CITY OF PACIFICA
COUNCIL AGENDA SUMMARY REPORT
1/23/2023
1 SUBJECT:
Updates to the City Council Rules and Code of Ethics
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Adopt updates to the City Council Rules and Code of Ethics as recommended by the Councilappointed two Councilmember Ad Hoc Subcommittee, the City Manager, City Attorney, and City Clerk.
STAFF CONTACT:
Kevin Woodhouse, City Manager
650-738-7409
[email protected]
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION:
City Council Policy Update Process
As part of the City’s ongoing goal for continuous improvement in its policies and procedures for its conduct of business, it is a best practice to periodically review and consider updates to important policies and procedures. Dating back to Fiscal Year 2019-20, the City Council had identified this practice as a City Council Priority, which stated “Miscellaneous administrative policy updates: Continue to prioritize and update Council and administrative policies.” Numerous various policies and procedures have been gradually updated, such as the Streetlight Banners Policy, the Flag Policy, the Lands Acknowledgment Statement Policy, and the City Five Year Capital Improvement Program Policy, to name a few. On January 10, 2022, the City Council appointed a two-Councilmember ad hoc subcommittee, to consist of Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck and then Councilmember O’Neill, to work with the City Manager, City Attorney, and City Clerk, in the review of the City Council Rules and Code of Ethics, and to develop recommendations for updating this important policy document.
Previous City Council Consideration
This item was partially discussed by the City Council at the September 12, 2022, City Council meeting, and was then continued to a date to be determined for Council to complete its discussion. Attachment A is a Tracked Changes version of the Draft Council Rules and Code of Ethics that includes comments and tracked changes reflecting the Council’s discussion and direction from the September 12, 2022 City Council meeting, combined with the tracked changes that show the recommended edits from the ad hoc subcommittee. Council’s review and discussion on September 12, 2022, left off at Section 7-12 in the document. The Minutes on this item from the September meeting are provided as Attachment B.
Summary of City Council Rules and Code of Ethics
The City Council Rules and Code of Ethics is an important policy that has not been reviewed and updated since 2014. As summarized in its Introduction, this policy is important to Pacifica City Council 2
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establishing the standards for the roles, responsibilities and expectations of the governing board and staff in the operation of the organization, promoting communication, understanding, and trust in these roles, responsibilities and expectations, and helping to make City Council meetings as productive as possible.
The City Council Rules and Code of Ethics covers a broad range of topics, including:
• Operation of City Council Meetings
• Order of the Agenda
• Council Communications
• Councilmember and Public Decorum
• City Council Relationship with City Staff
Following the January 2022 appointment of the Council ad hoc subcommittee, the subcommittee and staff in 2022 reviewed the old policy and met twice to refine and finalize recommendations for updating the policy. A summary of the recommended updates follows:
• Formatting and Clarification Updates: Minor miscellaneous changes throughout the policy are recommended to improve organization and readability of the policy, and to clarify wording as necessary. A Table of Contents will be added once the document is finalized;
• Clarification re: Current Council Meeting Practices: In some instances, minor details about meetings vary between current practices that have evolved since 2014 and what is written in the policy. For example, “Special Presentations” have been heard before the Consent Calendar, not after. The section on “Public Hearings - Appeals” has been revised to reflect the typical procedure in current use with respect to time allotted to applicants and appellants for presentations and rebuttals. These types of differences between current practice and what the policy states are noted, with a corresponding recommendation for Council consideration;
• Consistency with State Law: Some laws about public meetings have changed since 2014. While the City has complied with such changes, such as how the agendas and staff reports are printed and made available for public review, there are some details in the policy that need to be updated consistent with state law, or removed from the policy to not be duplicative of state law;
In Section 11, Administrative Matters, the ad hoc committee and staff recommended an important update to comport with current practice to paragraph #3 about how items become agendized for City Council consideration. Currently, with only seven days’ notice prior to a City Council meeting, a Councilmember can request the City Manager agendize an item. Since Council agendas/packets are typically posted 5 days prior to a Council meeting, the seven-day timeline does not allow sufficient time for staff research and report preparation. In addition, the policy does not specify rules related to how a majority of City Council should be required to direct significant staff resources to the preparation of agenda reports. In response to these concerns, the ad hoc committee and staff recommended an update to the policy, which is also consistent with how the City Manager and Councilmembers have managed late-breaking but important Council agenda items in recent years. This practice creates flexibility in the timeline, and specifies that agenda items that are potentially controversial amongst Councilmembers, or would require more than one hour of research and preparation by staff, must initially be agendized to receive support from a majority of Council before staff resources are spent on analyzing the issue and preparing the staff report for Council consideration.
This recommendation was discussed in September, and was the focus of numerous public comments, after which the City Manager clarified some of the misunderstandings about this recommendation. To facilitate the Council’s deliberation on January 23 concerning this Pacifica City Council 3
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recommendation, the City Manager offers the following additional clarifications:
• This recommendation does not change the ability of a single Councilmember to place an item on the Council’s agenda, except to change the 7-day timeline to a 10-day timeline for practical reasons;
• This recommendation comports with current practice and the hallmark of the CouncilManager form of government and local government democracy, which is that issues that come up that would redirect City Council previously directed work priorities or budget require a majority approval of the Council to change. Therefore, if a Councilmember wants to place an issue on the agenda that would require significant City staff resources to prepare, that work must be directed by a majority of the Council first. To achieve this, a quick report is placed on the agenda to receive Council direction on next steps. More specifically, if an issue is raised by a Councilmember that would redirect work priorities or budget already directed by the Council, then the City Manager would prepare a quick report (thus the “one-hour” rule concept), to receive majority Council direction on whether the issue is priority enough to expend budget on or displace other current Council-directed priorities. Without this practice, progress on implementing the Council directed priorities and successfully managing the City’s budget could become an impossible task and a detriment to the Pacifica community. • The recommended language from 2022 could potentially be improved by removing the reference to “potentially controversial items,” and instead just refer to “items that may require more than one hour of staff time to sufficiently analyze and prepare a staff report.” The City Manager’s responsibility and concern is the expenditure of staff resources, not whether an issue is controversial or not (although issues that are controversial also usually mean they are complex and would require significant staff resources to analyze in the report to the City Council). • As the preamble to the City Council Rules and Code of Ethics states, it is important for the policy to be transparent about the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of the governing board and staff. The recommended revisions to Section 11.3 are intended to clarify and be transparent about how this process works.
Presentation/Process for January 23, 2023
At the September meeting, there was some confusion and concern about the presentation and deliberation process for the recommended changes. At the January 23, 2023, Council meeting on this item, the City Manager will present an overview of the Council direction received in September up to Section 7-12, followed by an overview of the recommended changes in the remainder of the document still requiring Council deliberation. By first presenting these overviews, then receiving Council clarifying questions and public comment, followed by Council deliberation about the remaining recommended changes and confirming previous changes, it is hoped the process will be clearer to everyone.
ALTERNATIVE ACTION:
The City Council could decide to not undertake this update work at this time.
RELATION TO CITY COUNCIL GOALS AND WORK PLAN:
Reviewing and updating the City Council Rules and Code of Ethics supports achievement of all of the Council Goals.
Pacifica City Council 4
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FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact associated with this recommendation ORIGINATED BY:
City Manager's Office
ATTACHMENT LIST:
Attachment A: City Council Rules and Code of Ethics - Recommended Updates Shown in Tracked Changes (PDF)
Attachment B: Excerpt from Minutes from September 12, 2022 City Council Meeting (PDF)