McCalpin’s Unofficial Guide to Richardson City Council Meetings
by William "Bill" McCalpin
Part 4
Agendas and How they Work
Each type of meeting has its own agenda, but they tend to follow a somewhat predictable pattern. Note that the agenda for a given meeting is available 72 hours in advance both at City Hall and on the City’s website, as noted before.
City Council Worksession Agendas
The typical City Council Worksession agenda consists of the following:
- Call to Order
- Visitors (but see note below)
- Agenda Items
- Various Briefings by City staff
The Call to Order is very simple; at approximately 6 p.m., the Mayor (or Mayor Pro Tem in the Mayor’s absence) asks everyone to sit and calls the meeting to order. Note: the Richardson Room is normally open before 5:30 p.m. because Council members and City staff attending the meeting are invited to eat a buffet dinner served in the room. The public is permitted in the room at this time, and can approach Council members and staff at this time.
There is a “Visitors” section on the agenda in which any resident (or even non-resident, for that matter) can come and speak on virtually any issue they desire. Under the current rules, members of the public who wish to speak before the Council should approach the City Secretary (currently Pam Schmidt) who sits at one of the staff tables, and complete a speaker’s card. The card asks for the speaker’s name address and reason for speaking.
The purpose of asking for the reason for speaking is not to limit what issues the speaker may address, but to let the Council know about how many speakers want to address a given issue. Given that the Visitor’s section is limited to 30 minutes (see Visitor’s Section for more information), the Mayor may ask speakers to limit themselves to 3 or fewer minutes or ask some speakers to yield to others or otherwise alter the general structure of the Visitor’s Section to accommodate the public.
Also note that the visitors who want to speak on an item that is a public hearing may be asked to delay their comments until the public hearing (if on the same evening), since speakers at public hearings have more leeway than in the Visitor’s Section in any case.
Note: the Visitors agenda item is only on days in which there is no Council meeting that follows. When the Worksession is followed by a Council meeting, then the Visitors Section will be on the City Council Meeting agenda, not at the Worksession.
'Agenda Items' refers to to the City staff briefing the Council on any items on the agenda of the subsequent regular business meeting. That is, if there is a Monday where the worksession is followed by a regular Council meeting, there may be one or more agenda items on the agenda of the regular Council meeting that the staff may want to brief the Council on during the worksession.
Note that when the staff briefs the Council on these agenda items, that much of the staff briefing may be repeated later at the Council meeting; however, the Council may ask questions or otherwise discuss the agenda item more in detail at the worksession. This means that for citizens who are interested in the staff briefing and Council discussion (i.e., not just the vote) on a particular issue, they will probably want to attend the worksession as well as the Council meeting on the same day.
'Various Briefings by City staff' comprise the bulk of the normal worksessions. These briefings are generally on subjects that the City staff has been working on or refer to updates in State law that affect the City or may be reports or presentations from other entities (for example, the senior management of UTD comes at least once a year to report on what UTD is doing) - anything that is of value to keep the Council informed while not being a formal agenda item or piece of business that needs a vote.
For example, on October, 5, 2009, the worksession had a briefing on the "Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Master Plan". This briefing gave the Council a chance to review staff progress on this plan as well as to hear the consultants that the City has engaged to help develop and write the Plan.
City Council Meeting Agendas
The typical City Council Meeting follows the following agenda:
- Call to Order
- Invocation, and Pledges of Allegiance to the US and Texas flags
- Approval of previous minutes
- Visitors
- Various agenda items, including public hearings
- Consent agenda
Call to Order
The Call to Order is a formal call to order, that takes place at 7:30 p.m. The Council Chambers are generally open well before 7:30 (however, occasionally, a Councilmember must use his/her key to open the doors) so that the public can enter and find a seat.
Invocation and Pledges
The Invocation is a non-denominational prayer led by a Councilmember.
The Pledges of Allegiance are recited by the Council and the audience to both the US and Texas flags.
Minutes
Generally, the minutes of the previous formal Council Meeting will be approved next. Occasionally, the Council will be asked to approved minutes for two previous meetings. At this time, Council members may ask for changes to be made to the minutes drawn up by the City Secretary after the last formal Council Meeting. If there are no requested changes (the usual case), the Mayor asks for a motion, and the Council votes to approve the minutes.
