03-13-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING February 27, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 21 of 22 Edwards said it could be a standing Council agenda item, which would be setting the draft agenda, so to speak for the upcoming work session or confirming it. He said for the next work session right now he has nothing on that agenda. So you would say okay, we're going to cancel it. I think the only people that can cancel it are the Council. Benson said just to be clear it’s not that I directed Adam, because we already had that discussion. We all were in agreement that no one person directs Adam or staff to change anything. So when the work session was changed from 5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and I asked you, why is that and you said Mayor Walsh said it to be so and I'm thinking well, that's something that the Council should discuss. It should not come from either me, Councilmember Johnson. Walsh said I like Matt’s idea that we just cancel all work sessions. And we put it either on the Council itself, if we don't want to have it at the work session, or we have to approve any work session, the time and the agenda at the Council to begin with. Seals said for example, are we saying there'll be a standing item that would say next meetings work session, and then if there was anything and then maybe we'd look at it and be like, okay, that's 30 minutes, that's an hour, whatever that might be. The benefit of that, I guess, is this community gets a heads up what's coming two weeks out. And control that we cancel all work sessions and we have to approve any work session and the agenda at the previous meeting. Benson said I'm not in favor of this. And I'll tell you why. It's because there's been accusations from people showing up at these meetings, saying when are you deliberating when you make a decision? So I do think that this discussion would be a great one to have in the next work session about work sessions. Let's figure it out at a work session, because that's what work sessions are for is doing the business of the City. I'm not in favor of this. And I don't think we should be taking a vote on this, if that's where this is headed. I am not in any way approving of this. This was not on the agenda. This is done after our closed session. And while we've reopened the meeting, I am not in favor of this. Mattick said if I could just weigh in on it a little bit, this is a regularly-scheduled meeting. So you can add items to be discussed. The way it traditionally works is you, at the beginning of the year, you post your regularly-scheduled meetings like tonight's meeting, and you have the flexibility then at a regular meeting to either add to the agenda, take off the agenda, do those sorts of things. If you cancel all of your work sessions, those are still a meeting subject to the Open Meeting Law. And so if I understand what's being proposed is like, tonight, we'd have an agenda item, next work session, that then becomes a special meeting because you have no scheduled work sessions. So at that point, the one drawback is that you are limited to whatever that agenda is posted as -- you cannot add other items. And maybe that's not a drawback, but that is something I'd like you to be aware of. Seals asked could you leave the work sessions on the calendar? And then at the meeting prior to the next one, you discuss the work session topic, so they're all scheduled. So instead of adding the canceled one back in, you would have a discussion two weeks prior saying we have this work session scheduled. Adam, what are the topics? And if Adam says there's nothing and we say there's nothing then you could cancel.