- Okay, I'm going to call the order of this meeting of the Committee on Council Processes for Tuesday,
- March 24th. Yes, 26th. Let's just go around the table and say who's here. We'll start. Am I right? Council
- Member Sittner-Zulik, District 6. And I'm Council Member Isabelle P. Mott-Sniff, District 1. Hope you
- pass through District 3.
- And then we have two members of the clerk staff here who are introduced to the show. Susan Stalin, Deputy
- Clerk, Sylvia McGill, Chief Deputy Clerk. Thank you for being here. That's right. We have one member
- of the public here. Okay. So first of all, take a look at the agenda. It looks a lot like the agenda
- last month, because we didn't get through a lot of the agenda last month.
- Is there any motion to exchange anything? I move to approve. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
- All right. So first let's talk about implementation
- Through our online process, let's say you just don't need to buy it. Where, what would you describe
- that? Yeah. What would you comment that may not be right? Yes. Are you not going to check it? Where
- do you think it's going to go? It's all about the time. Oh, OK. So you expect to have a comment on items
- not on the agenda? Oh, sure. OK, we'll try to leave room, but yeah. OK, but I can pick everybody in
- whatever I do. There's no way around it. Yeah, no. I appreciate a question. I didn't add a general public comment.
- Okay, so let's first talk about the process for discussion at first reading, which council passed in
- February. There are links in the agenda to an updated document that kind of goes step by step. So I
- was hoping to,
- have a finalized document that we could report back to the Council on April 1st. I did reach out to
- Council President Asare, but it was only yesterday, so I know he's been very busy, to see if he had
- any feedback. I want to throw it to the committee members. Do you have any feedback on
- what's written here, or on how it went, or we used this procedure on March 4th. What are we reading?
- Wait, stop. Yes, it wasn't. It is linked in the agenda. What do we need to do? It should be linked.
- It's that mirror that I wrote down with the packets. Yes. Yes, I opened it yesterday and I was like,
- where is the packet?
- So the assumption is we will always discuss something at first rate. I think we do need to have an assumption
- there to make sure that the public and the staff knows that we will be presenting and discussing it.
- So let's start there. I can't remember when we did this before, when there was the motion to discuss
- the legislation, did we have to vote on that motion before we discussed it? I think we did.
- It would be bad. So I think that that is a fair assumption, just so that we're generally going to have
- a motion to discuss it, and people don't want to discuss it, but they can vote no on a motion to discuss.
- It should be.
- So that would be option two. Yeah, I much prefer option two, personally, because I appreciate that it
- makes it clear that we're not adopting it in terms of our discussion around it. And I think that that's
- because otherwise, yeah, I just think that that helps the public and also kinds of members to be able to
- It's just the expectation. It sets up an expectation that we're going to talk about it, but not necessarily
- verbatim. And once we've motioned it adopt, then if somebody called the question, for example, then
- that would end up triggering a different email in terms of. That's true. I think, at least. But then
- you have to have unanimous consent in order to do something unperturbed. So it feels like that gets messy.
- Or it's just discussing it. It's like there's a mess attached to that. And I think that's what we did.
- Yeah, we did. So motion to introduce the legislation. Work reads by title and synopsis. Motion to discuss
- the legislation. Then the staff give a full presentation. So we talked last time about
- At first reading, it can be a full presentation and then at the second reading, it would just be a follow-up
- based on our questions. It works for me. I also like that we have the opportunity to get public questions
- answered. So we might think about how we could afford to read that or like submitting questions. I think
- that's in there somewhere, very good.
- Well, just because the option to number six, it goes from public comment and then move out onto a second.
- I don't think we need to even like put it in the procedure, but I just wanted to be aware of what's
- the, what's the process to get someone's public question answered. Further down under the procedure
- for second readings, it says to us in the Bergen House staff,
- Well, it says the answers to previous questions could be put in writing and included in the council
- packet for the second meeting. Yes. And so I would say that we should just to some degree formalize
- the procedure of. Either staff or council members. Your staff or to staff at the only word. Yeah, so
- I have staff should practically go. Okay. Right.
- members of the public have this question, I'm going to address this question later in the written comments,
- or council members can, you know, kind of take up that responsibility and go, okay, members of the public
- asked this question, I'm going to ask this question of staff. I mean, it's my, it's my responsibility
- for the vice president and parliamentarian to ensure that, like, all of the, if someone is taking a
- hair of public questions, so we can say, like,
- I'm happy to, um, to sort of try it out. It will be the responsibility of the vice president to. I don't
- think we need to sum up that, but I mean, I, I would prefer personally, I would prefer staff who's presenting
- it to take that responsibility and kind of go, okay, like, I'm receiving these questions, even if they
- are questions of clarification from the public for them to make note of that. Yeah.
- Yeah, just because I feel like that's, I mean, part of what city staff should be doing is responding
- to the public. I mean, they respond to the public probably more than council members do in a lot of
- ways. I guess my concern is like, where's council oversight to ensure those questions are asked? We
- have members that was like responsible for keeping track of what questions were asked by the public,
- even if like it is staff expectation, but they want to do the full work.
- I just want to make sure that we're keeping track of questions. But we don't think so. Yeah, I just
- don't know if that needs to be like one person all the time. You know what I mean? But maybe that connects
- to the other thing that's like down farther in our agenda around council members having to co-sponsor
- legislation that comes from staff. So then maybe that could be the responsibility if we do that of whoever
- the council member is, who's supposed to be answering that legislation.
- I like that. I just want to make sure that some of it is responsible. Yeah. Because I think that when
- we spread it out over the nine of us, no specific person will get lost. So I just want to make sure
- it works. Yeah. And I don't want to give that to the same person all the time. But that, yeah,
- that could be, that could work out. Because if it's spread out, kind of naturally. I agree. And then,
- you know, as a sponsor of the legislation, we know that you have a responsibility.
- All right. All right. Cool. Okay, so we like option two. Both options council members should put in
- writing the questions they didn't get to and submit those by the end of the following Friday. Yeah,
- so maybe. The following Friday, does that mean two days later? Yes. Yes.
