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 ent...
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