Workshop I haven't check test check test green light on that one works mine is trying to share with Tom Einstein hello here's not well yours is I see a little green light right there number six isn't hello hello number seven isn't either you're a rock star am I on test one two they're working probably a reason for that should I just start with number five here 's yeah all right oh geez 532 call the workshop to order roll call please council member Cole here council member schweer here councilmember Wong here council member nordby here mayor monkey here to adopt the agenda motion anybody second motion second aye hostname adopted Council training there you go Mr Mayor members the council I have about anywhere from half an hour to an hour do you want me up there just so it's easier to do q a or how do you want to do this sounds good all right are you comfortable standing that long foreign first of all welcome everyone I have to say I've been doing this for about 25 years and this represents the holistically youngest Council I've ever represented I think you have collectively about four years worth of experience yes it's uh newbies [Music] so what I would like to do I I've printed mine out do you have the training materials either paper or electronic so I still tend to just go through them I do not plan on reading these verbatim to you I would like to spend the most time on open meeting law and data Practice Act I think what works best I just did this with the Arts commission is if you have questions let's just do it contemporaneously and go through it I think it does a better job of kind of keeping things moving making sure questions get answered and maybe it leads to other questions so the first thing I would point out is that as an elected body the city council is subject to What's called the open meeting law and what the open meeting law stands for is this idea that when you get together to do business the public should be able to watch it in its whole in totality and so what if when you are here the public is welcome it does not mean that the public necessarily gets to participate you do have avenues for that you will have public forum sometimes you will have public hearings on certain matters but otherwise what the open meeting law says is they get to be here observe while you do your business areas where open meeting law can become problematic is you guys meet twice a month and sometimes things come up between then and during our own work we will often exchange emails collaborate come up with ideas things of that matter email is a trap door for the open meeting law if you guys start emailing each other formulating ideas gaining consensus you are violating the open meeting law and the idea being you haven't posted the meeting the public can't watch it and it starts to have an appearance whether it's even if there's no ill intent it has the appearance of making decisions outside the public purview so you'll notice when Brian or other staff send you documents say hey here's an update here's information some of the time there will be the disclaimer at the bottom please do not reply all or at the top and the idea being there is nothing wrong with sending you information via email once it's a one-way ticket out it's that reply all hey I like this hey this is a good idea hey I'd like to see this developed what you've done is you've started to engage in a discussion where all five of you are on there and so as the open meeting laws developed it's not just enough that we have to have three people you know reply to those emails at some point when you reply all the other four are involved in that discussion even if they're silent on it they are seeing the discussion involved so I I have indicated that when when information goes out via email my preference is do not reply all sometimes I think staff may include you in a blind copy sort of a dummy proof so we don't press reply all the blind copy doesn't allow that it doesn't prevent you if you have questions from reaching out directly to Brian or whoever sent the email with just a reply and at a staff level what we have to be disciplined to do is if Cassidy sends a hey I have a question Brian We Can't Stop circulating that around to generate discussion on those questions we have to gather that information and create a cohesive report and send it out to you holistically so that's that's email that principle applies to text messages or any other form of communication that's out there that I'm unaware of it does not prevent you from chance social Gatherings if you if more than two or three of you belong to the same church or if you're at school or whatever that happens to be a parade a ribbon cutting you are allowed to be at those events you have to be disciplined not to talk about business City business that is if you do it's a violation of the open meeting law do you have questions on that initially out of the gate okay is that something folks are familiar with a little bit or have heard about okay sometimes there's a it seems like that's an ineffective way to do it um when you listen to stories at the legislature about closed-dorm meetings or leadership you know party leadership meeting and stuff keep in mind that the legislature is not subject to the open meeting law so it's a completely different set of rules the open meeting law does apply to your committees that that has been established through the law so there's no oh we'll just a form of committee and deal with it they they too are subject to the open meeting law um and so your various committees where you've got your appointments they do publish those meetings they take minutes they adopt the agenda things of that nature it's open to the public so when you go down on page one um you'll see that there are notice requirements that we have to provide so at the beginning of the year your first meeting you usually adopt if it's either at your first meeting or your last meeting of the year you adopt uh your meeting schedule for the year 2023 those by definition are then regularly scheduled