- that did worse out of the immediate following climate. I just covered four emphasis. And maybe also
- we're noting of the questions from the public thing, like questions, you know, encouraging,
- CCP is encouraging some sort of reliable process around sessions that might be brought up to make sure
- that those questions get in.
- Feel free to shorten that. Okay. That would give city staff or petitioners one week to answer their
- questions before they place them in the packet. Well, one week before they're placed in the packet.
- But that means that it's not the following Friday, two days later.
- Yes, it's the next week. No, the answer is, questions are due two days later and the answers to those
- questions get put in the packet the next morning. What would that work out with timing though? Because
- if we have a first reading, say, where we discuss this. Usually we have two weeks between first year.
- Oh, I suppose with students we have those deliberation sessions. Okay.
- So then if we carry through with option two, in second reading, motion to introduce legislation, clerk
- reads by title and synopsis, motion to adopt legislation. That's like how we do second reading. Yeah,
- the usual. And then staff present any unique questions. Yeah, so the short presentations, potentially
- remotely. Most member questions, public comment, most member discussions.
- Now, the thing that we deployed with last time was whether to do a time limit for council member questions
- at either the first reading or the second reading. I think second reading will make time make more sense
- than first reading, just because I don't want to limit us when we're targeted all of the stuff that
- I said earlier.
- out of two weeks. Most of them should be answered. I agree with that, but I wonder if we can ask- Wait,
- I'm sorry. I had a mind. You said it's 94 cents for second reading? Yes, that's a limited question.
- Especially if we're going to have the staff person there in person for first reading, then it makes
- a lot more sense being able to do that work while we have someone who's on the graph with us. Right,
- and I agree with that, but I also wonder if it would be necessary.
- They're all. We could. We could in our look for say, depending on. The issue at hand, the time limits
- may be considered. Well, if it's like how it goes like, I mean, I just think that. I mean, it's not
- like anybody.
- to belabor things. We want like just to belabor them. I feel like the belaboring is more likely to happen
- during the council member discussion slash. Or we already have time for some. Yes, which we already
- have time for some. So I'm not sure that the question, I just don't know if it would be necessary.
- And then for the moments that there might be something that say might be like big enough that it, that
- we might want to have a third, you know, and like, like continue to talk about it just because of the
- number of things get brought up. I didn't want to have to like have an extra motion to suspend the rules
- to get rid of the time limits. Yeah. Um, so I guess I'll just leave that out then. And then if we, um,
- have problems with it going forward, then we can add. We can also run around in like a six-month revisit
- for CCD. Yeah. And say like after six months after effective baby. Yeah. CCD will reconsider this to
- ensure that all processes are going smoothly. Yeah. That's great. OK. Anything else I should revise?
- Most of them.
- Do we need a vote on moving this into a memo as a recommendation for the full council? Move to recommend
- the memo as updated in this meeting to the full council. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'm
- thinking imaginary people in the room. Oh, wait a minute. Was I supposed to go?
- I had seen now that it's not one packet. I get confused. I think I was supposed to go to public. Oh,
- we know. We should have gotten public comment. Well, we've already voted. But is there public comment
- on implementing the discussion at first reading? It says the very bad lines. I think, wait. No, it doesn't
- look like it. OK. No, yeah, yeah. You can say your name for the record. Terry. I never read it.
- Terry Amsler, my wife's not an English woman.
- I went to look online for everything for this meeting, and the agenda's there, but there was no other
- documents listed anywhere. Should there be grounds for this kind of stuff? I didn't look at everything,
- but I looked at the readings thing, and I went to your webpage for the committee, and I went through
- the agenda, I did a packet, but I didn't see anything. Well, to clarify, so the new process for council
- and council committees, and also other
- And that's, that's accessibility. Because of that changes and accessibility requirements.
- easier to make things accessible in certain types of documents than others. So, yeah, yeah. It just
- feels wrong to be of this way because we've been doing it the other way for like how many years now?
- Sure, aesthetic sensibilities. No, they have. This is the only respond. OK. All right, so no other public.
- Oh, Eric raised his hand. Here from him. Hi. I actually, since you mentioned the new format for documents,
- and I believe, Hopi, you said that it's to make things easier, to make them accessible. I mean,
- how does that?
- How does that work? My understanding of Section 508 standards is that linking to other documents does
- not relieve the requirement to make those other documents be accessible. So I'm curious as to how that
- makes it easier. It's not that the link is linking to a document that's not accessible.
- It's that it might be linked, say, to a Google Doc, and then it's easier to make a Google Doc, like,
- fulfill the accessibility requirements versus a PDF. So, like, PDFs, I guess, just are really... I am
- not the expert on this. I'm just repeating what Sava told me. Okay. Yeah. Like, this is, I think, the
- recommendation from IT, just because of the links mean that not everything has to be, say, a PDF document.
- And so then the PDSs have more complexity in making them accessible so they can link to another type
- of document. Yeah. So I've looked into this a bit since various boards and commissioners have been doing
- that. And I just want to make you as being on the council process as committee aware, I'm not so sure
- that that's true. And there's accessibility for folks who are visually
- have visual impairment or whatever. And then there's also just the general accessibility. And having
- extra links, as opposed to a single unified PDF, makes them less accessible. And I think you can see
- this if you tried to navigate some of these documents, like the Board of Public Works document, which
- actually is of a few minutes ago. They still had not published a packet for the meeting today.
- but you can look at the HPC, other redevelopment commission. And I think what you'll find is that they're
- less accessible because you got to click back and forth. And I'm sure that that's probably going to
- be true for folks who are using like screen readers and things like that. And in fact, the city has
- a license for Grackle Docs, I believe.
- that makes it quite straightforward to create a unified PDF. And I just, I'm hoping that maybe the council
- can being, and you're the legislative body, you might, you look into this and see if this is not perhaps
- making things less accessible and not relieving any burden of making things accessible in terms of section
- 508. But anyway, thanks for listening.
- Um, I am concerned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We can check with our IT department about that.
- All right. Next, we have the matter of consent agendas. And we have a draft legislation that was also
- shared last month that I'd like us to review. And if it's okay with us, we can
- Get that on the calendar to add a consent agenda. Yes. And then I had on our agenda for this meeting.
- I had a few questions. I think we need to think through. My comments was the same, I think, as it was
- the last time was the down the order of business.
