Council hopes to trim meetings

SANDPOINT - There are many ways to spend six hours, including flying from Spokane to New York, watching the first two seasons of Seinfeld on DVD or cooking a 30-pound turkey.

Another way to spend six hours would be to attend a Sandpoint City Council meeting.

The council's September meeting clocked in at a whopping six hours and 10 minutes, and could have lasted even longer, according to City Attorney Will Herrington. Among his other duties, Herrington is tasked with keeping track of meeting lengths, and halfway through last month's session he reported the council was on pace to finish its evening at 1:30 a.m.

With a number of important issues just around the bend, including its much-discussed comprehensive plan, the city is hoping for more citizen involvement at its monthly meetings, but council members realize wooing area residents to a six hour meeting will be tough sledding.

In an effort to streamline the meetings, the Administrative Committee met Wednesday to discuss ways to keep its sessions to a more reasonable length.

Councilwoman Helen Newton introduced the idea of limiting the number of public hearings allowed at each meeting. At its September meeting, the council had seven public hearings on its agenda. Newton proposed cutting that number to three, with any leftovers moved to a separate meeting at a later date.

Councilman Doug Hawkins agreed that six-hour meetings were excessive, but said public hearings are not the only culprit for the lengthy sessions. Hawkins argued that the council has been adding more and more items to the agenda, without making time concessions for the added topics.

No decisions on the issue were made, but the committee will continue to pursue options for making meetings more accessible.