CC Minutes - 04/17/02 Process - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Meisner agreed with the outlined list but reiterated Ms. Nathanson's comments regarding PIP. Mr. Kelly said there were some simple steps to take on PIP that would not take much time to discuss. City Manager Jim Carlson said he and the executive managers were the most interested in discussing the council requests for information, since that had a direct impact on staffs ability to do work for the council. Regarding council requests for information, Mr. Rayor commented that if a councilor was strongly opposed to something they could throw out a "gauntlet" of tasks that would tie up and waste staff time. He suggested that there be a rule that requests for information might have to have the agreement of three councilors. He raised concern that the council was taking on an analyst role rather than an oversight role. Mr. Meisner expressed a desire to have a discussion on moving the Monday regular sessions back to 7:30 p.m. rather than 8 p.m. Council Information Requests Mr. Carlson said he wanted clarification around existing operating agreements. He noted that requests for information that would take more than two hours of staff time needed approval from the council as a whole, and added that requests that would take less than two hours of staff time needed to be routed through the City Manager. He stressed that all requests needed to come through the City Manager to allow him to make sure that the entire council was getting the same information. He noted that some councilors were calling staff members and asking for information. He said that if a call was just a clarification of a minor item, then it was appropriate, but if the information request would take a significant amount of time, the councilor was providing direction to a staff member of the organization, which was not allowed under the City Charter or the council's own Operating Agreements. Mr. Carlson noted that there was an exception to that rule in that a councilor could contact the designated staff member regarding an agenda item summary. He stressed that the questions to staff still needed to follow the outlined rules regarding time or else the request needed to be routed through him. In response to a question from Ms. Bettman regarding what kinds of questions would be inappropriate to ask staff without going through the City Manager, Mr. Carlson cited crafting alternative motions from staff recommendations and comparisons with other cities. Mr. Kelly said his goal was to comply with the charter while being as efficient as possible. He noted that the previous city manager had no problem with him requesting staff information as long as he received a copy of the e-mail at the same time. He said he would have no problem making the request through the City Manager with a "cc" to the particular staff person and noted that this MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 17, 2002 Page 2 Process Session