“Wrong.” “Absolute horror.” “Ridiculous.”
(Article by Andra Lim, republished from http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local/austin-council-considering-changes-to-oft-bemoaned/nqJR4/?icmp=statesman_internallink_referralbox_free-to-premium-referral)
Those are some of the choice words City Hall observers used this week when describing the Austin City Council’s almost 1-year-old committee system, in which 10 committees mostly composed of four members have grappled with issues large and small, controversial and mundane, with and without political traction, on a monthly basis.
Now, Council Member Greg Casar, to the relief of many such observers, is proposing what he called a “significant overhaul” of the committee system.
The council originally envisioned the committees as a way to gather public input early in the policy-vetting process and shorten the council’s regular Thursday meetings, whichsometimes stretch past midnight. The committees were also intended to get council members who each represent a single geographic district to think about citywide issues.
Casar, who is part of a group of council members weighing changes to the committees for several months, wants small groups of council members — potentially three instead of four — to limit their focus to complex, significant policy issues and crafting new proposals.
To give committees time to do that, public comment would be longer before the full council and shorter at the committee level. Casar said a one-hour comment maximum on items at committee and a two-hour comment maximum on items at the full council level could be the “straw man setup,” with the council having the discretion to change those numbers.
One problem with the current system, Casar said, is that when the council changes city code, people can comment in stakeholder meetings, on a council resolution initiating the code amendments, before a board or commission and then on the actual language of the code changes.
“Having the committee be another place puts a burden on the community to come out to committee meetings, to give public input, and then come back to council and do it again,” Casar said in an interview. “I don’t think that’s the most effective way for us to do public comment.”
It would also take a majority of committee members to put an item on a committee’s agenda, which Casar said would help ensure that committees are focusing on important policy issues. And, after a proposal emerges from committee, it could take four co-sponsors to place the item on the full council’s agenda, an idea Casar credits to Council Member Delia Garza.
Casar said the committees don’t work well when they hear small items such as a speed limit change or an item that only one council member is interested in. As an example, he pointed to Council Member Don Zimmerman’s proposed resolution that would have prevented city government from assisting Syrian refugees looking to resettle in Austin, an idea that died in committee. (Casar did say, though, that the changes he wants weren’t inspired by Zimmerman or any other individual council member.)
Zimmerman and Council Member Ellen Troxclair, Republicans who often find themselves at odds with others on the mostly Democratic council, had reservations about doing away with the ability of one member to place an item on a committee agenda. Troxclair said the council could perhaps borrow a note from the Legislature and let a committee chairman have full control over the agenda.
“We haven’t had a problem with agenda setting in any of the committees I sit on,” Troxclair said at a Tuesday work session.
Garza noted the Legislature meets every two years for six months — which results in lawmakers and their staffs working 20-hour days, she said.
“What I feel has happened is we’ve done that for us for the length of our term,” Garza said. “I feel like for my two-year term I’m having to work extremely long days running from committee to committee. … And I don’t get a year and a half break. Our staff doesn’t get a year and a half break.”
The council is scheduled Thursday to consider a resolution from Casar, and co-sponsored by Garza, Mayor Steve Adler and Council Member Kathie Tovo, that would lay out a new vision for the committees. On Feb. 11, the council could consider an ordinance that changes the structure and workings of the committees.
“It was ambitious, it was well intended, and it didn’t work out,” Roy Waley, vice chairman of the Austin Regional Group of the Sierra Club said of the original committee system. But, Waley said, he would prefer the council not place any limits on public commentary before the council.
Austin League of Women Voters Advocacy Director Frances McIntyre said she’s glad the council is considering changes.
“I think council has been overstressed by this process, and I think it will give them an opportunity to perhaps have more time for their constituents and pay attention to the main things that they’re interested in,” she said.
Read more at: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local/austin-council-considering-changes-to-oft-bemoaned/nqJR4/?icmp=statesman_internallink_referralbox_free-to-premium-referral
