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<br />Mayor Piercy felt that if the council had a good, robust discussion of an issue but had not honed in on one <br />thing that everyone agreed upon, the council could carry the discussion over to its regular meeting in order to <br />gain public input. She noted that there were other councils that used their regular meetings to deliberate. <br /> <br />Ms. Taylor agreed, adding that the public might bring up something the councilors had not thought of. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling commented that the current process worked fine for him. <br /> <br />Ms. Ortiz asked the Mayor if she had brought this issue to the table because she was weary of being a tie- <br />breaker. Mayor Piercy replied that she did not think it had to do with breaking the ties. She related that <br />“many, many people” had said to her that the council did not deliberate enough and that the council seemed <br />to come to the table with a preconceived answer. She also thought the public should have time to be heard. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly said there were certain issues where one could predict how the votes would go and who would <br />vote which way. He thought it would be good to be able to take two strong ideas of outcomes and wait for a <br />week prior to voting. He suggested that someone draft a “straw man” formalization of what this would look <br />like. <br /> <br /> <br />8. Legal Opinions <br /> <br />Mr. Papé related that Ms. Bettman and Mr. Kelly had obtained a legal opinion that was a de facto second <br />opinion without consulting the rest of the council. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman did not believe this was a process issue. She called it inappropriate to bring this up at the last <br />minute of the process session. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly asked if Mr. Papé was trying to raise the general issue of how the council could get a second legal <br />opinion or if he trying to raise the specific issue of the Police Auditor and the second legal opinion that had <br />been provided regarding hiring practices. Mr. Papé replied that he wanted to address the process. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly stated that the council could not engage in a contract and had no way to elect to appropriate <br />another legal opinion as a body. He thought it would be nice to have a mechanism to do so. He remarked <br />that a separate issue in this was that he sometimes consulted his constituents. He cited, as an example, a <br />time when he called an engineer he knew regarding a construction issue. He said in the case of the Police <br />Auditor, the attorney with the second legal opinion had contacted Ms. Bettman and him. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman asserted that the City Attorney represented the City Manager and not the council or the public. <br />She felt with a question of public policy, she would want to get an outside opinion. She recommended that <br />the council put this item on the agenda for the next process session and, in the mean time, that staff should <br />find out what other cities did in regard to this issue. <br /> <br />Mr. Papé said he also utilized the knowledge of constituents. <br /> <br />In response to a question from Mr. Papé, Mayor Piercy acknowledged that she had invited this outside <br />attorney to meet with the City Manager. She said she had asked staff, including the City Manager, to meet <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—City Council September 18, 2006 Page 11 <br /> Process Session <br /> <br />