- like we have a consent agenda and then the approval of minutes if they were removed from our consent
- agenda. And then two things later, approval of boards and commissions if they were removed from the
- consent agenda. And I think that we need to scrap both of those and replace them with something right
- after the consent agenda and something like consideration of items removed from the consent agenda.
- What? If you look at the back of the bill, I know. I know. I am there. Yeah.
- under 5A and I wasn't quite sure what that meant or where it should go. That was my note from last time.
- Okay. So it would go after the reports. So do you think it should go after the reports or right after
- the consent agenda? It doesn't matter to me. So what do you think? Like if we remove something from
- the consent agenda, do you think it should be like, so we handle the consent agenda and then we handle
- the thing that we removed right away?
- or do you think that we should wait and then handle it? I think it might make sense to handle it immediately,
- just because from a public's perspective, or we've already brought these things up, this is kind of
- like semi-introduced, probably not what we discussed, but it is on the mind. Yeah. And so I think that
- just for, well,
- community members' ability to have a meeting, it might make more sense to put it immediately after.
- So then it would become 3A. Would it become 3A or would it become a school? I'm just saying it would
- go between three and four. It would go between three and the reports and the current approval finance
- would distract.
- Oh, that's because the approval of sense would go on to the consent agenda. And then six would be scrapped
- because the appointment supports and commissions would go on the consent agenda. I think otherwise, I mean,
- I personally thought that the list of things that we would put on the consent agenda made sense, and
- the procedure for taking something off the consent agenda seems easy enough to accomplish if anybody
- has concerns.
- So if we put items of legislation on the consent agenda, should the staff assume that we might pull
- it off and be present to present it? Talk about it. Yes. So the staff will always have a plan B at that
- meeting. Which I think they will need. Which doesn't suggest they need it because they wouldn't expect it to be.
- Well, what a nice treat to be able to go home after me. Especially like, I mean, especially some of
- the ordinances that we got last year from the controller's office. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and they might,
- and since they have to have two readings and we would have had questions that we're treating probably
- enough to know, like, like that kind of stuff would maybe go on. It's not the agenda in terms of,
- Are we allowed to put appropriation orders on consensus in this? I don't think so. Hold on, Ben.
- I think also, oh, but we can vote on appropriations that are best in our theory. What? Any
- vote on appropriations I have? It would be the same, I think, as voting at first reading, right? So
- it would have to be unanimous consent and then two-thirds. Right.
- I mean, some of the corporation ordinances are definitely like new money, but other ones are just kind
- of moving money and then like we created funds last year to like, where to funnel things. I don't know
- if there's a legal difference in terms of money. I think I was just saying some of those things are
- not. Yeah, I agree in terms of legislation.
- I can't imagine very much legislation being considered not controversial, to be honest. Okay, well,
- AI tells me that yes, in Indiana City's appropriation ordinances typically require two separate readings
- at different meetings as they are considered formal ordinances. Per count. Per count, well. Except that
- that's not. Oh, the County Council can unanimously vote to suspend the rules to pass the single fee. Perfect.
- So it's a very similar process. Right. But then if we put it on a consent agenda, we have to have unanimous
- approval to vote on that. Yeah. So I don't think that we could. Yeah. That's true. So I think we would
- only be able to put second rate side consent agenda. Yeah. But the other thing is, like, because one
- council member can pull anything off a consent agenda, is that not already even in this quote? Like,
- if nobody says anything.
- I mean, yeah, yeah, I guess I would prefer to just kind of move forward with us in the beginning, not
- putting legislation agenda and sticking with minutes and appointments and acceptance of reports, which
- it doesn't seem like.
- We don't usually have to vote on acceptance of reports, but we did a little bit last year because there
- were, there were sometimes there were statutory deadlines about when we can receive reports.
- And so we had to, yeah, specifically like say we received the thing, even though they couldn't present
- the thing to us at the time. So, yeah, I think the other thing is like when we're talking about efficiency,
- like we're trying to get to the legislation.
- Well, that's the intent by which they can sign it. So I think it does make sense to do it. Everything
- that's not legislation. Yeah. Anything that's not off it. It actually doesn't say in the description
- that you made, Isabel, that legislation, you don't want to know. It says other non-controversial or
- administrative actions designated by the Council President. This was written by one of our attorneys.
- Yeah, I would say that legislation is not an administrative action. But.
- I wanted to actually include some legislation, like we do the resolution for continuing our interlocal
- agreement about the animal shelter once a year. We have done JAG grants in the past. We're just like,
- yeah, we're getting this money. We're accepting it. We have done the building code authority extending
- that another year. There are very routine,
- resolutions and ordinances that could be on consent agenda, I think. And I thought that in the fall,
- when we talked about consent agendas to start with, I thought that was, I'm looking at so many people.
- Well, I certainly don't mind either way. But I think that in terms of clarity for the code, it might
- make sense to leave legislation off until we at least understand
- and have gone through the consent agenda process, it might be another thing that we'd bring up again
- in six months. Okay. Do we know for sure that legislation doesn't need an administrative question? Because
- I wouldn't necessarily assume that once you pass our attorneys back with your... No. So see, that's
- like an attorney question to me. Didn't think that much, so... Yeah, and I would assume that it doesn't
- include it. So we would need to have, I think, an attorney of us to define that term.
- So maybe not bring this until we have legal counsel to review it. Maybe. Yeah, at least I mean to review
- it and so so that we all know as counselors what type of things fall under administrative shows.
- I mean, and maybe it does because, I mean, it's non-controversial or administrative action.
- So a non-controversial action might be one of those resolutions that you talked about because they are
- actions. But I would say that we definitely need to have a really clear understanding of that. And the
- best person to get that from is the attorney that's looking at council's best interests. Okay. Well,
- So we did clarify a few things. Consideration of items removed from the consent agenda. But it sounds
- like the consensus is to hold this for a little longer until we can get it legal. That makes sense. Yeah.
- Although you guys have discussed contract attorney at all. We did mention it. I think that's probably
- in the works. Yeah. This could be something. I can go without checking the reading tab. And then this
- note at the bottom about considering deleting the second period of protocol. That came from council
- staff that is no longer with us.
