Umatilla City Council members met in a workshop to review a near-complete draft of the city’s policies and procedures and directed staff to return with a redline and legal review before adopting any changes.

The draft replaces the council’s current rules and groups a number of governance topics — meeting rules, minutes and public posting practices, protocols for council contact with the city attorney, appointment and removal language tied to the city charter, and an internal complaint/ethics process. Councilors and staff spent the meeting discussing how those pieces should be tailored to Umatilla’s charter and operations rather than adopting a model verbatim.

Council members said the rules matter because they set expectations about access to staff and legal counsel, protect city employees from direct political pressure, and create uniform procedures for handling complaints and removals. Staff and a consultant who drafted the model language told the council the League of Oregon Cities’ model is a useful starting point but should be adapted to reflect the city charter and local practice.

The workshop covered several substantive items:

Minutes and public posting: The draft recommends posting draft minutes online within two weeks of a meeting while approving minutes at the next regularly scheduled council meeting or “within a reasonable time.” Participants noted state law requires that minutes be made available within a reasonable time and discussed the council’s existing practice of posting draft minutes within two weeks; councilors asked staff to retain flexibility for occasional delays (for example after a fifth Tuesday). The group asked staff to preserve language that draft minutes be posted and approved promptly while adding an allowance for extenuating circumstances.

City attorney access and limits: The League-based draft contains a limit on councilors’ direct requests for legal advice — a once-per-calendar-month access that would not exceed two hours of attorney time unless a majority of the council authorizes more. Councilors debated trade-offs between easy access (councilors argued they sometimes need quick clarification) and controlling legal fees (which prompted the original tighter limits adopted in 2019). Several councilors said they wanted staff to return with a recommendation; the council directed that the League language be retained for now and forwarded to legal review, noting the limit could be revisited if the city later employs an in-house attorney.

Appointments, removals and the mayor’s role: Workshop discussion flagged places where the draft language conflicted or overlapped with the city charter. Councilors noted the charter specifies that council appointment and removal authority applies to the city manager and the municipal judge and that some mayoral appointment language in the draft conflicted with the charter’s requirement for council consent. The council asked staff and legal counsel to clarify where the charter already controls and to consolidate appoint/remove language so the rules do not create confusion with existing charter or ordinance language.

Complaint procedures and ethics: Chapter 10 of the draft — covering complaints, sanctions and removal for elected officials and processes for complaints that implicate staff — prompted extended discussion. Councilors said they want an internal first-step for resolving disputes “in good faith” where feasible, but several raised concerns about complaints involving the city manager and whether HR or outside employment counsel should handle those cases. The council asked that the complaint procedures be reviewed by an employment attorney to ensure the approach does not create perverse incentives or improperly route complaints through staff who report to the subject of a complaint.

Process, next steps and schedule: Councilors directed staff to produce a redline version incorporating today’s workshop changes and to provide a separate “leftovers” list of material from the old rules that were not imported into the draft. Staff said they will send the revised draft to legal counsel for review and return to the council with recommended edits. The council set a goal-setting workshop for June 9 at 3 p.m. and formally tabled agenda item 6.2 to a future workshop. Motions to set the June 9 meeting and to table 6.2 passed on recorded voice votes.

The council did not adopt any final policy at the workshop; it emphasized that nothing in the draft will be finalized until the city’s legal counsel has reviewed it and until the council votes to adopt any replacement rules.

The council asked staff to flag specific charter conflicts, bring recommended language clarifying when the term “council” includes the mayor, and return with options on attorney access and on how complaints against the city manager should be handled so the body can consider legal advice before any adoption.

Looking ahead, staff will circulate the redline and the list of leftover items, schedule a follow-up workshop to walk through outstanding legal and policy questions, and route the document for formal adoption only after legal review and any required ordinance or charter changes.