Mayor Steve Adler and the rest of Austin City Council have approved many changes to how the city government will operate, but those changes will not be implemented until April.[/caption]Austin City Council has approved multiple changes to how its meetings will operate, but the new methods will not be implemented until April.
Recently, City Council created 10 council committees consisting of four council members each with the exception of a council-wide Austin Energy committee. Those committees are not slated to begin meeting until after various policy forums called "deep dives" are completed at the end of March.
Agenda items will still go through existing commissions, which consist of Austin citizens appointed by council members. But after commissions consider an item, their recommendation will be forwarded to a council committee before the matter is taken up by the full council for a vote. This process can be expedited if four or more council members decide to advance an item immediately to a full council vote.
Opportunities for Austin residents to comment on any given matter will now take place mainly at the council committee level, but each item before the full council can still include eight public speakers four each on the for and against sides of the issue who can testify for two minutes each. Before, an unlimited number of speakers could sign up for three-minute slots.
Meeting agendas will also begin to look different. Zoning items and matters requiring a closed-door executive session will take place on different days from general agenda items in hopes of preventing meetings from going past 10 p.m. That is when city regulations require council to stop unless members agree to an extension.
In addition to the day-to-day council changes, each council member has also been granted more flexibility with his or her budget. Some may choose to add more staffers to his or her office, use the flexible funds to provide food and beverages at district town halls or not change anything in the budget at all.
Mayor Steve Adler plans to expand his staff from five to a dozen by utilizing staffers on loan from the The Mayor's Better Austin Foundation, an organization created more than 10 years ago by former Mayor Kirk Watson, who now represents the city in the state Senate. City Council will consider allowing the staffers to work on loan at no cost to tax payers during its Feb. 26 meeting.
Many council members plan on hosting district town hall meetings; however, no dates have been formally announced.