- Um, they were trying to suggest things that were short meetings and of course consented down that was
- one of them. And then they also said, there's no reason really to have two periods of open public comment.
- So we could cut one. Which is totally true. I don't really think it would make a big difference because
- we hardly ever have anybody at that second period. Yeah.
- Oh, I just looked for general, for general public comment. That would be, you know, we have, sometimes
- Mr. M.G. even voices. Yeah. Just because, you know, he's the only one still there at that point. But
- usually people speak at the beginning. So it was just, you know, I actually, when I, when I shared this
- document with Michael, our intern to put it,
- into a packet, I didn't realize my little notes would show up. So that's kind of a, just for some note
- for myself. So we don't need to deal with that. I will say for the record though, that I do think that
- sometimes having that additional period at the end, like something that we do during the meeting might
- make somebody think of something.
- And so it might not be somebody that was on the agenda side. So I don't have a problem keeping that.
- I do feel like there's some potential purpose for it. I do wonder why it's 25 minutes in the first place.
- It's not your full time. We don't usually run up against it. But I also feel like that's sort of a separate
- issue from consent agendas.
- and maybe what should require a different change. So going back to the agenda for today's meeting. Do
- we need a whole comment? No. Let me finish. Hold on. The third item under consent agenda that I wanted
- to talk about was how we would communicate with the public about this concept of consent agenda so that
- they would know
- If they have comment on something that's on our consent agenda, they probably aren't going to have about
- too many to say anything, right? Or does consent agenda have comment? Sorry, I meant to watch a county
- council meeting to see how they do it. Does anybody know? Please say, here's the consent agenda.
- Any comment, public comments? Or do we just say, don't vote on it? I don't think there's public comment.
- I'm not sure.
- The interesting piece of that, though, is that if we just have, say, minutes and appointments to boards
- and commissions on our consent agenda, which are our most frequent things that we would have on it,
- we don't have public comment on that anyway. That's true. It is most of the things that we don't have
- public comment on. So I would say, I would say no public comment, but the communication is,
- If you are a member of the public very interested in making a public comment on one of these things,
- then, you know, ask, get a council member to pull it off the consent agenda, because that would be the
- way to actually discuss it, to pull it off the consent agenda. Yeah, that's true. Right, because if
- we just say, but here's the consent agenda, and then go to public comment, probably something that somebody
- says, to us to want to pull it off.
- Right. So then, you know, so it's kind of like, okay, here's the consent agenda. Council member says,
- I want to pull off the consent agenda because I heard from the public that they want to make a comment
- on it. And then you pull it off, you're through to the consent agenda, you go on to the next, you know,
- consideration of things, pull off the consent agenda. And then is there discussion? Is there public
- comment? And then we go. Are any of these things, even things that we
- I put public comments on it in the first place, only if we put legislation on it. But if we put legislation
- on it, which I think it would be... Remains to be cut to not, but... Well, we can put a pin in that
- too, since we're waiting for legal counsel to see it. They would recommend allowing us to put legislation
- on it. Which, for me, that was the point.
- Some of the legislation, I think, requires the public comment, like requires an opportunity for the
- public hearing. Yes, if it's an item, I think appropriation ordinance is among them, that requires a
- public hearing, then we would have to take public comment. It couldn't be on the consent agenda. Well,
- and some reports also require a public hearing. I don't remember which ones anymore.
- But I remember last year when I was president, there were several that I had to say, like, this is a
- statutorily required public hearing for this thing, even if it wasn't. Like, it wasn't necessarily a
- piece of legislation. But I think it was, yeah. It might be coordinated with an exemption clause and
- be like, unless for a study by Indiana or something else. Unless legally required. There would be no
- public comment unless legally required.
- With whatever special words attorneys want to use for legally required because usually well. So we want,
- or do we want to just say those items and not be on percentage. For example, you want those non controversial
- appropriation ordinances or those resolutions on the consent agenda, but if you want to put legislation
- on the consent agenda or leave that option.
- and some of those things might, or even reports for that matter, like some of those reports that we
- got last year, I would probably, if we wanna, because like there often wasn't public comment to those.
- That's true, but we still have to author it. Right, yeah. I don't know, we're spending a lot of time
- here to make our meeting shorter. So if we're legally required to have public comment, then of course we will.
- Yeah. Either by not having the item on the subject of, or by allowing other comments on the consent
- agenda. Or on specific items that are on the subject of that. All right. Well, I think we need to put
- a pin in all of this. There's a chance of an error up there. OK.
- prior to the meeting. So we have a comment via Zoom. When and how would the public request the agenda
- change? Would that for prior to the meeting or during the meeting? So at this point we're not making
- any final decisions on this but I think whoever recommended it would be prior to the meeting. I would
- think so. Because when people come to the meetings they usually come to the meetings with a specific
- kind of like
- I'm coming to the meeting because of this thing. So there's something on our consent agenda that somebody
- knows, like, that they have a question on, or they have a problem with, or they have a concern with.
- They've probably done that. Yes. OK. Let us go to public comment on this item. And keep in mind that
- we are not moving this forward as legislation at this time. We still need some legal guidance.
- Anybody in the public want to comment? Yes. Briefly, I've been asking over 50 times. Please pull it.
- I'm sorry, I'm doing multi-sharing today. I'm trying to speak for the last one or two. Anyway, briefly,
- it's a very important thing. Thank you all for your work. Part of this goes, of course, to how you see
- the value of public comment. We won't go into this moment, but I think this does inform what we're looking
- for. We're looking for public comment or public comment or whatever.
- What's the word? Instrumental issue is, I don't want to see the council to be tying itself up. We're
- not able to respond to what's going on at the time. I like choice in a council meeting. You'd say, oh,
- there's 73 people here. I'm exaggerating for a fact. It's not anything here you can talk about. What
- is the protocol? What I think you're heading is what are the options you can do at the time?
- where it might go here, it might go there. And I think it is generally for process, and I don't care
- about the venue, having an ability to say, to make appropriate within the law, staff that's responsive
- to the challenges of the moment, as opposed to saying, well, we can't do anything. So I like the idea
- of this protocol for a choice, or what do people think. So you don't get the council member
- people hating him or her right away just because the people are here and he can't or she can't do anything
- about it. And, you know, so choice somehow in this, you know, some options to take stock of the moment
- without meaning the moment should rule either balance at all things. But still, I'm thinking, I think
- one thing I don't understand, you're only talking about it as my question is a public question.
