Councilors debate starting hour‑before workshops; some seek more preparation, others warn against premeeting decisions

A councilmember asked city management to begin holding one‑hour workshops before regular council meetings to give council members more time to review and discuss agenda items and upcoming matters.

The pro‑workshop councilor said brief pre‑meeting workshops would allow members to raise questions, generate ideas and prepare for formal agenda votes. Several other councilors voiced support for more discussion time; one expressed concern that past workshops had been the forum where substantive decisions were effectively made outside regular meetings and urged that workshops not become the place where final decisions are made.

City Attorney Dixon explained that the Open Meetings Act requires agendas to provide sufficient public notice of topics to be discussed; he advised that broad wording can risk legal trouble, while agendas do not have to list every subitem. Several council members asked whether workshops could be recorded or broadcast; staff said current practice does not routinely broadcast workshops, though members said they would support making workshops accessible if feasible.

Council discussion also touched on using workshops to track multi‑meeting items such as the city’s wastewater program and railroad crossing projects, and one member asked that managers accept email requests from council members to add items to workshop agendas when appropriate. No formal policy change or motion to adopt a standing workshop schedule was recorded during the meeting; the item ended as a council discussion and a request to city management.