduled it from 8:00 to 12:00 in case we needed it. Kart/Did you want this before you discuss budget, during the budget process--what is your? Champion/I think it might be important to do it before we discuss budgets since--- Elliott/Agreed. Champion/...we can come up with some goals. Karr/OK. Atkins/You'll have the budget in hand long before you're--- Vanderhoef/So you think we're going to have it read? Atkins/I won't be (can't hear) by charter I have an obligation to prepare you a balanced budget, financial plan, and I do that. Champion/No, I don't mean that we'd be setting the budget. Atkins/OK. Champion/I mean I think we need--- Karr/Before they start discussing--- Champion/...before we start discussing the budget would be a good thing to do. I wasn't meaning that I would hand that to you and say prepare the budget. Wilburn/Because there may be things that are more policy-driven that, I mean, you know, it'd be helpful just to hear what folks are thinking. Atkins/Well, the fact we do a multiyear also gives you an opportunity to say let's slide this into the next year and into the next year, yeah, I can understand that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 13 Lehman/We have meetings scheduled--- Vanderhoef/Policy priority but not individual goals. Atkins/Yes, I'm with you. Lelmian/We have meetings the 5th and 6th and the 19th and 20th? Karr/Well, that's something we're going to be firming up today. That's--- Lehman/Well, it'd be nice to start plugging in some of those dates then to see what we have left Karr/I have a calendar in your packet. Lehman/Which I probably didn't bring. Vanderhoef/Once you get a hard look at it--- Champion/ I don't have mine either. Lehman/All right. Kan'/Would you hand that to--- Female/ Thank you. Karr/Again, this is a digested schedule and right now we're just talking about special budget work sessions. Or you were talking about the whole work session. Can we go--if we're going to do that, let's just do a little bit if I may on the purpose, procedure, and work session's whole concept a little bit. C. WORK SESSION Dilkes/The work sessions are currently envisioned as a, primarily as a way for Council and staff to interact. There is no real public participating, participation although there has been on occasion. I think staff has, or I have had some concerns occasionally about why one member of the public ends up talking when generally they're not supposed to be talking. And I guess a little concern about what is the rule with respect to public participation at work sessions? If we have a public presentation scheduled at a work session, that's one thing. But I worry a little bit about, you know, the person who bugs the Mayor enough is able to talk and other people who just aren't as, you know--- Lehman/Not in the last year, I don't think. Dilkes/So--yeah, I think it, I mean it has been a little better, but I think we need to--if that's not This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 14 the purpose of them, if it's not fair to have, let's say you've got an issue with two sides to it, one person who bugs you enough to get up there and be able to talk and so I just want to alert you to that. That is not a primary purpose of work sessions. It could be if you changed it, and we--oh, and this is the other problem that I think staff has had is that members of the public will call us, it happens to me occasionally but probably mostly to Marian, and say, Can I talk? And we say, well, work sessions are not for public interaction with the City Council. There is a Public Discussion item on the formal agenda and if this item is on, you can talk at the formal meeting typically. But then they see other people who get to do that by being pesky enough and whatever it takes to be able to talk, so I just think there should be a fairness to it and that one person shouldn't get to speak and the next person not. We've had a couple and I don't think it has been within the last year as much, but a couple of kind of glaring examples where we've had people in the back who really wanted to talk and didn't and didn't understand why some got to talk and--- Lehman/And we've had Council Members invite someone to speak at a work session. Dilkes/Yes, that happens as well. Lehman/And I am almost positive that the last year anyone who spoke has been on the agenda. Kart/I'm almost positive that's not the case. Lehman/Oh, we have one? (Laughter) Karr/One. One, yeah, we had one. Champion/Long ago. Karr/Long ago, yeah, long, long ago. Dilkes/No, I think it gets very tricky when someone is sitting here and you have a question and you ask them, all of a sudden they get to talk, you didn't ask that person a question and they've got something to say too, and it's just awkward and it truly is a fairness issue. But the question becomes if you wish staff to send a different message on how you want to omhestrate your work sessions, we need to know that and if not, we probably just need to be aware of that. Vanderhoef/Too often there is quotes "an expert" sitting behind you, correct someplace, and it happens because you think there's information that they have that might be useful to settle a question because either a staff person or some of us can't answer. But it's very much a fairness issue because on many of these things even though there is an expert there, there's also someone who doesn't agree with that expert. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 15 Elliott/We live in a town of experts. Dilkes/The other expert. (Laughter) Lehman/I would suggest that we continue the way that, frankly, there is an opportunity at a Council meeting during Public Discussion for the public to speak. And I don't think it is, serves a work session well to allow Public Discussion at that work session. We could get into full-blown meetings at work sessions if we did that. And would not get our own work done. Vanderhoef/Well, it certainly isn't fair and shouldn't be happening, what could end up out of all of that is that either there's more business to conduct at the formal meeting or it will be delayed while staff gets us additional information or we have the opportunity to go out and research the issue ourselves. So, delay is a piece of the picture but it needs to be done. Karr/As noted in the memo, the work sessions have been held at various times throughout the years from again a 1:30 Monday afternoon interaction with staff and at that time it was in the same area as the conference room, and then it evolved into this room at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon and then to the current 6:30 or 7:00 o'clock work session Monday evening. There are a number of communities that have taken a long hard look at their work sessions. In light of some of the very issues we talked about here, they found