- I am still confused, and this is why I was hoping, Lord, that'd be simpler. Something I haven't done.
- No? Crossly. Oh, no, not crossly. The president's here because I talked to her at this meeting, I want
- to get my paperwork clear, what's happening with that whole process option for not just cross council
- member deliberation, but public incentive, you know, that whole thing. So I don't understand to some extent
- The choice-making around these things been in this larger, what I think, protocol established choice-making
- for the council for where things go. And I'm not clear, tell me, and I'll try to clear it up, and then
- go out and sit back there and quiet for a little bit. But there was a process. And I forget, I always
- forget what it's called, because I do other things and teach and things, I get hearing, oh yeah, that stuff.
- But there's that consensus process. We've had some meetings around what that says. I forget what the
- title of that is. Deliberation sessions. It is deliberation sessions. Thank you. So this goes back to
- the question, think about what's controversial or non-controversial or administrative or appropriate
- for deliberation. Where, how, and who that's getting thought through.
- I don't need to talk about it. I know there were communities, but I want to go on Sunday. So I'm just
- saying, that's just confusing to me. Simply as a quasi-informed member of the public who pays some attention
- when I can, that I admit I'm not paying all the attention all the time, even though I love this thing.
- But I pay more attention when I've got nothing else to do. But so that's all. That's all. Those things,
- I think, don't diminish the public engagement, obviously,
- is trying to use it well and wisely. And it's a way, not only for informed participation, but to inform
- decision makers. So we're trying, it's not just the same way I was concerned about the Novak report
- being too instrumental in its what it was looking at and trying to solve. I hope you'll look at this
- issue or public comment and relate it in its broadest sense of purposes and what it can do, and not
- simply we never go home.
- I mean, the council can never get out of Dodge because you never leave the room because they're there
- forever. All real stuff. But I am concerned about how we make it look best over comments and processes
- we can have. Thank you. Any other public comment? All right. Let us know. I have my hand raised.
- I'm sorry. I did not see it.
- Sorry, now. So in terms of the consentage, my name's Eric Oost and I want to express appreciation for
- all your work because this is very important. The process is important. So the details of consent agenda
- items will still be published in the packet, correct? Yes. And so if a member of the public reads
- the packet, and you had suggested earlier is one possibility is that if they would like to have an agenda
- item taken off the consent agenda, that they make that request before the meeting. So how would they
- know to do so? And also, how would that request be communicated?
- in a reliable way, to whom would it go? To any council member, to the council email address, phone call
- to the council, staff, clerk, mayor. And then if somebody read the packet and saw an item on the consent
- agenda and they were not aware of that protocol, and let's say there's 30 people in the room, how would
- you determine
- what those people are there for, and would that influence the decision to take things off the consent
- agenda? I think understanding the desire for efficiency is important, and there are some things that
- are perfunctory and probably could be handled in a consent agenda, but perfunctory things typically
- can be handled
- quickly anyway under the current process. But I think as Mr. Ansler was saying, you know, the opportunity
- that we have here in Bloomington and in Monroe County government too, but to offer public comment, I
- think is really incredibly valuable. And it helps the public feel like they have agency and are involved.
- And I think it's important to maintain that while also
- respecting the need for efficiency. So those are my questions, is what happens when 30 people show up,
- and there's a Consent Agenda item that is of interest to them. How do you determine that? OK.
- Thank you. I have noted your questions, and we can raise those when we get more legal feedback on this
- item next time, hopefully next time.
- Okay. Next item is whether we want to recommend to the full council that each item of legislation needs
- a council sponsor. And this is a thing in some other cities. Actually, I talked with somebody from the
- city court from Hattiesville today.
- Um, and she said for resolutions, they need three council members as sponsors and for legislation or
- ordinances, they need one. So I thought that was an interesting distinction. Um, but, uh, what, uh,
- noted here on our agenda is, you know, what, how would this work logistically? Does the administration does,
- reach out to a council member and ask them to sponsor something. Or do they bring items of legislation
- to our council attorney or administrator and say, help me match this with somebody or county's referral.
- So I guess I open it up to other committee members, whether you like the idea and then how it might
- be implemented. I do like the idea. We could do it similar to bringing in the state house visit.
- in which every legislator is allowed to bring so many resolutions and ordinances forward. It's not referred
- to as ordinances at the State House, but whatever piece of legislation they have, each member of the
- body is allowed to bring so many forward. And so that I know in one of our previous discussions, there
- was concern that maybe one or two council members might be relied on to sponsor all of the legislation.
- putting limits on, you know, putting some working stops at a bit of a year would circumvent that, but
- I also acknowledge that they would probably raise some other issues. So we don't need to do it exactly
- like the State House, but that is another, I guess, sponsoring form of government that we can come to
- as an example of. It's a different line. I think that it's a good idea as well. I especially,
- When I was thinking about this, I think it's, there have been many times I feel like where we've gotten
- things from the administration and I've kind of been like, I have a really obvious question right now
- that is confusing to me because I am not the professional in the field. And it's like, I didn't bother
- with that. So I think that that's at least one valuable reason to have somebody who's not the professional
- in the field, like get eyes on it just to be like, I want some understanding of this and from the perspective
- of a legislator.
- asking the questions. So I think that that's a good way to kind of preview for the department what they
- need. So I like that. I appreciate that idea of trying to like spread around the responsibility. I'm
- wondering if it could be done almost with like,
- kind of aligning with what other appointments we have or like whenever you're going to be board of commission
- kind of stuff in terms of thinking about like some of the brain commissions. So things related to video
- planning would make sense to have me as the sponsor for that. And then the ROLO is on because so everything
- that's sustainably ended maybe like it should go ahead and like, you know, like something like that,
- of coincides them or, you know, in the same way that, like, we did the, um, the board mission, the interview
- committee process, the liaison stuff, it's that kind of idea, like, okay, I'm, I'm liaisoning the Human
- Rights Commission right now, so if they have something they want to bring forward, they should logically
- come to me, right? And so a similar kind of process only with departments or, I don't know,
- in terms of, like, first choice of
- council member, because I also don't want it to get stalled on the administrative end because they can't.
