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���� �� <br />��---� •' --� �_ � <br />Council Memo <br />To: City Council <br />From: Craig Klatl,si�`�g <br />Date: Tuesday, March 14,2006 <br />Re: Council Initiated Agenda Items <br />Date: 1�;�������� <br />I�em. 9. <br />Council Initiated <br />Meeting Agenda Items <br />INTRODUCTION <br />We currently have a policy allowing council members to place an item on the council <br />agenda if the request is made to the city manager by noon of the Wednesday preceding <br />the Monday council meeting. I think it's fair to say that this procedt�re is a result of the <br />difficulties council members previously encountered placing items on the agenda. For <br />example, when I was a member of the council and requested that an item be added to the <br />agenda, the mayor at t�ae time instructed the city manager not to place the item on the <br />agenda. This had two consequences. First, it placed the city manager in a difficult <br />position of receiving conflicting instructions. Second, it meant that council members <br />were prevented fi-om having issues that were of concern to them considered by tl�e entire <br />council. <br />T�� response to this situation, ;h�- council adopted a practice of allowing council members <br />to place an item on the agenda. <br />THE PROBLEM <br />While this procedure was designed to allow council members to place items o�� the <br />agenda, it was not designed to be the prin7aiy way that the council organized its work or <br />the primary way that items were placed on the agenda. It has always been my <br />understanding that the primary manner in which items would be placed on the agenda <br />would be the result of the city manager and staff bringing items to the council that were <br />either in response to goals and directives set by tl�e council as a body, or items that in <br />staffs professional judgment were items that the council either had a legal obligation to <br />consider (e.g., land use questions) or items tl�� council ought to be aware of. <br />Also, the noon deadline was to be precisely that, a deadline, the time after which the <br />council member no longer had the right to place an item on the agenda, not the preferred <br />time for council members to submit items. <br />I am concerned that the council has increasingly come to use the individual council <br />member's right to place items on the agenda both as the predominant way to bring issues <br />