The Keizer City Council will discuss changes to its rules and policies at a work session Monday, Feb. 22.
This is from a staff report on the changes:
The Council Rules of Procedures Work Group (Councilors Reid, Smith and Kohler) have met five times and have nearly finished their full review of the Council Rules of Procedure. The work group compared the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) model rules to our current rules. The work group determined that the format of the current rules and most of the substance is appropriate, but in certain cases used portions of the LOC model rules. I have attached the draft rules as approved by the work group, as well as the current Rules of Procedure.
Here are the major changes. The references are to the section numbers in the draft rules:
1. Throughout the document the term “Councilors” has been changed to “Council members” where applicable and terms have been changed to make the document gender-neutral.
2. Section 2.2 Ethics. LOC model rules were added (Subsections A and B).
3. Section 2.3 Quorum. A minor change was made to match up with the new charter language.
4. Section 3.1 Regular Meeting. Subsections B, C and D were added from the LOC model rules.
5. Section 3.3 Special Meeting. New Charter language was used for this section, but had no substantive effect.
6. Section 3.10 Excused Absence. Made a change with regard to a council member appearing electronically in a non-emergency situation. Currently, to allow the electronic appearance of a council member in a non-emergency situation requires a motion to suspend the rules. The change at the end of the section allows for waiving this provision if two thirds of the Council members present deem it important that such council member appear electronically.
7. Section 4.1 Mayor. In the absence of both the mayor and council president, the end of this section in the current rules call for a pro tem Presiding Officer to be the councilor with the longest continuous service on the Council. The work group recommends using the LOC version, which calls for an election for the pro tem presiding officer.
8. Section 4.2 Council President. The work group recommended requiring a vote of four council members, instead of a majority to elect the Council President. In addition, the current version of an automatic nomination for the Councilor with the longest continuous tenure was removed.
9. Section 4.3 Sergeant at Arms. Changed the last sentence of this section to indicate that if the Council president is absent, the presiding officer will be the Sergeant at Arms.
10. Section 5 Decorum and Order. Rearranged some provisions in Sections 5.1 and 5.2 and broke into subsections. (Note that Section 5.4 -Removal of Any Person – will be revised to allow due process for the person to be removed.)
11 Section 6.1 Order of Business. Changed Public Testimony to Public Comments. Rearranged the order of some agenda items towards the end of the agenda, rewrote subsection 6.1 (j) -Councilor Reports and set a time limit for Council members, and deleted subsection 6.1 (l) Written Communications. Written Communications is dealt with in Section 7.
12. Section 7 Written Communications. Added subsections 2, 3 and 4 from LOC version.
13. Section 9.1 Public Comment Generally. Broke into subsections and added some LOC subsections.
14. Section 10.3 Quasi-Judicial Land Use Proceedings. Used LOC version with some reformatting.
15. Section 10.4 Legislative Land Use Matters. Used LOC version with some reformatting.
16. Section 15 Interactions with Staff and Municipal Judge. Added this new section from LOC version.
17. Section 18.2 Membership Appointment. Made a change to clarify VCC appointments are for two-year terms.
18. Section 18.6 Council Work Groups. Added this new subsection to clarify work groups can be appointed by the mayor.
19. Section 18.9 Youth Councilor. Removed reference to Deputy Youth Councilor.
20. Section 18.10 Youth Liaison. Removed requirement to be Keizer resident for youth liaisons to committees.
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends Council review the matter, ask questions and indicate if there are specific changes Council would like to make. We intend on having one more meeting of the Work Group before finalizing the recommended draft and coming back to Council.
Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you.