Attachment 5To: Laurel Prevetti, Town Manager
From: Lee Quintana
Re: Item 13 TC Agenda Format and Rules Policy 2-01
Date: July 30, 2017
Please provide the Town Council with the following two item which were not included with the
Staff Report:
1) Attachment 3 of the June 26 , 2017 Agenda for the Policy Committee: I submitted this letter
to the Policy Committee shortly after the June 6, 2017 Town Council Meeting , before this item
appeared on the Policy Committee Agenda as item on June 26 , 2017. My letter has not been
included as an attachment to the Staff Report for Item on the upcoming Town Council Agenda
for August 1, 2017
2) Minutes of the Town Council Policy Committee Special Meeting ofJune 26th, 2017: I assume
the Minutes of the June 26, 2017 Policy Committee were approved at the Committee's July 20th
meeting. However, I would like to add the following comments to the record regarding the June
26th Minutes:
• The minutes correctly state that I asked the Policy Committee to consider limiting the
time for Public Presentations, Awards, etc . However, this was taken out of context. I
stated that presentations also have the potential to be lengthy and, therefore, may also
limit time available for Council to address items later on the Agenda. Both the
Presentation and the Verbal Communications portions of the Agenda were longer than
usual on June 26th.
• I expressed the opinion that Policy 2-01 currently allows the Mayor the flexibility to
change the agenda's order and to limit the time allotted to each speaker on the rare
occasion when a larger number of individuals than usual wish to address the Council on
items not on the agenda.
• I suggested that if the intent of the suggested modification was to insure sufficient time
for the Council to hear all items on the agenda it might be more effective to limit Verbal
Communications to a specific period of time rather than to a fixed number of speakers.
• I suggested the current agenda order be maintained and modifications be made to the total
time allotted for verbal comments rather than by a specific number of speakers. I further
suggested that when it appeared likely Public Communications would extend beyond 30
minutes the order of the speaker be randomized and a second opportunity for verbal
communications be added at the end of the regular agenda.
My recollection is that the Policy Committee reached a consensus to recommend the following:
• Keep the existing agenda order
• Modified Policy 2-01 to limit Verbal Communication to a total of 30 minutes
• Randomize the order of speakers.
• If necessary, after 30 minutes Public Communications would be continued at the end of
the meeting.
Thank you for your consideration.
ATTACHMENT 5
Subject: FW: Meeting Issues 8/1/17
From: John Shepardson [mailto:shepardsonlaw@me.com]
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2017 5:25 PM
To: Council
Subject: Meeting Issues 8/1/17
SRO
Does it really need to be for two years? What about one year?
Can we pay for social workers at a lower cost that can bring
equally effective or better results for the money spent?
FROM: SUBJECT:
JULY 14, 2017 TOWN COUNCIL
TOWN COUNCIL POLICY COMMITTEE
RECOMMEND THAT THE TOWN COUNCIL ADOPT A RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROGRAM POLICY
"In addition, due to the proliferation of electronic data, staff believes it is appropriate to explicitly
acknowledge those records (or conversion) as "official records", provided appropriate administrative
procedures are adopted for the creation, management, and storage of electronic documents."
JS—Makes sense. More efficient government action because records easily accessible. More transparency for
public when make records requests.
It
In order to establish an equitable process tor the public to express their views during differing portions of thf
agenda, staff recommends that the initial Verbal Communications portion of the Agenda be canoed at a tntal
allocation of 30 minutes. At the conclusion of the first Verbal Communications, the agenda will proceed onto
the Public Hearings and Other Business sections of the agenda. In the event additional speakers were not able
to be heard during the initial Verbal Communications portion of the agenda, an additional Verbal
Communications section can be opened prior to Adjournment. It should be noted, that a review of fourteen
local jurisdictions (Attachment 2) concluded that all but one have Verbal Communications somewhere near
the beginning of the meeting."
JS—Is this really a problem? Shorten to 2.5 min.? Many that would speak that can't at beginning will probably
just leave and thus not heard.
John Shepardson, Esq.
shepardson I aw(h!me.com
59 N. Santa Cruz Avenue, Suite Q
Los Gatos, CA 95030
T: (408) 395-3701
F: (408)395-0112
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