- You could put like a one, two, three. This is like council member Stoutford's first choice, but if she's
- not available, council members will look at that next. I like what I've heard from both of you, but
- what do you mean if
- We go to this customer first if they're not really willing to distance well like departments, like for
- example, planning and transportation. If that's number software is not available, or the other two councilors
- they didn't contact for issues not responsible for the other options that they have because we don't
- want to solve it because one number is willing to sponsor it.
- Right, because I also have under the responsibilities of the sponsor while they should be able to support
- the legislation. So it's like they go to the first choice and the first choice is like, I think that
- I would vote no on that. But that doesn't mean, you know, if the majority vote no. Yeah, so I think
- that having some options would preserve the council as a bodies economy while also allowing the individual
- council members to be able to pick what they do or don't.
- So yes, because I don't want you to feel like you have to sponsor every single piece of orchestration
- about planning a transportation. But that doesn't mean that nobody else will be going to, so. Yeah,
- I think that there are some types of ordinances where it's much more obvious what council member would
- be the most appropriate. And we also, if there's something from utilities, it would be council member
- Flaherty to ex officio on the utility service. That makes sense.
- you know, what if we get something for radio ordinance, you know, a chair of the fiscal committee and
- what I think the fiscal committee would need to identify something to sponsor that. Or maybe somebody
- on the fiscal committee. Maybe it doesn't always have to be the chair. Maybe it's brought to the committee.
- Right. Yeah, yeah. Interim committees assess legislation that is passed by boards of commissions, which
- is very rare.
- Which is very fair. We still have a process for it. We now theoretically have a process. I don't know
- if we've had to do that yet. Yeah, and I mean, I guess I'm trying to think like what legislation would
- I sponsor according to this kind of framework when I'm on the waste reduction board. So I guess sanitation
- and recycling type thing.
- Yeah, so when you were in council there, you might need if there's two people on like anything brought
- out of turrets. Well, I don't know. Sanitation is public works. But there's like, there's an overlap.
- Yeah, but it's like what else is under public works? So it's odd ideas. Right. And I'm not the liaison to
- So there's seven sub-departments. It might make sense to divvy that amongst council members as well.
- But I think it could be a similar structure to affiliate council members. So among council members,
- we would develop a list. Yeah. Or like a broad framework. Like I don't want to...
- I don't want to feel like we need to develop something so specific before we put it into place with
- this, because, I mean, under the, how does the administration seek a sponsor? I wrote, we're gonna really
- ask. Like, I mean, I think probably most of the time with most department heads, they're gonna be able
- to pretty easily identify a council member that would make sense either with the legislation or somebody
- who's already like,
- Yeah, we're, you know, involved in one way or another. And so if we, I mean, what we're concerned that
- we just don't want to be told to have the right to do all the work, essentially, like, is that the concern
- that got brought up last fall? Well, or just like, that there are two, we're getting to the last numbers
- that maybe like the administration would continue to go to the line of thousands of concerns that was
- raised. And so to inspire more collaborations, I guess the body as a whole, it might be,
- more productive to maybe say council is going to indicate interests in various departments, something
- like that. Yeah. Yeah. There wasn't a concern that they just always go to the council president. Yeah.
- That would make sense. Because then the council president always has to pass the gavel every time it's
- president. That's true. It's true. Yeah. It's totally not worth going to the vice president. Yeah. I
- think it would make a lot of sense to just
- to be up somehow because what I don't want to see is frustrations between us because one of us is being
- asked to sponsor a lot. And I don't want to see frustrations with staff who actually want to get stuff
- done and accomplish things and then they get solidifying sponsors. So, you know, having a fallback in
- there of, you know, contacting council staff to be like, hey, I'm having a hard time with this. Can
- you help me? Or contacting the vice president or the president or whoever.
- You know, in terms of that procedure, like if you're not finding. Yeah. Okay, let's go to public comment
- and then we can talk about next steps. Okay. Is there any number of the public who would like to comment
- Councilmember sponsorship of legislation.
- So what do you think would be a good next step? I mean, I could draft a memo, I think that we would
- have to change code to require a sponsor. If we're going to contact a lawyer about some contract work,
- that might be another thing to ask about, which I will make a note to ask about that as well later at
- the hiring.
- maybe we should bring this to the full council for a vote before we work on legislation. What if a majority
- of council says now we don't have to do this? Do we need to bring that before the rest of council as
- part of our report from this committee? Yeah, I think it also might be worth presenting some of the
- different options that we discussed just to get like a
- I don't know, a little water test of how we strategize with people like. Right. Like in terms of about
- how staff would contact council members. Yeah, yeah. Cause kind of, I mean, we basically discussed two
- strategies, right? Like I've heard in Hopping and council members kind of have like sign up for what
- departments or types of things that they want to be contacted with or like an automatic,
- you play this role on this commission, therefore, you're the first person. I do think there's also the
- question of, did we want to limit the amount of legislation that an individual cast member can sponsor?
- That could be yearly, that could be monthly, that could be quarterly. It doesn't need to be like the
- exact same as the state house does it. I'm not even advocating for that. I'm just putting it out there.
- us a option that we have available. I don't know. I don't know that I would want to do that. Okay. Just
- because I don't know. Like I don't want to stall legislation in there somewhere, right? So there's a
- certain department or certain, you know, like category of things where just like there's a bunch of
- legislation, you know, maybe it's all similar.
- right, but there's still several different pieces. I don't want to cap on that. And I wouldn't want
- to artificially make a department have to work with more than one council member if they were having
- similar things. And I think probably because we all are for our time, I think that it's going to naturally
- sort of distribute in some ways, especially if we have a list of
- opt-ins or a list of first, second, thirds. I mean, it's natural in the fall, you know, like you were
- going on vacation or two weeks or more on the day when all of the crap has to be in, you know. Yeah,
- I was not put a limit on it. We could add that later if it seems like it's falling too hard.
