Looking at the Weekly Schedule has become something you need to do every day, since many notices of meetings are not up a week in advance. Technically, they only need to be up 24 (workday) hours in advance of a meeting. However, I always thought we tried to have more notice for the public, but that seems to be slipping. When we give late notice, and then no one shows up to the meetings and then when people get upset they show up to the council meeting and we wonder why they are getting involved so late in the game . . . well, isn’t it obvious? How many people do you know that check the weekly schedule daily? And then, even if they find a meeting they are interested in, how many people have time available on short notice?
Also, it seems to me that we made a HUGE mistake last year in the budget when we didn’t give the clerk’s office more staff. The clerk’s office has 4 fewer staff than they had 10 years ago. We could have voted to give them more staff, but we didn’t. Here’s how we voted: AYE: Clear, Gruber, Judge, Kerr, Konkel, Rhodes-Conway, Solomon, Verveer, Webber NO: Cnare, Compton, Palm, Pham-Remmele, Sanborn, Schumacher, Skidmore, Brandon, Bruer and Clausius. The Mayor broke the tie and the position was not funded.
So, subsequently, things like this happen:
Canceled: CCOC Subcommittee to Review City Hiring Practices & Policies. The Clerk’s Office was not able to post this meeting in time for tomorrow (10:00 a.m. 2/20/08). The meeting is canceled.
When I asked why, this is what I was emailed through various staff:
Sorry Lisa. I have hardly had one minute to even glance at meetings and of course, as you know, Helen is working out in the field all day for the election. I am not sure what is happening with this committee. I think I cancelled it at the original time. If the agenda is the same as the one for the original meeting, does that mean the rescheduled meeting is timely posted? The phones are ringing off the hook and I’m still not sure I can get things updated. Can you explain this to me? Is this a cancellation or a reschedule and is it within the 24 hour requirement or not?
If we had more staff, maybe they could have figured this out in time for the meeting to occur.
The other somewhat aggravating thing is that the Board of Estimates usually puts their agenda out on Friday, around 3:30, so you find out on Friday afternoon if you have to go to a meeting on Monday. The Council and Plan commission used to do the same thing, but they’ve backed their schedule up one full day, and we typically get those agendas on Thursday’s now and its a big help. It makes it alot easier for people to ask questions of staff before the meeting if you have more than one work day to do it. If you get things on Thursday you can look at it Thursday night and get questions to staff for them to answer on Friday, instead of reading it on the weekend and getting and answer on Monday that you may or may not have time to even read.
For what it is worth, here’s the meetings that have been scheduled since my Monday morning blog, a mere 48 hours ago. Some of them are because of last minute scheduling, some were mistakes, some were staff outside of the clerks office, I just hope there weren’t others that didn’t get noticed:
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
10:00 AM STREET USE STAFF TEAM ROOM 108 CCB
5:30 PM ALCOHOL LICENSE REVIEW COMMITTEE GR-27 CCBFriday, February 22, 2008
12:00 PM HOUSING AFFORDABILITY SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSING COMMISSION ROOM LL-130 MMBSaturday, February 23, 2008
9:00 AM 201 STATE FOUNDATION INC BOARD OF DIRECTORS SPECIAL MEETING 201 STATE STREET, PROMENADE LOUNGE
