Recommendation to adopt a policy setting the maximum number of City Council sponsors an agenda item can have to three - one original sponsor and two cosponsors.
The motion is. Carried. Out in 37. Adam, 37, is a communication from Vice Mayor Richardson. Councilwoman Allen. Councilmember Oranga recommendation to adopt a policy setting the maximum number of City Council sponsor and agenda item can have to three sponsors. Oh, I shouldn't have heard this one, but that's okay. I was a staff item. But let me look over here. Bethany Richardson. Thanks to the attorney who spoke to it pretty well last week. Brown Act is important. There are additional steps that we can take here locally to make sure that we we sort of protect our and protect our city from inadvertently making mistakes. And so the importance of the Brown Act, obviously, we know it's about public, you know, ensuring that discussions are held in public. And so I wanted to carry forward the recommendation from the city attorney to add that additional provision so we don't step over the three into 4 to 5 by by establishing a council policy that sets the max number of offers on an item to three here in the city. And so, that said, I'm happy to make this motion. Councilman Allen. They can't. I don't have any comments. I support this. Item, Mr. Bernanke. Thank you. No. Is that good? All right. Thank you. If we're really trying to avoid browner interactions here, I'm going to make a substitute motion, and that is that we set a new policy that we have no one signing on to items other than the original maker of the motion, and that would avoid any gamesmanship or whatever, and it would absolutely eliminate any browner considerations. And this would be just a regular applied to just regular agenda items and not to supplemental supplementals. We would still use the old rules. Is there a second on that? Or is there a second on that? Of that in that second bit Councilmember Austin that that is the current substitute motion come to anyone go. Thank you. That's given me something to think about because I wasn't aware that there would be a substitute. I think that the first step is knowing and understanding the rules. And I know that we've been committees and different things. Different things have changed. And I think that staff having good intention is important. I'm open to either option. I guess I just want all of us to. Bring forward items. That support the community in a timely manner that supports making good work get done. Lots of different bodies have lots of different ways of doing it. I think that staff could bring back those for us because I'm open to. Whatever's best to get the people's work done. Okay. Thank you. Cancel or bust me, Richardson. Thanks. And I can appreciate the councilmembers Hooper knows of subs through motion. I think the distinction is there is a certain level of collaboration and that's okay. What we're doing is adding a protection ensure that we don't spill over to four and five. So encouraging council offices up to three to collaborate across district lines is a good thing. And I think removing one signer won't stifle that collaboration. So in the spirit of both adding, you know, this recommendation in alignment with the city attorney and preserving some level of collaboration. I support the main motion form. I'm going to vote no on the substitute motion to support the main motion. Councilman Austin. So I. Certainly the. Amendment just in the spirit of hearing hearing it out and I believe it, there's a merit here. This is the Brown Act is very, very delicate. And I think, again, we all in good faith try to do our very best to collaborate, also follow the law. And, you know, a week ago there were there were some procedural errors or that was brought to light. It may have not been the first time. It was the first time it had probably been brought to the light. And I do appreciate the city attorney for the correction and also my colleagues for that and thinking that that. That issue. Listen, the it's one thing, if things are a collaboration, you're damned if you do, but you're damned if you don't. And this is one area that I'd like to see a little bit more emphasis on this. The. Because we can go to other processes, we can go to other types of votes or both in the process and how we can pay for that. You have to get a majority of vote. You telling me that you don't talk to. Majority of people to get to that number of votes on that process. I think, you know, BROWN That is a slippery slope. And we as the council members have to talk to one another to get things done. And so I'm going to withdraw my second on that because I do think collaboration is very, very important. But I will tell you that moving forward, I will bring forth items on my own if necessary, in the spirit of trying to get things done. But at the same time, again, we try to work together and talk to our colleagues and engage folks and bring people on board. There's that that that uneasiness each and every one of us I think most of us have full time employment. Right. And if we're not here, we're not engaged. We're communicating through electronic devices and sometimes over the phone and through intermediaries. That is part of what it takes to move an agenda item and to move policy on the body. And so I want to be very clear that I like the idea of bringing an item of items forward on your own. But there's a risk that you do so that, you know, you might be out there on your own. And so the the city manager's recommendation of three refiners maximum is a safe safeguard. I'm going to vote for the policy, but I don't think we need a policy because war is allowable. That correct. Mr. Turnbull. Sorry. Yes. Council member. That is correct. For Islam. So quick question to the item before us. If someone were to violate the policy and speak to four people, what would be the consequence? The consequence is it is to exactly what you said. It's the policy of the council. And there have been other situations where the council has not followed their policy. The consequence could be a a decision by the council not to either hear the item or. But there is no legal consequence to that as long as it falls within the Brown Act. And I would like to make a suggestion if you pass this policy that you give it a clear direction not to accept items that have four people on it by accident so that its the rules are clear how you want us to handle that. If you submit an item that accidentally has four people on or rather than three. I appreciate that clarification. So those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Captain America. Mayor. Sorry. May I just. Point of order. The second has been considered, so the second has been pulled. Is there another second? If there isn't another second, we go back to the main motion. Is that right? Should attorney. Think so? Okay. Country Ranga. Thank you. Simply stated, a city councilmember can always something. And I don't know that we're going back to the main motion. Okay, that's very Ranga. Yeah, like I said, a city councilmember can always have an item on his own at any time, regardless of whether we have Brown Act or not. The the. The motion on the floor is basically just. Is a cautionary, a