03/05/2002 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Miaates of 3/5/02 agreed to disagree on this issue pending the recommendations of the Law Director. ~- All members who believe that there is value in listing all the members will continue to report that way. Those who believe that it is sufficient to report just committees, will continue to report that way. As a follow-up, during this evening's caucus the findings of the Law Director were discussed. The Law Director, in his research, determined that there must be minutes taken of committee meetings to a greater degree than what we are c~uirently doing. As a result of that, the members of Council agreed that at the next series of committee meetings, the Clerk of Council will be presem and a tape will be made of the meetings. This tape will be kept as a public record of the committee meetings. Additio~lly, there will be a form ckveloped along the lines of a form that is currently used by Fairview Park. This form will be used by the chairperson of each committee to record in a more consistem manner the activities and the discussion that takes place at the committee. As in the past, committee chairpersons will still report out on the recommendations and findings of their committees during the normal council meetings. Councilwoman Kasler noted that a correction needed to be made as to Mr. O'Grady's statement with regard to her position on only reporting committee members and not reporting any other Council members or members of the administration. It was her position in that meeting that attendance of committee members should be reported as well as anyone who was invited to the committee meetings, which may include administrative people. It is her belief that the Charter of the City of North Olmsted and the Council rules were written for a reason and that committees are to consist of three members-one chairman and two committee members. The committees are Council's representation in the areas of safety, streets and drainage, long-range planning and other various committee titles and only committee members are requved to be present. It's Certainly acceptable for other Council people to be present, and perhaps even commendable. However, reporting attendance should be appropriately restricted, in her mind, to those who are required to attend. Residents need to know Council members are doing the job that they were elected to do and Council members aze obligated to be responsible to their committee positions. This Council knows that she has consistently objected in the past to the manner in which attendance has been taken and reported. In the reCBnt past, specifically in the past year, Council members, although not a member of a committee, have been reported as absent from a committee and conspicuously reported in that manner. What is worse, members and non-members have been monitor~l when they amve late or necessarily leave early, by reporting the time they enter and leave a room. These reports were, in her opinion, petty and sometimes politically motivated to the extern that some members went so far as to report publicly the committee attendance of non-committee members. She refuses to participate in that activity and thinks it is a disturbance and a disruption to Council and to the committee meetings. Everyone should take a step back and look at themselves and not others and do their job as Council members-which she believes is to address such critical issues as city planning, expanding and improving recreation opportunities for young people, appropriate and effective spending of tax dollars, and numerous other issues that are critical to the city' s future as opposed to spending time actually having a meeting over whether to take attendance. 4