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San Ramon council moves toward earlier starts and a 10 p.m. target to curb late meetings
Summary
After staff presented options to shorten meetings, the council signaled support to pilot an earlier start (6:30 p.m.) and a 10:00 p.m. target end time with extension votes, and directed staff to return with the ordinances and resolution language needed to implement changes.
The San Ramon City Council discussed amendments to council meeting rules, meeting end times and closed-session timing on May 26 and directed staff to prepare the ordinance/resolution language needed to implement a pilot change.
Deputy city manager Christina Franco presented several options: set a 10:00 p.m. meeting end (with 30-minute extensions by council vote), keep the current 11:00 p.m. end time, or pursue a slate of time-saving measures (limit presentations and proclamations, time-box staff presentations, require written updates, encourage pre-meeting Q&A and expand consent-calendar eligibility). Staff also proposed considering an earlier start time (6:00 or 6:30 p.m.) and the option of scheduling closed sessions before the open meeting to avoid very late nights.
Council members noted staff fatigue and public-availability concerns. The city clerk provided recent meeting-duration statistics: of 22 regular meetings in the prior year, 12 ended after 10:00 p.m., including 3 that went past midnight. After discussion, the council ran a straw poll: a majority indicated support for a 6:30 p.m. start time and for a 10:00 p.m. target end time with the option to continue by council vote. Staff noted that changing the published start time requires an ordinance (30-day adoption delay) and that end-time changes can be made by resolution; staff will return with draft language.
Council members also discussed closed-session scheduling, with several saying they preferred closed sessions before the open meeting when feasible or holding time-sensitive closed sessions as special meetings to avoid paying outside counsel to sit through long open sessions. Staff said it would draft implementation language for rotation of commemorative flags (separate item), ordinance language for start time change and the resolution language needed to revise meeting-end procedures.
What happens next: staff will draft ordinance language to change the regular meeting start time (if council desires), update the council rules resolution to set the new target end time, and propose procedural language for time-boxing, calendar publication and closed-session handling. Council asked that any pilot or change be reviewed after several months.