cautionary item, too, to give us an indication that if we are looking at more than three people, that that will the city quick will be alerted to it and will let us know what you got for people. You may want to put it back to three. That's it. And it's a precautionary item to just give us notice that. We're on the edge of a brown at issue that we submitted before. That's all that is. It's not to say that we can't still violate the Brown Act by contacting Border Point councilmembers in our effort to get support for an item that is still going to be that still exists, that will always be there in regards to any item that a council member wants to put forward and making sure that no more than than. Or other members are aware of the outrage you're presenting. So on the end of it, at the end of the day, it's basically to separate us. Comment customers without comment is that we're always available to everyone. But one thing that that's important, I think, is the fact that our meeting here on the day is is about relationships . And our relationships are sometimes based on items that we present forward to ensure that we at least vet whatever item we're putting forward so that we know that the discussion is going to be taking place in a in a manner that is going to be either supportive or that brings up questions about why they are with you in the first place. And I think that's very important to our relationships. Other the days and I would say counsel that we share our thoughts. We share our ideas. We comment on them. And we think we will go forward either with three or four individuals. But the Senate would have no more than three. And I support the original motion for a couple among them. Thank you. Last week's discussion brought forward a lot of learning, and I guess one of my colleagues mentioned collaboration and how agenda items bring forward to collaboration. I appreciate the rule that we have put upon ourselves in the past, led by Council Member Super, not in the past. And I appreciate the restructuring of our committees that the mayor took part in earlier this year really facilitated for us. I mean, I would love to see more of that collaboration happen at the committee level. I really think that that's an opportunity where three people are supposed to. I'm really dove into the context of all the other policies that have similar subject to really grow and have the access to the staff members to help flesh out those ideas in a more casual discussion. I also got a call that I thought was a very interesting one where a member stated many years ago the State Assembly and State Senate were not made up of people who had moved from city council level up to. Or moved on to. I shouldn't say because it depends on what region you're in, but moves on to Assembly or Senate positions for the first time in several generations. There are more previously. Council members serving at the State Assembly than never before during our time on this Council, and that the laws related to Brown Act were written, from my understanding now by the State Assembly and Senate, who chose not to have those laws apply to themselves because they felt that. And I want to say how they felt, but there's a lot of discussion that was you can watch on television about the reasoning behind that. And so it's a very interesting topic. I think that we want to protect the public's ability to interact with and take part in those discussions. I think that we as a council have really worked hard to bring those items to the community in a community meeting forum. And I think that hearing those items in advance on committees really brings that back to the community. So I'm happy to support the item on the floor. I'm happy to support a substitute. I'm also happy to kind of align with what Councilmember Odinga said, which is sometimes there's a lot of value in getting that additional input from an additional colleague. And when they don't sign on to the item, it doesn't even give us the opportunity where if one of them signs off later that you know and understand who is a part of that. So I'm open to trying something new and I hope that the state will consider really the changes in technology and all the different factors that have changed since these laws were written and do some significant updating that really gives the public the best access to all the information so that they can really be involved. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. I just want to add some context. And in the spirit of what I brought forward, I'm not disagreeing with our city attorney. In fact, I commend him for bringing the idea forward as a as a method to improve honor system. I would just suggesting if we can do that, we can we can make it even better by eliminating a couple of more folks. The most recent part of this discussion is, you know, I made the I meant that in the best way transforming the. But what I'm hearing just in the last couple of comments is the value of people collaborating. But the city attorney's idea diminishes that. So we're taking away one person from that. So we're kind of working both sides of that argument there. But I'm not sure if I have a second now, but that was the spirit of it. I like the city attorney's idea. I was just looking to improve upon it a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Council members. And they have. Q I just had a question, clarifying question. If we do have if this do we have another motion on the floor? No. This the main. Motion. Okay. And if we do pass the original motion and we do have only three people sign on, we I'm assuming I know this answer, but I'm not sure. And we still can consult with the fourth person. We just wouldn't be signing them onto the item. Correct. Without violating the. Without violating the ban. I guess the the intention of the Brown Act is that you're not trying to reach a consensus with the majority, so that would not be in a majority. So you could do that. Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you. As any public comment on item. Well, there's one more Councilman Price. Okay, so I just this is this is academic, but I just need to make sure this is on the record. So if there are four people on an item and one of the people on the item reaches out to you before the meeting. During the meeting to talk, that's a brown ass violation if you're not one of the four people. Yes. I mean, the issue is you're having a conversation about a subject matter coming before the body with a majority of the council. Yes, that's a serial meeting and it would be a Brownback violation. I agree. And that has been my interpretation. But in the past, I think I've had folks have maybe interpreted it differently and said unless it's at that behind the diocese, it's not really ripe for discussion. Blah, blah, blah. But anyway, if there's four people on an item, you can't talk to them. You can't. Try to come up with compromise positions, etc. If you weren't asked to sign on, you're not part of that conversation until it's at the door. That is correct. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. Members, please cast your vote. Council member, Vice Mayor Richardson. The motion is carried. All right. We're going to go to item 25, you.