- All right. Well, let us all this meeting of the media and housing processes to order. It's Monday,
- May 12th, 2005.
- We have a number of committee members in New Zealand. Gordon Daly, myself, is about to be my submit.
- The fourth committee member, Matt Clitter, did not make it today.
- And then we have Micheal Bolden. We have Deputy Clerk Debra Crossley, also Attorney Administrator,
- who's going to be some later here as well.
- So, committee members, any issues with the agenda as proposed?
- All right, so we will have
- discussion of a public comment process and any ideas for
- changing that process. Then we will go on to discussion of
- whether we should allow discussion of legislation at first reading.
- Then the review of old business, just to make sure we're all on the same page with other things
- that we've been talking about.
- Then we'll have general public comment and then we will adjourn.
- So, at our last meeting last week, there was a desire to talk about public comment
- and what we might do to improve the process.
- So, I included, this was the topic of a council work session
- in April of last year. So, I included a memo that Stephen Lucas, our Council Attorney Administrator,
- shared with us at that time. It kind of gives the context of the first amendment. We cannot
- regulate what the content of people's comments are.
- Just the format and of course, whether we allow public comment. How often do we regulate that?
- And then I also included in our packet for today, a memo that Council, that Court Holden sent us
- last April
- with her concerns at the time about public comment and that we also have the packet, our current
- rules.
- So, I'll just open it up to committee members, Court Holden, also feel free to jump in.
- I guess I think it would be helpful to kind of identify what we see as the problems first.
- Purely from the clerk's office standpoint, what I would like to see would be an easier way to
- collect public comments during meetings.
- And also beforehand, a lot of times people want to come to meetings, they want to provide their
- comments to the Council.
- There are some alternatives. I was trying to find my previous research for other second class
- cities.
- So please forgive me because I was not able to find that file. But in some cases, those comments
- are collected through a form where people can actually submit their comments prior to coming into
- Council.
- And they're published as part of the packet as well. So we can see public comments on any
- legislation.
- It is there for other members of the public to read and can be addressed as you go through the
- legislation.
- And the alternative, or perhaps in addition to one of the things that we were looking at, was
- adding a form so that during Council meetings, you could also accept public comment through the
- form.
- So we could put the link to the form up there and people could literally type their names in, which
- one would save us the issues of misspelling all the names.
- And you could collect additional data at the time. Do you want to speak on the number two on the
- agenda, three on the agenda, four on the agenda?
- Are you a resident of Bloomington? Some of those things you cannot compel, and I recognize that,
- but you can still ask.
- And then, again, you actually have a record, which can be shared with everybody on the Council of Dias.
- Everybody would have access to it.
- So you would know without having to say, attorney later, do we have anybody waiting on Zoom? No,
- blah, blah, blah. It would provide just a few extra seconds every time to make sure that you're
- actually moving along.
- Next up, we have, you know, Sharon Smith. Next up, we have Jane Black. However it goes, we will
- always know who's next, where they're speaking from and can follow them.
- It's relatively easy to set a form for people to sign in. So I don't want to think that it can't be.
- Other cities do variations on their public comment. Some people have little slips that they fill
- out before they ever get to the meeting.
- Some people stop accepting public comment at a certain time before the meeting starts. So if you
- have not filled out your form, you are not going to speak.
- I think we used to do that here in Monroe County for school board meetings. I have not been to a
- school board meeting in a little over a year, so I can't actually speak to that directly.
- But we have some options. But one of my things was, is there a way to make it a bit easier for
- people to speak and for the council to know who's going to speak and what they're going to speak on?
- So that was my thought/tuttle. And we do have some tools to actually do it very quickly. And I'm
- done. For the moment. Maybe Emma.
- I'm personally a fan of that, especially because there are quite a few people, even with the option
- of Zoom, who just don't have the time on Wednesday nights to submit public comments.
- So it would be nice to have additional forms of written comment for those that can't be there.
- It's just another avenue of encouraging engagement. Another way to give them that opportunity to
- share their voice.
- I think it would also be helpful just in terms of we have had instances where people did not raise
- their hand when we're trying to identify how much time to allot to individual speakers during a
- specific piece of legislation.
