Dear City Council, I live in District 3 and I may miss your meeting tonight. So I write. I recommend that Council make four policy and procedure changes that pertain to the City Council Meetings. Suggestion #1: Develop a short Handout for the public to give them guidance in making public comments.S I would improve on this example https://www.cob.org/Documents/council/Guidelines-Public-Comments-Council.pdf > by making it more visually appealing. I would also customize it to Menlo Park, including that you allow speakers to donate time to another speaker. I would have this handout at the back table at Council meetings. Suggestion #2: Develop and publish stricter definitions for Agenda topic categories. Definitions would foster consistency and help the public to know what to expect. They could also enhance Council's ability to make policy decisions and to foster a more proactive local government. Here are examples: City of Santa Ana https://www.santa-ana.org/sites/default/files/Documents/understanding_council_agenda.pdf > AND City of Berkeley https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2019-01-29-Item-07-Guidelines-for-Developing-and-Writing-Council-Agenda-Items.pdf > (pages 17-22 in their document) AND City of Oakland http://oakland.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=7f69bbdc9ee2f0cdb6fe41e99812ae7e.pdf&view=1 >. * More consistency is needed. For example, I've seen Staff reports in the "Information" category that included direct requests to Council for guidance. (I made a public comment about one.) As another example, I see that Council will hear a "Presentation" at tomorrow's special meeting on the topic of the City's response to the novel coronavirus. The term "Presentation" signals a one-way conversation. However, given the importance of this matter to the public, I ask if a different term -- such as "Working Session" or "Interactive Update" -- wouldn't better signal Council's intention of hopefully hearing from the public, and the City's stated goal of improving public engagement. * The Category signals the importance of the topic. For example, I believe that Consent Calendar items typically don’t get much scrutiny and Information items may not either. Yet, some Consent Calendar items include high dollar amount for an expensive study that signals an early direction. Thus, it would be good to discuss the matter more openly and perhaps to signal to the public that a direction is being taken via the commitment of funds. As another example, most of the ConnectMenlo zoning decisions were passed via the Consent Calendar at Council’s Dec 6, 2016 meeting. * Is the "Information" Category Overused for a policy making group? First, items in the Information Category might also not get much scrutiny. Yet some of these topics have led to next steps on the part of Staff. I also have to ask if the Information category is being overused for a policy making group. You hear updates on many important topics where your opinion had not been directly asked. Wouldn't it be better to hear information and then build in expectations that Council will be giving guidance (at least) towards next steps? The term "Information" also signals a one-way communication. To me, this category is overused, especially at Commission and Committee meetings. I've seen too many of their meeting agendas filled with routine business items (such as approving minutes) or passively listening to Staff reports in the Information Category. After all if the Advisory Committees are supposed to be giving advice, then one would think their agenda topics should mostly pertain to discussions of more weighty matters. * Study Sessions also need stricter expectations. I've been to several that had no direct outcomes. In other words, the meeting led to no fixes of serious problems in Menlo Park that are still problems! Please contact me if you want the details as I'm not trying to embarrass anyone. To me, this is a flaw in the design of the Study Session. Some did not include enough information for Council to determine next steps. Another problem is the too loose expectations for Study Session outcomes.A Study Session is not action! If Council and Staff are taking the time (and sometimes the time of outside speakers) to come and speak on a topic, I believe that there should be next steps identified and acted on. This might include Council hearing the topic again to review the identified next steps (that could be refined and added to by Staff outside of the meeting). Suggestion #3: Put a dollar limit of items going on the Consent Calendar. Anything above the dollar limit would then need to be placed in the Regular Business category. One of our neighboring cities (think it was Palo Alto) recently did this and I like the idea. Suggestion #4: Consider adopting a two-meeting discussion rule for highly important topics. I believe that Palo Alto does this. Although they briefly considered scrapping the rule, they decided that it was important enough to retain. This gives people who weren't aware of the discussion topic time to send Council feedback. At times, Council members have asked for matters to be reconsidered due to hearing from the public in-between meetings. So the Council would benefit from being given more time to think about an important matter before having to vote. Yes, this would slow decision making down on important matters but I believe it would lead to better decisions. Respectfully Submitted, Lynne Bramlett Received on Tue Mar 10 2020 - 17:47:14 PDT
