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Council presses administration for consistent monthly reports; city administrator offers a template
Summary
Council asked administration to provide a standard template for written monthly administrative reports and clearer expectations for reply times after information requests; the city administrator agreed to collaborate with council members on a template and said briefing materials on a recent student walkout were provided within an appropriate time frame.
Council members asked administration to standardize the monthly administrative report format and to clarify expected response times for council requests.
City Administrator (reading a prepared statement) said administration received a request for a briefing about a February 18 student walkout and acknowledged the request the same day; she told council the full response was provided within the previously communicated time frame and said, "it was about 4 business days." She asked that council provide a template listing specific items they would like included in written reports so administration can tailor content and ensure useful, consistent monthly reports.
Several council members said they want both qualitative and quantitative material where appropriate (for example, code-enforcement counts by month), and asked for a simple acknowledgement practice when administration receives emails so members know their requests are being processed. Councilmember Cureton suggested a 72-hour acknowledgement standard for complex requests, and Miss Cleary recommended leveraging templates and materials from the Center for Local Government training she and others attended.
Administration agreed to work directly with a small group of council members to develop a template and to coordinate follow-up so that necessary information can be returned at the next scheduled committee meeting when possible.
Next steps: Councilmembers volunteered a small work group (members and administration) to draft a reporting template and to test it before adopting a monthly standard; administration will circulate the existing briefing template for review.