- And we've gone over it because either people came in or people didn't raise their hand and so we
- didn't get an accurate count.
- The only other thing I would add is we definitely need a better system for speaker times because
- there are times where it's a full minute or the timer hasn't started yet for a speaker.
- And there are other times where it starts immediately and you shouldn't your speaking time shouldn't
- depend on how fast we can get the timer started.
- Well, the timer issues will last a minute because we do have applications.
- Okay, was this the more recent one that we just have it last week?
- I don't know. I mean, there's also the issue of just an error on my part as well.
- So there's certain aspects of the different computers that I'm still learning and trading on.
- But hopefully, the loose time that we're using the application will be better than what it has been.
- So, I'm hearing as far as what the problem is that some people can't come to our meetings,
- obviously, either.
- Honestly, you're more in person and they still want to comment on what our legislation is or at a
- general level.
- It's hard to gauge how long if we know there'll be lots of comment and we have a full agenda that
- we want to limit comment on a certain item.
- And sometimes we say, raise your hand if you want to comment so that we can gauge what that time
- overall time limit would be.
- That's not accurate to gauge what I understand.
- And then also, I think you had mentioned this previous time I didn't hear it today, but it was also
- reading people's handwriting to identify themselves.
- Yes. Yes. And that was that was part of the reason why I wanted to switch to something where they
- could just type their names in because I can't read it.
- And there's one member of the public I can think of off the top of my head who writes their name
- with a different spelling, has written their name with a different spelling multiple times.
- I mean, I would put it as they put it on the paper every time, but it does beg the question of.
- I personally, I feel a little awkward taking responsibility for what is got to be a misspelling,
- but I don't know where it came from.
- I mean, I misspelled my own name a couple of times, but I usually catch it. But I don't think that's
- it. It's just it's an interesting question.
- So with these electronic means of signing in or signing up,
- would we have a tablet that the Frankland people would sign up or how do you think of that?
- Just a couple of iPads. If we're really busy and we end up with the two polio sets of correct
- plural,
- we would have an iPad of each one where people could type in their name relatively quickly or a
- stand to actually specifically hold the iPad.
- And I think that would be an investment of maybe one or two hundred dollars for the stands.
- What about the iPads? You already have them. You already have two, that you could use for this.
- That's great. And then what for, like, what for on the farm day?
- I think this is one of the I truly wish I had been able to find our files that had some of this
- information in it.
- And I think it was something that we had started to discuss in-house and hadn't gotten as far as
- doing it,
- because we need some agreement for like, oh, and this is what you're using.
- But I do think that was one of the things that we had talked about drafting up and saying, what do
- you like about this?
- What do you not like about it? And getting some input from council members as well,
- because I would need to have a form that is not easily usable by anybody.
- I mean, the goal is to make it easier as opposed to harder. So.
- So I understand. Right. It would be like people would sign up.
- They could do it either by either online.
- I think soon the zoom participants use the same form. Yes.
- You'd have to pin it, the link to the form in your zoom chat or somewhere else so that people can
- see it.
- And I do think that some of the suggestions I made to clarify, there are a few different ways that
- it can be used.
- One, if you're only taking written comments before meetings and not allowing people to speak during
- the meeting,
- that is a separate issue as opposed to if you're taking a form during the meeting to allow people
- to speak and reading from that.
- So those are two separate issues. I mean, we could do both of them,
- but I want to make sure that if we're just talking about a form to get people's names during
- council meeting,
- that is something separate than accepting comments to be included in the packet.
- So since I kind of blasted out a bunch of options at once, I want to make sure that I distinguish
- those two things.
- So is that something committee members are interested in pursuing both of those?
- I am. I think those are great ideas.
- I guess we would have to think of how it would get in the packet, how it would be distributed for
- the part that is outside of the meeting.
- It has to be received in advance.
- And then what would happen to the comments we got between the pack release and the meeting?
- Also, how would people provide public comment on the packet that hasn't even gone out?
- Well, that's why I was wondering if maybe this could be an addendum.
- I hate to create more work.
- I know that, I mean, either way, this does create another lovely idea.
- We always have addendums anyway.
- So, I mean, just go ahead.
- I'm so sorry.
