Pinole City Council to Discuss Meeting, Agenda Policies

Weary of sessions that sometimes stretch into the hours past many peoples' bedtimes, Councilman Phil Green is asking the Pinole City Council to consider adding a third monthly meeting to its schedule when faced with a "heavy agenda."

The council currently has regularly scheduled meetings on the first and third Tuesday of each month. At Green's suggestion, the council will discuss on Tuesday whether to add a third meeting on an as-needed basis.

During a meeting last month, Green said he's concerned that long meetings result in tired council members.

When meetings drag into the midnight hour, "it's not very productive and it starts to get silly after awhile," Green said at the April 3 council meeting. He suggested that meetings that run late, remaining agenda items could be placed on an agenda for the following day or following week.

The council currently has the option to add extra meetings and exercises it from time to time. For example, the council will hold two extra May workshops to deal strictly with the 2012-13 budget. City Clerk Patricia Athenour wrote in a memo to the council that current procedures allow the council to postpone action on agenda items if the hour grows late at a given meeting.

"Staff believes that this option already exists ain that special meetings can be and are scheduled as deemed necessary, and the Brown Act also allows for an adjourned meeting to continue a discussion that was held over."

Currently, the council must vote to extend meetings when they run past 11 p.m.

The council also will discuss on discussion on Tuesday its procedure for placing items on agendas. During the April 17 meeting, Councilmember Roy Swearingen requested that the issue be agendized. Swearingen said rather than individual council members going to the city clerk with agenda item requests, "it should be more of a consensus of the council."

Currently, council members do request during public meetings to place given items on the agenda. Athenour's memo noted that a council member may request that a given item be placed on a future agenda, although "past practice has also been that the Mayor reviews and sets the agenda with staff and has the final review approval of the agenda."

The mayor is not directly elected by voters, but the seat rotates annually according to the number of votes received upon election to the council. The current mayor is Peter Murray.

Tuesday's council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at City Hall, 2131 Pear St. It will be televised live on Pinole TV.