that they were holding often two public hearings or discussing the same thing and repeating it the next evening. So you have one audience there one evening and they didn't hear the Monday evening, so on Tuesday evening you repeated yourself to familiarize the new audience with the subject. So in some communities they've eliminated the work sessions and schedule only as needed and a good example would be, for instance, budget time. Others have broken it up and eliminated the work sessions and had two formal meetings. So they still have Monday-Tuesday, but on Monday they do, for instance, the Consent Calendar and Planning and Zoning items, and then on Tuesday, did the remainder of the agenda. So that someone who had something late on the agenda didn't have to sit through all of Planning and Zoning waiting for their item or have to come two separate nights. Some have held work sessions just prior to formal meetings. Others have changed the work session to a daytime meeting. Whether it be early in the day, say 8:00 to 10:00 in the morning, or 4:00 to 7:00 in the afternoon, thereby freeing up a whole new--rather than just the evening time slot. The purpose of my memo was simply to say we've changed over the years a number of times and if this Council is so inclined that they wish to change again, we are more than happy to work with you and set up some different schedules and different times. Champion/Do you know, Marian, one thing that we've done differently that I think it's helped create the problem, is by putting agenda items on the work session. Before that our work sessions are mainly to discuss major issues and major proposals. And once you put agenda items on, then that's what brought up the discussion and talking to people This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 16 behind you, because you're actually talking about decisions that could be made the next night. So I think in a way that has limited the Public Discussion, the formal discussion of items on the agenda. And maybe we should take that off because if we have questions, it should be on the formal agenda. Karr/Would that hold true to Planning and Zoning items as well? Champion/Oh. I knew there was something wrong with my idea. Elliott/I don't know how you veterans value the work session, but as a newcomer, I've been looking at them. I think it would be very helpful for me because I think there are a lot of stupid questions that I could ask at the work session for clarification and it would be very helpful not having to do that at a formal meeting. Lehman/Right. Champion/We need one. Elliott/To interact directly with staff and ask questions because I'm on a learning curve and my learning curve's get to be pretty long. O'Donnell/Well, and that's the original intent of the work session, and I--is everybody comfortable with this 6:30 hour? Vanderhoef/I'm asking new people because I'm more flexible possibly. O'Donnell/I mean, if you work till 5:00 and--- Bailey/ Well, I built our organization schedule assuming that things would not change too much with Council meetings so I'm real comfortable with that. O'Donnell/So, except you don't have a problem with 6:30? Bailey/Right, yeah, I'm really comfortable with evening meetings. Lehman/I think the important thing is if Council decides at any point in time that that can be different. Bailey/Pardon me? Lehman/If Council found that there was a time more convenient, that's a time that that can change at any time, whatever the Council decides. Bailey/Mm-hmm. Vanderhoef/I think one of the things the public really criticize with daytime meeting of any kind This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 17 is that the fact that they are work and cannot attend, and they want, some people really want to hear the discussion. And that's what--in fact, I tell people if they want to learn about an issue, come to the work session and hear the total of discussion, lots of direction in light of that. Elliott/I also, I like it the night before because I also have the advantage that I can spend some of my day budding down a contact, clarifying, firming something. That is helpful. Kart/I guess so the consensus the work session remains 6:30 p.m. Monday? Champion/Mm-hmm. Karr/Now we can go to the scheduling of upcoming special work sessions and go back to where we--the Council priority session, you were thinking of doing a time before your budget work session discussion. The budget will be out, as Steve has indicated, before the holidays. We had scheduled on just pick some dates, three budget sessions, 13, 15, and 27. We're not wedded to them. We just threw them out. We can talk about those. You can talk about when you want to do that Council priority. If you want to do that before the first one, if the 13th remains, then you'd have to do it the 7th or 8th or a Saturday. Bailey/I have a work conflict on the 15th until 7:00 o'clock. Karr/OK. It needn't stay the 15th or we can start at 7:00. That's an--- Bailey/ If that works for people. Lehman/Yeah, we--that's the other thing you'll find. If you notice the attendance at Council meetings in the last several years, hardly ever is a Council person absent because we schedule so that everybody can be there. Elliott/I thought you were just dedicated. Lehman/That's the dedication we have. Karr/And often our budget ones we've not done all evenings. That's also been another option. So that's, you know--- Vanderhoef/It's been 8:00 o'clock in the morning till noon. Bailey/That's work time for me. Kan'/What's the pleasure? Do we want to, do you want to look at a Council priority session then the 7th or 8th or do you want to do it the 12th before--you'll have the budget in hand. Lehman/Well, how about the 8th? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 18 Vanderhoeff The 8th is what I'm looking at. There's also a home basketball game on the 7th, so I'm--- Lehman/ Well, you're not going to come to the meeting so it'll be all right. Champion/And also that meeting will be held in the daytime, not at night. Lehman/That's a daytime meeting. Bailey/(can't hear) League on the 8th. Elliott/Yep. Kant/I don't--- Bailey/ The Lone Tree one. Kant/Yeah, that League, that--- Bailey/ That's the 8th. Kart/Yep, the 8th is the second session for the League leadership training for new Council orientation. And that's in the evening. Bailey/It starts at 6:00, so--- Lehman/ Now where is that? Kant/Lone Tree is our closest one. Bailey/It'll be at Lone Tree. Karr/...to that, if we scheduled that we can--- Lehman/Well, we certainly if we--- Bailey/It's on the 8th. Karr/It's a League orientation for ne~v Council leadership. Lehman/If we did that on the 8th, we certainly ~vould be through long--- Bailey/ Mm-hmm. Lehman/...so I would think that wouldn't conflict. Does the 8th work? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientahon meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 19 Champion/What about Ross? Wilburn/Either day works for nse so--- Champion/ Either one works for me, too. Karr/That's also tree with the 7th, if the basketball game's in the evening. Elliott/What kind of meeting are we talking about? Champion/8:00 o'clock in the morning. Karr/This is a goals priority. Bailey/Sort of a retreat, a Council, or whatever you--- Elliott/I thought we were talking about an all-day. Lehman/It is. Bailey/We are. Champion/It is. Lehman/The 8th. ElliottJ So we're talking about 8th, day? Lehman/Yeah, 8th is a Thursday. Karr/Or we can--that's up to you, if you wanted to talk about a weekend. Vanderhoeff Do you want to do the 7th? Wilburn/My only question for Regenia, is that a long day for you? Bailey/Wouldn't we be draining the nonprofit sector? Wilburn/Yeah. Bailey/I have ~vorked long days. (Laughter) Wilburn/Well, I mean, just in terms of taking in the extra information that you'd need or would you rather just get it all done in one day? This represems only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 oriemation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 20 Bailey/Well, that could be it. That could be a Council day for me and that would be easy for me to take. Wilbum/Yeah. Champion/I would prefer we did it on the 8th rather than the 7th, just because I don't like meetings two days in a row. Lehman/No, I think that would be--well, then that would be three days in a row. TAPE 03-86, SiDE TWO Lehman/Can we plan on the 8th? Karr/Thursday, the 8th? Lehman/Right. Kart/8:00 to 5:00, just penciled in that way and if we're done early, we're done early. Atkins/Yeah, is this for the goal session? Lehman/Yes. Atkins/OK. Champion/It's (can't hear) Atkins/You're also making the assumption that we probably have to do it in-house? Champion/Yeah. Right. And so you'll have to wait--we may have to change this day if nobody can do it. Atkins/Oh, the 8th? I thought we just decided we were. Kart/Well, OK, Steve's asking about in-house for a facilitator? Champion/Right. Karr/Facilitator. But why wouldn't, why would we have to change it if everybody could make it if it's only the ones around the table who are making it? Champion/A facilitator. Karr/So, you want an in-house or you don't want--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 21 Champion/We want an in-house facilitator. Atkins/OK. That can be arranged. Karr/That can be arranged. Atkins/That's our workday, that's not a problem for us. Champion/I know it but do you want to go to meetings and stuff like that? It isn't just us. Atkins/Well, I'll twist some arms. Karr/Yeah, I think we can probably--- Vanderhoef/He has many choices. Lehman/He can see to it that there's a (can't hear) O'Donnell/Now, this is 8:00 to 5:00? Atkins/Yeah. Lehman/Maybe. Karr/Do you want the location to be here or do you want someplace else as well? Champion/(can't hear) it might as well be here. Atkins/OK. A goal session 8:00 to 5:00, I'm to find a facilitator in-house, and we'll run through sort of the traditional way we've done it in the past which is a pretty simple facilitation process. O'Donnell/Fine. Atkins/OK. And we'll (can't hear) Vanderhoef/I'm going to ask staff. I have feelings about doing it in this room just in general. And there's a place where those kinds of meetings can happen at the Hoover Library (can't hear) that they have people use regularly and since we're getting to know each other and we're different folks coming into this, there is the temptation of the staff' meeting to run out to do this and that. It might be kind of different--- O'Donnell/It would be different all right. Vanderhoef/...in a different location. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientahon meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 22 Lehman/Or the library too. Bailey/Mm-hmm. Karr/We've done it out at the Highlander years ago as well. We just off premise--- Lehman/And we've done it at the Union. Atkins/You want it out of the building, just tell me that and we'll start to look around. Bailey/We want it out of the building. Vanderhoef/Out of the building. Lehman/I think that--- Dilkes/I think it's probably better to stay as local as you can because the public has a right to watch and--- Atkins/Oh, I'm thinking IMU, one of the hotels, I mean, there's a lot of places to look for, I just can't promise you what's going to be made available. Lehman/Just set it up. Tell us where, we kno~v when. O'Donnell/In here will be fine. Kart/Thursday, January 8th, 8:00 to 5:00, is the block of time, we use an in-house facilitator, and we'll be out of the building. Lehman/All right. Karr/Got it. Bailey/Somewhere. And somebody said we'd get fed. Atkins/And you'll be fed. (Laughter) Dilkes/No, no food. Atkins/No food. Kart/Budget--do you want to go back to the three work sessions for budget? Let's go one at a time. Does the 13th work for everybody and if so, what time do you want to do it? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 23 O'Donnell/Well, certainly not 8:00 to 5:00. Lehman/6:30, is that all right? Karr/Do you want to do an evening, in the evening? Lehman/Does that work for everybody? Atkins/I plan on the first session is getting you through all the budgets. Lehman/That's a two-and-a-half-hour session at the tops. Champion/And we do that--I like that in the evening. Atkins/The idea is to schedule 6:30 to 9:00. We schedule a night and we do it through. We all know what time we're going home then; pardon me, give or take. Champion/You mean that first meeting--6:30 to 9:00? Bailey/6:30 to 9:00? Atkins/All the meetings could be set up that way, as far as I'm concerned. It's up to you all. O'Dormell/I think that's a good idea. Karr/The 15th--- Lehman/ Well, Regenia's got a conflict on the 15th with--- Bailey/ I've got a meeting until 7:00. Karr/Until 7:00. Bailey/So I can be here shortly after. Kart/Or we can change it to the 15th. Champion/It's too late to start in on a budget meeting at 7:00. We should just cancel that day. Lehman/The 15th? Champion/Find another day. Karr/So we need to pick up another day. OK. That's fine. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 24 Champion/As always, one of my requests--when we do a long budget hearing during the daytime, because I just get too sleepy at 9:00 o'clock at night. Kart/What about the week of the 19th, we can talk about this. The 19th is Martin Luther King holiday on Monday. So we have our formal meeting Tuesday. We have an option on Monday to hold the work session on the holiday, the building is closed and staff will come in. We can do it prior to the formal or we can cancel the work session. O'Donnell/No one (can't hear) on a day off: Champion/Combine it. Lehman/Combine it. Bailey/Combine it. Lehman/Do the two together. Karr/Combine it and just start at whatever time? The 20th. Lehman/The 20th. Karr/Then what about the 21st or 22nd then for another budget session? Lehman/The 22nd works. Elliott/So we're talking about the second budget meeting is the 20th? Karr/Correct--well, the 20th is our formal meeting, Bob. Elliott/Oh, OK. Bailey/Connie, you wanted one during the day you said? That's in your packet. Champion/Does that work for you? Bailey/Yeah, I could, I mean it's a different focus. Vanderhoef/I'm getting--- Karr/If you're going off the schedule provided, the 15th is canceled, the 19th is a holiday, the 20th is combined with a formal and a work session. Champion/Another person likes daytime meetings. Karr/Now we're looking for a second budget session. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 25 Champion/The 22nd. Lehman/The 22nd. Karr/And we're looking at the 22nd during the day. Champion/8:00 o'clock. Lehman/Does that work? Vanderhoef/OK, that's our--wait a minute. O'Donnell/Let's not get ridiculous about that 8:00 o'clock. (Laughter) Champion/Seven? Bailey/He's not a morning person. Vanderhoef/And, Ross, don't you have--- Wilburn/8:30 would work better. Lehman/8:30 on the 22nd? Vanderhoeff I can't do the 22nd. That's Development, I believe. Champion/What is Work Force Development? Vanderhoef/It's the board. Let me check on that one. Karr/What about the 21 st late in the afternoon because you don't have two in a row if we combine it--- Vanderhoef/It's a joint meeting with the County on the 21st at 4:00 o'clock. It's already started at noon. Elliott/On the 22nd? Karr/21 st? Vanderhoef/On the 21 st. O'Donnell/Oh, and leave from here to the County meeting? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 26 Bailey/Uh-huh. So, noon to 3:007 It's a three-hour meeting? Lehman/That's going to be a pretty--I don't know what your second budget session is going to involve but my gut feeling is--- Atkins/The second one is usually more of you all. Karr/OK, let's--yeah, why don't we go, what about, why don't we go to the next week and look at 26th and 27th potentially. That's an off-week. Champion/Well, I thought we hadn't eliminated the 22nd yet. Atkins/We haven't. Lehman/No, Dee thinks that--- Bailey/ Dee has during--- O'Dormell/That's our work force meeting. Karr/Unless we go to the nighttime. Unless you go to a nighttime again. Then we've eliminated the 22nd. Vanderhoef/Nighttime works. Karr/Does she want--- Lehman/ Yeah, but--- Vanderhoef/But I know you want daytime. Bailey/I think it's good to alternate. Vanderhoef/And I think that's good too, so I'm flexible. Karr/What about if we can just jump ahead--what is the week of the 26th, 27th? Maybe we don't need to worry about that. We've got the third budget session on the 27th. We have the 26th open and it's an open week. Can we put them back-to-back on the 26th and 27th? Would that work and skip that middle week? Lehman/All right. Vanderhoef/Can staff?. Lehman/That's the staffthat's doing it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 27 Atkins/Which one is that? Lehman/26th and 27th. VanderhoefJ Do you want a day between? Atkins/There? Karr/For your last two. Atkins/The 26th and 27th. Karr/Do you need it between--that's the one--- ElliottJ I don't know how you feel. That seems pretty tight to me. Atkins/It is tight but--- Elliott/If we come up some changes that we want you to look at--- Champion/ Dee, what time was your meeting on the 22nd? Kan'/Steve, that's the one--- Atkins/You just take my advice and we'll just--- Vanderhoef/I could do it in the afternoon. I can be back here by 1:00 o'clock, 1:00 to 4:00 on the 22nd. Atkins/Yeah, if you want to put two days in a row, I'm OK with that. Champion/I'm not. Vanderhoef/How about 1:00 to 4:00 on the 22nd? O'Donnell/Are you ready to go 8:00 to 5:00 again, that way--- Karr/22nd, 1:00 to 4:00? Vanderhoef/I can do that. (Several talk) Lehman/OK. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 28 Karr/22nd, 1:00 to 4:00. Champion/I like that better. Kart/OK, then we have a third and potentially final on the 27th. Lehman/Is that the 6:30 at night? Kart/That's up to you, folks. That can be any time you want. Actually, I mean--do you want to do it during the morning? If you want to do it during the morning--- Atkins/Remember, if for some reason you have to have another one--- Kart/Our problem though, Steve, is to set the public hearing. Atkins/We will have to set the public hearing. That doesn't mean we--- Karr/And once we set it we have to publish. And we're going to set it February 3rd--- Lehman/ Holy cow. Karr/...but we do need three to four days--- Atkins/Well, remember, you set the public hearing--- Vanderhoef/Well, if we do the 27th, we still would have Thursday or Friday the 29th. Lehman/We have to. Karr/Staff needs three to four days to (can't hear) all the numbers to get it to the paper. Vanderhoef/I mean, before we set the public hearing. Karr/But if you're making decisions on Friday, then staff's working the weekend to get it to the paper. Vanderhoef/So, Wednesday or Thursday is the latest we can--- Lehman/ Well, just a minute. Do we have to have final numbers in the night we set the public hearing? Kart/Yes. Atkins/Yes. Champion/Oh. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 29 Lehman/We do? I didn't know that. Atkins/Now remember you can go down but--- Lehman/I know that, but I was thinking that you had to have the numbers by the date of the hearing. Karr/No. Lehman/But you have to have them the night you set the hearing. Champion/You have to have the maximum. Kart/You need, now let me just add another--you need ten days between the time you set your public hearing and hold it for citizen input, and according to the schedule, if you're going to hold it on the 17th, then it's going to have to be to the paper to give you ten days, it's got to be published the public hearing notice on Wednesday, the 4th. So it's got to be to the paper at the very latest Monday morning, and we'll yank it if you don't set it. Elliott/Are you talking about the end of February now? Karr/Mm-hmm. Elliott/OK. Kart/I'm talking about, if we can't, as I recall Finance's discussion, they wanted ideally no later than the 27th so that they could work the numbers the 28th and 29th and send it to the paper. Champion/The 26th will not work with me because I'll be at--- Karr/But the 27th? Champion/The 27th works. Lehman/Well, can we--we're going to meet the first budget meeting on the 13th, the second, whoa boy, on the 22nd. Kart/On the 22nd. But we had a third one tentatively planned the 27th. Lehman/I see that. My only concern is that if we really do have to have more time or think we need more time, there aren't very many days to do it. Vanderhoef/How about if we did the morning of the 27th? And then if we absolutely had a This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 30 couple to things to finish up, do it the morning of the--- Lehman/I think we'd be much better off to do it a week earlier. Bailey/What if we moved the 15th one that we've eliminated, what if we did that during the day? Because I'm free during the day. Lehman/On the 15th? Bailey/Yeah. Lehman/Oh, wait a minute. Dee, is that--- Bailey/ No, the 22nd is the one that she had the challenge with and then we could move things--- Karr/Then you'd end on the 22nd, you could keep--- Vanderhoef/I'm fine on the day. Elliott/I like that. I'm in favor in having a contingency for if there is a problem. I don't know if we need it--- Bailey/ We can always need more time, yeah. Karr/So what we're talking about then is that you've got the 13th, 6:30 to 9:00; now you're talking about the 15th perhaps, during the day. Lehman/Right. Does that work? Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. Champion/It works for me. Karr/What time would you like, morning, afternoon? Champion/Mornings work a lot better for me because if I don't--- Bailey/ 8:30. Karr/8:30? Lehman/All right. Elliott/9:00. Karr/9:00? This represents only a reasonably accurate ~-anscription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 31 Champion/That's a little late but it's fine. Lehman/You really need to go 8:30. Champion/8:30--that's a compromise. Kart/8:30 to--- Elliott/You guys have teed me off already. (Laughter) Karr/11:007 Lehman/Well, the problem is that at least you have the option of--- Champion/ Well, yeah, because then it keeps me from having to get an employee because I can to work as late as noon. Elliott/OK, the i5th on 8:30? Karr/8:30. So you've got, for budget you've the 13th, the 15th, we'll keep the 22nd, and the 27th, we'll reserve it if needed. Lehman/And then the 27th if we need it. Karr/OK. Lehman/All right. Bailey/We'll keep the 22nd during the day? Karr/Correct. Lehman/Right. Karr/OK? And I'll revise the schedule. Elliott/This is 8:30 to 12:00, that--- Karr/On the 15th. O'Dormell/And you'll send us all a schedule on this? Because I don't have any idea when we're meeting. I don't care, I'll just be here. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 32 (Laughter) Kart/All right. Bailey/Give him a pager and--- Champion/Or you can be like me and come twice. Bailey/You're supposed to be here. Vanderhoef/We're all doing so well with (can't hear) and it goes squeak! Atkins/The whole session was written down, we've got that one? Lehman/Yes. D. FORMAL MEETING {set by resolution) Kart/I got it. Formal meetings are set by resolutions. Currently, they're the first and third Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. Do we want to continue or change it? If we're going to continue it, there's no change. If we're going to change it, we do need to (can't hear) so we can get it on your December schedule because we'll be setting hearings and scheduling in January and February. O'DonneI1/Keep it. Elliott/Keep it. Lehman/It'll work. Karr/Keep it? Champion/We just change it (can't hear) Karr/Included in your agenda also was a resolution showing the order ofbt/siness, the Council agendas, is there any need to change that order? Elliott/Can that, that order is set in stone then? Lehman/No. Karr/It's set by resolution. At any evening at any meeting if you want to move item 12 ahead of item number 21--- Elliott/OK. I have on a few times been at meetings where obviously there was a huge interest and it always seemed a pity to me that that was saved until late in the evening. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 33 Karr/Council can by motion move that item. Lehman/We did Senior Center had some things one time, we moved it to the beginning of the meeting. A couple of times we've done that, and we can do that at any meeting. O'Dounell/Bob, that's really a good idea for efficiency and--- Champion/ Except when it's regularly on the agenda and people don't come till later. And so there if you move it up then your people who--- Wilburn/And sometimes you don't know until somebody shows up that it was the hottest item. Kart/They missed it. O'Dounell/Well, then maybe we should, you can plan that in scheduling the agenda, Ernie, because you know what the hot issues are. Elliott/I think you know what the hot buttons are. O'Donnell/Yeah. Karr/But, no, you can't--- O'Donnell/Or you can. Karr/By resolution, you're bound by this unless by Council motion that the time is changed. So we don't have a lot of flexibility. We can switch perhaps public hearings, quote "a more controversial one," ahead of another public hearing but that would be all the movement we could do in accordance with the resolution. O'Donnell/I meant in setting the agenda, we have a fairly strong feeling about which is going to be the controversial one and which is going to generate a lot of people, I think. Kart/Right. Elliott/You're going to know two weeks ahead of time. O'Donnell/Yeah. Dilkes/Right, but what Marian's saying is that because we have a resolution sets the order of the agenda, we could sort of take it (can't hear), we can't--- Bailey/ Consent Calendar, Planning and Zoning, Public (can't hear), right? If I read it right. O'Donnell/Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 34 Dilkes/Yeah, we start with P and Z items. Elliott/Steve, that was my initial question. Karr/You can't by staff. You can that night. Dilkes/You can that night by motion. Karr/But that goes to Connie's concern. Elliott/I'm not sure that's fair though. Dilkes/Because of the notice? Elliott/Yeah. Champion/There's no fair way to do it. Elliott/It does seem a pity when there's a room of standing room only for people and they wait until 9:30 or so to have their hearing. But if there's no other way, there's no other way. Champion/It is (can't hear) Dilkes/The flip side to that is the people who are scheduled early on the agenda then have to sit through that. Vanderhoef/And there are people who come with attorneys just in case there's a question, and then if you put quote "routine" business at the end, and they came, why it could start costing (can't hear). It's pretty hard to change that agenda. Lehman/We did two years ago, it changed Public Discussion, and limited that to the first, which because we were having folks that were here for business with their attorneys and whatever, who were sometimes--the meeting wouldn't start until 9:30 because of Public Discussion. So we limited that in fairness to those folks who were coming here to do business with the City but also open it up again at the end of the meeting if the public wasn't through discussing it they could just put it again at the end of the meeting. Now we've seldom ever had anybody have to do that. Elliott/Are we