meetings so when you come here what you can do is adopt an agenda and if you want to take something off you can if you want to add it you can if it seems relevant for that evening you have the flexibility to do that there are instances where you may feel the need to call a special meeting special meeting can be called either by the mayor or two council members alerting Brian and we put out the notice requirements it takes three days notice the three days notice is calculate a little differently if we noticed it today Tuesday doesn't technically count but Wednesday Thursday Friday you could meet on Friday for a special meeting we don't do a lot of special meetings um but in the event we do you are limited to what is on the agenda so we'd have to be very precise and specific in terms of what we list it can't be let's just meet and talk about whatever comes up we have to list what's on that agenda so the public knows the idea being it's not a regularly scheduled event the public didn't have as much notice to get prepared for it so you are confined to whatever's on the agenda and you can't get cute about it and say Street project other you have to be specific in terms of what you're going to talk about there are there is a provision for emergency meetings one of the first things I would point out is emergency meetings are not an Avenue for poor planning uh think things like if the tornado comes through town and we have serious damage that's an emergency if we have to figure out reactions to a pandemic that's an emergency so and so forgot to fill out the paperwork for their liquor license and we may have some timing issues is not an emergency so just keep those things in mind when we come to what constitutes an emergency meeting at the bottom of the page you'll see there are times when we can go into closed meetings that the list is there what I would say in North Saint Paul the items that we primarily go into closed meeting for our labor negotiations the good news is we've just done a lot of contracts I think we've got at least two or yeah we've done five or six contracts and we're at least two or so years out before we have to deal with that again um we can go into a closed session to do Brian's review and if there's any litigation out there involving the city of North St Paul we can go into closed session to discuss that all of those meetings with the exception of attorney-client are tape recorded and we would provide minutes on those so it's important to remember when we go into closed session on those we are limited to that topic at hand you can't use it as an opportunity to close it for one thing and talk about a bunch of other stuff and those meetings are tape recorded as a way to try and police that um so those are closed meetings you can see at the end if you violate it there are potential ramifications in an individual if it's found to be intentional can be fined up to 300 you can lose your office I'm not aware of that happening in Minnesota if someone has to sue to try and enforce that they can collect some of their attorney's feasts um to to enforce that so that is the open meeting law you will hear things like a Serial meeting that's the the um idea of an email if Tim sends an email to Cassidy well there's no open meeting law violation Cassidy then sends it to Jason and says here's what Tim's thinking I agree with him what do you think that's your open meeting law violation even though all three of you weren't involved initially at the discussion it's the daisy chain of events that leads to an open meeting law violation I've kind of buzzed through that okay no no pushback all right good um so it doesn't mean sometimes I get the oh so we can't use email no that's just not true you you can what I encourage you to do is if you have questions to Route everything through Brian and or Jenny they can assemble that data and they create a report or a packet and it's perfectly acceptable to take the comments or ideas that you have we'll get into a little bit about you know what provide an individual direction to folks but definitely staff can assemble all the comments ideas and things and present it to you holistically as a group when the time is right foreign I'm going to struggle with this microphone um I'm going to move on to page three data practices this is another area that is new for a lot of folks or it can be the idea is that once you're in public office all documents created as it relates to City business are presumed public it doesn't matter if someone sends you an email and says hey this is confidential or hey strictly private the sender or receiver does not get to decide the status of that data the law does and what the law says is it's presumed to be public unless there is an exception to the data Practice Act uh and a rather straightforward exception would be if there is Personnel data so if Brian is working with an employee or something like that that employs personnel file is not completely public there are aspects of it that are public and the statute defines what aspects those are but the whole file isn't public emails between Brian and yourself are generally going to be completely public the one exception for elected officials is is if you get an email from a constituent or a resident or just candidly anyone out in the public and sends it to you and says hey I have a concern if you read that and then respond that email is private data now the way the law works on that is is it's private you can decide to make it public and they can decide to make it public but if a data practice request came in that said I want all an email between John and constituent a you could choose to not disclose it and say such data exists but it is private data and we're not disclosing it however when you get a an email from a resident that says hey they forgot to plow my street and you press forward to Brian and say hey what's up with this that email just became public because at that point you have disclosed it to someone on staff and that that private status no longer exists so as long