Council Recap: Rules of Procedure

"7. REVIEW AND DISCUSS COUNCIL RULES OF PROCEDURE"

With that innocuous wording, the Richardson City Council took up a question that has long puzzled me. That is, why don't City Councilmembers drive change in the City of Richardson? I attributed it partly to lack of will, but also partly to confusion over whether they even have the power to set the agendas for the City Council meetings. If it's not on the agenda, they can't deliberate it, they can't make motions for it, and they can't pass the motions that bring change.

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Here's what I wrote barely a month ago:

A new majority on City Council has been born, one that can control the outcome of votes on items brought to them by the City Manager. They still aren't showing they know how to exercise their power to change the agenda, but that day could come. Baby steps.

Source: The Wheel.

This week, the City Council took a big step. Procedures have been clarified, documented, codified. A draft document setting down the "Rules of Order and Procedure" was reviewed. Feedback on the draft was provided by City Council. City Manager Don Magner will bring back a revised draft for formal approval by the City Council. Then it's up to individual Councilmembers to exercise the control they have to drive an agenda for change.

Committee Appointments

The newly codified rules explicitly grant the Mayor a power that has only been accepted practice in the past. The rules now state, "At the beginning of each two-year City Council term, after all Council members are elected and the Mayor Pro Tem is selected, the Mayor shall appoint Council members to the following Council Committees, advisory board and commission liaison assignments, and regional assignments." None of the Councilmembers objected to them having no power, individually nor collectively, in making these assignments.

In a different discussion Councilmember Ken Hutchenrider spoke of, "All seven of us being equal on this body..." This power is being granted to the Mayor alone. Also, in a different discussion, Councilmember Jennifer Justice said, "And so I think we need to have minimal check and balance." This power they are granting the Mayor has none. Even if they are happy with the current assignments, some future mayor could use this newly granted power to reward friends and punish perceived enemies on Council. I would have suggested wording that at least reserves ultimate power to the whole Council: "The Mayor shall nominate, for the consideration and approval of the Council, the following assignments..."

Agendas

The City's draft rules (2.2) states "The City Manager shall establish City Council meeting agendas..." Who sets the agendas is one question that I've long assumed the answer to, but never saw it anywhere in writing. It's nice to see it now in writing. I didn't like this being the City Manager's exclusive right, so I was happy with additional language in the new rules.

The draft rules go on (2.2.a) to define a way for Councilmembers to get items placed on the agenda: "If an individual Council member wants to place an item on the City Council meeting agenda, a written request shall be made to the Mayor accompanied by written support by at least two other Council members for the placement of that item on an agenda." [Update: the City Charter in Section 3.09 already grants this power for calling special meetings. This extends that power of placing items on the agenda of all meetings.]

Councilmember Dan Barrios suggested, in the interest of greater transparency, that instead of a written request, the request be raised in public at a Council meeting, and that "support" be in the form of another Councilmember "seconding" the request. He reported that that's the way Plano does it.

Mayor Bob Dubey appears to oppose Barrios's suggestion: "I think it is a better practice for us to present it prior to get some agreement among Council so that our staff can have the opportunity to be prepared and present in a professional manner as opposed to flying, you know, swinging from left field or hip." Mayor Dubey doesn't explain how his suggestion avoids violating the Texas Open Meetings Act by getting "some agreement among Council" outside of a meeting. But his word choice does an admirable job of demonstrating what you might say when "swinging from left field or hip."

City Secretary Aimee Nemer warned against using Council meetings to suggest future agenda items: "We're not able to discuss it at any point. If there was someone at the meeting who disagreed with that being on the agenda, [you] could get into a discussion on the merits of it being put on the agenda, which is a violation of the [Texas Open Meetings] Act because it's not posted."

Justice feels that an alternative avenue is needed: allow Councilmembers to submit requests outside of weekly meetings in writing, which is how the draft rules put it.

Hutchenrider wanted to eliminate the need for getting support from a second or third Councilmember: "I feel that we're all equal and that we ought to have that right as a City Councilperson to be able to place something on the agenda without having to go and lobby." Good for Hutchenrider for expanding the power of City Councilmembers. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that on this point, Hutchenrider is out ahead of me, but with a suggestion that I can't support.

Magner explained why you might want to require support of additional Councilpersons before placing an item on the agenda. "Even if you just put it on an agenda and you have that discussion, and it doesn't go anywhere, it still takes time and it still takes some staff preparation." Why expend that effort on a request that has no other support on the Council? Magner also pointed to Section 1.5 in the draft rules as perhaps meeting the spirit of Hutchenrider's request. Any one Councilmember can ask the City Manager to research his pet agenda item. "Council members may request information or research from staff on a given topic through the City Manager." If those requests concern policy or require significant resources, the City Manager "may present that request to the full City Council prior to proceeding."

