02/14/1977 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e to be considered, there is a provlslon in the City eode identi- fying the commissions that they are advisory commissions of the City eouncil, and wanted to call to the attention of the City eouncil the needs of those without purvue; that is, how far does the Council want to go without delegating freedom to these com- missions to speak. Ms. Smith said it was her impression that most of the legislative concerns and items would go through the Legislative Subcommittee and she would hope that the City Council would approve the intent of the amendments and perhaps work out more specific wording to staff's approval. Mr. Obie asked the difference between giving advice and making policy. He said it was his understanding that the eity eouncil policy created the boards and commissions and questioned whether the Council had the right to delegate that authority of policy-making decisions. Mr. Long, City Attorney's office, replied that the Council can delegate policy decision- making authority as it so wishes, but that he was not sure it applied to this particular problem, as the person testifying was not making policy. He said he felt the issue was whether the eity is going to speak with one voice, two voices, or several voices. e Mr. Haws did not feel that the proposed amendments to the reso- lution would leave the staff in any position different than as in the original resolution. He said he would be favorable with the idea of redrafting the specific language if the intent and content stays the same. Mr. Martin indicated there were some grammatical problems that perhaps needed clarification. For in- stance, in Section I, he said it was silent regarding the staff testimony and raised an ambiguous question as to whether staff can present testimony. He also stated that in written statements of the City eounci1 IS position, perhaps it needed to be modified to state where it would be possible, and where not available, to orally identify the circumstances. . Mr. Williams said that he felt the reason that the whole issue had been raised was because it involved a previous city body that had embarrassed the City Council in the eyes of another body and resulted in some serious animosity between the two. He felt the amendment would give the guaranteed license to various boards, commissions, and people to testify in any way they wanted to. He said the Legislative Subcommittee meets every week to review legislation and that persons wishing to testify are certainly welcome to come before the Subcommittee for approval; the City Manager is authorized to give approval of testimony in an emer- gency situation; and that the eity always deals with issues on the broad policy level. Mr. Delay said the statement made that the proposed amendments would be taken as a blank check by the commissions to testify in any way they felt they wanted to was not fair to the commissions. 91 2/14/77--15