- The addendums, like them coming out regularly, is relatively new to the council as a body.
- It's just been your experience, I think, as you guys are perhaps the newest council members.
- But it's not, it wasn't normal at first, it just started becoming more of the norm.
- Doesn't mean you can't do addendum, but it's just that.
- But you could, I'm really spitballing, and at some point, Lisa's gonna have to tell me,
- no, that doesn't work, or you can do it, but you will be doing it.
- But it seems that if it's something like that, you could have a place that just includes all
- of your public comment up until noon on Wednesday.
- And that's where all your written comments would lie.
- So not necessarily in the packet.
- Not necessarily in the packet, but a space where they could all fit.
- I don't know then, though, if you get a bunch of written comments from folks like,
- we have two members of the public in the room right now who regularly engage with the council.
- If they send in a written comment, do you also want them to speak at the meeting?
- Because that would give them two bites of the apple to use, you know, counsel.
- And language.
- Those are the details I'm just throwing out as problems also.
- But they're all manageable.
- Just so with your decisions.
- Are you envisioning that the written comments would be
- read during the meeting or just available for council members and the public to see?
- And for anybody who may be visually impaired, I shook my head.
- No, I don't imagine that they would be read during the council meeting.
- Yes, I do imagine they would be available for the council and other members of the public to see.
- Because if that were the case, I would personally be
- writing paragraphs every week for you all to read out loud and that would just be torture.
- Thank you. That's nice.
- Untrue though.
- And plus you could have a case where you had like a couple of hundred people
- who send in written documents. They don't know that you would want to incorporate them
- into the meetings by themselves.
- Yeah, that's fair.
- Yeah, I'm trying to envision how
- what regulations might need to exist just to manage the process.
- Yeah, I mean, there's generally an average of like words per minute that an average person
- will say like general patterns of speech. We can use that as like a maximum for whatever
- the three-minute thoughts would be.
- Well, the Indiana Code says that profoundly wrong to take reasonable steps
- to maintain order in a meeting.
- And I'm trying to imagine public comments, written public comments in the same manner as well.
- I'm just thinking, I'm thinking out loud.
- I'm just thinking, and as we talk about this, I'm just thinking in previous years when there was a
- lot of rhetoric that was very harmful and hurtful to community members, if you get a written
- comment
- and it says something in there that is very offensive, who I would think that you would still
- have to read that for, there might have to be some type of procedure, but it's like, because
- if you don't read somebody's hateful comment, well, comment that we might, I know people might
- seem as hateful and some that just think that they're just being smart and just sending out,
- that would be a big concern, because then it would almost be like, how do you determine what to
- read
- versus, you know, somebody out there saying, I hate people that wear black sweatshirts that say,
- significant, that might find that very offensive, you know, but for example, you know, that type
- of thing, we can only imagine how that would have to be. Yeah, I think the comment should be read
- out loud. Yeah. Yeah, I think that they wouldn't be read out loud. Courtney, would you agree?
- Yeah, I just really like the idea of making it easier for people to know that they can and how
- to give us feedback. You know, we're making an open pathway for them, right? We're more likely to
- hear
- more from our constituents, which we really want. You know, some people may not take the initiative
- to figure out, you know, how to email us or how to give feedback. And then this can just be
- basically
- a public forum for all of us to see these comments ahead of time going into these conversations. So
- we already have a bit of a read on the temperature on certain issues. For better or worse?
- One of the concerns I had if we hear the deadline that's close to the meeting time
- is that council members won't have time to read. Council members have jobs.
- Yeah, I would think that, you know, 24 hours before the meeting is maybe when we say would be a
- fair
- time to cut it off. Because yeah, I don't always even get to look at the addendum, you know, if it
- goes out that afternoon I might not even see that we have one. But 24 hours before the start of the
- meeting I think is fair. So that would then still require in all cases an addendum to be sent out.
- I know that's cumbersome for staff. It's particularly an issue right now because
- I'm the person tasked with everything. It's something I've tried to minimize to the extent
- that it's possible simply to make the office more efficient. Oh, I thought we were talking about
- trying to figure out how to not have to make this to go in an addendum or necessarily in the
- packets.