going to talk about that sort of thing at the all-day meeting? Lehman/We can do that. Sure, yeah. Elliott/Because I, my thoughts are--- Atkins/Council time This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 35 Dilkes/We can talk briefly about--- Elliott/I'd like to have it be Public Comment, not Public Discussion. I'd like to have the Council agree that you talk, we listen. Karr/We can talk about that. Dilkes/Yeah, I ;vas going to just touch on those under the formal meeting--- Elliott/Good. Lehman/All right. Dilkes/...about what my concerns Champion/That might be a good way, that's a very good point. Karr/That's where we are right now, to formals. Lehman/All right. Dilkes/A couple things back to the formal agenda. Just (can't hear). Remember, things around the Consent Calendar, those are for routine items. I don't worry too much about putting stuff on there. We can always puli it off if it's useless to talk about. A couple of things on the formal agenda. When we set a public hearing, the idea is to set it and hold the public hearing at some later time, not to have a public hearing at the time we set that (can't hear). (Can't hear) have often the minutes from P and Z, I haven't talked to my staff what happened at P and Z. Nobody's really prepared to talk about the substance of items when you're setting a public hearing so we cannot (can't hear) That's a good idea. I think it also, it makes for people who are interested in items have to come more than they should just to make sure there's not some substantive discussion about it when you're setting it. Lehman/The other thing that I think is really important, when we have literally have the public hearing during the process of trying to set it, so many of the comments that are made are the comments that should be made publicly at a public meeting. Dilkes/Right. Lehman/That's for the public to hear. So I totally agree. Dilkes/On Public Discussion, the issue with public discussion is--I agree, I know Council's talked about this in the past and it is mislabeled because it implies that there will be some kind of discussion with the Council. I can understand why people think that. But it really shouldn't--if somebody raises a point when they're commenting to you that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 36 you all want to talk about, say I want to talk about that, we'll put it on the agenda. That is not the time to have a full-blown discussion about it. That obviously raises some (can't hear) issue. Same thing with Cotmcil Time. I'm not sure what to do with Council Time. It just gets out of hand periodically and really, Council Time is envisioned as a time to make (can't hear) announcements about things, whatever law had been given or for Council to request that an item be placed on a subsequent agenda. And all you need to do to do that is to frame the issue, here's the issue. You can give your Council Members something at the time, that's fine, say are there--currently it's three people to put it on. Are there three people? And then we'll get it scheduled for a future agenda. But it's just not fair to start talking about things without sending the public any notice of. So, a couple of things that staff has kind of batted around is perhaps it's not, you know, perhaps we don't need Council Time at both the work session and the formal session. Or maybe there should be a different purpose for that and we put a parenthetical after Council Time, for instance, that says on the formal, brief Council announcements and requests for agenda items, or something so that we remind ourselves what the purpose of it is. But those are my concerns about both Council Time and Public Discussion. You all can (can't hear) yourselves with that or maybe we do put a parenthetical of some kind. I think it would be helpful because I do think it gets-- it's a position I find myself in, if someone starts talking and OK, fine, should I interrupt you? And then another Council member responds and at that point, then I'm really worried, except I'm having to cut off a response to somebody who's already gone on. And this just gets to be really--- Vanderhoef/Well, I like Bob's idea right to begin with, to change that word "discussion" to "comment." I don't know how anyone else feels about it. O'Donnell/Well, I think it's a great idea, "public comment," but in the past a lot of the discussion has been generated from the Council--- Lehman/Right. O'Donnell/...with questions being asked and it should be public comment. Elliott/Can't we just--I'm sorry, Mike. O'Dormell/Well, and just one other thing and I agree totally on this public hearing, you have a motion to set a public hearing, not to discuss setting a public heating. And too often we've gotten into that in-depth, and I agree totally. Champion/I don't think all of us have done that. O'Donnell/Well, I'm not naming anybody. Elliott/No, what I'm saying is can't we just agree? O'Donnell/Absolutely. That's good. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 37 Elliott/That that's the time for us to listen. O'Donnei1/I agree. Karr/OK. I did notice the resolution I distributed in your packet notes it doesn't say public discussion, it says community comment on the order of agenda items, so--- O'Donnell/All we have to do is follow it. Karr/That's what I'm wondering. (Laughter) Vanderhoef/There you go. Karr/Would that be something Community Comment and then we would--I mean, is that Public Comment, Community comment? O'Dormell/That'd be fine. Dilkes/And I noticed in some of the open meetings stuff that that's how the League talks, comments. Karr/And what about Council Time? Do you wish to leave it on both the work session and the formal or do you want it left on both but renamed or just one and renamed or nothing at all? O'Donnell/I don't think we need a Council Time at the work session. Elliott/I agree. Bailey/Just try it and see how it works. Champion/Just try it. If it becomes a problem, let us know. Karr/And rename it? Champion/No, just leave it. Karr/Just leave it. Champion/We've done our lecture--it'll be fine. Dilkes/How about a parenthetical? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meehng Page 38 Champion/No, forget it, unless it becomes a problem. Then tell us. Lehman/Let me just suggest something. My suspicion is that we may not encounter a lot of the difficulties that we have--- Vanderhoef/That we had in the past. Lehman/My suspicion is this Council will work very well and I'm not sure that--- Elliott/They haven't talked to us about it. (Laughter) Lehman/But I really, you know, ! think we have to deal with issues when they become issues but I'd hate to put tethers on this Council because of previous actions. Let's see what happens, I mean, I think--- O'Donnell/I agree, Ernie, and I think a lot of the problems are going to disappear. Lehman/And that's why I'm not sure that we need to do a whole lot of rule making. We can surely change the roles if we need to. Karr/There also was included a resolution on the procedure for the calling of a special Council meeting. Should the Mayor not be available to call a special meeting or not be amenable to calling a special meeting? The procedure was established for three Council members, enabling three Council members to call one as well. O'Donnell/Was that three? Lehman/It was three. Dilkes/It had been two. Vanderhoef/Mayor Pro tem can call if the Mayor is unavailable. O'Donnell/Yeah, OK. (Laughter) Karr/If the Mayor is unavailable, the Mayor Pro tem acts in the absence in the absence of the Mayor. If the Mayor is present, then the Mayor Pro tem--- Elliott/Cannot. Karr/Right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 39 Vanderhoef/I just want to clarify that it was passed. Dilkes/If it's just in the Mayor's absence. Vanderhoeff Mm-hmm, yeah. Like when you go to the hospital, bud. (Can't hear) Dilkes/Oh, one other item on formal meeting is collapsing, how the ordinance reads. The previous Council could not get six votes--- Karr/We had a procedure established. Bailey/Mm-hmm. Dilkes/And so we went to this and we put one reading on the work session. So we have a--- Karr/We create a special formal meeting. Dilkes/...the work session to have another reading. So--- O'Donnell/That'll disappear. Dilkes/...you'll only want to discuss what your philosophies are about that. O'Dormell/I think that's another problem that will go by the wayside. Vanderhoef/I think that's good, and I would just throw into the mix of thinking about that is the additional cost and time and effort to organize a special formal meeting and what work it leaves for both the attorney but primarily the clerk's office, and the cost of your time and the publishing of doing it. Dilkes/Yeah. Champion/We don't do that many collapses. I have to stop and think about it. Dilkes/You have a lot of Monday formal meetings. Kart/Yes, you do. Lehman/That may disappear. Vanderhoef/And that may disappear (can't hear) Karr/But do you wish the procedure to disappear is what I'm questioning? The procedure still is on that in the event that there--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 40 Dilkes/When an applicant, for instance, requests expedited action, staff now does approve another formal meeting on Mondays when that happens. Lehman/Right. Dilkes/Are we to continue to do that? O'Donnell/Well, I think that always should be an option. Lehman/Are there, is there anybody sitting here who has an absolute aversion to doing an expedited consideration? Absolutely. Bailey/Not absolutely, but I don't tend to like them. Lehman/I don't think any of us take it lightly, but there are a number, very seldom do we have an expedited consideration where there isn't a legitimate reason, and we have had a Council person who absolutely who under no circumstances, philosophically and that's fine, would never vote to expedite, which is what brought up this procedure. Bailey/Mm-hmm. Lehman/We've only done that the last couple years or so. Chan~pion/Another thing is too we cancel meetings and change meetings around, especially during the summer and December so that expedited consideration--- Kart/Rarely does that happen. It's a great excuse, but rarely is that the reason for the special forum. Champion/Is it? Karr/Yes. Champion/Oh, OK. Rarely. Karr/It does happen absolutely but that's not--- Dilkes/The other policy, expediting-type policy that this Council had, the current Council had had, does not have a first reading of an ordinance at the time of public hearing. So with all rezoning, for instance, we have to have a public hearing. And this Council has decided they didn't want to do first consideration on the night we hold the public hearing, so staff does not only prepare the agenda for the first reading right after the public hearing, we just do the public hearing and have the first reading the next time. Karr/So an applicant must request expedited action in order for that to occur. And routinely This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 41 what we have done in the past was we had automatically included the consideration the same night as the hearing to allow Council the opportunity to act on it if they're so- inclined or to defer it if they do not. Vanderhoef/And that's my preference is to go ahead and put it on the night of the public hearing and if there's a lot of public comment, then I'm real happy to defer it to the next meeting so that there's a two-week pause. O'Donnell/So you want the first reading the night of the public hearing. Champion/A non-controversial thing is (can't hear) O'Donnell/Well, I think that's a--- Dilkes/From staff's perspective, it gives you ail the choice. We'll put it on, you do whatever you want with it. Bailey/But we can always defer. O'Donnell/Go with it. Karr/You can always continue the public heating or you could close the public hearing and simply defer the reading. It doesn't keep the (can't hear) Wilburn/And we've done those, you know, stuff has happened, and it's like, you know, let's think about this. Elliott/I would like for things to remain flexible because I could conceive a very legitimate reason for either way, for someone not wanting to collapse or for there being a legitimate reason to collapse. I'd like to have that flexibility so that we could. Bailey/Yes. Karr/And that case by case, though, Bob, would only be implemented if you would direct us to do that, because right now the direction to staff is not to put it on the same night as public hearing, and--- Lehman/I think we're telling you we want it on the same night. Champion/Now, we're telling you. Kart/OK. Vanderhoef/I--- Karr/And then you remain flexible on what you want to do. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 42 Vanderhoef/Regenia, are you--- Bailey/ Yeah, I'm good with that as long as we're all voting to deferral. Vanderhoef/Bob? Elliott/I like to have some flexibility so if there's some latitude for addressing legitimacy that may fall outside of a rigid structure. Kart/And I think staff would appreciate that, too, because the applicants who are coming to staff are going, well, then when can we get it, when can we get it, we can say it's on there, you talk to Council then on what flows next. Lehman/No. Vanderhoef/And this goes along somewhat with this streamlining for primarily this happens seasonally with developers, although their seasons seem to be getting longer and longer, but--- O'Donnell/Well, but it, and--- Vanderhoeff ...they try to beat the weather and some of those kinds of things. O'Donnell/In the summertime, too, we have a very sparse meeting schedule. So sometimes we can put a big, we can delay this substantially. So I think there is a need to do that. Karr/You also have a policy that currently three Council Members can place items on the work session or formal agenda. It doesn't take four. In past Councils it took four to even place the item on the agenda. Do you wish to retain that policy, that three Council members place it on either the formal or the work session? Elliott/Yes. Lehman/Yeah, I think it's a good one. E. COUNCIL PACKETS/AGENDA PREPARATION Kart/OK. Council packet and agenda preparation, real quickly. The deadlines, the agenda preparation schedule's in your packet. Basically, we go to print 9:00 o'clock Thursday morning. We try our best to do that, 9:00 o'clock Thursday morning. The packets are available at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. It used to be Friday. It's moved up to Thursday. It's allowed a great deal more flexibility as far as people leaving town. so we'll continue that. The deadline--there is some flexibility, not a lot. If we extended it to everybody, we'd never go to print. We do not print in-house, it is much less expensive for us to go out, so therefore it's even more critical to get everything pulled This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 43 together, it gets scanned so that we can create your CDs, then it's sent out to Pip, then it's brought back, so there's a number of steps that go through us so. Elliott/One little (can't hear), it may seem very, very picky to some people, but my eyes being the age they are, I notice some of the minutes are printed in sans serif type, which to me and all surveys shows, is much less readable than serif type. And I think as much as you can put into serif type, the better. It makes it much more readable. Karr/We'll do our very best. This has been--minutes of Boards and Commissions have their own individuality. O'Donnell/(can't hear) enlarged--- Lehman/I didn't even know there was a serif type. Elliott/Yeah, but even when it's enlarged it's difficult. Every readership survey shows that. Karr/We do have some standards that we adhere too and often it's a question of staff bringing it to right down to the people who are doing it, so we'll certainly pass that along. Board and Commission applications and late items, again, there's memos in your packet. I won't revisit them. Basically, anything that arrives after we've gone to print, after the deadline has gone to print, we do not add anything because it would require rescanning. If it's an item for a handout, we'll do that at your work session on Monday. If it's something that's glaringly missing and it's a big item, we may stick it in hard copy loose into your packet. If it is not something on your agenda, if it's a letter or something, quite frankly you'll get it two weeks later in your formal agenda packet. Elliott/We get everything in hard copy and in ? F. COMPUTER TRAINING~ G. MISCELLANEOUS Kart/No, you'll just get it. You can print. And we'll get to that, but you'll be given a laptop and a printer. And so if you want to print it, you certainly can print it. We supply the paper. Elliott/But we don't get hard copies. Karr/No, you do not. Anything on the agenda, Boards and Commission applications, the procedure we currently follow that we adhere to for Boards and Commissions, and we advertise 30 days. We ask the applications to be in roughly a, well, it's 30 days for your next formal meeting. They'll be included in your Council packet. We no longer accept late applications. We were getting, the Council was getting too many last-minute ones handed out at the very last minute after you've talked to people and there's one in front of you and so what we do now is adhere to those deadlines. Should we get a late one, we'll keep it in for 90 days for the next vacancy on that Board or Commission. Boards and Commissions, anything? The rest of it, laptop, we furnish the laptop and the printer. We burn a CD. The CD will have up to six months of information on it, roughly This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 44 two CDs a year. Everything is retrievable from 1995 forward. And let us know if you, how many back years, for the new Council members you want; current Council members have the ability of all of 1995 forward. It also is available on the City website as well, so it's entirely--and contrary to some people, it is the same information. There is a bio information sheet, and this goes for all Council folks. Put it in your packet. We'd love to have that updated. We'd like to change, update the City file on each of you. Champion/Just make me a year older. Karr/Just make you a year--yeah. Ah, but for new Council folks, this sheet. Elliott/KCJJ said I was bom in a manger on the south side of Chicago, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Karr/And I believe everything I hear on that station. O'Donnell/Something about the pope, too. (Laughter) Lehman/Hey, we've got separation of church and state here, now come on. Karr/We will provide payroll change forms and insurance forms. Filing cabinets are available for new folks, if you're interested. We've had less of a demand because everything has been computerized. But certainly if you do need a file cabinet, please let me know. If any of the current Council Members has a cabinet you're no longer using, let me know and I'll get it out of your way. Champion/It might be better if you provided us a trash can. Karr/Yeah, a shredder. Lehman/A shredder. Champion/A shredder, a recycling one. O'Donnell/I've got a shredder. Those are really neat. Kan'/If you need tours, Steve will be happy to work with you on setting up, won't you? Atkins/Oh, yes, sure. O'Donnell/Shred the whole block. Karr/I'm done. This represents only a reasonably accurate t~anscription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003. December 2, 2003 2004 Council Orientation Meeting Page 45 Atkins/Oh, now you're done. What about the rest of us? Karr/I know. Dilkes/Do you want to talk about what--- Atkins/No. Karr/Yeah. Parking--you'll each be provided a parking sticker. We'll take care of that as well. Atkins/One of the main benefits of the job. Elliott/Any time? Lehman/Actually it is any time. Karr/It is any time. Dilkes/Mm-hmm. Champion/But don't give up your ramp one if you have one, because you'll never get it back. Karr/Are there any questions or anything? Lehman/Don't give up your day job. Champion/Don't give up your day parking stickers. (Laughter) Atkins/No, I'm finished. Kart/No, but do you want to say thank you for coming? (Laughter) Elliott/You're welcome. Atkins/Say good night, Gracie. Vanderhoef/Good night, Gracie. Atkins/Thank you for coming. (Laughter) Lehman/Thank you for having us, Steve. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of Iowa City Council 2004 orientation meeting Dec. 2, 2003.