- I just wanted to bring it up. You know, it's interesting. Okay, so I work on a memo. Maybe I'll put
- it all in the same memo. Thank you so much. Yeah, probably that would be. So should we ask this full
- council to also vote on the idea of consent agendas? I think I think we have a decent amount of support for that.
- We have mentioned it, I think, in level four. I think so. Or number four. And there were some questions,
- but I don't think there was any strong opposition. I remember having some serious concerns that have
- been alleviated based on the list of things. That's why I remember. Which we have not quite clarified yet. No.
- legal council, so. Right, yeah. Okay, so we don't need to go on that. I can draft a memo and send it
- to each committee member individually to see if we have feedback prior to putting it in the packet.
- Okay. So for April 1st, I'd have to do that. Based on that, well, there is a chance that we don't have
- a meeting on April 1st, because we're not saying
- unless like something's supposed to fall off when it's dead. But it is likely, well, I don't want to
- say it's likely. We don't have a lot of stuff just that's going to be running for April 1st, especially
- because it's one week after our most recent meeting. So there's a chance that we will not be having
- a regular scheduled session. It's going to work into something else. But I just want you to be aware
- of that so that we're not, like you don't need to struggle. It's all in our hands. I appreciate that.
- All right, we already did public comment on this. So let us go to agenda item five, allowing non-city
- residents to serve on boards and commissions. So just going in the order that's on the agenda. And this
- is something that we started in 2025. So council member Flaherty did report back to me on
- the Environmental Commission where we find his name. So just for some background, so this came about
- largely because the Bloomington Arts Commission had a member who was within city limits but then moved
- outside of city limits and then thus was removed from the commission because that was a requirement
- to live within city limits.
- And this kind of opened the question as to, is it really necessary for people serving on some of our
- commissions to live with good signals? And some of the commissions already allow people that are outside
- city limits. Sorry, I'm trying to find it. Here it is, okay. So, from Councilman O'Flaherty,
- the environmental commission is generally agnostic, maybe with a slight meaning in favor of allowing
- the county seat to reopen.
- Number one, environmental boundaries are different than city boundaries. Number two, the Monroe County
- Environmental Commission has largely retooled focus on resilience, meaning there may be less focus on
- other environmental issues via county commission for now. So that is the feedback from them. So we might
- consider letting one seat on the Environmental Commission, be somebody who lives outside city limits.
- The transportation commission, I think, I'm trying to remember, that was also Matt and he serves on
- it. I think the main reason that we put that mission on the list is that they have one seat that says
- we would like to have somebody from MCCST on here, the school district.
- And the person recommended by the school district did not leave the city limits. I think, but I think
- that detail was lost when he talked to the transportation commissioner. So he was going to talk to them
- again. Well, with the transportation commissioner in particular, with, you know, ET, there are routes
- that go outside of city limits and, you know, county does work with ET to fund those routes. So I do
- think that it would be
- worth having one person and that's not even saying this has to be reserved for a county resident but
- to say up to this many seats can be county especially because transportation is truly an accessibility
- issue and like there are quite a lot of people who live in the county you can't afford to live in city
- don't this but that doesn't mean that their dedication for investment is willing to this future is any
- less they just
- when we got half the same tax rate, which, awesome. I would argue that the transportation commission
- doesn't really care. Okay, I think like, because I don't think that that's, I would have to go back
- to the language. But if we created it as a joining of parking and traffic and bike pen, and BT is a
- separate. Yeah, that's fair. It was just an example, but I do think that
- You know, when we talk about transportation, like that doesn't stop when we get to city limits, especially
- since we have, I think the number is 16,000 people who live outside of the rural county but work inside
- of it. And so I do think that it would be fruitful to have other representation. As you recall, the thing
- question that guided our thoughts on this last fall was, does this commission make funding decisions
- or advise on funding, city funding for projects? And the transportation commission does. And so the
- mayor's position is if they deal with city money, they need to live in the city. Just to remind us all.
- Well, I guess my question would be, when we think about the county,
- Are we considering them a partner or an adversary? And I would like to say partner. And I do think that
- the residents of Monroe County, I would hope they would like to say partner as well, but it's pretty
- hard to be like a partner if you're shut out of all of it. So thank you. Okay, moving on with my recording.
- The Farmer's Market Advisory Commission
- already has county membership. It is actually a commission that is not in our city code. So the general
- rule about having to be a city resident doesn't apply to them anyway. The NLK birthday commission. I
- spoke with Dr. Gloria Howland who has a really good accessibility issue and there are a lot of people
- who are invested in that specific
- Commission who live outside of city limits, but would still like to participate. I have not had a chance
- to actually go to the commission, but Dr. Howell, I believe, is the chair. So she would be in favor
- of allowing somebody outside city limits. I would say it was more like diagnostic, but definitely there
- was not any opposition.
- then the Digital Underground Advisory Commission was also fine, but I haven't gotten a chance to visit
- them, so I instead might send their chair and staff liaison a meeting. Okay. The CAS Commission has
- had trouble having a forum to meet. I have
- gone to their meetings several times in the last year and they're really still just trying to get their
- bearings because they had a lot of turnover. So I have not asked them. I personally from observing them
- think they would benefit from having more dedicated members and if there was somebody who was otherwise
- qualified,
- who interviewed or who applied. I personally would be inclined to let them serve. You know, police also,
- it's just part of public safety and it's, you know, it doesn't change when you leave there sitting on
- us, whether you are, you feel safe or, what's word for jurisdictions, at least, yeah, in this county.
- Now, Cindy and I are on the same interview committee. I hope he's on a different one. Have any of you
- seen applicants in recent weeks that were from outside city limits that you were disappointed you couldn't
- consider or any feedback on that? Well, we had a post call with someone who applied for Historic Preservation
- Commission.
- who's had a decent application but did not specify their address. But we followed up with Berth, and
- I say again Berth, across the week. But we, she reached out to, we gave a great role who confirmed that
- they did limit city limits. But if she had not, that would have contributed to our inability to afford.
- We are drastically short on applicants for not voting.
- So what should we do next? And I'm trying to remember where
- The Arts Commission was left off this list, not because we wouldn't consider them, but because we already
- heard from them that they weren't included. Somebody outside said, is that right? Yes. And I will just
- raise that there are liaisoners off. Not a field position right now. The city is still hiring for a
- couple of council. Oh, the staff liaison. And who's the council liaison? I'll be honest.