- But was I understanding you correctly that this could just be another place where these are going
- and not necessarily in the packet? Sorry. Yes, you could do it in a couple of different ways,
- is I think what I was saying, which was it could be an addendum. It doesn't have to be anytime soon.
- Also, it could be starting in January if you wanted to do written comments available.
- This is not, I don't think, an emergency. So we can make changes across the board on an
- ongoing path, but you could do it as an addendum or you could do it as resting somewhere on the
- website where people could reference it with all the other packet materials and it could be
- included in that space so people know where to find it if it's not necessarily actively sent out.
- You have options. With Google Forms,
- I know that there are different pros and cons for every survey
- forum that we use, but with Google Forms, it is possible to create a spreadsheet based on
- the results that will automatically populate into the Google Sheets that we could send out a link
- to everyone that's just you only so that us and the public would be able to see the comments that
- are being written. Oh, that's nifty. Yeah, yeah.
- I think something like that could make sense because I don't want to create more work for our
- staff, but also the public sees the packets when we do, so they're not going to have the chance to
- submit comment before we're putting the initial packets together
- because the material they would be commenting on is coming out in that packet.
- Well, we have more than one reading. That's true. That's true.
- When we talked about this last spring, it was prompted by hate speech that was
- made in the public meeting, and I don't know if any of this would
- discourage that kind of speech just because we're adding more snaps,
- but of course there's a fine line. We can't control speech based on that,
- so I don't know how that factors in. I think the conclusion we reached last spring is that
- we have to allow it, but we can say something right after or turn our backs.
- For somebody who's really determined to say something terrible, it's not going to stop them,
- and then of course they could still get up during public comment time and just say it
- verbally to our faces. I'm just curious with people's opinions. Do you think that
- providing a written form that maybe feels more anonymous to some extent
- would encourage more hate speech?
- I mean, yes. I don't know. I think people skewing hate speech want audience. That's why they do it.
- I'm not a psychiatrist. You don't dabble in hate speech yourself.
- But it seems to me like it would be more attractive to them to have a written form.
- I think there are different types of people. But I also think that whatever form it is,
- there are going to be people who do that. I mean, unless we have another way,
- legally there's no way to prevent people from doing that short both put it off, but kind of
- entirely.
- I'm sorry, what was that?
- I said there's really no way to prevent it entirely unless we just cut off public comment.
- So I wasn't really approaching this with a lens of how do we prevent hate speech?
- I think it's not about prevention. It's what do we do
- and how do we exhibit leadership when it does happen?
- So if it does happen they were written for what to use. If that happens in a meeting,
- we can make some touch on it. Council can. And this type of written for what might be
- possible action that council would take in response to that.
- We could do that.
- Or just let it go. We could choose to address it during our public comments.
- My brain isn't working. You know the words I'm trying to say.
- When we get to speak at the beginning, if we choose to, it's one pathway.
- Or just ignore it. Which sometimes that's the way to go and then other times it's absolutely not.
- So it does create a bit of a, I think it'll be up to different council members.
- If council feels strongly enough, they could pass a resolution as a body.
- If individual council members feel strongly enough, they can issue a press release.
- Okay, well why don't we hear from the public and we can talk about the next steps on this issue.
- Does that sound good? Do we have time?
- We usually have three minute time on us.
- So is there any member of the public who would like to talk about
- the process for public comment at our meetings?
- Yes, and do you want to come to, when we speak, why don't you come to the table so we can get you
- on them.
- Krister Baum?
- I've been to a lot of meetings, a lot of council meetings. Most of them are routine.
- Some of them are very dynamic, very important to the public.
- And the feedback that the public gives often is reacting to both what happens in the meeting,
- what council members say in the meeting, what other commentaries from the public happens.
- And it's dynamic. If you have to write it cold before the meeting and that's it and then you're
- not allowed to speak during the meeting, you literally are restricting public input.
- And I don't think that's your goal. It might be your goal,
- but it would not be in line with the way we do democracy in this country.
