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Council Minutes of 1/4/2000 he did not know how the Rules of Council were established, but he feels they should have a,~. been established by ordinance. He does not believe the amendment should have gone into effect for this session of Council because there wasn't even enough public debate for people to come in and hear. Government should be established to do the business of the people, not to serve the people who serve the government. Mr. McKay said that the same Councilmen that voted on this are the same Councilmen that have been passing legislation for the past two years. He doesn't think this particular situation is going to change anything. We still have the same people, the same qualifications and the people elect a person to serve on Council. If we're going to talk about qualifications, then we need to list the qualifications before we put the person on top so that we make sure that we have somebody who is qualified for the Finance Committee, somebody who is qualified for BZD and each committee. Every Councilman should be able to take any committee and run it. Mr. Limpert said he appreciated Mr. Lambert's remarks even though he had admitted he did not know the history of how the rules were established. He has heard a lot of comments that somewhat questioned the majority vote of the four Councilmen that decided to change the rule. He believes that the senior members stepped aside from membership on certain committees so that those positions could be filled by others who have unique qualities that belonged on that committee. He does not think it was quite as unfair as portrayed. Law Director Gareau said he did know the history of where the rules came from. Also, he did some research when he first became Law Director and concluded that it would be inappropriate to pass Rules of Council by ordinance. Rules of Council are to govern the conduct of this body. If in fact the rules were passed by legislation, then you could have initiatives and referendums with respect to those rules. That would not make sense. He noted that the Charter contains provisions for minority representation. It is determined by majority but only seniority when two minority members want the same position. In 1976, there was a unique situation on Council. The political structure of the Council changed from a majority of Republicans to a majority of Democrats with a President of Council who was of the minority. The members of the City Council decided that, if they were going to change the course of government because they were now in the majority, then instead of having the President of Council make the choice, that it should be by majority of the majority party-not seniority because the seniority members of Council were of the minority. That is the history. Mr. Lambert said he appreciated all the responses. This was not a personal finger-pointing at anybody. It is an issue of the integrity of the legislative body and the integrity of the legislation thereafter that comes from that body. He said that the Law Director made a good point about the ordinances and the Rules of Council under those conditions. He said that maybe these symbolic ways of doing things should change-it may start with just considering anon-partisan community. Mr. O'Grady commented that he wanted the record to reflect that he had suggested, and had the concurrence of the majority members of Council, to have this meeting to discuss this question more than three weeks ago. However, the meeting was cancelled by the President of Council, President Saringer responded that the meeting was to be held to discuss committee assignments, not to discuss a change to the Rules of Council. During the organizational meeting, she asked that the rule not be changed until it had been discussed in the Legislative Committee and Council-as-a-Whole. _~.. 7 ~~ r. , .. .