City Council Meeting Date: February 6, 2024
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Lynette Peterson, City Clerk
Title
Consider Amendments to Council Rules of Business and Appendices.
Body
Action Requested:
The Northfield City Council approves the amendments to the attached City Council Rules of Business and related Appendices.
Summary Report:
The City Council annually reviews the City Council Rules of Business and related Appendices and incorporates any amendments as necessary. The Council reviewed and discussed the proposed amendments at their January 16, 2024 meeting.
After discussion, Council members decided to incorporate prior registration for remote public participation. Remote links, via the Zoom platform, have been provided for every regular City Council meeting since mid-2021 as a way to offer more options for residents to participate in City Council meetings, especially those unable to attend the meetings in person. To date, the option has only been utilized three times by members of the public. The current process is for the Zoom link to be made available via the City’s meeting calendar. Any member of the public wishing to participate in the meeting, can enter the Zoom meeting. The A/V person running the meeting will then notify staff, who will then notify the Mayor if someone is wishing to speak remotely. Given that the meeting link is provided publicly, there is little control over who participates. While staff has initiated settings in the remote meeting to have some control over those joining the meeting, there are ways those wishing to disrupt the meeting can do so.
At the November 7, 2023 City Council meeting, individuals joined the Zoom link provided to the public and disrupted the meeting during the open public comment portion of the meeting by expressing derogatory racial and religious slurs. This is the second time a City Council meeting has been interrupted by “Zoom bombing” in recent years. While staff controls who enters Zoom meetings, they may not know if the person is legitimately wishing to participate or if the person is only attempting to create chaos, as was the situation on November 7th. In this situation, staff attempted to mute participants immediately but due to the fact there were multiple participants, they needed to end the Zoom meeting entirely to bring the situation under control.
After discussion, Council members felt it was best to request prior registration of the public to participate in a meeting remotely. Members of the public wishing to offer comments virtually, would be required to preregister by noon the day of the meeting by contacting the City Clerk’s office and providing their name, address, and phone number and/or email. Name and address are also required for anyone who currently requests to speak in advance of the meeting or fills out a card prior to or during the meeting. Phone number and/or email would be requested as a way to contact the individual prior to the meeting to provide the virtual link and in case of technical difficulties during the meeting. In conjunction with this option, wording will be changed under the Meeting Agenda section to add preregistration language and etiquette changes for the participant.
Staff would fill out a Comment Card and have the name, address and topic the individual wishes to speak about available for the Mayor so they are aware of those wishing to comment virtually.
The Council also discussed the procedure for proclamations under City Council Recognition of Citizens/Groups/Events. Due to the staff time involved in writing proclamations and processing them through the agenda system, it was discussed to update the Rules of Business to add the option of a Mayoral proclamation which would not require Council approval. This would allow groups who simply want a recognition for an organization or individual to utilize this process. The Council agreed these should be included in the following Council agenda under Reports from the Mayor and Councilmembers so the Council is aware of the Mayoral proclamations. The current process of proclamations being approved as resolutions by Council would still be allowed in cases where Council deems it more appropriate or where a separate presentation during the meeting is scheduled to occur.
The section with the heading Board/Commissions has been eliminated moving the first paragraph as a description under the Meeting Agenda section after Number 9. Mayor and City Council Member reports. The second paragraph of this section was deleted as it no longer pertains since the Council adopted Board/Commission Rules of Business in 2023.
The full Rules of Business as a redline version with these changes is attached. Also attached are the appendices. The City Council may discuss other areas of the rules for clarification, questions or amendments to propose.
Alternative Options:
The Council could leave the Rules of Business as is and not amend and the current Rules of Business would remain in place.
Financial Impacts:
Not applicable.
Tentative Timelines:
ü January 16, 2024 - Council reviews and discusses changes to Rules of Business
February 6, 2024 - Council approves Rules of Business amendments