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<br />Topic: Appropriate use of staff within two-hour rule (e.g. one councilor with multiple two-hour requests) <br /> <br />Mr. Pryor said this issue related to what it was appropriate for a councilor to ask staff to do without the <br />authority of the full body if there could be an official implication. He said the two-hour rule was meant to <br />address use of staff resources, but wanted some clarification about whether that could include a request to <br />work on a policy issue in which no one else on the council had an interest. <br /> <br />Ms. Ortiz asked there had been concerns in the past that prompted adding the topic to the agenda. She <br />requested feedback from staff. Mr. Ruiz replied that staff was responsive to the council as a whole and <br />within established guidelines to individual councilors. He had not received feedback from staff regarding <br />numerous requests that were taking longer than two hours to fulfill. He would notify a councilor if a request <br />was likely to exceed two hours of work and the council could then bring that issue before the body to <br />determine if it was appropriate to proceed. <br /> <br />Mr. Zelenka pointed out there were numerous ways in which a councilor could request information from <br />staff and there should be a master list of requests to assure that nothing was overlooked. Mr. Ruiz said the <br />assistant city manager tracked requests that came into the city manager’s office and assured that responses <br />were provided. He asked that any requests that were made via email also be copied to the assistant city <br />manager. He said that the status of decisions and requests from past council meetings would be periodically <br />reported to the council. He encouraged councilors to let staff know if there was no response to a request. <br /> <br />Mr. Clark said he occasionally made requests of department executives and expected that if any of those <br />exceeded the established guidelines that information would be conveyed to him by the city manager. Mr. <br />Ruiz said he was supportive of councilors working directly with executives and trusted that executives could <br />accurately determine whether a request conformed to the guidelines and discuss any concerns with <br />councilors. <br /> <br />Ms. Taylor was pleased that Mr. Ruiz encouraged communication between councilors and executives. She <br />appreciated having the city manager’s office track decisions and requests and provide status reports. She <br />did not like the two-hour rule and felt if a request took longer it should not be eliminated just for that reason. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman said that tracking decisions and requests was an improvement in service to the council. She <br />said she had many requests for information because she perceived that agenda packets had less information <br />and she only asked staff to pursue something that was already on the agenda or an issue in which the council <br />was already interested. She objected to the quality of responses to issues raised during meetings or public <br />forums as being to general. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling hoped that executives understood that if an individual council’s request or direction crossed a <br />boundary they could indicate to the councilor that the matter had to be referred to the city manager before a <br />response would be provided. <br /> <br /> <br />Topic: Raising issues/motions at meetings without adequate prior notice <br /> <br />Mr. Poling said he was not concerned with motions that were made during a meeting that were related to the <br />agenda items or motions that were time sensitive or in emergency situations. He was concerned with <br />motions that had major repercussions in the community, such as purchase of the Amazon headwaters <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 15, 2008 Page 7 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br />