Council weighs meeting cadence; staff say schedule is flexible

City Attorney Wachter briefed the council on options for regular and study-session scheduling at the Aug. 11 study session and reminded the council that municipal law gives councils flexibility on meeting cadence but requires that regular meetings be publicly noticed as such. Wachter summarized the recent pattern: in January the council switched to a calendar with a regular meeting on the first Monday, a study session on the second Monday and a combined study/regular meeting on the third Monday. She said the city was receiving the same amount of public feedback under the current arrangement as under earlier patterns. Several council members discussed preferences. Councilmember Brandstetter said he was not fully satisfied with the current timing because it creates occasional three‑week gaps between meetings and proposed moving the combined study-and-regular meeting to the fourth Monday to create a first/second/fourth cadence. Other councilmembers said the current schedule has reduced meeting frequency while preserving public access and allows occasional longer breaks for scheduling personal time. Councilmember comments also asked staff whether the reduced meeting frequency had materially helped staff workload; the city manager replied staff would accommodate whichever schedule council chooses. No formal change to council rules was proposed; the mayor said staff would not bring rule amendments forward unless council asked for another review.