JACKSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL
RESEARCH DIVISION
Rules Subcommittee on Revision of the
Council Rules
Meeting Minutes
October 15, 2018
4:00 p.m.
Conference Room A
Fourth Floor, City Hall
117 W. Duval Street
Topic: Council
Rules revisions
Attendance:
Council Members Greg Anderson (Chair), Bill Gulliford, John Crescimbeni
Excused:
Council Member Lori Boyer
Also: Peggy
Sidman and Paige Johnston – Office of General Counsel; Trista Carraher -
Council Auditor’s Office; Jeff Clements - Council Research Division; Chiquita
Moore – Mayor’s Office; Carol Owens, Juliette Williams and Jessica Matthews –
Legislative Services Division; Cheryl Brown – Council Secretary/Director; Louie
Marino – Council Staff Services
For all other attendees
please see the sign in sheet.
Convened: 4:00
p.m.
Chairman Anderson convened
the meeting and the attendees introduced themselves for the record. Mr.
Anderson said that research has been done on what other city councils do with
regard to their public comment policies. It appears that Jacksonville is fairly
generous in the amount of comment it allows and in its speaker
request/registration policies. Some jurisdictions limit public comment to 20 or
30 minutes total; some require sign-up to speak in advance of the meeting start
time, sometimes well in advance; some stop accepting speaker request cards when
the comment period begins; some limit the number of times a person may sign up
for public comment over a period of time (i.e. once in 90 days). The Ft. Worth,
Texas City Council meeting closed caption system was demonstrated online.
Cheryl Brown said that Jacksonville has purchased the Granicus system with
real-time closed captioning and an online agenda shown along with the meeting
video, but those features are not yet viewable in the Council Chamber until the
computer monitors are changed out later this year.
The group discussed ways to
limit the length of the first public comment period. One suggestion was
imposing a time limit on the submission of speaker request cards; any cards submitted
after that time would be for the second public comment period at the end of the
meeting.
The committee reviewed
several Council Rules compiled and distributed by Deputy General Counsel Peggy
Sidman pursuant to discussions at earlier meetings. Chairman Anderson reported
that Council Member Boyer had suggested that the rule regarding committee
membership be amended to require that all council members serve on at least one
standing committee and that any member appointed to three committees would have
the right to resign from one of the three. Council Member Crescimbeni noted
that the rules provide for standing committees of between 5 and 9 members; he
believes that the minimum should be 7 members. The group agreed that the rules
should be amended to require all council members to serve on at least 1
committee, that a member should be allowed to resign from a committee if
appointed to 2 or more committees, and that committees should be comprised of a
minimum of 7 members.
The group discussed ways to
add council members’ names as co-sponsors to bills without the need to pull a
bill from the Consent Agenda for that purpose. Ms. Sidman was requested to
craft language eliminating the need for a bill to be pulled from the Consent
Agenda for the sole purpose of adding co-sponsors. Council Member Crescimbeni
suggested that an e-mail be sent to all council members on the day of a council
meeting reminding them of their ability to add names as co-sponsors by
contacting the Legislative Services Division in advance of the meeting so that
the existing mechanism can be used.
The group agreed that the
additional 5 seconds added to each public commenter’s 3-minute time limit with
the clock starting when the speaker’s name is called has worked well during its
trial period and should be incorporated into the Council Rules. Council Member
Gulliford said that when he served on the Atlantic Beach City Commission they
moved the public comment period to the beginning of the meeting so that public
commenters could have their say and then depart from the meeting if they
wished. Various ideas for an electronic queueing system to display the names of
public commenters in the order in which they will be called were discussed but
no resolution was reached.
Regarding the limitation of 2
resolution presentations per meeting, Mr. Anderson said that other
jurisdictions have designated times outside of regular meetings for the
presentation of resolutions (i.e. between the agenda meeting and the regular
meeting). Council Member Crescimbeni said that the key factor is the time
allowed for each presentation, not necessarily the number being presented. He
suggested that rather than limit a council member to a fixed number of
presentations a year, perhaps a total presentation time could be imposed (i.e.
30 minutes per year) which would encourage council members to be brief. Council
Member Gulliford suggested limiting the presentation to just the sponsoring
council member and the recipient, without other council members all adding
additional comments. Mr. Crescimbeni said that there seems to have been a
proliferation in recent years of resolutions for less and less significant events,
which diminishes the value of resolutions overall. Mr. Gulliford suggested
limiting the types of resolutions that can be presented at meetings, with the
remainder being presented by the sponsor at other venues in the community. Mr.
Crescimbeni suggested prohibiting council members from presenting resolutions
at consecutive meetings and making an abbreviated summary of the resolution
that would be read instead of the entire resolution. Mr. Gulliford recommended
having the photo opportunity with the recipient before the meeting rather than
at the time of presentation. No conclusion was reached.
The committee discussed the
pros and cons of allowing a motion to deny a bill rather than moving approval
and voting against the motion. Peggy Sidman urged clarity of the record and assisting
the audience’s understanding of the proceedings by ensuring that the green
button always means “yes” and the red button always means “no” on the proposal.
The group agreed to recommend amendment of the Council Rules to remove the
option to move denial of a bill.
Ms. Sidman said that she
already had a Council Rules amendment underway and she will incorporate the
Rules Committee’s actions tomorrow into that bill for the committee’s
consideration. The committee will meet again when Council Member Boyer can be
present to raise additional issues.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:55
p.m.
Minutes: Jeff Clements,
Council Research Division
(904) 630-1405 jeffc@coj.net
Posted
10.16.2018 12:00 p.m.
Tape: Rules Subcommittee on Council Rules Revisions
– LSD
10.15.18