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Optional council member response after the overall forum limited to two minutes per coun- cilor-unanimous support. City Manager Jim Johnson cautioned the council against entering into a debate or full discussion in responding to issues raised at the public forum. Public Hearings. Mr. Kelly called attention to the changes he submitted earlier in writing, which Mr. Meisner pointed out, were, in fact, not changes. Mr. Johnson said the ground rules will be made available to the public to avoid confusion. Executive Sessions. There were no changes but Ms. Nathanson addressed the popular notion that "Eugene does not hold executive sessions," saying they were necessary to avoid "innuendo, conjecture, and rumor." Mayor Torrey asked staff to provide a distillation of the pertinent laws. Minutes. There were no changes. Mayor Torrey urged the council to submit changes in writing whenever possible. Annotated corrected minutes are appreciated. It was clarified that corrections are to be verified if someone objects to the corrections. Mr. Farr opined that "the minutes were at an all-time high," specifically with accuracy and timeliness. Voting. This was changed by adding the following phrase at the end: "...unlessa conflict is declared." II. Placing Items on Council Agenda Mr. Kelly asked that staff clarify subsection 3 to state that the City Manager will place any councilor item request on the Council Consent Calendar. Mr. Rayor suggested that the last sentence in this section ("If an item is of an urgent nature, the councilor may request a waiver of these guidelines at any council meeting or work session and must receive six affirmative votes to waive these guidelines.") be deleted, and that item 1 be revised by indicating the original text was subsection (a) and with the addition of a clause (b) saying that three councilors may place an item on a council agenda. There was unanimous support for the suggestion with the clarification elicited by Mr. Torrey that the purpose of placing an item on the agenda was for initial discussion of the topic. Mr. Johnson noted his concern that three councilors could initiate a considerable amount of staff work before the full council had the opportunity to discuss the topic. Ms. Helphand summarized the discussion, saying that Mr. Rayor's suggestion appeared to provide a third alternative for placing items on the agenda and addressed some of the concerns expressed by councilors regarding public perception about the council's agenda setting. Mr. Johnson asked members needing help with explaining their items for the consent calendar to seek assistance from staff. The council agreed that "ceremonial matters" requests should be forwarded to the mayor. III. Order of Items on the Agenda The following changes were suggested: Paragraph 2--meeting minutes corrections will be dealt with before voting on the Council Consent Calendar; paragraph 3 will be amended proposing the Minutes--Eugene City Council February 6, 1999 Page 3 9:30 a.m.