Tacoma OSAC adopts charter-style rules for committee operations, staff to align language with council procedures

The Operations Strategy and Administrative Committee (OSAC) of the Tacoma City Council approved a statement of purpose and a set of rules and procedures for the committee at its July 11, 2025, meeting and directed staff to make language edits to align the document with the council's existing rules before it is forwarded to the full council for adoption.

The committee's statement of purpose, read aloud during the meeting by Cheryl Biederman of the Human Resources Department, says the committee "is responsible for reviewing, developing, and recommending improvements to the internal administrative processes, practices, and structures that guide the city council's operations and its relationship with the city manager." Biederman told the committee the document is intended to appear on tacoma.gov alongside other standing committee descriptions.

Committee members discussed the document's listed responsibilities, which include coordinating council tools and administrative workflows, developing centralized project-tracking tools, overseeing performance-evaluation processes related to the employment of the city manager, onboarding and transition for new council members, drafting council retreat agendas, auditing council-staff communications, and clarifying the legislative sponsorship process.

Chair Woodards asked whether the body wanted the document framed as a "charter" or to follow the language used in other standing council committees. Committee members agreed staff should adjust the wording so the committee's guidance "looks and feels like all of the other" standing committee procedures; the substance of the document was not to change. The committee indicated those edits would be made by staff and the revised text would be placed into the council's rules and procedures for formal consideration by the full council.

The committee voted to adopt the rules and procedures as amended. The roll call showed Chair Woodards and committee members Scott and Bushnell voting in the affirmative; no opposition was recorded. The chair declared the rules and procedures adopted with the changes to be supplied by staff.

Next steps: staff will incorporate the agreed language edits, add the committee guidance into the council rules and procedures package, and return the revised document to OSAC and then the full council for final adoption. The committee also asked staff to include the document summary in the meeting packet posted online.

Ending: The adopted guidance establishes OSAC's scope as an internal, council-focused working group and charts a path for formalizing those practices through the council's established rules-and-procedures process.