- So I do not, if I had to make my comments before this meeting, send them in. I mean,
- I'm somebody that left his phone. You're dealing with all kinds of people and they all have
- different
- levels of communicating. Some of them only show up when a great important event is happening
- and they will not like being, they'll feel tricked. I didn't sign up before the line
- when I was supposed to sign up. So now I can't talk, you know, and then you might as well skip
- having a public meeting. Everybody just sends in their stuff. You send in your stuff. You just do
- the numbers and the public doesn't bother you and you get to have your answer. But that really isn't
- how I've seen the best meetings work in Bloomington. And it was the Democrats that brought in
- public
- comment, you know, that before McCloskey, the old Republicans would meet in their little room and
- there was nobody watching. And if we get to the point where nobody's watching, we're back,
- we're back in equal pace. That's all I got. But I'll answer any questions.
- Just to be clear, we're not suggesting that we stop public comment in the form of speech. We're
- just considering adding another form so that other people who can't attend meetings have
- the opportunity to share their opinion. But one of the suggestions was that if you did not
- submit it in time, you couldn't read it or you couldn't or it wouldn't be heard in public.
- It would be submitted but not read and you wouldn't be able to speak. But you submitted
- it in time and it went online. I heard you say that. No, you heard me say it wouldn't be submitted
- for public consumption for that meeting. It doesn't mean that you can't speak on it yourself if you
- submitted in writing or you can submit it at a different time. It is in addition to, not only.
- So you either misunderstood or misheard what I said. Were there ideas that if you didn't sign
- up ahead of time you couldn't make public comment? There were. That was one of the options that I
- said
- we also researched that other communities have used including our own for a school board.
- That was one of them. That is not a suggestion I personally would make but it is something that if
- we're talking about options for public comment the council should be aware that that is one of the
- options. I've never heard anybody on this council actually express an appetite for that type thing
- and I don't think these committee members even addressed it as something they wanted to pursue
- in the way that their conversation has gone so far today. Let's be careful because if you are
- actually making this in addition and making it easier for public comment that's great if you're
- actually inadvertently restricting public comment. That's how people will hear it. That's how I
- heard
- it when I heard and saw the writing and when I sat and listened to this it was how do we control
- it? What if we accidentally give too much time because we haven't had the right amount of people
- put up their hands. You know this is about restricting public comment and I don't think
- that's what you really want to do. I don't think that's really allowed. I mean let's not do it.
- Yeah I think that we have kind of been spitballing and talking about different ideas
- but I agree with Clark Baldwin and the cast members who live that and I assume
- House member Daly that we're looking for additional ways to have input from our constituents
- and not taking away options for coming or online or in person and giving a verbal comment and we
- hadn't we haven't gotten back to some of the things that Clark Baldwin said other communities did
- but
- you're right I mean that was in the details and we haven't gotten to those details yet
- but I don't think there's an appetite for limiting. Yeah well we've both been in those kind of
- meetings
- where the dynamics of public back and forth really really is really really matters and I don't
- think
- we want to chill that or cut that or something so that's my warning and if I'm wrong on
- on where we're going here is I'd love that. Okay all right well let's um let's go online next
- Mr. M.G.
- Hey good afternoon uh council staff and uh public uh good meeting I like I like some good
- conversation on this this is Christopher M.G. from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce I
- don't
- know if I said better or not um just a couple things on the public comment let's start with um
- can you hear me I uh let's yeah we're trying to increase the volume here why don't we
- just start incrementally on some of these changes so I I think clerk Bolton's idea of like signing
- ends just to make it a more formal process to call on people in a certain order on an ipad makes
- makes complete sense to do that if you want to do the public comment on in the packet you know I'm
- I'm okay with with that I think if you did it for just um ordinance changes that have a first and
- second reading and just have a hard deadline you know fine it's in the packet you can reference
- it or not but I'm hoping that council members in their newsletters sort of do reach out to those
- people to get their input that's you know that's following the packets at city council is inside
- baseball that I'm going to do but I don't know if that's going to be the general public but they
- are
- they are going to read your newsletters far more likely and have a google form and those on certain
- issues I think because we want public input doesn't necessarily have to be at the meeting or not
- and one other change I'd make on public comment is maybe for membership organizations that have
- let's just say 500 or more members maybe maybe additional time is I think we could we could
- the public and the council could stand up maybe five minutes from members of organizations
- during public comment either general or specifically on legislation. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you. I believe council member Zulek is the only one who has a newsletter.