as the correspondence is between you and a resident or someone it would be private but the moments disclosed to staff and that doesn't always matter I don't encourage folks to not forward those emails to staff they're benign if it just says hey we need some help on this let's get it moving doesn't matter but you should know you have the option of not all emails between you and staff now if that Resident sends you an email and copies Brian cat's out of the bag that's a public email um just by the nature of the way it was sent but if it's just a private conversation between the two of you that is a private email otherwise everything else is presumed public we do get our fair share of data practice requests sometimes it may feel like the requests are have ill intent or things of that nature the law doesn't care that we are not allowed to ask them why they want the data they're not allowed to ask them what they're going to use it for the fact of the matter is when we get a request we review the data we review whether it's public we review whether we need to redact anything and then we disclose it a resident or anyone else for that matter has the right to review and inspect data for free if they make the trip to City Hall to take a look at that data we cannot charge them if they want copies we can charge them if they want an electronic format we can charge them and we can start to charge for time also but what the law says is it's presumed public and if someone wants to see it we have to produce it we have to do so in a timely manner and we have to allow them to inspect it for free that's the nature of government collecting data um and sometimes requests can be onerous as Jenny can attest to but that's that's part of what we're here for is to provide that data to folks who want it um questions on data Practice Act it's not up it would be up to you to decide if any of that data would need to be redacted right yep I work with Jenny Jenny has a good understanding of the data Practice Act but sometimes there's questions of hey what do you think about this things of that nature I think the city has given you City email addresses I can't encourage you strongly enough to use that and train yourself to do any and all City business on that email address I have had people who with their jobs have certain security clearances or certain protocols in place and they've used their work email and they've been very sad to find out that it is not the device you send something from that matters it's the content of the email so if you're using a work email to receive City business that email and ultimately depending where things go a search of that system may be a product of the data Practice Act and that does not leave your employer happy so I would encourage you to um use your city issued email and be disciplined enough to only use that for your emails I I know folks who have uh you know just either killed an email account or have discontinued or said hey please route it back here I would encourage you to do that because keep in mind if they send it to two different emails and you're constantly responding to both both those email accounts are subject to the data Practice Act because you're doing business on them this counts for text messages all of that so if you're texting with someone or texting a staff member subject to the data Practice Act and it does not matter if it's on your private phone doesn't matter if it's your work phone it's the fact that City business is being communicated on that device it is subject to the data Practice Act if people actually still sent letters subject to the data Practice Act all right at the bottom you can kind of see what the life cycle of a data practice request is I think in general to the extent we get them Jenny usually coordinates them receives the data and then we determine what should be released and what shouldn't any any questions on data practicing yeah can you go back to the texting yep what does that open up for um the the data Act a a text is the same under the eyes of the law a text is the same as an email what I will tell you from my experience when producing uh under the data Practice Act is that it is a lot harder to grab and or print or produce texts but just that text chain not the entire information all contained within that app uh no so just just that text of that conversation it doesn't some it's not the you know nose Under the Tent it doesn't open up everything and and what and and here so here would be another example of you know if you receive a text that says hey when are you going to be home for dinner and you're sitting at the council meeting and maybe you respond or you do something well that's not City business um and so that text in and of itself won't have to be disclosed so just because you use something doesn't matter it's the content of it if it's City related that's what we'll govern it awesome yep just for clarity your request is only on a specific topic correct yeah uh well it depends um it can be it can be on a topic but they could say I want all emails that Brian has sent out on February 7 2023. so you you can hunt around in different ways on that and and that's very common for it to happen um you know we've seen we've had data practice requests on certain topics saying I want all of this going back the last 10 years um at which point in time we have to come up with a schedule in terms of how long that will take and what form they wanted in things of that nature and it's hard it's a lot of work but we're required to produce it and so the only requirement on their data Practice Act is that the request has to be clear so there are times we will rephrase their question or say hey is this what you meant um does this satisfy your request so we can hone it down a little bit but otherwise no it can be topic it can be related to a person it can be related to a date any any of those are valid any other questions on that conflicts of interest this doesn't come up a lot but it is important the legislature has enacted laws saying now that