Cotati council directs staff to revise meeting rules after lengthy debate over public comment and land-acknowledgment

The Cotati City Council and Successor Agency debated changes to its meeting rules and gave staff direction to prepare a redlined revision to return on the consent calendar at the next meeting.

The issue grew from months of public comment and meeting disruptions; staff presented options that would either open public comment for every agenda item or eliminate the action/non-action labeling that currently appears on the agenda. A staff member summarized the principal proposal as “the proposed rule changes before you would create a public comment period with every item on the agenda.”

Councilmembers and members of the public expressed differing views on how to balance meeting efficiency with the public’s right to comment under the Brown Act. Several councilmembers said they favored removing the action/non-action distinction and preserving a three-minute limit for individual commenters. Mayor Ford and multiple councilmembers said they wanted to reduce preamble items at the start of meetings so regular business begins earlier; others said the pledge of allegiance should remain. Vice Mayor Lemus said either keep both the pledge and the land acknowledgment or move both to the printed agenda; one councilmember proposed moving them to just before council reports.

Council direction from the meeting staff report asked city staff and the city attorney to: revise the rules to remove the action/non-action bifurcation; consolidate and move the printed announcements into the agenda preamble (so they are in writing rather than read aloud); and move the land acknowledgment and the pledge of allegiance to a location before the reports. The staff report and council discussion also called for moving the definition of “action” (as drawn from Government Code language) to the action-items section of the rules. Staff said it will return a redlined version of the full rules for approval on the consent calendar at the next meeting.

Members of the public and several councilmembers emphasized procedural clarity for hybrid meetings, urging that the printed agenda and the meeting start instructions tell Zoom attendees how to raise hands to speak when an item begins. A staff member and the city attorney said adding that instruction to the agenda and the pre-meeting materials would be straightforward and recommended.

No formal ordinance or resolution was adopted on the rules at this meeting; council members gave direction to staff and asked that the edited rules be returned at the next meeting for formal action.

The council’s next steps, as recorded in the staff report and repeated in the meeting, are to: produce a redline of the rules implementing the agreed directions; add explicit instructions in the printed agenda for hybrid attendees about how and when to raise hands; and place the redline on the next meeting’s consent calendar for final approval.