- So we'll take that comment as I'll take it to heart. Thank you. Yes as a compliment to council
- member Zulek.
- Mr. Amsord would you like to come to the... I'll talk less when I'm back here. Very briefly thank
- you Terri Amsord on CEO. Thank you for your time and attention to the decision of public
- participation.
- Really. I think good public participation theory in practice suggests different opportunities in
- different ways, maybe you have more people. So it's all good. I think the clarification to not
- talk about reducing something else is really important. This creeping in this era age of
- creeping and galloping, authoritarianism and autocracy. I think you get it. It would be easy
- for what you do to be misunderstood, which touches on some of the comments that have been made as
- well.
- So you have to be really clear and you're going to have to make sure the responsibilities you're
- taking on, additional responsibilities for the different work, are dealt with authentically.
- So you could say what you're... I feel like people have some commitment, some confidence that what
- they've done really shows up and is somebody who pays attention to it. So that's a basic
- explanation.
- But I think it's the right thing to be thinking about. I see no reason not to
- although I think it's a bunch of work. I don't know how the hate speech thing plays out exactly.
- I haven't thought about that. I haven't seen anything that I know much more about the written
- and the oral stuff. I think you get more detail than written. And that could be good and bad.
- That's content or clarity you might put up. But it's work. So I just encourage you to communicate
- with the public about what will be done and why. And help educate the public in the process of
- giving the public opportunities. Cities, counties don't do a very good job on promoting good
- governance. We're talking about the issues that stop and not about guns and jobs. So
- do a good job of that too. That's communication. You have a new public engagement director or
- someone where I think they do very well with that. I talked to her informally at the downtown
- cleanup
- last week and she said, "Oh yeah, I'd love to plan together with the council." In principle, she is.
- All right. I don't see any other public. Is that hand raised? So where should we take this from
- here?
- I think what Mr. Emcee said is a good point that we don't have to make all the changes at once. We
- could start with kind of a signup process. So I don't know if, Claire, if you would want to
- write up some kind of proposal for a signup process and we talk about that next time?
- Yeah. And draft a couple versions of forms that could be used. Does that sound
- unenable to the committee members? Because I think this is probably,
- my assumption was that was where you'd want to start. Sorry, I had time to run. My assumption
- was that was where you want to start and that seemed like the easiest first step. So
- would these be initiatives that the clerk's office will carry out over the clerk's and
- council's office? Oh, I meant for, just for a form for taking public comment during the meetings.
- Yeah. But if you want to have eyes on, I'm happy to do it. No, I'm trying to learn. Okay. Well,
- that's a good question. We can talk about it also. Yeah. And maybe, unless you want to take the
- lead
- on it, in which case, cool. Right now, my place is full. Okay. And when I say clerk's office,
- some of it probably wouldn't be, so it'd be better on the computer than on me. There is a comment
- that just got made, or a question rather. What if someone arrives late? Can someone decide to offer
- comments impromptu? I think that's a really good question because also some questions arise while
- the council is hearing the presentation and assessment. My understanding was that the iPad
- would be at the podium, or on a stand next to the podium, or an impromptu. Yeah. So for somebody,
- you can sign up before me. Yeah. What I was suggesting would not change that. I think there's
- difference between, and coming back to what I said before, which was I think there are two
- different
- and very distinctive issues here. One is taking written comment, and one is taking public comment
- during the meeting, which I did say a couple of times. So to be clear, if somebody comes and
- wants to make public comment on a piece of legislation while you all are discussing it,
- they will still sign up for public comment in the same way that they do now. They would just be
- doing it in a typed form, as opposed to handwritten on a piece of paper. And it would be accessible
- to those on Zoom as well. And it would be accessible to those on Zoom as well. That'd be awesome.
- Yeah. And realistically, I mean, if you put it into a Google Form, and you have that in several
- places where people can access it, they could be sitting at their chairs and signing up to speak,
- instead of going up and standing in line to sign up, because then you would be calling them in
- order.