you've been elected to the council you can't use it for self-dealing so we're not here to spend contracts to our relatives to ourselves things of that nature if you do have a conflict of interest you need to disclose it and you need to recuse yourself from the vote cities can still move forward with some of these not necessarily if it's self-dealing there's if if you are actually entering into a contract with the city that is potentially possible to the extent the council thinks that's a good idea but it would take a unanimous vote and affidavit things of that nature I see most cities stay away from it even if it's potentially permissible where I see that come up is in some of the smaller cities where you'll have a town where you know one someone who owns the auto body shop or a towing contract or things of that the city needs those services to they use them there's there are Avenues to do that but otherwise most cities basically just have a flat rule that we will not contract with ourselves on those items if you do you need to disclose it you start with on a conflict of interest analysis the easy ones are the money if there's any money being involved you need to disclose it in terms of how far does that spread if someone's in your household and they are benefiting from a contract with the city you should be disclosing it if they are someone you are caring for or have a financial responsibility for you should disclose it um so those are the money items um and that that's important this one has ramifications Beyond just invalidating the action I have seen prosecutions on these matter for unauthorized use of public funds things of that nature and that's not meant to scare you it's just meant to make sure we understand the gravity of you're here to do the people's business not enrich yourself with the contracts let me just ask a question because I do phone work for a lot of businesses and old Architects was one we engaged to do a study now I do their phone work would that be anything no no because I'm not getting money myself nope you aren't uh presumably the I mean you work with world yeah it's set aside the example that will sometimes be used when we have to dig into it and what I would say is it's one of the more common questions I get Soren I saw this on the agenda here's my relationship with them what do you think pick up the phone before the meeting so we can work through it conflict of interest analysis is is not necessarily as bright line as we'd like I will tell you that I take a pretty conservative approach on the conflict of analysis a lot of attorneys will talk about well if there's the appearance I would stay away from it well that's not a legal conflict but it is a safe way to move about I do think if we start cutting the line too close at a minimum you're going to impact The public's trusts of the process one of the analysis folks will use is say if Walmart's coming to town There's the development well if you're an executive at Walmart and you're on the council I would tell you to step down from that decision I don't know exactly how your compensation structure works but opening a Walmart might impact that if you are a cashier at a Walmart I don't think you necessarily have a conflict of interest now that can change too I mean if you're a cashier and all of a sudden you become a manager because the vote went right that's a problem so again in that instance I tend to advise people if you have an affiliation with the applicant I would stand away from it and again you can Spar on that but that's that that in general is my advice on those things if you have a spouse that's an applicant I again would encourage you to recuse yourself if you have a child that's an applicant and they're minor and they're living in your house I would encourage you to recuse yourself can you expand upon that a little bit um sure uh full disclosure my savings and figure out how it works at the American Legion yep so would any City business that like relates to all bars no I'll give you an example when Terry was mayor he owned a liquor store now it wasn't in the city but he out of an abundance of caution anytime liquor licenses came up he abstained okay um do I think the liquor license for the legion creates a conflict for you I I don't um if you know if there were an issue where maybe if we had to do some sort of enforcement on the legion and impacted it we may want to have that discussion but no the liquor license renewal I would not view for your situation to be a conflict of interest thank you yeah questions on that okay uh on the bottom and we may cover this in Robert's Rules abstaining if you have a con so right now as we sit here we have a five-member council it takes a majority of the five to pass an item so it that means you need three votes if we have a conflict if Jason decides hey I've got a conflict I'm abstaining what that does under the law is it condenses the council to a four-member council it doesn't really have a big impact on a five-member council I represent some cities that are seven in nature and that starts to mess with how the votes are counted but what that means is you have four it still takes three out of four to pass that item two out of four doesn't pass it you need a majority and two out of four isn't so keep that in mind if you abstain however and you don't have a conflict it's still a five-member council so only a conflict when this comes up with abstention if you just for some reason don't feel prepared aren't comfortable maybe politics has something to do with it you just don't want to vote on it and you abstain if there is not a conflict one of the questions I might ask is do you have a conflict are you simply abstaining and if you have a conflict the council goes to four if you don't have a conflict the council remains at five and your vote in essence it isn't counted as a no vote it's counted as an abstention but it works as a no vote because it takes three affirmative votes to pass something an abstention is not an affirmative yes vote I haven't seen that come up