Murrieta council votes to move regular meetings to 4 p.m.; staff to amend rules of procedure

Murrieta City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 21 to direct staff to modify the council's rules of procedure so that regular council meetings will begin at 4:00 p.m. starting with the first meeting in 2026.

Councilmember Holiday moved the direction and Councilmember Stone seconded. The motion passed 4-0 (Councilmember DeForest was excused). Council members said an earlier start time would improve staff work schedules and allow meetings to end earlier while the public would retain opportunities to participate: council preserved public-comment periods at the start of the meeting (general public comment and item-specific public comment) and also agreed to add a public-comment slot at the end of the agenda before any closed session.

Council also reached consensus to move closed sessions to the end of the open meeting so the public has a consistent, advertised start time for regular sessions and staff who are not involved in closed session can leave earlier. Workshops and study sessions will be scheduled on a trial basis at later times (staff will target 5:00 p.m. starts on a separate day where feasible) and the city manager will work with staff to balance posting deadlines with community predictability.

Staff will prepare a redlined amendment to the rules of procedure, perform public outreach on the change and return the ordinance/redline for adoption before the end of the year. The adopted rule will take effect as specified for calendar-year 2026.