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Mayor Piercy thought it would provide the opportunity to convey the things that the council was most <br />concerned about and ask that the bodies consider them. Councilors requested that staff consider the <br />discussion and return with one or more options. <br />Ms. Osborn moved on to the next item, which had to do with postponing an action at a councilor's request. <br />This discussion had been requested by Mr. Pryor and Mr. Zelenka. <br />Mr. Pryor wanted to avoid confusion. He thought some felt the tradition was one thing and others felt the <br />tradition was something else. He was interested in moving the business of the City forward. The question <br />for him was to what degree a councilor being able to attend a meeting, or not, should be able to slow down <br />the business of the City. He did not feel that it was in the best interest of City business to not allow <br />councilors to choose to not attend a meeting and to hold up a decision point as a result. <br />Mr. Zelenka did not think it served the councilors well to second guess why a councilor was not at a <br />meeting. He thought they should grant these requests so long as they were not being made to stall a <br />decision. <br />Ms. Ortiz thought that if they were doing council business and it might need to be postponed, they should <br />know in a reasonable amount of time if they were not going to be able to be present. She said if a situation <br />arose, such as a family emergency, then a postponement on a shorter notice should be allowed. <br />Mayor Piercy suggested that they have a form to request a postponement. She thought that this would mean <br />that councilors would get a formal response and would leave no room for guessing. <br />Ms. Taylor averred that it was just courteous to postpone a vote if a councilor could not be there. She <br />discussed some of the challenges that councilors faced when trying to call in and participate, ranging from <br />equipment problems to time zone changes. <br />Mr. Poling recalled past discourtesy in some denials of postponements. He felt they had moved beyond that. <br />He said if a councilor was sent to a training, or something along those lines, it should mean an automatic <br />postponement of decision points. He observed that agendas were sometimes a moving target and a <br />councilor could not be certain in advance of what would be covered during a planned trip. This was of some <br />concern to him, especially, since his annual trip in the fall was to a place where there was no cell service. <br />Mr. Pryor had been interested in having a conversation about this item and arriving at some clarity about it. <br />He agreed that they could not guess intent. He only wanted to eliminate the potential for abuse; he did not <br />want someone to be able to "pop" something on an agenda for a vote because they knew that the people who <br />would vote against it were not present. He wanted to be able to allow people to travel and to be able to <br />postpone votes if they needed to. <br />Mayor Piercy pointed out that there were legal parameters regarding the councilors' rights. <br />Mr. Zelenka felt that postponements should be granted unless an action was time sensitive. He agreed with <br />the Mayor that they should have a little more formalized process. <br />Mr. Clark concurred. He did not want to bind the hands of a future council. He preferred to operate from a <br />process that did not question someone's intent. He thought they should agree that no one would bring up <br />something for action until the full body had the capacity to deliberate on it. <br />Mr. Poling agreed with Mr. Zelenka regarding items that were time sensitive and also that things that arose <br />from real emergencies in the City should not be postponed. <br />MINUTES— Eugene City Council June 16, 2010 Page 5 <br />Work Session <br />