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�� ,« t and resulted in meetings adjouming at a reasonable hour. Rute 3. Order of Business. Public comment has been at the beginning af the regular council meeting for several years. Putting it at 5:30 p.m. makes it difficult for many people to take advantage of the opportunity to address the council. As the current mayor demanded before he was elected, and the League of Women Voters recommended, it should be televised. The mayor should not be given responsibility or authority for setting meeting agendas. This is properly the role of the city manager and it is his responsibility to ensure that matters appropriate for city council action are placed on the meeting agenda. Allowing the mayor to set the agenda could subvert the orderly process of a Plan B system. In most cases, the mayor, like other council members, is engaged in activities with bis employment, home life and other important matters and can not adequately prepare meeting agendas. Any council member, inctuding the mayor, may ask that a matter be put on an agenda for information, discussion or action. There is no reason to change the present rules by giving the mayor the authority to set agendas for public meetings. Rule 4. Presiding Officer. In the absence of the mayor, the acting mayor is the presiding officer of the city council. The position of acting mayor has been assigned amongst council members on a rotating basis under current Rule 18 and this system has served the city well. Allowing the mayor to designate, i.e., appoint, the acting mayor smacks of favoritism and has the potential of creating animosity and resentment. There is no proper reason to allow the mayor this unwarranted power of appointment. Rule 5. CIerWRecording Secretary. Absent a clear showing that the city manager can not act as recording secretary at council meetings, there is no justification for mandating yet another person on city payroll to attend meetings. It is the obligation of every council member to ensure that the minutes of past meetings are correct and accurate before approving them. This has been accepted practice for many years and has worked well. Current Rule 8, in our opinion, should be kept in effect or amended for clarity only. Rule 6. Seating & Voting Order. The current system of rotating the seating/voting order provides each council member the opportunity, and duty, to vote first on matters before the council. Occasionalty a council member would prefer to duck his/her obligation to cast the first vote on a controversial issue. Likewise, there are times when a council member welcomes the chance to be the first to vote for or against a particular question. Seating rotation allows for a change of pace at meetings and prevents petty bickering amongst members as to who sits where. There is no good reason for allowing the mayor to play favorites as to who sits where and who votes first, second or last. Rule 7. Community Comment. A mentioned above, community comment should be provided for at the beginning of the regular council meetings as provided in current Rule 17 and should be televised. Requests for city remedies or actions shatl, rather than ntay, be referred to the city manager for investigation and reporting as provided in current Rule 17. Rule 8. Sergeant at Arms. Having a sergeant at arms, i.e., a unifonned police officer, present at every council meeting is a waste of taxpayer money, intimidating to attendees and an affront to the citizens of Roseville. All Roseville police officers take command orders from the Chief of Police and the city manager. Allowing the mayor to direct the police officer to carry out his whims is unprecedented, ill-advised and dangerous. There can be no rational for turning city hall into an armed camp. This is an outrageous recommendation and we find it shocking. Rule 9. Rules of Order. There are more than 800 sections of rules in Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure. The selected rules offered here cover only 25 pages of the 677 pages of the Manual. It is simply not logical to offer selected rules, or in some cases, only part of a particular rule, without an explanation of why some rules, or parts of them, are offered and some are not. 1We question the underlying assumption that the Mason's ruies are desirable for local government. Rule 10. Ordinances and Policy Development. Current Rule 12 has worked quite well. New ordinances, of which there should be fe�v, are put on the work session agenda for discussion by all council tnembers and relevant