- But yes, I have had extensive conversations with multiple commission members about this, and they are
- in favor. And the mayor's office was opposed because they do recommend funding. I believe they also
- said they'll administer it further. Yeah, I couldn't understand that. They did.
- So thoughts on, where are we going from here? That seems to be probably a muscle-asshole discussion
- before we write down the dissociation. Yeah, let's have, so how are we going to have, I think it should
- be a recommendation from this committee. Okay. Is it recommended and then,
- or say conditional on the approval of the whole body. And that now, yeah, we won't recommend the allowing
- of counties to be taught exercising emissions. Yeah, so. So I guess consider the environmental commission,
- arts commission, the arts commission.
- I mean, I would limit in each case, I would limit it to one seat. Sure. Transportation Commission, I
- would personally limit it to the seat that CCSE is asked to fill. So I actually just like read through
- that again, and it says two members shall be appointed, one by the mayor and one by the council. Preference
- for appointments will be given to board members and board members or other formal volunteers within CCS.
- So it's just preference. Right. It's not a requirement. And I'm reading through the rest of this. I'm
- probably pretty uncomfortable with it being generally open to counting. Or just the transportation.
- Just having like reading through the responsibilities and thinking about how they're
- what they're potentially weighing in on, which is essentially city plans and city master plans. And
- I can absolutely appreciate wanting to be a partner with the county, but I mean, you kind of said it.
- So if you live within city limits, you're paying a few more taxes and shouldn't you be getting something
- more for that? I think that you should be. And so I guess I'm kind of to some degree in alignment with
- the administration line, like if you're handling a lot of city resources, then you should be a city
- resident doing that. And I don't think the Transportation Commission is necessarily approving dollar
- amount funding than the way that Arts Commission is. Though they may have some small grants in there
- somewhere, but they're potentially approving plans.
- like street plans and design plans, and then that impacts staffing and staff time. And so I think that
- that's also kind of like having an impact on city resources. And I have a conflict about having somebody
- in the county, I mean, our commissioners as well are part of the financial thing, but also it's not
- as though there's a shortage of qualified candidates for those seats.
- Because there are lots and lots of qualified candidates for those seats that live within the city limits.
- And so once again, especially since they're dealing with some measure of, because don't they have, don't
- they make decisions also about public art projects and things like that? Isn't that also, they don't
- just give those grants, but they also do public art projects, especially because we have that funding.
- One is for public art, one is for grants. One percent of the, at least to the convention center, I know
- that has a different body to kind of govern that, but I don't know the answer to that, which time you
- were getting. I do want to know three or nine minutes until our next meeting. You have to be downstairs
- on the road for that. Yeah, anyway, that's my general view on that.
- Okay, well, let's, um, I don't know, but we're almost to the open public comment. So, um, I will try
- to get the cast commission and see what they think. Um, and hopefully we will have, uh, our fourth committee
- member here at our next meeting, and then we can, um, decide how to move forward on this item.
- So now let us move to a period of open general comments on the work of the Committee on House of Processes.
- And I think everybody here. Very briefly, I'm not going to keep you from anything. Just on this, I will
- briefly say it because there was one here. On the non-city residence question, that's a very bifurcated
- view. You just narrowed this whole question, which goes to a much larger issue.
- about city-county cross-jurisdictional stuff to solve and address issues that are issues that affect
- people across jurisdictions. There are other ways. Think about this beyond just either non-city residents
- out of border conditions. I encourage the committee to think about this. Open it up a little bit at
- some point and think about, well, there's such things as they're designed for a little bit of parallel
- architecture. There's non-official members.
- that's official members kind of thing. There's different ways you can do things that may fit something
- without getting into some of the real problem of the money thing, if I may say, you know, there's a
- real stuff like that. So I think that could be a little bigger. The only other thing, the non item I
- was going to mention as I made, is I understand, I've tracked for 10 years, I've looked here, the public
- engagement stuff, including the public engagement director roles, which have been infused, talking with
- Larry Catherine,
- and I tracked the job descriptions thereof throughout. And interestingly, since I couldn't meet with
- a new person because they were on board for a while, and then when I asked, finally, I thought they
- weren't there anymore. And I understand from Bruce's conversation, there is no plan to retire. So this
- is interesting to me, having watched this a little bit over time, and it just only comments here because
- you're such an interesting commitment in terms of, I think,
- the reach for good governance, if you will, and public engagement, if you will, and trust in governance,
- if you will, that circulates about what you're supposed to do. I think NUSA takes stock a little bit.
- Okay, what's happening with the city's attention? It doesn't underlay, to this whole question of even
- public comment.
- and how you inform people about what's going on. That's what I think a lot of people know. Some of them
- are all the same, get to the root of it. I just think, take a look at this maybe sometime, because somehow
- somebody should, it doesn't fit just in administration, it doesn't fit just in legislation, the little,
- one of those big stuff things. And I think it might be time, if indeed I'm right on, what do I know?
- I just talked random things, that there's no immediate higher thing that works.
- That's for the public engagement director. I don't know why the person is there, nor do I need to know
- or take your time, but all I know is there isn't a human. And the position as I read the job description
- has never been fully attentive to the job description by anybody. And I know some of them, right? No,
- not big time, close to nothing, but I know that they have had pretty good conversations and because
- they clicked, different administration, right? So anyway, any kind of religious
- You live to trust in government. There's a lot of money to be raised by the city. If you ever want to
- pay attention to that side of it. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. All right. Well,
- we are next meeting the third Thursday at four.
- Is that already posted? I don't see all of those on there. Yes, it's on the 16th. It's already posted
- then? Yes. All right. Maybe I didn't get an official invite to it. So you are blocked out. You're on
- it? Yes. I'm sorry, not April 16th? Yes. Oh, that is not third Tuesdays. Third Thursdays. Oh my gosh.
- I didn't even register. That's a Thursday. I saw the T and it's Tuesday today. Am I carrying on? Seven
- days of relief. And there's only like four Starbursts. We've got to spread it out. All right. So we
- will reconvene on April 16th. In the meantime, I will work on the memo. All right. We're adjourned.
- Thank you.