At the Council meeting of Tuesday, May 29, 2007, the Council considered the subject of streamlining its meetings.  After much discussion of many options the Council directed that the following changes be implemented:

1. The number and frequency of Council meetings would be determined annually considering the calendar.

2. The City would continue the practice of not meeting on City election days to provide the City Clerk with the opportunity to devote full attention to the election.

3. Council meetings may not last past 11:00 p.m., without an affirmative vote of a majority of the Council.

4. Instead of the various periods of public comments during the current Council meetings, there would be the period before Closed Sessions (3 minutes), one combined period prior to consideration of agenda items for any item within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Council, including agenda items (5 minutes), and one period at the conclusion of the meeting also for any item within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Council (3 minutes).  The current restriction that speakers must chose between speaking at the first or last public comment period would be deleted.

5. Speakers during public comment periods desiring to present documents to the Council must provide ten copies of such documents.

6. Regular Council meetings begin at 6:00 p.m., preceded by Closed Sessions and study sessions.

We have also proposed several changes to the current rules to bring them into compliance with these changes and with current practices.

1. We have proposed to change the designation of Oral Communications to the more descriptive and more generally understood, Public Comments.

2. Currently, the Council rules allow a majority of the Council to call a special meeting only in the Mayor�s absence, or if the Mayor is unwilling to do so.  State law is not so restrictive.  We have proposed to allow either the Mayor or a majority of the Council to call a special meeting.

3. We have also proposed that calls for special meetings may be made by email consistent with current technology.

4. We have proposed that the City Manager, consistent with her charge to manage the business of the City and the agenda load, may determine the order of business on the agenda.  Of course, this would be subject to the requirements of state law (such as for public comments) and subject to contrary direction from the Council.  The current rules mandate a particular order that allows very little flexibility.

5. Rather than specify the public buildings where the agenda must be posted, we have suggested instead that it must be posted in three public buildings.  We are concerned that if one or more of these specified buildings are unavailable for any reason the Clerk would find herself in violation of Council rules.

6. Although the City has employed a Consent Calendar for sometime, it has never been defined.  We have suggested including a definition in the Council rules.

7. We have suggested deleting the option of reading the minutes, since that option has not been employed in many, many years.

8. Consistent with Council practice, we have suggested amending the rules to allow, in addition to the Mayor, that any member of the Council or the City Attorney may interrupt a speaker to raise a point of order.

9. To be consistent with the change in the speaking time for Public Comments at Council meetings, we have recommended that the speaking time, where Public Comments are authorized, at adjourned, continued, or special meetings also be 5 minutes.

10. We have suggested making it clear that the Mayor may reduce the speaking time of all speakers where the number of speakers will make it difficult to complete the business of the City at a reasonable hour.

It is RECOMMENDED:

a.       The following ordinance be introduced:

AN ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BURBANK AMENDING SUBSECTION (A) OF SECTION 2-203 OF THE BURBANK MUNICIPAL CODE RELATING TO MEETINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL

b.      The following resolution be adopted:

A RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BURBANK ADOPTING RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF COUNCIL MEETINGS AND REPEALING RESOLUTIONS NOS. 26,029, 26,046, 26,087, 26,438, 26,527, AND 26,751

go to the top