Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mayor Piercy said the media piece sent by staff was good but it did not call out something that staff thought the councilors might be asked about. She thought it would be beneficial to identify issues that were likely to be of interest in the community. Ms. Solomon thought City Manager Taylor and staff had done a great job of letting the council know of what potential questions might come up as a result of media contacts. She was not willing to ask staff to call the councilors individually to make sure the councilors had read their emails. She said at some point the councilors had to take some responsibility for doing this. Ms. Bettman called this an ongoing problem. She thought the media list was “so generalized that it was difficult to discern” the difference between a larger issue and a smaller issue. She had been frustrated when running into people on boards and commissions, people in neighborhood groups, and people in the business community who have “all kinds of information.” She asserted that though they were told there were things that were not okay to share with councilors, she ran into people “who have vast knowledge of details” and who expressed surprise that she did not know what they knew. She said it “was a paradigm here” that the information was not completely flowing. She recalled that Jim Johnson called councilors about major issues during his tenure as city manager. Ms. Ortiz said she was just asking for something more than the current practice. She felt staff did a good job with the emails and newsletters, but she wanted to know when something critical happened that might garner a lot of community interest in a negative way. City Manager Taylor responded that it was difficult to know what issues would rise to a critical level. Mr. Zelenka said he did not read the newspaper until the end of the day. He thought that if something was newsworthy the council should be notified of it in advance. City Manager Taylor responded that this was the current procedure as the councilors were issued an email every night that said what media contacts had occurred. He cited an example from earlier in the day and the email that had been generated as a result of the press contact. Mayor Piercy thought the email should include more information. Ms. Taylor reiterated that she had found out the City Manager secured the option to buy downtown property from the newspaper. City Manager Taylor reiterated that staff had sent a memorandum by courier and fax to everyone and had included the information in the Thursday packet. Ms. Taylor underscored that she wanted to have a follow-up call to make sure she received the information. She noted that when the recent staff changes occurred, the councilors received phone calls about it. Ms. Ortiz said she was trying to encourage the process. She cited the example of a recent police shooting and commented that it would have been good to know something about the situation. Ms. Shepard asked if the councilors meant they wanted to expand the details and then have a phone call. Ms. Ortiz responded that this would have been beneficial in the case of the shooting. Ms. Bettman said the way to look at it was that the elected officials were the public face of the City. She averred that when approached with an issue, if a councilor did not know how to respond it did not look good. She thought it was a “no-brainer” that the council should have been notified immediately regarding the shooting. MINUTES—City Council January 10, 2007 Page 3 Process Session