- So you would actually know how many people want to speak, and they could just get called up
- relatively quickly. I mean, you could make it into a space where it becomes very, very open and
- obvious, kind of like being at the airport, and you see all the people who are available for
- being at the airport, and you see all the people who are available for upgrades next.
- I really want to go fly somewhere. But you have options. I guess that's what it comes to.
- That was a very lengthy answer too. Was that very? There's another. He says unnecessary complexity.
- I'm not sure. He said Google Forms sometimes fail. Yes, that is what always happens with technology.
- Zoom sometimes fails too. Yeah. There's also job forms which do the same thing functionally.
- There are lots of different forms that can work. I don't think there's ever going to be a perfect
- format for getting people's names for meetings. True. I was looking at it with an eye toward
- making things easier, but stop us in terms of getting people's names. Yeah, I think this would
- be great if you could bring up a proposal next time. Our next meeting is June 3rd. Is that enough
- time? I won't need them. Okay, so we will have to look at discussing it after our recess. Yeah,
- or I could send something with Sophia. I just can't answer questions on June 3rd.
- So it's up to you how you want to approach it.
- My preference would be to do it after recess,
- because I'm hoping during recess to catch up on Title II thanks to the fun studying.
- Okay, let's take this for our first meeting then after council recess.
- Any final thoughts on this before we go to the next topic?
- Did we want to separately pursue the idea of the public comments leading up to meetings
- with that spreadsheet maybe? Would you want to work with that on me possibly to put a proposal
- together? Just to explore that option. It doesn't have to be until after break again.
- And we can kind of propose again some details about what that could look like. And again,
- not as a substitute for any public comment that we currently have in place, but as an additional
- way to encourage our constituents to reach out to us. Sarah? Residents. Yes.
- No, no. I mean, way for Bloomington to be heard.
- So is the term constituents not? Oh, sorry, that was a whole reaction, wasn't it?
- Part of it is just citizens are different than constituents are different than residents.
- Constituents are an implication that it's a voting member of the public who's actually coming in.
- The citizen is somebody who is a citizen of the United States, and the resident is somebody who
- lives in Bloomington. So there are times when you hear from residents who are not your constituents,
- and there are times you hear from citizens who are not your constituents as well. So they all have
- a slightly different meaning. So my assumption is broadest capture possible. And that assumption
- was based off of knowing Councilmember Daly when I said residents to her in particular,
- because she is tended toward having the more open consumption of voices in her leadership.
- Thank you. You are safe. All right. Thank you for clarifying. Well, great. So Corby and Cindy,
- you'll work on exploring that option. Thank you. Excellent. All right. So the next topic is
- allowing discussion of an item of legislation at first three. And before I go on, I have
- e-mails changed with Cindy about this. Cindy, do you want to speak to me? Sure. I see that
- Council Member Asari has already kind of addressed discussion at first reading. And now while it
- hasn't been written, I guess I'm just wondering if there's really anything else for us to do.
- And my response was, I think we can separate out the issue of the session at first reading from
- all the other many changes that Council Member Asari put in his initial proposal, which is not
- drafted into legislation yet. Because I think it'll take quite a while for all those Title II
- revisions to be made. And this is kind of an easier change that could be done sooner,
- that could benefit Council Members in public, I think. So Courtney, what do you think about
- talking about this now, waiting? I'm rereading the notes right now, actually. I mean, I looked at
- it
- this morning, but I'm looking over this again. I think, are we waiting? So we're not waiting on
- more information, correct? You're looking at the notes from March? March 10th, yes.
- Right, so Sydney and Matt did not work on a proposal because in the meantime we got
- a proposal from ESAC. Right. Yeah, I mean, did we want to include, he's not on the committee,
- but did we want to include Council Members, sorry, in the conversation since this is his
- proposal, or no, this is something that he gives to us and we take and run with it?
- I'm sorry, I'm just not clear on processes, so just clarifying. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's,
- so he had a proposal for a lot of Title II changes on how the council does things.