This is the point of my summary where I want to write what the consensus of the Council was. They all acted as if they arrived at a consensus on a method for Councilmembers to get agenda items placed on a future agenda. But, as all too often, no one summarized what that consensus was. As all too often, it's left to the City Manager to put it into words...later. The public, and the Council themselves, will just have to wait for him to bring another draft to the Council to see exactly what they all agreed to tonight.

Recorded Meetings

Section 2.8 of the draft rules states, "City Council meetings will be broadcast on the City's website and television and/or other authorized medium in accordance with the Texas Government Code Section 551.128, as amended." Pretty straightforward. But listen to how City Secretary Niemer spoke to this section at the meeting: "Section 2.8 refers to State Law Section 551.128 of the Government Code, which states that the city shall make a video and audio recording of each regularly scheduled open meeting that is not a work session or special called meeting. Now this is the minimum requirement. And as you know we record all of our sessions and meetings that are held in this room where we have the recording equipment setup." (emphasis added).

Note that the draft rules omit mention of worksessions, special called meetings, and meetings not held in the regular Council chambers. That's a huge omission. The Mayor or City Manager can keep something from being recorded just by moving it to another conference room. That's been how the City Council avoids recording its Goal setting meetings each term.

Barrios wanted that changed. Unfortunately, he suggested "aspirational" language: "Maybe we can add a line saying that we will make efforts to our best ability to...record and broadcast all" meetings. Magner explained that official procedures usually avoid aspirational language: "We're happy to try to incorporate some aspirational language but the reality is, we have to do it in accordance with the state law. Everything we do above and beyond that is your direction to us." There is nothing against State law for the City procedure to state that all City Council meetings are to be recorded. Not aspirationally. Not "to the best of our ability." Not "unless we want to hide away in a more 'functional' room." All means all. Even when it's inconvenient. If you can't stomach an absolute rule with no exceptions, at least get everyone on record. Allow exceptions only by unanimous consent agreed to in open meeting. But calling some meetings "worksessions" instead of "meetings" in an attempt to evade State law shouldn't be accepted in any circumstance.

Hutchenrider said, "I'm all about transparency. I say that very, very strongly." He continued by showing how weakly he really means it. "I'm just looking at it from purely practical standpoint of how we would do some of the meetings that we go to HOAs and things like that."

Mayor Dubey offered his opinion, prefaced with his own line in the sand: "I am 100% behind transparency." Then he goes on to state cases where he's willing to cross that line. "This room does not necessarily mean it's functional. And we divide into subgroups and we have four different groups. And not all of them can be heard like when we set our Goals and we break out into individual groups. I don't think that's doing the citizens a favor when they really can't tell what we're even saying." He's referring to the Council's goal-setting meeting. A witness to the Council's last such meeting called "B.S." on this excuse. The witness estimates that no more than about 20 minutes of a four hour meeting consisted of "breakout sessions." That means that three hours and forty minutes of the meeting were just like any other meeting, all of which are recorded. The Mayor is not doing the public a favor by not recording those three hours and forty minutes.

If there are known "functional" limitations to the rooms the City Council uses to hold meetings, now is an excellent time to address those limitations. The design of a new City Hall is underway. Task the designers with solving the "functional" limitations that prevent the City Council from recording all of its meetings, from goal setting meetings to HOA meetings.

But neither Barrios nor any other of the other Councilmembers wanted to press the issue and explicitly adopt a policy stating that all Council meetings shall be recorded, or even task the City Manager with eliminating the functional barriers that they think prevent that from happening. In short, they strongly favor transparency...when it's convenient.

Public Comments

The new "Rules of Order and Procedures" makes changes to the rules surrounding public comments at meetings. Public comments will be sorted into two categories: those addressing agenda matters, and all other matters. Comments on agenda matters will be heard first. Thirty minutes will be set aside for those comments. If there are more speakers than can be accommodated in thirty minutes, the mayor shall, at his discretion, either expand the amount of time devoted to public comments, or reduce the amount of time allocated to each speaker. Once all the speakers to agenda items have been heard, all other comments will be heard. This time, if there are more speakers (of both categories) than thirty minutes can accommodate, the excess speakers will be heard at the end of the meeting. In all cases, if someone wants to speak, they will be allowed to speak. Their time may be shortened to less than five minutes, or they might be heard at the end of the meeting rather than the beginning, but they will be allowed to speak.

Other than a few questions asking for clarification of these rules, no one on Council had any requests for changes to the rules. Nor do I. But then I speak here, not at Council meetings, and as judged by the length of this blog post, I observe no limits on my time. ;-)

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"Power yet untapped,
City Council's potential.
Agendas in grasp."
—h/t ChatGPT