here very often but it is something to keep track of on that okay conflicts I would do it on time not bad um any other questions on conflicts of interest gift law no this doesn't mean you can't get gifts anymore you can still get those but you are a local official and what the law says is if you have an interested person the classic example used is if you have a contractor in town who's applying for a land use application or if there are contractors who want certain contracts and hey John I'd like to take you out for lunch what do you think first of all I would encourage you to think about taking that meeting when someone is actively soliciting you for business I don't a meeting May make sense to get to know the person but you have to be very very careful about what else is involved that lunch that beer that let's take a trip together hey I've got Vikings tickets hey I've got Twins tickets all of that stuff is off the table in my opinion that cannot happen um and I know that as elected members you're in the community you're meeting with people all of those things but the safest course is to not accept any of those little things that maybe were bought or swapped before I can't say because someone bought you a beer you violated the gift law but it is something there is they'll talk about de minimis and certain thresholds and whether they're an interested person or not but you have to be careful about that um if you know you're at the bar and they want to buy a round I'd encourage you to step away from that if you're at the restaurant and they want to buy you a meal I'd encourage you to stay away from that if you start getting gifts from contractors things of that I would encourage you to return them if you're encouraged to go to the games or a trip or things like that I'd encourage you to not do it now where I usually get a ton of pushback is from all my clients who are in sales graft and things are just part of the deal if if you are in sales this does not mean as part of your job that you can't continue to do it the way you've been doing it but I would encourage you to be very diligent about making sure that if you're the one being courted that's as it relates to your job and not as your position as a city council member that creates a problem and again I would just simply encourage you to be hyper Vigilant about that there's very little forgiveness on the gift law um and that does have consequences so this doesn't mean for your birthday friends and family can't get your presents um but uh beyond that I would I would encourage you to stay away from it questions on that yeah I it's happened I I encourage it I would rather see that come from the council as a whole instead of individual members I have seen councils on their own not using public funds pooling and buying something I would prefer it that way to make sure there's no sort of reverse quid pro quo but yeah I've seen that happen you know and I'm not talking about cards or thanks and stuff like that but an actual gift something of value I would rather see it be a council decision and done holistically foreign [Music] any other questions on that okay role of the city manager this is worth spending a little time on um the Yule in Minnesota there are various forms of government you are a plan B city with a city manager for those of you new to city government there are various types of cities some cities have a city administrator an administrator is different than a manager an administrator does not have the same Authority as a manager so for example administrators can't hire and fire they can do discipline but they don't have ultimate hiring and firing abilities Brian does this Council Brian answers to you but the department heads do not the department heads answer to Brian and as a matter of fact the statute goes so far as to say it is inappropriate for Council Members either individually or as a whole to try and overly steer Brian on Personnel matters it is meant to be hands-off at a council level no micromanaging no that does not mean if we see something if all of a sudden there's something we want to change with the department or you're receiving feedback on a department doesn't mean you can't talk to Brian about that and certainly as a counsel if you want to talk about the future or how something is run in a department that's appropriate but the actual how you implement it and manage that department is completely up to Brian and it's inappropriate for the council to involve themselves on that some City councils have what is called a charter it's a guiding document you almost refer to it as like your Constitution sets the floor of how you do the rest North St Paul does not have a charter or a charter commission some cities do so Brian's spending Authority and you have a spending policy is up to twenty thousand dollars you will sometimes hear other cities talk about the manager for example I represent St Louis Park their manager is able to spend up to 175 thousand dollars that's a function of the charter without that Charter what the statute says is 20 grand all claims do have to come back to the council for approval but know that a lot of those have already been spent and Brian has the authority to do that but there still is a formality that those claims need to come back to you for your approval and consent um so personnel and spending are the big items I would encourage you it's an overused metaphor but I like it when I think of like an hourglass you know if you are up here as the executives or this you know the board of the organization Brian should be that ring right before it goes down to the employees there really shouldn't be any information that passes from you to staff it should go to Brian and let him disseminate that information there's a better metaphor let me know but I like the idea of everything has to be cycled through Brian he will decide who follows up on it he will prioritize it and then he will be the one getting back to you it gets too messy if individually you are contacting department heads and trying to