The new policy adopted during the Dec. 19 meeting establishes procedural guidelines for requesting future agenda items for deliberation while protecting city staff time.
The overview
To request a new item, a council member must put together a memo and receive a second from another council member before the request heads to the city manager to be processed by city staff, according to the new policy. Requests for new agenda items can be made both during an open meeting of the council or outside the meeting directly to the city manager.
Director of Policy and Government Relations Andrew Fortune said requests that require more than two hours of staff time would be brought back to council where a simple majority vote would determine whether to proceed with the request or shelve the item. Any shelved requests could not be revived until six months later, he added.
Additionally, Fortune said city staff are working with the IT Department on a way to digitize the agenda item request process. Members of most city boards and commissions will be able to use the same process in the adopted policy.
