Council revamps meeting schedule

SANDPOINT — After voting to drop some subcommittee meetings last month, the City Council filled in the details to their revised structure plans last Wednesday.

Although it will likely be a couple months before the changes go into effect, council members are setting the groundwork for a revamped meeting structure. In April, members voted to eliminate the Administrative and Public Works committees, opting instead for two council meetings a month. At next month’s council meeting, City Attorney Scot Campbell will present an ordinance detailing the changes. The new structure will debut in July provided everything goes smoothly.  

At their regular meeting, council members took some time to define precisely what that new setup will look like.

For one thing, monthly staff reports will now appear in the agenda after the consent calendar and before old business. As for scheduling special presentation, the mayor will have the authority to ensure they occur at a timely moment within the meeting.   All council votes will now take place using the roll call system.

In the subcommittee system, residents could apply to have their topic of concern considered at the appropriate meeting. In the new system, residents will still have that opportunity. It will simply apply to council meetings instead.

The new meeting structure also takes some steps to ratchet down formality. After all, the loss of the casual subcommittee atmosphere was one of the primary arguments against the change. Under the new system, council members will still sit at the dais, but rather than standing at a podium, attendees involved in a discussion can now sit at the staff table.    

Campbell originally proposed the change early this year after the old system produced some quorum problems connected to open meeting law. When council members not involved in the subcommittee attended a meeting as private citizens, they inadvertently created a quorum when the city hadn’t followed open meeting law specifications for that outcome. That shouldn’t be a problem under the new setup.  

By meeting twice a month, the council can also make official decisions twice a months. That will allow council members to conduct business at twice the normal rate. In addition, if members decide at one meeting that they don’t yet have enough information to make a decision, individuals waiting on the outcome only have to wait half a month.