steer work and effort and it's confusing for the employee because candidly you speak collectively not individually individually you really don't have any Authority as a body or up to three votes you you do you have ultimate Authority on almost all things so I would encourage you to work through Brian on those items there are certainly times when Carrie or maybe Jenny are reaching out to you for certain things that's not what I'm talking about but I'm talking about day-to-day decision questions things of that nature as an example say Brian's department heads are having an issue with Brian and [Music] are afraid of retaliation can the department heads come to council or do we need to call a special meeting okay yeah I believe the Personnel policy and I'd want to double check this I think the Personnel policy says send your concerns to me okay if if they if someone reached out to you because they didn't read the Personnel policy I would hope that your next calls to me and then I can help coordinate a meeting or next steps but that is a that is an example of when look if if the issue is the manager most people aren't comfortable going to them right but the policy does contemplate the next steps on that excellent thanks the one the final thing I will say on that is if you have sort of an entry-level person who is having problems with their boss we really have to make sure that we honor the hierarchy and so that if they skip their boss or that supervisor or Brian and are coming to you because there's an established relationship or you bump into each other or hey by the way what do you think of this we need to reroute that stuff back to the establishment and honor the hierarchy on these items it's just the only way this organization will work and it just leads to many other problems one final note on that is you do have six unions five unions I believe how many non-union employees do we have three two of them are sitting here um and so that's not a good or a bad statement it is just a statement that's that's the how it is organized here in North St Paul and so one of the things that uh when I'm watching compliance is I if we start to negotiate and or talk to employees outside the context of their representation with that Union you may have an unfair Labor practice and so it's just another layer that we have to be mindful of and so that's why it's critically important that any and all employment issues do go through Brian any other questions on role of city manager come on Tim um rules yeah Rules of Order Our Last topic um so you are governed by Robert's Rules of Order I can't think of a worse document to use for City councils it's too much it's too big it has too much in it we don't necessarily have a good alternative and candidly we don't get into procedural issues very often so you like most cities just adopted and then we figure it out to do business takes a motion in a second and then a majority of the Quorum so if you have five of you here to pass something takes three votes there are times if three of you show up you the meeting can still happen because you have a quorum and at that point if for some reason one doesn't agree with something there is a possibility on certain items that a two to one vote could pass something so you actually have a minority of the whole Council but you do you have a majority of the Quorum present so a two to one vote is possible I'm not a big fan of that but it is a possibility ordinances under all circumstances require three votes that's just statutory it's a majority of the whole Council but otherwise simple things like resolutions minutes could conceivably be passed on a two to one boat um we do what I will tell you is when we go through if we get into an issue regarding procedure my view of the world is there are five of you here and it is I'm not going to help or facilitate using procedural maneuvering to let to somehow stymie the majority if there are three votes to do something my perspective is that is what should govern the majority of the council and that really doesn't happen you can sometimes see maneuvering with committees or other things at the legislature that isn't something that happens at city councils and so if I see where we have a majority who wants to do something then that's in my opinion my calling to procedurally make that so it can happen and that's not underhanded it's just the majority should govern on those things [Music] um I do strictly speaking under Robert's Rules if you're a parliamentarian one of the rules is there should be a motion a clear and concise motion of what you want to do a second and then you debate it I encourage you as a body of five to not do it that way I if you have an item I would encourage you to talk about it figure out where you're at on it decide whether you support it or not look I just can't get my head around this I don't support it here's my questions and when you think you either have a majority or a consensus the five of you have said look I would support it but I can't support these last two things what do you think yeah I know that's kind of where I'm at too I like seeing the motion happen at the end of the discussion it makes it easier procedurally if you make a motion and it includes everything and Jason says you know look I support it holistically but these last two things I can't the amended motion the friendly Amendment the secondary motions it gets complicated and hard I would rather see you develop here's where we think we're at before the motion is made technically Robert's Rules would like to see a motion and a second on the floor again I would prefer to see you hash it out and figure out where you're at before we make that motion now nothing prevents anyone as soon as Brian says you know okay that concludes the report someone can certainly snap a motion and get a second and you can do it the other way it just gets messy with amendments and things of that nature yep yep exactly and there's usually everyone's allowed to weigh in and kind of that's where you start to feel it out you