The Policy & Services Committee voted to recommend a set of updates to the City Council procedures and protocols handbook, endorsing staff suggestions and agreeing to new guidance on consent-calendar pulls and council member comment time limits.

Deputy City Manager summarized four staff-proposed handbook changes: allow committee chairs discretion to call a January meeting, change handbook review frequency to every other year, update teleconferencing rules to reflect Senate Bill 707, and revise proclamation language. The packet also included numerous council-member suggested edits across study sessions, boards and commissions, the consent calendar, meeting scheduling, and other procedural matters.

Council members debated allowing a one-minute statement explaining why a member requests that a consent item be pulled and whether to permit a short, same-evening discussion of a pulled consent item (suggested cap: no more than 10 minutes) before placing it on a later action agenda. City Attorney Stumpf noted the committee could set expectations about when public comment is allowed and explained existing notice and legal constraints. Staff said the committee could direct a brief discussion that evening if the mayor agrees and adequate staff could answer questions, otherwise the item would be agendized later.

The committee also approved a change limiting individual council member comments during meetings to three minutes (procedure section 3.6) and voted unanimously to forward the recommended handbook updates to the full council. The clerk will reflect these edits in the redlined handbook language and staff will research related compensation language referenced by council.

What happens next: Staff will package the redlined handbook and the committee’s recommended changes and present them to the full City Council for action; staff will also research legal questions (e.g., mayor/mayoral compensation language and remote voting rules) before final council consideration.