- Before that, he was on this committee last year and he and I both had talked about allowing
- discussion at first reading, so he's not the only one who had that idea. Okay. And let me
- just repeat that problem statement that I drafted for March. So I said, "Currently ordinances only
- receive one guaranteed discussion by the common council, and therefore council members do not have
- the benefit of guaranteed time between initial discussion, which may raise legitimate points,
- and final vote. Such time may be necessary to consult with staff, further study of issue,
- and/or consult with constituents or residents." So that, I mean, I think that there is a problem
- here. There is kind of a pain point here. So that's why I wanted to move forward with it. I don't
- think that council member Osari owns this thing. Although I would be happy with whoever he came up
- with. I would definitely want to break him in because he's... Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I was just
- clarifying the question you posed to me because I wasn't clear on that whole process. So thank you.
- So what do you think? I mean, if I'm the only one who wants to pursue this on this commitment,
- I guess like, is there enough gain for the three month difference? But look, if we wrote our own
- legislation, like it would be after the break, Lisa's already said that she wants to spend most
- of the council recess working on the Title II issue. I guess I'm just wondering, are we saving
- ourselves like two months of allowed discussion at first reading or like, what is the goal of
- separating them? What would our timeline be? I think we could get it. Yeah, I think two months
- is probably the estimate of how much sooner we could do it if we separate it. I also feel like
- the Title II changes are really big and this could get lost. I guess I just like,
- we have a lot of things coming up that are going to require a serious amount of energy,
- including but not limited to trying to figure out how we can bond all of our programs next year
- with
- the incoming onslaught of the federal government. Like this isn't necessarily something that
- I think we should be taking extra time since it's kind of already coming down the pipeline.
- Like there are other things that I would rather focus on that helps constituents rather than helps
- process. Well, I would argue this would help constituents as well, but that's why I'm asking.
- Yeah, I mean, I do agree with you that this could help constituents. I think this is something that,
- again, it not only creates some more transparency if we were to do discussion at first readings,
- but it could be another way, another opportunity to get more information
- before the public without them having to seek out the information, possibly. Am I making sense?
- I do think that it's a big discussion though, because I think we have to put a lot of
- - we have to be pretty clear on the process for that, because it could add a ton of time to our
- meetings. That's my main concern, is that it gets redundant, and then we're there and meeting that
- midnight hard stop every time, and we're not finishing our work, because some of these issues
- might -- I mean, we've seen how long just the second reading discussions can take. But then,
- on the other hand, does it cut down the second reading discussions? Yeah, I think -- I could
- flip-flop back and forth all day. You guys want me to keep going? On one hand, on the other hand.
- So those are my initial thoughts on first reading discussions. Well, having a discussion at first
- reading would allow council members the time to see the presentation, ask questions, get questions
- answered by the second reading, so we're not doing a full presentation. We're just getting the
- answers
- that we need to vote on it. Yeah. I mean, I've seen us vote on things all the time, where directors
- or whoever's presenting will be like, "Well, I'll get back to you." And we voted anyway. And it's
- like, okay, well, why are we voting on it? And/or did this question even -- if we're not going to
- postpone it, why ask the question if we're not going to get the answer? Yeah. I mean, I'm leaning
- more toward being in favor of the first reading discussions, because as I've -- I mean, you all
- know that that's been one of my biggest pain points is getting some -- not having that discussion
- ahead of time and then having to vote that night. Right. That's not my favorite thing to do. But
- the
- question on the table isn't, are we doing this or not? Sorry. Are we doing this now? Taking the
- time
- to write the legislation when it's already coming down the pipeline. I think there's a point to
- separating it out if there's a lot of Title II changes going on all at once. Okay. I don't have
- strong feelings either way. I would be more inclined to say, well, let's just -- if it's here
- before
- us now, let's just talk about it now. Let's handle it now. But I also don't feel super strongly
- that
- we're in a rush to get this done because I don't think it's going to happen all that much sooner
- than if we wait. Right. Well, let me ask this then. We have a meeting scheduled for June 3rd at the
- CPD, and I don't know what we're going to work on at that meeting because we have postponed action
- on
- how to schedule deliberation sessions. We postponed action on the sign-up for
- people to give public comment and possibly written comment process.
- The Title 2 overhaul is also delayed because Lisa needs to have some time to look over and
- work action at me with Kirk Bolden in Michigan, which canceled the meeting, but I think we could
- work on this. And I know only three of the four people on the committee are here right now.