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Show Council retains old meeting schedule by Christopher Smart The City Council unanimously unani-mously passed an ordinance Jan. 5 to keep the schedule of 5 p.m. Thursday public meetings along with Thursday Thurs-day afternoon work sessions despite campaign pledges by the two new councilmen, Al Horrigan and Jim Doilney, to change that schedule. During the recent campaign, cam-paign, both Doilney and Horrigan charged that afternoon after-noon work sessions didn't allow the public enough access to the council during its decision-making process. Further, Doilney and Horrigan Horri-gan argued that the 5 p.m. meeting time might not be suitable because many Parkites are unable to attend meetings at that time. But both men voted for the ordinance which retained the old schedule. "As a newly-elected official you have to hold your tongue for a while until you can see the appropriate stance to take," Doilney explained. Horrigan took a similar position, saying the work session and council meeting schedule could lae changed later. "At this point in time we will deal with the meetings at the same time but being more cognizant of the public's desire to get in and out according to sched-, sched-, ule." ...... The council will attempt to run work sessions according to a schedule, Horrigan said. Should executive (closed door) sessions run over the allotted time, the council will stick to the schedule and finish the closed sessions after the regular council meeting, he said. Horrigan added that he would like the work sessions to become less "intimidating" "intimidat-ing" to the public. In this vein, he said, work sessions will be moved from the city manager's office to a more public-oriented room in the Marsac Building. He added that a sign will be placed on the door indicating whether the meeting is "open" or "closed." The City Council will publish work session schedules sched-ules in the Park Record, according to Doilney, because, be-cause, he said, "The meat of what the council does occurs in work sessions." He reiterated reit-erated that during the time before his election he found it exceedingly difficult as a private citizen to attend work sessions. Doilney said that although he campaigned for more open sessions there are instances when the council works more effeciently if the meetings are closed. The city's best interests are served when negotiations are held behind closed doors, he said. Although Doilney and Horrigan favor changing meeting times and running work sessions on schedule, those things are not easily accomplished, according to City Attorney Tom Clyde. The City Council has tried to hold the regular meetings at times other than 5 p.m., Clyde said. A4tempts to schedule the meetings for 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. failed dismally. Those schedules were attended even more poorly than the current meeting time, he said. The difficulty with sticking stick-ing to a work session schedule, Clyde added, is that work sessions are, by nature, unpredictable. "We will try to schedule the meetings, but there is no way we can determine before hand how long they (the council members) will want to talk about something." some-thing." The next scheduled meeting meet-ing of the City Council is Jan. 19. |