Note: these are minutes for the formal Council Meetings only; City Council Worksessions do not have minutes that need to be approved as the Council makes no formal decisions in Worksessions that need to be recorded.
Visitor’s Section
Next is the “Visitors” section on the agenda in which any resident (or even non-resident, for that matter) can come and speak on virtually any issue they desire. Under the current rules, members of the public who wish to speak before the Council should, prior to the meeting, approach the City Secretary (currently Pam Schmidt) who sits at one end of the “horseshoe” (the raised platform where the Council members sit), and complete a speaker’s card. The card asks for the speaker’s name address and reason for speaking.
The purpose of asking for the reason for speaking is not to limit what issues the speaker may address, but to let the Council know about how many speakers want to address a given issue. Given that the Visitor’s section is limited to 30 minutes (see Visitor’s Section for more information), the Mayor may ask speakers to limit themselves to 3 or fewer minutes or ask some speakers to yield to others or otherwise alter the general structure of the Visitor’s Section to accommodate the public.
Various Agenda Items
Following the Visitor’s Section are a series of business items where the City Council will be asked to listen to information on a subject and possibly vote on a motion to take a particular action.
One of the most common actions in terms of frequency are zoning cases, where the City Council is asked to vote on making a zoning change or to waive current zoning rules in specific cases. In other cases, the City Council votes on new ordinances or changes to existing ordinances, or the City Council may make appointments to City boards and commissions, or make any number of decisions to conduct the City’s business.
Many of these agenda items will involve a public hearing. A public hearing is a meeting or part of a meeting during which the public is permitted by law to speak on the subject of the hearing. This is different from other agenda items at a City Council meeting, because there is no state requirement that mandates that the public be given a reasonable opportunity to speak on agenda items other than at the Visitors Section; the only requirement is that the public be given the opportunity to be able to listen. Thus, the City Council is not required by state law to allow public input on agenda items such as the minutes or the consent agenda.
Note that because the public is encouraged to speak at public hearings, it is suggested that the public not use the Visitor’s section to address the same issue at the same meeting. It is a matter of courtesy that the time of the Visitor’s section be reserved for the public input on non-agenda items. This works in favor of the public in any case, since the time per speaker allowed in the Visitor’s section is limited while the control of speaker time during the public hearing is frequently much looser, depending on the number of anticipated speakers.
Consent Agenda
There are many business items that are considered routine by the City, in part because they have already been discussed or are part of larger projects that have already been discussed. These business items are collected into a list of agenda items that will be voted up or down as a single block, generally with no discussion. The purpose of this mechanism is not to avoid public discussion, but to quickly dispose of business which has drawn no public interest.
When it is time to consider the Consent Agenda, the presiding officer of the City Council Meeting will ask the Council members if there is any discussion. At this point, a Council member may ask questions about one or more consent agenda items. If a Council member wants a separate discussion and/or vote on some item, the Council member can ask that that item be removed from the Consent Agenda, and as a matter of practice, this will be done. This permits the Council to vote on the remaining items of the Consent Agenda without additional delay, and afterwards, the item removed from the Consent Agenda can be discussed in detail as if it were a normal business item.
In practice, the Council members are aware of Consent Agenda items that may be pulled, because questions on the item have already been submitted to the City staff.
The public is invited to review the items of the Consent Agenda and to submit questions to their Council member of choice. If the Council member agrees that there are some issues to consider, then the Council member can ask for the item to be removed. This is perhaps better than addressing questions to City staff members, who are less likely to pull a Consent Agenda item. A better way of saying this is that a City staff member may need some seniority and a good reason for pulling a Consent Agenda item, whereas by tradition, a Council member does not have to provide a reason to pull a Consent Agenda item.
Under the current practice of the Richardson City Council, passing the Consent Agenda (if one) is the last agenda item in the formal Council meeting, and with the completion of this item, the meeting is normally adjourned.
Editorial Note: McCalpin's Unofficial Guide expresses no opinion on issues or candidates – it is purely information for all residents. All of the information expressed in McCalpin's Unofficial Guide is purely the opinion of the author. The Richardson Echo publishes this as a service but does not endorse nor refute its contents.