City Council Discussion Thread: "Policy or Ordinance concerning new ordinances prior to adoption"

[Robert Owen]

Policy or Ordinance concerning new ordinances prior to adoption​

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Fellow committee members, I'm cross posting this council thread here for committee discussion and consideration of charter implications. This touches on the charter in several ways:

1. We'd discussed the possibility of including a second "reading" by council for ordinances as we've noticed is included in other charters. Would a workshop suffice as the initial "reading"?
2. Should the charter mandate periodic review of newly passed ordinances or even require sunset provisions?
3. Should the charter prohibit policies or ordinances that could work to empower city staff to effectively "sit on" and thus block legislative initiatives? Legislation is strictly the purview of council.
4. Should the charter go further to protect minority points of view? Currently 2 councilors can force an agenda item. How would this policy or requiring 2 reading impact minority / dissenting voices?

Please see the councilors' thoughts in the linked thread and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on charter implications.

 

[Mark Douglas]

I wasn’t able to open the attachments CW had posted, but did read through the Council Members’ comments. But if they are talking about changing the two-council members requirement to place an item on the agenda, that obviously requires a change in the charter. I don’t believe they can simply change that via procedural change.

 

[Charles West]

Just to be clear the pposed workshop is not to allow staff to sit or delay ordiance prposals and it deffintely does not change two members from placing something on the agenda. The premise behind having all new ordinaces go through a worshop first is to provide staff time to vet ordiances to ensure they do not conflict with the charter or other ordinance or state statutes. The process would also provide time for legal counsel to weigh in prior to an ordiance being adopted. The process is to stream line the process not hamper ther process and also prevent unnesscary ordainces from being adopted when there are already other ordaicnes in palce that serve the same function. I will find and attache the documents that are on the council discussion board to allow for this comitte to see what my thoughts were and are.

 

[Charles West]

Attached are the documents. It was also discussed by the Mayor and I that instead fo an ordinance requiring the worskhop approach that this could just be a best practice poilcy. Also certain ordainces would not be required to follow this procedure as they are routine and do not have the same affect as other ordiances, such as the tax rate and budget ordiances just as examples.

 

[Robert Owen]

Attached are the documents. It was also discussed by the Mayor and I that instead fo an ordinance requiring the worskhop approach that this could just be a best practice poilcy. Also certain ordainces would not be required to follow this procedure as they are routine and do not have the same affect as other ordiances, such as the tax rate and budget ordiances just as examples.

Mr. West,

Thank you for the clarifications and context. I agree a flexible policy approach is preferable to an ordinance or codification of a second reading in the charter as the committee found in Rockport 3.11(3-4). I merely started this discussion because potential requirement of a second reading for ordinances is still an open topic on the CRC topic list and that seemed related to the council workshop discussion.