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Prescott City Council adopts rule making citizen petitions default to denial on consent agenda
Summary
The City Council voted 7-0 to adopt Resolution No. 2025-1933, amending council rules to place properly submitted citizen petitions on the consent agenda for a default denial unless a council member pulls the item for discussion.
The Prescott City Council on June 10 unanimously adopted Resolution No. 2025-1933, changing council rules so citizen petitions that are properly submitted will be placed on the consent agenda for a default denial unless a council member removes the item for fuller consideration.
City Manager (name not specified in the record) told the council the change was proposed after staff spent varying amounts of time investigating petitions, in some cases “hundreds of hours,” before council action. The manager said the amendment will permit staff to wait for council direction before investing extensive resources on particular petitions.
The change was presented as a way of conserving staff time and focusing municipal resources on the city’s adopted priorities. “By altering these rules of procedure to default to a denial to begin with, then the council members who do want to look at it more in-depth have an opportunity to pull that off a consent and then recommend that it be further analyzed,” Councilman Montoya said during the discussion.
Resident Ralph Hess spoke during public comment opposing the change. “This is going to...be the only matter that's ever on a consent agenda that defaults to a denial,” Hess said, adding that the amendment shows the council’s “disdain for the citizens and the city charter.”
Mayor Goode then called for the motion; a council member moved to adopt Resolution No. 2025-1933 and the council voted 7-0 to approve it. The council’s new procedure places petitions on the consent agenda for denial unless one council member requests removal; if removed, council can direct staff or undertake further review.
The record shows the council discussed the tradeoffs between preserving staff time and ensuring public petitions receive public consideration. Council members repeated that any single councilor may pull a petition from consent to trigger discussion, and that the change does not remove citizens’ ability to seek consideration, only changes the initial default placement on the agenda.
The council made no further amendments to the resolution during the meeting; the action was recorded as an adopted resolution with a 7-0 vote.
