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City staff to send proposed agendas earlier; clarifies four-signature item process
Summary
City staff said it will begin circulating a proposed council agenda about a week before meetings and will share four-signature item requests with the full council and mayor; staff emphasized proposed agendas will be drafts and may change before publication.
City staff told the Hastings City Council they will begin circulating proposed agendas by Tuesday noon — roughly a week before meetings — to give council members more time to review items and avoid last-minute weekend reviews. "My goal is to have it out by noon on Tuesday," the staff member said.
The change is intended to reduce weekend email traffic and give council members time to "chew on things," council members said. The staff member said draft agendas will not be posted publicly because they can change before the final agenda is published, but council members may share the draft with constituents if they choose.
The council discussed how requests signed by four council members are handled. A councilmember said, "As I read the ordinance, if 4 council members sign it, it goes on the agenda." Staff said they will circulate any four-signature agenda-request form to all council members and the mayor as soon as they receive it, but they may retain the ability to route potentially contentious items to a work session for more deliberation before scheduling them for a regular meeting. "If I feel they're gonna be contentious, then I'll hold them to go to a work session," the staff member said.
Staff explained the city’s internal deadline for finalizing agenda materials is the Friday before the published agenda; the Tuesday distribution is meant to provide council two extra days compared with the previous process. The staff member noted that if a council member withdraws a signature from a four-signature request before the final agenda is set, the item may no longer qualify to be placed on the agenda.
On public access, staff said draft agendas will not be officially posted to avoid confusion when items change, but the city notice in the local paper already includes the city website, and staff said they can explore adding direct links to agendas from the newspaper notice. Council members asked staff to add clearer links and to use a visible "draft" watermark on circulated drafts to reduce public confusion.
Council members repeatedly emphasized the value of adding contentious items to a prior work session to allow citizen input and more deliberation. Staff indicated they will take responsibility for identifying items that appear likely to be controversial and directing them first to work session discussion before placement on a regular meeting agenda.