know look I generally speak and support it or no there is no question I say then we'll do a vote yeah you can say look are there any other questions or are someone ready to make a motion yeah that's kind of how I see it teased out yep um so you can see again on page seven and eight um is the Roberts rule the most common things one of the issues that will come up not with a lot of frequency but with some is sometimes you'll vote on something and for whatever sets of reasons there's I don't know buyer's remorse or I don't know I don't like that um a reconsider a motion to reconsider is something that people will Google or come back to just so you know a motion to reconsider has to be made at the same meeting so if you vote on something tonight two weeks from now you'd like to undo it it's not a motion to reconsider we can talk about a motion to rescind it or things of that nature if you have voted to approve a contract and that contract signed there is no undoing it at the next meeting you're contractually bound if you approve in my opinion a zoning application and all of a sudden you get an earful from the constituents that has been approved there is no come and take it away at the next meeting so you know when we vote you should think of it as a rather permanent action exceptions and we're not going to go into zoning and things like that tonight it is something that I would like to reconnect with you later at perhaps another training but there are certain things called legislative decisions if you all of a sudden pass an ordinance and you all you know you allow a number of chickens and bees or you know whatever the issue is if all of a sudden you decide that we don't want to do this anymore it was a bad decision or I just don't support it anymore in my opinion we don't procedurally need a mechanism to undo a legislative decision you control the rule book so if a month from now six weeks from now you decide that ordinance wasn't a good idea I do believe in whether it's zoning or something else sometimes there's more public hearings required um we can undo those without any without any you know finagling around with Robert's Rules of Order you just legislative King leak and decide to take it off the books all right well you guys were easy on me um any [Laughter] if you have questions follow-up questions please feel free to either email me directly or send them to Brian and Brian will route them to me and we'll do any follow-up we need to thank you um I can send out a list or sort of a short list there are certain zoning items that require a super majority amending a comp plan requires four out of five or if you are if we're still doing assessments ordering the Improvement takes four out of five actually doing a summary ordinance so when you pass an ordinance you'll have pages and Pages what the law says is you can publish a summary to save on publishing costs you have to you know describe what is in there but you know it allows you to save on the expense that actually takes a super majority things like that but I do have a list of super majority votes what we try and do is in your packet if there's an item that requires uh four out of five votes we will try and identify that at the top of the item to say you know heads up this takes four out of five if any of us are fundraising for anything yep organizations Etc um what do you advise on that if we want to reach out to the local yeah it so it happens right we wear multiple hats um there are state auditor opinions that says cities are not allowed to solicit donations no it doesn't mean that you aren't a member of the PTA or you aren't a member of your church or insert group right so what I do encourage you to do is when you show up and start soliciting that no we don't mention High I'm council member so and so and by the way I'm helping the school raise money or my church raise money and there's there's two parts of that one is the state auditor opinion that says cities aren't supposed to solicit donations um the second part of that is is it creates some confusion it's are you here as a city council member are you here as so-and-so um you know with the scouts or whoever um and what you don't want to do and one of the reasons the solicitations is you the state and the law and I think this is a good principle is you don't want to come across as quid pro quo I'm here to solicit from you I notice that you need a liquor license next month um and you know and that can go down the line um so I would I would encourage you uh not to send out the letter council member so on seeking money council members so and so I've seen also some people get into trouble with campaign uh issues on there because it's viewed as almost a donation to The Campaign and it wasn't reported so I I would just choose I would I would encourage you to leave that aspect of your life out of the solicitation is there a safe way to direct a gift like uh four years from now if I want to run again I plan on being self-funded like I was this time people are pressing me to contribute to my campaign is it safe to say no but you know if you really want to do something donate to the Food Shelf can you you know I don't know from a campaign Finance I mean so first of all uh campaign contributions are specifically excluded from the gift law those are not viewed as okay so that might have not been the best example but well so I don't think that would run a foul of the gift law or a conflict where I would be concerned is whether the state auditor views that as a campaign contribution even though it didn't go to you and I don't know the answer to that um yeah I don't know the answer to that one you know because you do have a hand in where that money is going um yeah I don't know how they'd do that all right you guys have a full agenda tonight thank you any other business that we know all right then I'll move to a German a German 6 20. all those in favor say aye we'll vote unified's right sorry a little quick here moved councilman Wong council member Cole all those in favor aye aye nay Ninja